Stolen body hypothesis
Encyclopedia
The stolen body hypothesis posits that the body of Jesus Christ was stolen from his burial place. His tomb was found empty not because he was resurrected
, but because the body had been hidden somewhere else by the apostles or unknown persons. Both the stolen body hypothesis and the debate over it presume the basic historicity of the gospel accounts of the tomb discovery. The stolen body hypothesis finds the idea that the body was not in the tomb plausible - such a claim could be checked if early Christians made it - but considers it more likely that early Christians had been misled into believing the resurrection by the theft of Jesus's body.
The hypothesis has existed since the days of early Christianity; it is discussed in the Gospel of Matthew
, generally agreed to have been written between AD 70 and 100. Matthew's gospel raises the hypothesis only to refute it; according to it, the claim the body was stolen is a lie spread by the Jewish high priests.
According to the Gospel of Mark, generally thought to be the oldest of the gospels, Joseph of Arimathea
asked Pontius Pilate for the body of Jesus. Afterward, a group of women went to the tomb, and found the stone rolled away, an angel there, and no body. The Gospel of Luke largely concurs with this account, though the list of women slightly differs. According to the Gospel of John, Nicodemus
helped Joseph of Arimathea with the burial of Jesus. It also notes that Jesus was buried in a garden near the site of the crucifixion, and that no body had laid there before. In John, Simon Peter and the beloved disciple also come to the tomb to verify Mary Magdalene's claim of an empty tomb; there is no direct reference to this in Mark and Luke, where it is implied that the apostles only believe upon seeing the resurrected Jesus.
The Gospel of Matthew features the most unique account of the period between Jesus's death and the discovery of the empty tomb, and directly addresses skepticism about the resurrection. In Matthew's account, the chief priests and the Pharisees know of prophecies that Jesus will return in three days, and fear that his disciples will steal the body to make it appear that he has been resurrected. They ask Pilate to secure the tomb, and Pilate sends a guard to watch the tomb. When Mary Magdalene arrives at the tomb, unlike the accounts in the other gospels, there is an earthquake and the tomb rolls open in front of her. An angel appears and scares away the guards, and the empty tomb is revealed. When the guards report this to the chief priests, the priests bribe the guards to lie about the events:
This is the chief reference to the stolen body hypothesis in the New Testament.
), so it is not improbable according to proponents that at least one or two of them might have been willing to undertake such a plot. This theory also obviates the need for a miraculous resurrection.
There does exist accounts confirming that the stolen body hypothesis existed among Jews of the era. The Toledoth Yeshu, a compilation of early Jewish writings, alludes to stolen body hypothesis, as does the record of a 2nd century debate between a Christian and a Jew, Justin Martyr
's Dialogue with Trypho
: "his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven."
, dean of the faculty of law at the University of London and Christian apologist, said "This [the stolen body theory] would run totally contrary to all we know of them [the apostles]: their ethical teaching, the quality of their lives. Nor would it begin to explain their dramatic transformation from dejected and dispirited escapists into witnesses whom no opposition could muzzle."
E.P. Sanders agrees with apologists that it is unlikely that the disciples would create a fraud but looks at it differently. He claims:
Responses from proponents include the possibility that the number of actual conspirators was small, or that early Christian
theology on the matter of the resurrection was very different than proto-orthodox Christianity
.
Proponents fall back on the Gospel of Matthew in response to this. If the high priests and the Pharisees knew that Jesus claimed he would rise from the dead in three days, his disciples certainly would have known as well, and thus would have had an incentive to ensure Jesus's prophecy would "come true."
; the famous Nazareth Inscription
details an edict of Caesar that mandates capital punishment for meddling with tombs. Several other pieces of evidence exist as well, such as a decree of Emperor Septimius Severus
reasserting the existing law, implying that its violation continued to be a problem in the 2nd century AD. It is thus possible that Jesus's body was taken by graverobbers. A possible motive for graverobbers would be the usage of Jesus's body in necromancy
; several rites of the time required "one untimely dead" or the body of a holy person. For example, a person could insert a scroll into a corpse's mouth and ask questions of the dead according to one belief of the time. Tacitus
notes that that "the remains of human bodies" were found along with curse paraphernalia in the quarters of Germanicus
.
Bart Ehrman contends that while the stolen body hypothesis is unlikely, from a historical perspective it is still far more probable than the resurrection. Ehrman also says that there are plenty of motives for stealing the body. Maybe Jesus' family wanted it buried in the family tomb?
