The historicity of Jesus is the question of whether Jesus historically existed (as opposed to being a purely mythological figure). The question of historicity was generally settled in scholarship in the early 20th century.[1][2][3][note 1] Today scholars agree that a Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth did exist in the Herodian Kingdom of Judea and the subsequent Herodian tetrarchy in the 1st century CE, upon whose life and teachings Christianity was later constructed,[note 1] but a distinction is made by scholars between 'the Jesus of history' and 'the Christ of faith'.[note 2]
There is no scholarly consensus concerning most elements of Jesus's life as described in the Bible stories, and only two key events of the biblical story of Jesus's life are widely accepted as historical, based on the criterion of embarrassment, namely his baptism, and his crucifixion (commonly dated to 30 or 33 CE).[4][5][6][7] The historicity of supernatural elements like his purported miracles and the purported resurrection are deemed to be solely a matter of 'faith' or of 'theology', "about which no self-respecting historian could possibly have anything to say".[note 3]
The idea that Jesus was a purely mythical figure has been, and is still, considered an untenable fringe theory in academic scholarship for more than two centuries,[note 4] but according to one source it has gained popular attention in recent decades due to the growth of the Internet.[8]
Academic efforts in biblical studies to determine facts of Jesus's life are part of the "quest for the historical Jesus", and several criteria of authenticity are used in evaluating the authenticity of elements of the Gospel-story. The criterion of multiple attestation is used to argue that attestation by multiple independent sources confirms his existence. Besides the gospels and the letters of Paul, non-biblical works that are considered sources for the historicity of Jesus include two mentions in Antiquities of the Jews by Jewish historian Josephus (dated circa 93–94 CE) and a mention in Annals by Roman historian Tacitus (circa 116 CE).
^Casey 2010, p. 33.
^Johnson 2011, p. 4.
^Van Voorst 2003, pp. 658, 660.
^Herzog 2005, pp. 1–6.
^Powell 1998, pp. 168–173.
^Dunn 2003, p. 339.
^Crossan 1994, p. 145.
^Gullotta 2017, pp. 313–314, 346.
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