ABSTRACT
The central claim of Christianity is that God was incarnate in the person of Jesus in order to bring salvation to the world. Christians down the ages have believed that the gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John transmit an accurate and sufficient image of Jesus to make Christian faith possible. Jesus has been portrayed in art and iconography, and the twentieth century saw the emergence of the 'Jesus film'. In a number of important respects, historical criticism from the seventeenth century onwards thus challenged the picture of Jesus found in the creeds and official Church teaching. Historical criticism is rightly sceptical about a tradition that suggests Jesus was pronouncing judgement on Judaism in favour of Christianity. As ancient documents, they can be used to reconstruct the history behind them. But equally, they can be used as four theological portraits of Jesus, which can be combined to bring deeper insight into his person.
