The True Story of Jesus: What Archaeology Reveals

Eugenio Alliata’s office in Jerusalem resembles any archaeology workshop that prefers fieldwork. On the overcrowded shelves, excavation reports sit alongside measuring tapes and other tools. Nothing particularly different from the offices of all the archaeologists I have met in the Middle East, except for two details: Alliata wears the chocolate-colored habit of the Franciscans, and his headquarters is located in the Monastery of the Flagellation. According to Church tradition, the monastery was built on the very spot where Jesus Christ, condemned to death, was whipped by Roman soldiers and crowned with thorns.

“The tradition”: this is a word often heard in this part of the world. Here, multitudes of tourists and pilgrims are drawn to the dozens of sites that, by tradition, are considered milestones in Christ’s life—from his birthplace in Bethlehem to the site of his death in Jerusalem.

As the archaeologist-turned-journalist that I am, I know that entire cultures have risen and fallen with almost no trace. Thus, digging through ancient landscapes in search of pottery shards that might illuminate the life of a single figure seems as futile as ghost hunting.

At the Monastery of the Flagellation, Brother Alliata receives each of my visits and questions with patience and perplexity. As a professor of Christian archaeology and director of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, he participates in a Franciscan project that is over seven centuries old, aimed at maintaining and protecting ancient holy sites in the Holy Land—and, since the 19th century, creating scientific surveys of them.

Brother Alliata does not seem concerned about what archaeology can or cannot reveal about the central figure of Christianity: “It would be very surprising, even strange, to find archaeological evidence of the existence of someone who lived 2,000 years ago. That said, one cannot deny that Jesus left a mark on history.”

The texts of the New Testament are, by far, the most obvious (and likely the most controversial) traces of his time on earth. But what relationship exists between the work of archaeologists and these ancient texts, written in the second half of the first century AD, as well as with the traditions they nurtured?

“Tradition enlivens archaeology, and archaeology enlivens tradition,” Brother Alliata responds. “Sometimes they coincide, and sometimes they do not.” And he adds with a smile, “That’s not the least interesting.”

I have set out in the footsteps of Jesus to trace his story as told by the authors of the Gospels and generations of scholars. I hope to understand how the Christian texts and traditions correspond to the discoveries made by archaeologists over the past century and a half as they have meticulously explored the Holy Land.

But first, an explosive question: is it possible that Jesus Christ never existed? A few skeptics vehemently support this view, but not scholars, notably archaeologists. “I don’t know of any significant researcher who doubts the historical character of Jesus,” asserts Eric Meyers, an archaeologist and emeritus professor at Duke University. “People have quibbled over details for centuries, but no serious person questions his existence.”

Even Byron McCane, an archaeologist and history professor, echoes this sentiment: “I don’t see any other figure whose existence is denied when it is so well established by the facts.”

Even John Dominic Crossan, a former priest who co-chairs the Jesus Seminar, a somewhat controversial working group of biblical studies experts, believes that hardcore skeptics go too far. Certainly, the miracles attributed to Christ can be difficult for modern minds to grasp. However, that is not a reason to conclude that the life of Jesus of Nazareth is a fable.

“One can always say he walked on water, and since no one can do that, it’s proof he didn’t exist,” Crossan tells me. “But it’s something else. That he accomplished certain things in Galilee and others in Jerusalem, and that he was condemned to death for his actions—this all fits perfectly into a scenario.”

Researchers studying the life of Christ divide into two schools: those who believe the miracle-working Jesus of the Gospels is the true Jesus, and those who believe the true Jesus (that is, the man who inspired the myth) is indeed the one who inspired the Gospels but is also a figure whose truth will emerge through historical research and textual analysis. Both camps consider archaeology their ally.

Whoever or whatever he was (God, a man, or the greatest literary hoax of all time), the diversity and devotion of his modern disciples shine in all their splendor upon arriving in Bethlehem, the ancient city considered to be his birthplace.