Another possibility, if a rather bizarre one, is the gardener. Tertullian
, in De Spectaculis
30, mentions that in addition to the theory that the disciples stole the body the theory that the gardener did the deed such that "his lettuces might come to no harm from the crowds of visitants [to the body]." Tertullian, an early Christian polemicist, may have merely meant to mock those who doubted the resurrection by putting the petty gardener theory in their mouths. The passage also perhaps only references a joke at the time, or at the least a non-serious accusation. However, the gospel of John possibly addresses the issue, as does Tatian
's Dietassaron. and Tatian have Mary, after supposing the resurrected Jesus to be the gardener, asking him what he had done with the body - implying that the gardener may in fact have had a motive to move the body. Even if this all only attests to a Jewish polemic against Christianity, it implies that people at that time found the gardener having a motive to steal the body plausible, even if this motive is unknown to us today.
In response, it could be hypothesized that the guard was not on duty at night, and thus the thieves would be able to have struck then. A bribe to the soldiers is also possible, although most of the disciples were of modest means. Alternatively, the entire account of the guard and the chief priests can be discounted as likely to be an ahistorical addition written by Matthew to make the stolen body hypothesis appear implausible. Atheist and historian Richard Carrier
writes:
Scholars; L. Michael White
and Helmut Koester
see the account of the guards in Matthew as an apologetic attempt of the writer to explain the Jewish claims that the disciples stole the body; which were circulating at the time.
was a man of means and the wrappings were likely to have been valuable. Further, carefully removing, then wrapping and folding the linens would be difficult and serve no useful purpose. Thus these claims in the gospel are also brought into contention by the theory, especially if a grave robber is proposed as the culprit. Replies from proponents include noting that if the motive of the graverobbers was body parts for necromancy, the cloths might be irrelevant; and if the culprit was a "pious thief", then the wrappings might have been deliberately left behind to foster the notion of the body miraculously disappearing. Richard Carrier also considers the mention of the cloths "a natural embellishment to such a narrative and thus cannot be trusted to be historical," since historians of the era would often illustrate such scenes with plausible minor details that lack a source, similar to military historians describing specific sword interplay.
Resurrection of Jesus
The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"...
, but because the body had been hidden somewhere else by the apostles or unknown persons. Both the stolen body hypothesis and the debate over it presume the basic historicity of the gospel accounts of the tomb discovery. The stolen body hypothesis finds the idea that the body was not in the tomb plausible - such a claim could be checked if early Christians made it - but considers it more likely that early Christians had been misled into believing the resurrection by the theft of Jesus's body.
The hypothesis has existed since the days of early Christianity; it is discussed in the Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
, generally agreed to have been written between AD 70 and 100. Matthew's gospel raises the hypothesis only to refute it; according to it, the claim the body was stolen is a lie spread by the Jewish high priests.
Historicity and gospel account
The primary sources of details about Jesus are the Gospels. Roman records are spottier - there is no extant record of the execution of Jesus, for example, not that such a thing would be expected, and thus no details about what was done with the body afterward. As such, accounts of the days between Jesus's execution and the discovery of the empty tomb are almost exclusively based on the Gospel accounts and knowledge of society at the time, and it is difficult to say more than scenarios such as the stolen body hypothesis are "plausible" or "unlikely," rather than "proven" or "disproven".According to the Gospel of Mark, generally thought to be the oldest of the gospels, Joseph of Arimathea
Joseph of Arimathea
Joseph of Arimathea was, according to the Gospels, the man who donated his own prepared tomb for the burial of Jesus after Jesus' Crucifixion. He is mentioned in all four Gospels.-Gospel references:...
asked Pontius Pilate for the body of Jesus. Afterward, a group of women went to the tomb, and found the stone rolled away, an angel there, and no body. The Gospel of Luke largely concurs with this account, though the list of women slightly differs. According to the Gospel of John, Nicodemus
Nicodemus
Saint Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, who, according to the Gospel of John, showed favour to Jesus...
helped Joseph of Arimathea with the burial of Jesus. It also notes that Jesus was buried in a garden near the site of the crucifixion, and that no body had laid there before. In John, Simon Peter and the beloved disciple also come to the tomb to verify Mary Magdalene's claim of an empty tomb; there is no direct reference to this in Mark and Luke, where it is implied that the apostles only believe upon seeing the resurrected Jesus.
The Gospel of Matthew features the most unique account of the period between Jesus's death and the discovery of the empty tomb, and directly addresses skepticism about the resurrection. In Matthew's account, the chief priests and the Pharisees know of prophecies that Jesus will return in three days, and fear that his disciples will steal the body to make it appear that he has been resurrected. They ask Pilate to secure the tomb, and Pilate sends a guard to watch the tomb. When Mary Magdalene arrives at the tomb, unlike the accounts in the other gospels, there is an earthquake and the tomb rolls open in front of her. An angel appears and scares away the guards, and the empty tomb is revealed. When the guards report this to the chief priests, the priests bribe the guards to lie about the events:
This is the chief reference to the stolen body hypothesis in the New Testament.
