death at the hands of the Romans, caused many Jews to reject him as the Messiah. Jews at that time were expecting a military leader as a Messiah, such as Bar Kokhba. Jesus Christian views According to Christian denominations, the bodily resurrection of Jesus after his death is the pivotal event of Jesus' life and death, as described in the gospels and the epistles. According to the gospels, written decades after the events of his life, Jesus preached for a period of one to three years in the early 1st century. His ministry of teaching, healing the sick and disabled and performing various miracles, culminated in his crucifixion at the hands of the Roman authorities in Jerusalem. After his death, he appeared to his followers, resurrected from death. After forty days he ascended to Heaven, but his followers believed he would soon return to usher in the Kingdom of God and fulfill the rest of Messianic prophecy such as the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment. Scholarly views Proponents of higher criticism claim that regardless of how one interprets the mission of Jesus, he must be understood in context as a 1st-century Middle Eastern Jew. There is widespread disagreement among scholars on the details of the life of Jesus mentioned in the gospel narratives, and on the meaning of his teachings. Scholars often draw a distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, and two different accounts can be found in this regard. Traditional scholarship on the subject stood on traditional theology. It emphasized Paul, and de-emphasized James and the Jewish grounding of early belief in Jesus. Modern scholarship sees Jesus and his Jewish followers as grounded in the beliefs and traditions of first century Judaism. Critical scholarship has stripped away most narratives about Jesus as legendary, and the mainstream historical view is that while the gospels include many legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the accounts of a historical Jesus who was crucified under the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate in the 1st-century Roman province of Judea. His remaining disciples later believed that he was resurrected. Five portraits of the historical Jesus are supported by mainstream scholars, namely the apocalyptic prophet, the charismatic healer, the Cynic philosopher, the Jewish Messiah, and the prophet of social change. Early Jewish Christianity Most historians agree that Jesus or his followers established a new Jewish sect, one