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Message:: [QUOTE="Heliodromus, post: 8099007, member: 120820"]To me that's a different question - you're really asking how much of the biblical biography of "Jesus" (was Yeshua even his real name?) can be verified and how much of it either has to be taken at face value, or rejected as backfilling of unknown detail (or some combination of the two). It seems pretty obvious that outside of the Bible we know essentially nothing about Jesus, other than this reference to a nameless leader "Christus" who was executed by the romans. Perhaps his followers knew and recorded some of his life story, but other aspects such as the date of his birth, etc, appear unknown. Other "biographical" aspects such as his virgin birth are obviously traditional embellishment (or in that case maybe just a mistranslation that the church chose to own!). As an old boss of mine was fond of saying, "it is what it is". Can we prove aspects of the biblical story that are likely mythical - no, and we shouldn't expect to. Can we prove that an important part of the origin story of Christianity - the death of their then leader, "Christ" - has some basis in historical reality? Yes, it seems so (and it would be rather odd if it didn't).[/QUOTE]