John the Baptist was born in the Spring, and Luke says Jesus was born six months later.

Shepherds didn't keep their sheep in the field in late December. They were normally in before October.

Other things, such as the time of tax collection, and a pregnant woman being put outside in the dead of winter, also point to Fall.

Couple this with Church habit of Christianizing pagan holidays (it was a good idea), and the possibility of coincidence between the Dec 25 celebration date for the birth of Jesus and various Winter Solstice related festivities seems less likely.

Not sure where. I think it was a documentary of some kind.

I found the article arguing that the date domes form Jewish traditions having to do with dating things 9 months after a prophet's death. I'll post it tomorrow. That article argues that the trappings of Christmas are very pagan, but the date itself comes from Jewish traditions.

Where is the contemporary evidence that the story told in the Gospels is anything but a legend?

But many historians agree that the weight of the (much later) documents of Paul/Saul, Mark and John (may or may not be the 'beloved disciple'), probably point to a historical figure existing around the time of the Biblical Jesus.

Whether this figure was begat by God, walked on water and performed the rest of the miracles is a topic for the religious forums. Given the times, the oral tradition, the Roman occupation - it's not outside the bounds of imagination that contemporary written evidence of the Jesus figure does not exist.

The gospels of Matthew and Luke are without doubt the latest written of the synoptic gospels that eventually were incorporated into the canon known as the New Testament. Others exists (Thomas, Mary) but did not 'make the grade' in the final compilation.

The Messianic tradition is an ancient component of Hebrew writings. It's not too much a stretch of the imagination that these traditions were applied to a populist, minor political figure of the times and the rest of the story is....well, you know.

Also, Roman sources do talk about religious conflicts in Judea at that time. These are certainly important aspects of the gospel stories. Given the divisions in the Jewish community back then, it makes sense that reformers/dissidents could emerge, gain a following, and be killed in turn.

There's simply no way to know. But I do find it plausible that the gospel version of Jesus is based on a real figure from that time. It's also plausible to assume that the Roman chroniclers of the time would see no reason to talk about a particular figure whose time was short and was probably one in a long line of challengers to the established order. Perhaps observers of the scene there thought: 'Oh yeah, another one of those guys. Big deal.'

Could also be that the gospels are simply made up. But I think it's more likely they are at least partly based on real events. An interesting question, which you allude to, is (assuming there was a real Jesus archetype) to what degree did he assume the messianic identity during is life and how much was added to the story later.

I would say 'poeticised' may be a more appropriate description. There are roughly 25-30 books or epistles that didn't make it into the offical NT. I doubt whether the inclusion of any of them would have had a significant effect on the path taken by the early church; to me, that seems to have been defined by the writings of Paul.

Now Paul is a fascinating character. No other single person had a greater influence on early church teachings but I find him rigid, misogynistic, homophobic, domineering and overbearing. His so called conversion happened at a time when the person known as James, brother of Jesus, was the ad hoc leader of the early jewish christians. Paul's miraculous vision and conversion quite whipped the ground away from under the feet of James as the group leader. Without his contribution the early christian group would quite possibly have faded away.

We can only assume how deeply tied to the messianic tradition the historical Jesus was; certainly the words attributed to Jesus have him denying several times that he is the messiah of Jewish tradition. Likewise, there are no writings that suggest his brother James considered Jesus to be the messiah. The whole Jesus as the messiah of Jewish tradition seems to have originated with Paul. While this obviously made Paul a target for the occupiers, it also provided him a degree of fame and adoration. My personal opinion is that Paul was the earliest recorded Master of Spin.

I gotta hang around this group more..