Christmas is one of the biggest holidays in the world.
It reaches nearly every culture, and is observed by billions of people.
It celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, who is considered the Messianic protagonist of
the Christian faith.
Over the past two millennia, Jesus has become one of the best known figures in religion
and history.
So, just how powerful is Jesus?
Well, Jesus means a lot of different things to different people.
First and foremost, in Christian mythology he is considered the Son of God.
Basically, the Christian Bible is made up of two parts: the Old Testament, which is
based on the Hebrew Bible and predicts the coming of a Messiah, and the New Testament,
which is based on Jesus Christ as that Messiah, or savior.
Now, most religious scholars agree that there are historical facts surrounding Jesus’s
life.
It is generally believed that in the early first century, a Jewish rabbi who had been
baptized by John the Baptist, preached in Galilee and Judea, and was crucified by the
Romans.
Beyond this, Christians believe that during his life Jesus performed miracles, and that
after his death, he rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and will one day return to judge
everyone who ever lived.
Problematically, there exist no accounts of Jesus while he was actually alive.
The gospels were not written until well after his death.
But despite Jesus’s predominant role in Christianity, he is also a well known figure
within the other Abrahamic religions.
In Islam, Christ is also believed to be the Messiah and is revered as the predecessor
of Islam’s greatest and final prophet, Muhammad.
Similar to Christianity, Muslims believe that Jesus will one day return and defeat a false
prophet before the day of Resurrection.
But despite the many similarities, Christ is not considered the Son of God, or God himself,
as taught in Christian scripture.
Within Judaism, Jesus is acknowledged as influential, but rejected as the Messiah.
In the Hebrew Bible, the Messiah is supposed to bring all Jews back to their homeland,
among other predictions which Jesus did not fulfill.
In addition to being a key religious figure across multiple faiths, the influence of Christianity
and Jesus has shaped much of the modern world.
The Dionysian common era calendar, which nearly all Western cultures use, begins after the
birth of Jesus.
Thus, BC and AD refer to Before Christ and Anno Domini, Latin for “in the year of our
Lord”.
Starting as a small Jewish sect in the Middle East, Christianity spread to roughly 600 million
adherents in the early 20th century, then to over 2 billion spread across every part
of the world.
Jesus represents, by far, the largest religion on earth, which has influenced, arguably,
the entire course of Western civilization.
For many, Jesus stands as a positive, moral role model.
So, just how powerful is Jesus?
Well, regardless of your beliefs Jesus may just be the most famous, and most significant
person in recorded history.
As significant as Jesus is, there are differing opinions on what he actually looked like.
Was he blonde and blue-eyed, or swarthy and dark-haired?
Find out in this video by DNews.
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