Who was the real Jesus? Here’s what archaeology tells us.

BY KRISTIN ROMEY PHOTOGRAPHS BY SIMON NORFOLK

(This is why I subscribe to Nat Geo! This story appears in the December 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine.)

Scholars who study Jesus divide into two opposing camps separated by a very bright line: those who believe the wonder-working Jesus of the Gospels is the real Jesus, and those who think the real Jesus—the man who inspired the myth—hides below the surface of the Gospels and must be revealed by historical research and literary analysis.

“It will be something rare, strange, to have archaeological proof for [a specific person] 2,000 years ago. But you can’t say Jesus doesn’t have a trace in history.”

Eugenio Alliata, professor of Christian archaeology and director of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum’s museum