The historicity and circumstances of the birth of Jesus

Abstract

The personality and historicity of Jesus has posed serious problems to contemporary New Testament scholarship. Some scholars have even concluded that Jesus did not exist, thereby ignoring passing references by historians of antiquity like Josephus, Pliny, Tacitus, and Suetonius, all of whom lived during or shortly after Jesus' era. This paper, conscious of the pervasive influence of Jesus in the world today is to serve as a prolegomena to re-open the debate on the historicity of Jesus and the circumstances of his birth in the 21st century.