You mean you think there's a birth certificate for Charlemagne out there?
We have the same kind of evidence for Jesus we do of Charlemagne, to pick an example.
Not really. The evidence concerning Jesus's birth is much vaguer. While historians are not absolutely certain of the birthdate for Charlemagne....its a matter of choosing from 2 or 3 specific dates within a ten year period. With Jesus, there are no specific dates and the possible years [without specific dates] range over a period of 30 years. Furthermore all 4 books of the bible that talk about his birth were written well after he was purported to have died. Furthermore, a Jesus-like character is found in almost every major religion of that time. One example is Mohammad in the Muslim religion.
Here's what wiki has to say about the births of Jesus and Charlemagne:
"There is no contemporary evidence of the exact date of Jesus' birth. The common Gregorian calendar for numbering years, in which the current year is 2010, is based on an early medieval attempt to count the years from his birth (Incarnation). The Gospel of Matthew places his birth under the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC/BCE,[42] and indications in the Gospel of Luke point to the same period, though Luke also describes the birth as taking place during the first census of the Roman provinces of Syria and Iudaea, which is generally believed to have occurred in 6 AD/CE.[43] Most scholars generally assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC/BCE.[44]
The earliest evidence of celebration on 25 December of the birth of Jesus is of the year 354 in Rome, and it was only later that the 25 December celebration was adopted in the East, with the exception of Armenia, where his birth is celebrated on 6 January.[45] Indeed there is no month of the year to which respectable authorities have not assigned his birth.[45]
Jesus' ministry, which according to the Gospel of Luke he began at about 30 years of age,[46] followed that of John the Baptist,[47] whose ministry is said to have begun "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar",[Lk. 3:1–2] which would be about 28 or 29 AD/CE.[48] Jesus' ministry lasted around one year, according to the Synoptic Gospels, or three years according to the Gospel of John.[49] Thus, the earliest generally-accepted date for the crucifixion is 29 AD/CE, and the latest is 36 AD/CE.
According to the Gospels, the death of Jesus took place during the time that Pontius Pilate was the Roman procurator of Judea. Josephus[50] and Tacitus[51] also say that procurator Pontius Pilate executed Jesus. Procurator[52] was a civilian title introduced during the rule of Claudius, 41-54 CE. The historical Pontius Pilate had the military title prefect[52] between 26 and 36 CE.[53].
Most Christians commemorate Jesus' crucifixion on Good Friday and celebrate his resurrection on Easter Sunday."
en.wikipedia.org
Charlemagne:
Date and place of birth
Charlemagne is believed to have been born in 742; however, several factors have led to a reconsideration of this date. First, the year 742 was calculated from his age given at death, rather than from attestation in primary sources. Another date is given in the Annales Petaviani, that of 2 April 747.[3] In that year, 2 April was at Easter. The birth of an emperor at Eastertime is a coincidence likely to provoke comment, but there was no such comment documented in 747, leading some to suspect that the Easter birthday was a pious fiction concocted as a way of honoring the Emperor. Other commentators weighing the primary records have suggested that his birth was one year later, in 748. At present, it is impossible to be certain of the date of the birth of Charlemagne. The best guesses include 1 April 747, after 15 April 747, or 1 April 748, in Herstal (where his father was born, a town close to Liège in modern day Belgium), the region from where both the Merovingian and Carolingian families originated. He went to live in his father's villa in Jupille when he was around seven, which caused Jupille to be listed as a possible place of birth in almost every history book. Other cities have been suggested, including, Prüm, Düren, Gauting and Aachen."
en.wikipedia.org |
