


While most historians accept these early accounts as generally accurate, they are nonetheless regarded as biased sources by secular scholars. Any further details, however, are somewhat Shrouded in Myth - while detailed accounts do exist for pretty much the entirety of Jesus's life, all of them date to a century or more after his death, the earliest being transcribed from the secret oral traditions of his followers. While some skeptics believe Jesus to be a wholly mythical figure, the overwhelming majority of modern scholars - secular and religious - reject this as little more than a glorified conspiracy theory handfuls of surviving first century Roman records clearly describe a popular Jewish preacher matching his description who was executed under circumstances roughly matching the traditional stories of his death. Worshipped by Christians as God incarnate in a man and revered by Muslims as one of the most important prophets to ever live, Jesus is a strong contender for the title of "most influential person in history". Further complicating matters is that the Gregorian calendar is based on an old, likely erroneous estimation of Jesus's birthdate, with this event marking the turnover from 1 BC/BCE to 1 AD/CE ("BC" and "AD" mean "Before Christ" and "Anno Domini", respectively Year Zero doesn't exist in the Gregorian calendar thanks to the concept of zero not existing in Roman mathematics). Tradition dictates he was born during the reign of King Herod I, putting it at some time prior to 4 BC/BCE, but some scholars date it to as late as 4 AD/CE.


note Exact dates for Jesus's birth and death are difficult to pin down. Yeshua of Nazareth (also known as Yeshua bar Yosef), now better known as "Jesus" due to Language Drift, was a Jewish preacher who lived in the Roman province of Judea from ~8 BCE/BC to ~30 CE/AD.
