A Growing Number of Scholars Are Questioning the Historical Existence of Jesus | Big Think

Christmas is a time of year where people are supposed to put aside their differences and come Ancient pagans brought pine branches into their houses, lit up the night with bonfires and candles, gave gifts, and burned the yule log.
together to celebrate in peace, love, and understanding. Though few question the traditions of the season, many of them predate Christianity in Europe. A lot was borrowed from the Norse tradition of Yule—the celebration of the winter solstice. Others originate with the Roman festival of Saturnalia.

Even Santa Claus comes from a variety of sources. Of course one of them is St. Nicolaus of Turkey. But earlier renditions look far more like the iconography associated with Odin or the Anglo-Saxon god, Woden. Ancient proselytizers when converting the continent found it was much easier if people could keep their traditions, and merely put a Christian stamp on them. And that’s how these were incorporated into the season. Some even question whether or not Jesus was born on December 25. The Orthodox Church for example celebrates Christmas on January seventh, as according to the Julian calendar which predates the Gregorian, a date they claim is more accurate. 

Today more and more, historians and bloggers alike are questioning whether the actual man called Jesus existed. Unfortunately, many of the writings we do have are tainted, the authors being religious scholars or atheists with an axe to grind. One important point is the lack of historical sources. In the bible, whole chunks of his life are missing. Jesus goes from age 12 to 30, without any word of what happened in-between.

Historians have measures in terms of a burden of proof. If an author for instance is writing about a subject more than 100 years after it occurred, it isn’t considered valid. Another important metric is the validity of authorship. If the author cannot be clearly established, it makes the record far less reliable.

What we do have are lots of sources completed several decades after the fact, by authors of the gospels who wanted to promote the faith. The gospels themselves are contradictory. For instance, they tell competing Easter stories. Another problem, there aren’t any real names attached to many of them, but rather an apostle’s who “signed off” on the manuscript. There is also evidence that the gospels were heavily edited over the years.

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A Growing Number of Scholars Are Questioning the Historical Existence of Jesus | Big Think