The disciples
According to this version of the stolen body hypothesis, some of the disciples stole away Jesus's body. Potential reasons include wishing to bury Jesus themselves; believing that Jesus would soon return and wanting his body in their possession; a "pious deceit" to restore Jesus's good name after being crucified as a criminal; or an outright plot to fake a resurrection. In the pious deceit theory, the proposed motive is that if people believed God had taken Jesus's body up to heaven, this would "prove" Jesus was a true holy man and vindicate his name. The "faked resurrection" theory is the only scenario discussed in the gospels, although Matthew brings it up solely to refute it and claim that the tale was a concoction of Jerusalem's high priests. According to proponents of this theory, the fact that Matthew raises the issue makes it likely that such an anti-Christian narrative already existed at the time. Jesus's entourage may have been at least as many as seventy (the Seventy DisciplesSeventy Disciples
The seventy disciples or seventy-two disciples were early followers of Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of Luke . According to Luke, the only gospel in which they appear, Jesus appointed them and sent them out in pairs on a specific mission which is detailed in the text...
), so it is not improbable according to proponents that at least one or two of them might have been willing to undertake such a plot. This theory also obviates the need for a miraculous resurrection.
There does exist accounts confirming that the stolen body hypothesis existed among Jews of the era. The Toledoth Yeshu, a compilation of early Jewish writings, alludes to stolen body hypothesis, as does the record of a 2nd century debate between a Christian and a Jew, Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr, also known as just Saint Justin , was an early Christian apologist. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue survive. He is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church....
's Dialogue with Trypho
Dialogue with Trypho
In the Dialogue with Trypho, Christian theologian Justin Martyr undertakes to show that Christianity is the new law for all men, and to prove from Scripture that Jesus is the Christ via a fictitious intellectual conversation between Justin and Trypho, a Jew...
: "his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven."
Sincerity of the disciples
Christian apologists find the idea that the disciples stole the body unconvincing. Both Eusebius and church tradition hold that a large number of apostles were martyred for their faith. Therefore, it is unlikely that any conspirators would preach and ultimately die for something they knew to be false. J.N.D. AndersonJames Norman Dalrymple Anderson
Sir Norman Dalrymple Anderson OBE, QC was an English missionary and academic Arabist.-Life:He was born on 29 September 1908. He was educated at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate, England, and went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a B.A. in 1930 and a LL.B. in 1931 with a triple first...
, dean of the faculty of law at the University of London and Christian apologist, said "This [the stolen body theory] would run totally contrary to all we know of them [the apostles]: their ethical teaching, the quality of their lives. Nor would it begin to explain their dramatic transformation from dejected and dispirited escapists into witnesses whom no opposition could muzzle."
E.P. Sanders agrees with apologists that it is unlikely that the disciples would create a fraud but looks at it differently. He claims:
"It is difficult to accuse these sources, or the first believers, of deliberate fraud. A plot to foster belief in the Resurrection would probably have resulted in a more consistent story. Instead, there seems to have been a competition: 'I saw him,' 'so did I,' 'the women saw him first,' 'no, I did; they didn't see him at all,' and so on. Moreover, some of the witnesses of the Resurrection would give their lives for their belief. This also makes fraud unlikely."
Responses from proponents include the possibility that the number of actual conspirators was small, or that early Christian
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....
theology on the matter of the resurrection was very different than proto-orthodox Christianity
Proto-orthodox Christianity
Proto-orthodox Christianity is a term, coined by New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, used to describe the Early Christian movement which was the precursor of Christian orthodoxy...
.
Was the resurrection expected?
Another apologetical argument is to argue that the disciples had no compelling reason to fabricate a resurrection story because they earnestly believed (at that time) Jesus was not the Messiah after all. According to J.N.D. Anderson in his work, the disciples simply didn't anticipate the resurrection and were surprised by the physical presence of the risen Christ. This is emphasized by the disciples fearful response upon seeing Jesus for the first time after his resurrection: "...They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost" . They seemingly failed to "expect" the resurrection and were either unfamiliar with or discounted prophecies indicating the Messiah would be resurrected. The Gospel of John seems to support this: "...Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead..." . If the apostles "did not understand" these prophecies, they would have no logical purpose in robbing the body of Jesus from his tomb, as there was nothing to prove.Proponents fall back on the Gospel of Matthew in response to this. If the high priests and the Pharisees knew that Jesus claimed he would rise from the dead in three days, his disciples certainly would have known as well, and thus would have had an incentive to ensure Jesus's prophecy would "come true."
