(Sam Roberts)--Sam Roberts, an obituary writer for The
New York Times, imagines how, given the facts available then, his
predecessors might have reported the aftermath of an execution in the Middle
East one Friday two millennia ago.Jesus of Nazareth, a Galilean carpenter turned itinerant minister whose appeals to piety and whose repute as a healer had galvanized a growing contingent of believers, died on Friday after being crucified that morning just outside Jerusalem, only days after his followers had welcomed him triumphantly to the city as “the anointed one” and “the Son of David.” He was about 33.
For a man who had lived the first three decades of his
life in virtual obscurity, he attracted a remarkable following in only a few
years.
His reputation reflected a persuasive coupling of
message, personal magnetism, and avowed miracles. But it also resonated in the
current moment of spiritual and economic discontent and popular resentment of
authority and privilege, whether wielded by foreigners from Rome or by the
Jewish priests in Jerusalem and their confederates.
Still, Jesus had been preceded in recent years by a
litany of false messiahs. He followed a roster of self-styled prophets who
promised salvation and, with their ragtag followers from separatist sects,
cults, and fractious rebel groups, were branded as bandits by the governing
Romans, ostracized by the ruling priests as heretics in a period of pessimistic
apocalyptic expectation, and already lost to history.
