Surprisingly, it is also a fact - it is impossible to compile a real biography of Jesus Christ from the Gospel texts! The main part of the information concerning the life of the Savior is only the assumptions and guesses of the researchers.
First of all, the birthplace of the Messiah has not been determined. According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus was conceived six months later than John the Baptist, who, in turn, was conceived during the time of the king of Judah - Herod the Great. However, it is documented that Herod died in the spring of 750 according to Roman calculation, i.e. four years before the "official" beginning of our era. Even if John the Baptist managed to become a contemporary of the legendary king, Christ would not have been able to make up for the missing years in six months!
Another contradiction in the Gospel of Luke is the mention of the census announced by the Romans, which forced the holy family to go to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. Documentary information about this event of the occupation authorities has not survived, but historians believe that the census could have been carried out on the territory of Judea no earlier than the 6th-7th centuries AD.
The most reliable is the birthday of Jesus. It was dated December 25 only at the beginning of the 4th century AD (it is curious that it was on this day that the winter solstice festival known to many peoples of the world, including the Jews, falls). Earlier, adherents of Christianity proposed other dates - March 28, April 18 or 19, May 29, and in the East for a long time they continued to consider January 6 as the birthday of Christ (later this day began to be celebrated as the holiday of Epiphany).
But this is not all the omissions and contradictions contained in the Gospel texts. For example, the information concerning the birthplace of the Messiah is highly inaccurate.
It is believed that the family of Jesus came from Galilee (Northern Palestine), from the town of Nazareth, and moved to Bethlehem only at the time of the birth of their first child. However, historians have not been able to find traces of the existence of a settlement with this name before the IV century AD in Palestine (Jewish sources trace the appearance of the city of Nazareth to an even later time - the 9th century!). In addition, the expression "Jesus of Nazareth" is not found in any of the Gospels. There is only "Jesus of Nazareth" (or "Nazarene"). Many researchers believe that this nickname does not carry a geographical significance. Most likely, it goes back to the Aramaic word "nazir", which means a person with long hair, dedicated to the cult of truth and purity (something similar to the Christian expression "holy God").
In Hebrew, these vowed people were called "invisible", that is, in modern transcription, "Nazarene". In common speech, this word could easily be confused with the word "nazrat", originally meaning "guardian", "keeper", and even sometimes "blooming garden". It is quite possible that such words gave rise to the name of the town of Nazareth. However, as already mentioned, this could not have happened earlier than the 4th century A. D. - several centuries later than the officially accepted date of birth of Christ. And since the name Jesus, which is very common among the Jews, means nothing more than “the help of God”, or “the messenger of Yahweh”, the expression “Jesus Nazarene” can be accurately translated as “the messenger of Yahweh, God's saint”.
A few words about Bethlehem. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke consider this city to be the birthplace of the Savior, but only because it is the "City of David", and the prophets predicted long ago that the Messiah would come from the lineage of the legendary King David, who ruled in the 10th century BC. It is curious that in the place in Bethleme, which is now revered as the birthplace of Christ, until the IV century AD there was a pagan temple dedicated to the birth of Adon, the Syrian-Palestinian god of mystical cults.
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Scientists have established that the most ancient of the biblical texts, which tells about the person of Christ, appeared after 70 AD. Based on this, it can be argued that Jesus was born and lived in some locality in Northern Palestine, and this happened several decades before the creation of the first Gospel. Equally vague are the information provided by the sources about the appearance of the Savior.
“You will be the most beautiful of the sons of men, grace will be poured on your lips,” says biblical prophecy. The most common image of Jesus in the Middle Ages fully met this definition. The Savior appears before us in the form of a slender man of above average height, with a noble face framed by long, shoulder-length hair of the color of ripe walnut, smoothly combed from the forehead to the back of the head; the hair curls in rings and falls over the shoulders. Impeccable proportions of the mouth and nose, a smooth noble calm forehead, a slight blush, a thick, neat small beard, lively and shiny eyes. Looking at this majestic and warm image, it is difficult to imagine that up to the 5th century, theologians argued whether the Messiah should be given an attractive appearance, or, on the contrary, he should be portrayed as ordinary, ugly,even a bonded and sick person (in another retelling of the Bible, the Messiah is referred to as the suffering servant of Yahweh).
Of course, there is no documentary evidence that describes the appearance of Jesus Christ. However, the believers made their choice: the Messiah, who contains in his personality all the fullness of the divine nature, must be beautiful not only in soul, but also in body!
Modern man has no precise information about the place, or the time of the birth of the Savior, or even about his appearance. However, this does not bother the followers of Christianity at all. The feat of Christ is undoubted, his deed is noble, but the date of the holiday was set long ago by the church - with all the proper recommendations and instructions.
A. Evteev
