DISC 102 — Who Is Jesus? An Introduction to the Life of Christ
Two billion people alive today consider Jesus of Nazareth the most important person in history. Even the calendar on your phone (the one that says the year is 2026) was built around his birth. And yet many people have only fragmentary impressions of who he was: a gentle teacher, a moral reformer, a miracle worker, a revolutionary, a martyr, or a myth. This course is for anyone who wants to meet him on his own terms. DISC 102 tells the story of Jesus as the four Gospels tell it: not as a flattened harmony, not as a theological abstraction, and not as a debate. The course starts in the dusty political reality of first-century Palestine under Roman occupation, walks through his birth and public ministry, unpacks his distinctive teaching about the Kingdom of God, follows the collision course with the religious authorities, and ends at the empty tomb and the commission that launched a movement now two millennia old. No faith commitment is required, only curiosity and a willingness to look at a man who still divides history.
Learning outcomes
- Describe the historical and cultural context of first-century Palestine (Roman occupation, Second Temple Judaism, the four Jewish parties, and messianic expectation) and explain why this context is essential for understanding Jesus
- Summarize the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke, identify their distinctive emphases, and explain why the Gospels are not flatly harmonized
- Describe the central content of Jesus's teaching, the Kingdom of God, the Sermon on the Mount, parables, and miracles, and explain why this teaching was both compelling and controversial in its original context
- Describe the key events of Jesus's final week (triumphal entry, temple cleansing, Last Supper, Gethsemane, arrest, trial, crucifixion, and burial) and explain how Jesus reinterpreted the Passover around his own death
- Describe the resurrection accounts across the four Gospels and explain why Christians consider the resurrection the historical vindication of Jesus's mission
- Identify at least three appropriate next-step courses in Cathedra's catalog that a student interested in Jesus's life might pursue, and articulate the reasoning for that choice
The World He Entered
Before the story of Jesus can make sense, the world he was born into has to be real. This module sets the historical and cultural stage: Roman occupation, a religiously divided Jewish society, and a nation waiting for a deliverer. Everything Jesus said and did lands with its original weight only when that world is real to the reader.
Arrival and Public Beginning
Module 1 set the historical stage: occupied Palestine, four Jewish parties, a nation waiting for a deliverer. Module 2 is where the story of Jesus begins in earnest, with his birth as told by Matthew and Luke, and then the opening of his public ministry through John the Baptist, the Jordan River baptism, and forty days of wilderness temptation.
The Teacher
Module 2 brought Jesus out of the wilderness and into public ministry. Module 3 is about what he actually said: the Kingdom of God as Jesus defined it, the Sermon on the Mount as the concentrated statement of his ethical vision, and the two most distinctive methods of his teaching, parables that simultaneously revealed and concealed, and miracles that carried an implicit claim about who he was.
The Clash
Jesus's ministry in Galilee was heading toward an inevitable confrontation. This module traces the collision between Jesus and the religious authorities, four specific ways he violated the expected norms of religious observance, and the narrative pivot at Caesarea Philippi where Peter's confession turned everything south, toward Jerusalem and the cross.
The Week That Reshaped History
In a single week in the spring, everything that Jesus had been walking toward came to a head. This module is the narrative climax of DISC 102, from the cheering crowds on Palm Sunday through the arrest, the trials, the cross, and the silence of Saturday.
Risen and Sending
The tomb is empty. The stone is rolled back. What the first witnesses found on Sunday morning is the claim at the center of the Christian movement, and the commission that sent that movement into the world. This module walks through the resurrection accounts across all four Gospels, the post-resurrection appearances, and the Great Commission that closes Matthew's Gospel.