Claims about Jesus’ identity resurfaced sharply in the days leading up to Christmas 2025, pushing a long-running political narrative back into the spotlight. The assertion that Jesus was “Palestinian” has circulated for years, but recent high-profile endorsements have given it renewed visibility. A close look at history and scripture, however, shows that this claim is neither historically accurate nor biblically grounded.
The Claim Gaining Traction Before Christmas
On December 24, 2025, Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, who has appeared as a pro-Palestinian guest on programs hosted by Tucker Carlson, published an op-ed in Al Jazeera asserting that Jesus was a “Palestinian Jew” and that Christmas itself is “Palestinian.” Around the same time, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee funded a billboard in Times Square declaring, “Jesus was a Palestinian,” a message later reported by the New York Post.
The claim has also been echoed by prominent activists and politicians, including Ilhan Omar and Linda Sarsour. Together, these statements form part of a broader effort to frame Christianity and its central figure as inherently tied to modern Palestinian nationalism.
What the Bible Actually Says About Jesus’ Origins
The New Testament is explicit about Jesus’ background. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the reign of King Herod and was identified at birth as “the king of the Jews.” Luke’s Gospel adds that Joseph traveled from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem precisely because he belonged to the house and line of King David, underscoring Jesus’ Jewish lineage.
Jesus was raised in Nazareth and regularly attended synagogue, a detail Luke highlights when describing Jesus reading from the Torah on the Sabbath “as was his custom.” These accounts place Jesus firmly within a Jewish religious, cultural, and ethnic framework that existed centuries before any concept of a Palestinian national identity.
Judea Under Rome, Not “Palestine”
During Jesus’ lifetime, the land was governed by the Roman Empire and divided into regions known as Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and the Decapolis. Contemporary Roman and local sources did not use the term “Palestine” to describe the area. That name was imposed much later.
In 135 CE, nearly a century after Jesus’ death, Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed Judea “Syria Palaestina” following the Bar Kokhba revolt. The renaming was a punitive measure intended to weaken Jewish ties to the land after a failed uprising against Roman rule. This historical fact alone makes it anachronistic to describe Jesus as “Palestinian.”
Notably, the New Testament repeatedly references Israel, Judea, and the Jews, while the word “Palestine” does not appear even once.
The Question of Ancestry and Identity
The Gospels trace Jesus’ genealogy directly back to King David, reinforcing his place within the Jewish people and the tribe of Judah. His identity was ethnic and religious, not national in a modern sense, and certainly not tied to a political identity that would not exist for nearly two thousand years.
Arab populations entered the land centuries later, following the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. Modern Palestinians are Arabs and are not descendants of first-century Judeans. According to research cited by institutions such as the BESA Center, the development of a distinct Palestinian national identity is a modern phenomenon, crystallizing in the 20th century and formalized in the 1960s under the leadership of Yasser Arafat.
Why the Narrative Persists
The growing insistence that Jesus was “Palestinian” reflects a political strategy rather than a historical argument. By retroactively assigning a modern national identity to Jesus, activists seek to align Christianity with contemporary anti-Israel narratives. This approach relies on redefining ancient history through a modern ideological lens, rather than engaging with the historical and biblical record.
The Historical Bottom Line
Jesus was ethnically and religiously Jewish, born in Judea, raised in Galilee, and lived entirely within a Jewish cultural and religious world under Roman occupation. The term “Palestinian” did not exist during his lifetime, and the identity it represents today emerged only in the modern era.
Claims that Jesus was a Palestinian are not supported by the Bible, by Roman history, or by serious scholarship. They reflect modern politics, not ancient reality.
