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Jesus: Fact from Fiction

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Jesus: Fact from Fiction
Christianity is currently the largest religion in the world with approximately 2.1 billion people identifying themselves as Christians. Jesus is the central focus of attention and worship in Christianity, and is held by most Christians to be the Messiah, foretold in the Hebrew Bible or “Old Testament”. They believe him to be the savior of mankind, and the son of God. However, in modern times, the use of critical scholarship in analysis of the Bible and to the New Testament Gospels in particular, has lead to an accelerating rate of disintegration in the traditional Christian belief system. The term "scholarship" implies the application of the scientific method of the evaluating evidence on the basis of objective standards unhindered from any personal involvement or biases.
The main source of information on Jesus is from the Christian Gospels. Some scholars claim that the sources on which the Gospels are based were written within the living memory of Jesus' lifetime. There are four such Gospels the earliest being Mark (68-73 AD), followed by Matthew (70-100 AD), Luke (80-100 AD), and John (90-110 AD). Many conservative Christians accept these writings as evidence for a historical Jesus and as an account of his life and death. According to the Christian Gospels, Jesus was born in Bethlehem between 6 BC and 6 AD. The Gospel Mark, reports that Jesus was "the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon" he also states that Jesus had sisters. Nothing of Jesus is recorded between 7 AD when Jesus visits the Temple in Jerusalem as a boy, and 25 AD when John baptized Jesus in the river Jordan. The Gospels states that starting around 27 AD, Jesus began traveling the country side performing miracles and preaching sermons around Galilee. Jesus reportedly preformed many amazing miracles on numerous occasions during his ministry. It has been said in

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