Graverobbers
Graverobbing was a known problem in 1st century JudaeaJudaea (Roman province)
Judaea or Iudaea are terms used by historians to refer to the Roman province that extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Israel...
; the famous Nazareth Inscription
Nazareth Inscription
The Nazareth Inscription is a 24" x 15" marble tablet with a 14-line "Edict of Caesar" prescribing capital punishment for body stealing, acquired by Wilhelm Fröhner , Paris, in 1878, sent from Nazareth...
details an edict of Caesar that mandates capital punishment for meddling with tombs. Several other pieces of evidence exist as well, such as a decree of Emperor Septimius Severus
Septimius Severus
Septimius Severus , also known as Severus, was Roman Emperor from 193 to 211. Severus was born in Leptis Magna in the province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of...
reasserting the existing law, implying that its violation continued to be a problem in the 2nd century AD. It is thus possible that Jesus's body was taken by graverobbers. A possible motive for graverobbers would be the usage of Jesus's body in necromancy
Necromancy
Necromancy is a claimed form of magic that involves communication with the deceased, either by summoning their spirit in the form of an apparition or raising them bodily, for the purpose of divination, imparting the ability to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge...
; several rites of the time required "one untimely dead" or the body of a holy person. For example, a person could insert a scroll into a corpse's mouth and ask questions of the dead according to one belief of the time. Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
notes that that "the remains of human bodies" were found along with curse paraphernalia in the quarters of Germanicus
Germanicus
Germanicus Julius Caesar , commonly known as Germanicus, was a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and a prominent general of the early Roman Empire. He was born in Rome, Italia, and was named either Nero Claudius Drusus after his father or Tiberius Claudius Nero after his uncle...
.
Jesus's family, or unknown thieves
According to this version of the stolen body hypothesis, there was no conspiracy; Jesus's body was moved from the tomb for unknown or irrelevant reasons. The apostles then found an empty tomb and became genuinely convinced that Jesus had been resurrected, which would explain their later fervor in the spread of Christianity. Author and textual criticTextual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
Bart Ehrman contends that while the stolen body hypothesis is unlikely, from a historical perspective it is still far more probable than the resurrection. Ehrman also says that there are plenty of motives for stealing the body. Maybe Jesus' family wanted it buried in the family tomb?
Another possibility, if a rather bizarre one, is the gardener. Tertullian
Tertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...
, in De Spectaculis
De spectaculis
De Spectaculis is a surviving moral and ascetic treatise by Tertullian. Written somewhere between 197-202, the work looks at the moral legitimacy and consequences of Christians attending the circus, theatre, or amphitheatre .In it, Tertullian posits against the popular view that human enjoyment...
30, mentions that in addition to the theory that the disciples stole the body the theory that the gardener did the deed such that "his lettuces might come to no harm from the crowds of visitants [to the body]." Tertullian, an early Christian polemicist, may have merely meant to mock those who doubted the resurrection by putting the petty gardener theory in their mouths. The passage also perhaps only references a joke at the time, or at the least a non-serious accusation. However, the gospel of John possibly addresses the issue, as does Tatian
Tatian
Tatian the Assyrian was an Assyrian early Christian writer and theologian of the 2nd century.Tatian's most influential work is the Diatessaron, a Biblical paraphrase, or "harmony", of the four gospels that became the standard text of the four gospels in the Syriac-speaking churches until the...
's Dietassaron. and Tatian have Mary, after supposing the resurrected Jesus to be the gardener, asking him what he had done with the body - implying that the gardener may in fact have had a motive to move the body. Even if this all only attests to a Jewish polemic against Christianity, it implies that people at that time found the gardener having a motive to steal the body plausible, even if this motive is unknown to us today.
