Where was Jesus Christ born? It would seem that this person is the most famous historical figure on the entire planet. And certainly he has no equal on the European continent. What questions can there be if all the answers have not just been given for a long time, moreover, they have been elevated to a canon and cannot be revised? Where Jesus Christ was born, who he was, how and when he died - all this is known. Such is the case for the believing half of Christendom.
The second half, represented by atheists, answers all these questions even more simply: Jesus did not exist. After all, this is the simplest logical chain: if there is no God, therefore, there could not be his son. Where was Jesus Christ born? Nowhere! According to the results of social surveys over the past few years, more than ten percent of respondents from non-religious countries in Western Europe and America believe that this character never really existed.
The problem of historical identity
However, things are somewhat more complicated. Many modern researchers agree that such a person is stillexisted. Of course, over the centuries, his life path has acquired mythological details and fantastic additions.
The task of separating the wheat from the chaff was set by scientists who began to study the problem of the historical personality of Christ. Important questions remain about the year in which Jesus Christ was born, what was his real life path. However, the exact answer to them has not yet been found.
For the first time, rationalist criticism of the Bible and doubts about the absolute veracity of what is written in it arose in the 17th-18th centuries. The main sources of study were ancient documents that date back to the very beginning of our era and contain any mention of this person. Valuable sources to this day are the “Antiquities of the Jews” by Josephus Flavius, the “Annals” by Tacitus, the correspondence of Trajan and Pliny the Younger, etc. The Bible itself also contains a number of facts that can indirectly serve as evidence of the real existence of Christ. For example, pointing out some of his shortcomings, such as intemperance, as in the episode with the expulsion of merchants from the temple, or insufficient respect for his parents.
Current historians point out that a completely fictional character would most certainly be absolutely idealized, without any flaws. One of the modern researchers of this person - the historian Charles Guignebert - when asked when and where Jesus Christ was born, answered that it really happened somewhere in Galilee in a poor family during the periodreign of Emperor Augustus. According to him, there is no reason to deny the real existence of Jesus. Based on the studied picture of the history of the Roman Empire in the noted period, everyday life and the orders of its eastern provinces, as well as a critical analysis of messages about Christ, today's historians reconstruct the life path of an unusual, but absolutely real person. So, Jesus Christ was born in the Middle East, was an unknown theologian, and turned into one of the most mysterious personalities in world history.