In Manger Square, I join a group of Nigerian pilgrims, following them to the low entrance of the Basilica of the Nativity, whose high walls are covered in tarps and scaffolding. The basilica is undergoing restoration. Conservators are cleaning the 12th-century golden mosaics of soot from candles that have burned here for so long. We carefully maneuver around a section of the floor revealing the earliest remnants of the church, built in the 330s on the orders of the first Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine.

More steps lead us to an electrically lit cave, in front of a small niche carved in marble. Here, a silver star indicates the very spot where, according to tradition, Jesus Christ was born. Pilgrims kneel to kiss the star and touch the cold, polished stone with their palms. Soon, an official urges them to move along to make way for newcomers.

The Basilica of the Nativity is the oldest active Christian church. However, not everyone agrees that Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem. Only two Gospels mention his birth, and their accounts differ substantially. Historians suspect the Evangelists made Jesus’s birthplace Bethlehem to establish a link between him, a peasant from Galilee, and a Judean city that the Old Testament predicted would be the cradle of the Messiah.

Archaeology is quite reticent on this matter. What are the chances of uncovering any evidence that a couple of peasants living two millennia ago played a part in such an event? Excavations in and around the basilica have yielded neither items from that era nor clues suggesting that the site was sacred to early Christians. The first undisputed evidence of veneration dates back to the 3rd century. Origen, a theologian from Alexandria, noted: “In Bethlehem, one can see the cave where [Jesus] was born.” In the early 4th century, Emperor Constantine sent a delegation to the Holy Land to identify the locations associated with Christ’s life and to sanctify them through the construction of churches and sanctuaries. Having located what they believed to be the Nativity cave, the delegates built a church there, the ancestor of the current one.

Many of the researchers I spoke to do not express opinions on the birthplace of Christ due to the lack of material evidence. They emphasize that the old adage of archaeology is more relevant than ever: “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

The trail leading to the true Jesus is far more fruitful 105 km away, in Galilee, a hilly region in the north of Israel. Jesus was raised in Nazareth, an agricultural town. Historians who see him merely as a man (whether a religious reformer, a social revolutionary, an apocalyptic prophet, or even a fanatic Jew) attempt to better understand what forces served as the breeding ground for this man and his mission by juxtaposing the economic, political, and social data of 1st-century Galilee.

At that time, the Roman Empire was by far the main actor in Galilee’s life. The Romans had conquered Palestine sixty years before Jesus’s birth, and almost all Jews had to endure the yoke of Rome, symbolized by heavy taxation and the worship of pagan idols. According to many researchers, social upheaval favored the Jewish agitator, who made a name for himself by denouncing the rich and powerful and siding with the poor and marginalized.

Others argue that the influence of Greco-Roman culture shaped a Jesus who was less Jewish and more cosmopolitan, a herald of social justice. In 1991, a book caused a sensation: The Historical Jesus by John Dominic Crossan. His theory: the true Jesus was a sort of wandering sage whose subversive words and lifestyle, counter to the morals of his time, strangely resonated with the way of living of the Cynics. These philosophers from ancient Greece were not cynical in the modern sense of the word but rejected all social conventions, such as the concern for cleanliness, or the pursuit of wealth and power.

Crossan based his views partly on archaeological discoveries revealing that Galilee, long described as a backwater and a Jewish enclave, was much more urbanized and Romanized at the time of Jesus than specialists previously thought, and partly on the fact that Jesus’s childhood home was just 5 km from Sepphoris, the Roman capital of the province. The Gospels don’t mention the city, but the ambitious construction program launched by the tetrarch Herod Antipas may have attracted skilled artisans from the surrounding villages. For many, it can easily be assumed that Jesus, as a young craftsman living near Sepphoris, could have worked there, testing his religious tradition against life experiences.

On a beautiful spring day, I meet archaeologists Eric and Carol Meyers in the ruins of Sepphoris. The couple has been excavating the vast site for thirty-three years. It is now at the center of a heated theoretical debate regarding the Jewishness of Galilee and, by extension, Jesus. Eric Meyers stops in front of a pile of columns. “It’s been quite contentious,” he recalls of the debates over how much a Hellenized city could have influenced a young Jewish peasant. At the hilltop, he points to meticulously uncovered walls. “To access these houses, we had to dig through the site of a camp from the 1948 war, which included an unexploded Syrian shell. And, underneath the earth, we uncovered the mikvaot!”

