A Brief History Of Christianity The majority of Christians believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Israel, the son

of Jewish parents, Mary and Joseph, a carpenter, who had travelled from Naz areth to pay their annual taxes. Mary gave birth, so the story goes, on the 25th December in a stables and Christian countries mark that as the start of their c alendar, in a similar way that Buddhists and Muslims mark the birth of their spi ritual leaders as the beginning of their calendars. However, not very much is really known about m from his own hand. The nearest we are able written some time after his death by alleged in the year one, or dot as it ought to have Jesus and nothing is known about hi to get to him are books or gospels disciples. He was probably not born been, but four years earlier.

There is little to nothing known about him for the first thirty years of his lif e and then when he was thirty-two he was baptized by John the Baptist. Being Jew ish himself, John the Baptist was continually on the look out for the Messiah an d he saw Jesus as that Messiah. Jesus was different from other ministers of the time in that he worked mainly am ong the poor, although it is very unsure that he came from a deprived family him self. He was after all from the House of David, the ruling royal family of the d ay and age. Within a few years of ministering to the poor and proclaiming himself the son of God, he was arrested by the Roman and Jewish ruling class and, as the majority of Christians believe|, crucified. After three days he rose from the grave and a fter forty days his spirit went up into Heaven to sit at the right hand of his f ather, God. Christians see their Bible as an extension of Judaism rather than a denial or a breaking away from it. It is to be hoped for that early supporters of Jesus were poo-pooed by traditional Jewish leaders as a break-away sect and in many ways t hat is what Christianity still is to this day, although it now has more adherent s than Judaism. The Christian Bible is in two parts, the Old Testament, which correlates to the Jewish Bible or Masorah and the New Testament, which relates to the time after J esus' birth which is not incorporated in the Masorah. The most important part of the New Testament by far is the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each of these gospels shows Jesus, his life and hi s teachings from the personal standpoint of the author, each having been one of Jesus' apostles. The basis of Christian belief is: 1] that Jesus is the embodiment of God on Eart h; 2] penitence - ie that Jesus' death atoned for the sins of all mankind in ete rnity, so that we may all go to Heaven; 3] that the one God has three aspects: G od the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. After that it gets a bit complex. Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a variety of topics, but is no w involved with <a href="http://whatisreligiousbelief.com/native-religious-beli efs.html">native religious beliefs</a>. If you want to know more go to <a href=" http://whatisreligiousbelief.com">What is Religious Belief</a>?