What is known historically is contested, but the shape is broadly clear: a Jewish teacher from Galilee who taught a radical ethic of love, healing, and the nearness of the kingdom of God; who was executed by Rome; and whose followers proclaimed him risen, sparking the movement that became Christianity.
For the mystics of his tradition — Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, and many others — Jesus is not merely a figure to be believed in but a pattern to be inhabited: the self given away, the divine met face-to-face, death transfigured.