At least thirty of these ritual Jewish baths dot the residential area of Sepphoris—the largest concentration of private sites ever uncovered by archaeologists. Besides stoneware for rituals and the absence of pig bones (forbidden by Jewish law), they prove that this city in a province of the Roman Empire remained Jewish during Jesus’s adolescence.

These discoveries and other evidence from excavations across Galilee have led researchers to revise their opinions, explains Craig Evans, a specialist in the origins of Christianity: “Thanks to archaeology, we’ve moved from the cosmopolitan Hellenizing Jesus to the practicing Jewish Jesus—a significant shift.”

At around thirty years old, Jesus immersed himself in the Jordan with John the Baptist, the Jewish agitator and prophet. His life was transformed because, once baptized, according to the New Testament, he saw the Spirit of God descend upon him “like a dove,” and God’s voice was heard: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This encounter with the Lord marked the beginning of his life as a preacher and healer.

Capernaum was one of his first stops. This fishing town is located on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. It is here that Jesus met his initial disciples and established his first “headquarters.” Today, those organizing pilgrimages in the Holy Land refer to Capernaum, now a place of pilgrimage, as “the city of Jesus.”

A tall metal fence surrounds the site, owned by the Franciscans. Behind it is a modern church, supported by eight pillars: the Memorial of Saint Peter, dedicated in 1990 in honor of one of the most important discoveries made in the 20th century by archaeologists working on the historical Jesus.

The center of the building attracts all eyes. Beyond a guardrail, through a glass floor, visitors can glimpse the ruins of an octagonal church built 1,500 years ago. When Franciscan archaeologists excavated beneath this structure in 1968, they discovered it was built upon the ruins of a first-century house. This proved that, in a short span of time, this private home had been transformed into a public meeting place.

Then, in the second half of the first century, a few decades after Jesus’s crucifixion, the rough stone walls of this home were plastered, and all kitchen utensils were replaced with oil lamps—characteristic items of a community settling in. Finally, in the 4th century, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the home was turned into a carefully decorated place of worship. Since then, it has been known as “Peter’s house.” It’s impossible to determine if the disciple actually lived there, but many specialists believe it is not improbable.

The Gospels state that Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever at her home in Capernaum. The news spread quickly, and by evening, a crowd of sick people gathered at his door. Jesus healed the sick and delivered those possessed by demons.

These accounts of crowds seeking healing from Jesus reinforce what archaeology tells us about first-century Palestine, a region where diseases such as leprosy or tuberculosis were common.

I head south along the Sea of Galilee to a kibbutz (communal farm) where, in 1986, a sensational event took place. The lake’s level had significantly dropped due to a severe drought. Two brothers from the kibbutz noticed a shape resembling a boat. Archaeologists who examined it found Roman-era objects in and around the hull. Later, carbon dating confirmed the age of the boat: it was roughly contemporary with Jesus.

Then it started to rain. The lake’s level rose. The rescue operation for the boat that took place at that time was an archaeological feat. A project that normally would have taken months to plan and execute took exactly eleven days.

Today, the precious boat is the centerpiece of the kibbutz museum located near where it was discovered. About 2 meters wide and 8 meters long, it could have accommodated thirteen men (although there is no indication that Jesus and his twelve apostles used it). It looks unimpressive: a skeleton of planks that had seen plenty of repairs until little remains of the original.

“It must have been maintained and repaired until it was no longer worth it,” John Dominic Crossan observes. But in the eyes of historians, this boat is priceless; he emphasizes, “When I consider the efforts required to keep it afloat, I learn a lot about the living conditions of Galilean fishermen during Jesus’s time.”

Another extraordinary discovery occurred 2 km south of where the boat was found, at the site of ancient Magdala, the birthplace of Mary Magdalene, a disciple of Jesus.

