Historical Figure
Jesus Christ
d. 30
1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader
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Key Dates
Death
30 April 7, 30 →Biography
Jesus, also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and by various other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader in the Roman province of Judaea. He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion and also a revered prophet in Islam, the world's second largest religion. Most Christians consider Jesus to be the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited messiah, or Christ, a descendant of the Davidic line prophesied in the Old Testament. Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically. Accounts of Jesus's life are contained in the Gospels, especially the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament. Since the Enlightenment, academic research has produced various views on the historical reliability of the Gospels and the extent to which they reflect the historical Jesus.
Timeline
The Chronography of 354 AD contains early evidence of the celebration on December 25 of a Christian liturgical feast of the birth of Jesus. This was in Rome, while in Eastern Christianity the birth of Jesus was already celebrated in connection with the Epiphany on January 6. The December 25 celebration was imported into the East later: in Antioch by John Chrysostom towards the end of the 4th century, probably in 388, and in Alexandria only in the following century. Even in the West, the January 6 celebration of the nativity of Jesus seems to have continued until after 380.
December 25 →More from the Late Antiquity
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