Jewish teacher and healer from Roman-ruled Galilee who proclaimed the kingdom of God, taught in parables, gathered followers, and was crucified in Jerusalem under the prefect Pontius Pilate around 30–33 CE. His followers proclaimed that God raised him from the dead, launching the movement that became Christianity — now the world's largest religion, with roughly 2.4 billion adherents who regard him as the incarnate Son of God. In Islam he is Isa, a revered prophet and Messiah. The historical man and the Christ of faith run through the same texts and must be carefully held apart.
Nearly everything written about Jesus was written by people who had already concluded he was the Son of God. He left no writings of his own. Our main sources are four Gospels, composed in Greek by believers decades after his death, as proclamation rather than neutral biography. This produces a problem unlike almost any other in history. The historical Jesus — the Galilean Jew whom secular and Christian scholars alike can study — and the Christ of faith, whom Christians worship as risen Lord, run through the same texts and must be carefully held apart. Historians can establish that he was crucified and that his followers came to believe God raised him; whether that belief is true is a question of faith, not evidence, and an honest account holds that line.