Jesus

Jesus, also known as Jesus of Nazareth, or Jesus Christ, is the central figure of Christianity. Christians believe that he was the Son of God and Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Old Testament, and that after his execution by Roman officials, he rose from the dead, offering salvation to mankind.

All information about the life of Jesus comes exclusively from the four Gospels of the New Testament. Tradition holds that His conception and birth were immaculate. His ministry took place in Judea and Galilee, within the Roman Empire. Through His ministry, Jesus accomplished miracles, championed the poor, and taught about the Kingdom of Heaven. After arriving in Jerusalem, Jesus was betrayed by one of his Twelve Apostles, Judas, and was arrested by Roman authorities. He was ultimate sentenced to death by Roman governor Pontius Pilate, and crucified.

Literary Comment
As a great many of Turtledove's characters are Christian, Jesus is referenced in nearly every story with a Point of Divergence after AD 30. These references usually take the form of a character stating one's belief in the divinity of Jesus or affiliation with a specific Christian demonination, or using a variation of his name as an exclamation of shock, such as By Jesus or Sweet Jesus. This article only deals with works in which he is either a character, or his existence is critical to understanding specific alternate history.

Jesus in "Before the Beginning"
Jesus was revealed to be more or less human by the time-viewer. Nonetheless, Christianity continued on until it was learned that the Jews were indeed God's chosen people. The Vatican became the first entity to convert en masse to Judaism.

Jesus in Gunpowder Empire
In the alternate known as Agrippan Rome, the course of Jesus's life and death were no different from the home timeline. While there were Christians in that alternate, Jesus was essentially one deity among many. While he and his family were paying tribute to the Roman Emperor Honorio Prisco III in a polytheistic temple in Polisso, Jeremy Solters saw a statue which depicted Jesus as a "beardless youth carrying a lamb on his back." He noted that that kind of portrait had fallen out of favour in the home timeline. Sesto Capurnio, the prefect of Polisso, owned a painting which depicted Jesus and Mithras battling a demon.

Jesus in In High Places
In an alternate where the Great Black Deaths had killed 4/5 of the population of Europe, Jesus still had great importance in the religion of the surviving population, but he had been surpassed in overall importance by his later "brother", Henri. The Final Testament of the Bible specifically stated that Henri was more important than Jesus.

Jesus in "Shock and Awe"
Jesus, known as "the Chieftain" to the Roman military, and the "Son of God" to his followers, was a pesky and vocal barbarian leader who instigated a destructive and short-lived rebellion of the Jews against Rome. Their badly organized bands of warriors were no match for the Roman legions, led by General Pontius Pilate, who decimated them and eventually captured the Chieftain and his second-in-command, The Rock, with the treacherous assistance of one of his disciples. With the Chieftain's death, his movement quickly withered into nothing.

Jesus in "Under St. Peter's"
Contrary to belief, Jesus did not die on the cross and rise from the dead. Rather, in his last dying moments, Jesus was bitten by a vampire called Dacicus, and transformed into a vampire himself. Afterward, he was taken into custody by his Apostle Peter, and imprisoned in what became the Basilica of St. Peter. Jesus was tended by the Order of the Pipistrelle, a secret society within the Catholic Church known only to the reigning pope. Upon ascending to the papacy, the new pope was fed upon by the ravenous Jesus.

Only one pope, Honorius I became a vampire after Jesus was fed. This started the tradition of staking each pope who died a natural death. Pope John Paul I died prematurely after Jesus took too much of his blood.

Each pope, right up to the most recent, Benedict XVI asked Jesus if he was truly the Son of God. Jesus' response each time was "You say it."