The guard at the tomb
According to the Gospel of Matthew, a guard was sent to the tomb: "Pilate said to them, 'You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.' So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone." It is unclear whether Roman soldiers were used, or if the priests were to use their own temple guard. Nevertheless, Christian tradition has generally claimed that Roman guards were used. Apologists consider it implausible that grave robbers would risk robbing a guarded tomb when surely many unguarded ones existed. Furthermore, while traditionally depicted as only two guards, Matthew does not specify how many there were; since "some" guards report the tale to the chief priests, it's plausible to assume there may have been more than two, which would render a raid even chancier. Apologists also doubt that the disciples could possibly have sneaked past a Roman guard at a sealed tomb, and that attacking the guards would be even more implausible.In response, it could be hypothesized that the guard was not on duty at night, and thus the thieves would be able to have struck then. A bribe to the soldiers is also possible, although most of the disciples were of modest means. Alternatively, the entire account of the guard and the chief priests can be discounted as likely to be an ahistorical addition written by Matthew to make the stolen body hypothesis appear implausible. Atheist and historian Richard Carrier
Richard Carrier
Richard Cevantis Carrier is an American historian. He is best known for his writings on Internet Infidels, otherwise known as the Secular Web, where he served as Editor-in-Chief for several years....
writes:
Scholars; L. Michael White
L. Michael White
L. Michael White is an American Biblical scholar. He is Ronald Nelson Smith Chair in Classics and Christian Origins, and director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins, at the University of Texas at Austin...
and Helmut Koester
Helmut Koester
Helmut Koester is a German-born American scholar of the New Testament and currently Morison Research Professor of Divinity and Winn Research Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School. He teaches courses at both the Divinity School and at Harvard Extension School, and was the...
see the account of the guards in Matthew as an apologetic attempt of the writer to explain the Jewish claims that the disciples stole the body; which were circulating at the time.
Linen cloths
The gospels of Luke and John record that the burial wrappings of Jesus were left inside the tomb. The head wrapping was folded and placed separate from the other linens . Christian apologists contend that a grave robber would likely have stolen everything, especially since Joseph of ArimatheaJoseph of Arimathea
Joseph of Arimathea was, according to the Gospels, the man who donated his own prepared tomb for the burial of Jesus after Jesus' Crucifixion. He is mentioned in all four Gospels.-Gospel references:...
was a man of means and the wrappings were likely to have been valuable. Further, carefully removing, then wrapping and folding the linens would be difficult and serve no useful purpose. Thus these claims in the gospel are also brought into contention by the theory, especially if a grave robber is proposed as the culprit. Replies from proponents include noting that if the motive of the graverobbers was body parts for necromancy, the cloths might be irrelevant; and if the culprit was a "pious thief", then the wrappings might have been deliberately left behind to foster the notion of the body miraculously disappearing. Richard Carrier also considers the mention of the cloths "a natural embellishment to such a narrative and thus cannot be trusted to be historical," since historians of the era would often illustrate such scenes with plausible minor details that lack a source, similar to military historians describing specific sword interplay.
Ritual cleanliness
Some apologists note that the disciples, as practicing Jews, could not come near a dead body without breaking ritual cleanliness. Exceptions included the nearest male relative could claim a dead body and women. Thus, the fact that women discovered the empty tomb first is seen as very plausible, and the (presumably devout) disciples taking the body is seen as a less likely explanation. However, if a genuine conspiracy was afoot, breaking cleanliness is unlikely to have stopped the conspirators, and grave robbers violate this law constantly by profession. If Jesus's family reclaimed the body, this would not apply either. It does, however, make it less plausible other Jews would have stolen the body.See also
- CrucifixionCrucifixionCrucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
and Resurrection of JesusResurrection of JesusThe Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"... - Vision hypothesisVision hypothesisThe vision hypothesis is a term used to cover a range of theories that question the physical resurrection of Jesus, and suggest that sightings of a risen Jesus were visionary experiences. As the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus is a cornerstone of Christian belief, the vision hypothesis is...
- Swoon hypothesisSwoon hypothesisThe Swoon Hypothesis refers to a number of theories that aim to explain the resurrection of Jesus, proposing that Jesus didn't die on the cross, but merely fell unconscious , and was later revived in the tomb in the same mortal body...
- Historical JesusHistorical JesusThe term historical Jesus refers to scholarly reconstructions of the 1st-century figure Jesus of Nazareth. These reconstructions are based upon historical methods including critical analysis of gospel texts as the primary source for his biography, along with consideration of the historical and...
- Historicity of JesusHistoricity of JesusThe historicity of Jesus concerns how much of what is written about Jesus of Nazareth is historically reliable, and whether the evidence supports the existence of such an historical figure...
- Empty tombEmpty tombEmpty tomb most often refers to the tomb of Jesus which was found to be empty by the women who were present at Jesus’ crucifixion. They had come to his tomb to anoint his body with spices...
- Religious perspectives on JesusReligious perspectives on JesusThe religious perspectives on Jesus vary among major world religions. Jesus' teachings and the retelling of his lifestory have significantly influenced the course of human history, and have directly or indirectly affected the lives of billions of people, even non-Christians.Christian consider Jesus...