Franciscan archaeologists began to uncover part of the city in the 1970s, but the northern half remained buried. Then, in 2004, Father Juan Solana, initially sent by the Vatican to oversee a Jerusalem pilgrim hotel, decided to build a retreat for pilgrims from Galilee. He raised funds and purchased land along the shores of the lake, including parcels of unexcavated land in Magdala.

In 2009, before work was set to begin, a preventive archaeology mission came to the site, as required by law. The probes into the rocky subsoil revealed buried ruins of a synagogue from Jesus’s time—the first of its kind uncovered in Galilee.

This discovery was significant because it shattered the skeptics’ argument that the first synagogues in Galilee appeared decades after Jesus’s death—a theory incompatible with the portrait the Gospels paint of him as a practicing Jew who often preached and performed miracles in synagogues.

The excavations revealed walls lined with benches (evidence it was a synagogue) and a mosaic floor. At the center of the room rested a stone the size of a military canteen, carved with the main sacred symbols of the Temple of Jerusalem. The discovery of the stone from Magdala, as it is now called, dealt a fatal blow to the once-prevalent theory that Galileans were mere impious bumpkins, far removed from the spiritual heart of Israel.

Continued excavations revealed an entire city buried less than 30 cm below the surface. The ruins were so well preserved that some were quick to dub Magdala the “Pompeii of Israel.”

Archaeologist Dina Avshalom-Gorni gives me a tour of the site. She shows me the remains of storerooms, ritual baths, and a workshop where fish may have been prepared and sold. “I can easily imagine women buying fish from the market that’s just here,” she says, nodding toward the foundations of stone stalls.

Father Solana joins us. I ask him what he tells visitors wanting to know if Jesus ever walked these streets. “You can’t answer that question,” he admits, “but we must keep in mind the number of times the Gospels mention his presence in a Galilean synagogue.” Then, considering that the Magdala synagogue was frequented during the time of Jesus’s ministry and was just a stone’s throw from Capernaum, Solana concludes: “We have no reason to deny or doubt that Jesus attended this place.”

At each step of my journey through Galilee, the faint footprints left by Jesus seem to become clearer. Upon my return to Jerusalem, they take further shape. The New Testament states that the ancient city is the setting for numerous miracles and some of the most spectacular episodes. While the accounts of the four Gospels diverge regarding Jesus’s birth, they align much more closely regarding his death. After coming to Jerusalem to attend Passover, Jesus is brought before the High Priest Caiaphas, who accuses him of blasphemy and threatening the Temple. Condemned to death by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, Jesus is crucified and buried nearby in a rock-hewn tomb.

The traditional site of this tomb, within what has become the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, is regarded as the holiest place in Christianity. In 2016, I visited the church several times to document the historic restoration of the Edicule, the sanctuary housing the tomb believed to be Jesus’s. Today, during Holy Week, I am back.

Standing with vacationing pilgrims waiting their turn to enter the minuscule sanctuary, I remember the nights spent in the empty church alongside the team of scientists charged with its restoration. I am awed by the number of archaeological discoveries made in Jerusalem and beyond over the years that lend credence to the Scriptures.

Just a few meters from the tomb of Christ, there are other graves from the same period hewn in the rock. This proves that this church, destroyed and rebuilt twice, was built over a Jewish cemetery.

I remember being alone in the tomb after the marble slab was temporarily removed. I was overwhelmed by emotion gazing at one of the most significant monuments of human history—a simple limestone bench revered by people for millennia—one that might not have been looked upon for a thousand years.

During my Easter visit, I find myself back inside the tomb, squeezed alongside three Russian women. The marble slab has been replaced, a necessary protection for the burial bed against all the rosaries and prayer cards endlessly placed or rubbed against its surface. The youngest of the women implores Jesus to heal her son Yevgeny, who has leukemia. Outside the entrance, a priest loudly reminds us that our time for visiting is up, with other pilgrims waiting their turn. Reluctantly, the three women rise and leave, one by one. I follow them.

I realize that for sincere believers, the studies undertaken by researchers on the historical Jesus—the earthly, purely human Jesus—carry little weight. This quest will produce countless contradictory theories, unanswered questions, and irreconcilable facts. Yet, for true believers, faith in the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God is more than sufficient.