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The Shroud of Turin Is Definitely a Hoax

The Shroud of Turin is probably the most famous supposed relic in existence. It is a 4.4-meter-long linen shroud bearing the image of a crucified man. Supporters of the shroud claim that it is the actual burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth and that the image on the shroud is the true image of Jesus, created at the moment of his resurrection.

It is easy to see why this idea is so appealing. If the shroud were authentic, it would be a remarkable source of information about Jesus the human being. Unfortunately, we can be virtually certain that the Shroud of Turin is a hoax that was originally created in France in around the 1350s AD by an artist trained in the Gothic figurative style as part of a faith-healing scam.

We know this primarily because there is no definitive record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century and the earliest definitive record of the shroud is a letter recording that the forger who made it had confessed, but also because of a wide array of other factors. For instance, the shroud doesn’t match the kinds of funerary wrappings that were used in the Judaea in the first-century AD or the specific description of Jesus’s funerary wrappings given in the Gospel of John. The fabric of the shroud has also been conclusively radiocarbon dated to the Late Middle Ages.

Additionally, the proportions of the figure on the shroud are anatomically incorrect, but they closely match the proportions of figures in Gothic art of the fourteenth-century. The bloodstains on the shroud are not consistent with how blood flows naturally, which suggests the stains have been painted on. Finally, the fabric of the shroud was made using a complex weave that was common in the Late Middle Ages for high-quality textiles but was not used for burial shrouds in the time of Jesus.

The Fascinating Truth about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are symbolic figures that appear in the Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament canon. They seem like familiar figures to most of us. Even if you aren’t a Christian or weren’t raised as a Christian, you’ve probably been exposed to the idea of the “Four Horsemen” through popular culture. Popular culture’s portrayal of the Four Horsemen, though, isn’t very accurate. For instance, nearly all popular culture adaptations get the identity of the first horseman wrong.

Even if you have read the original descriptions of the Four Horsemen from the Book of Revelation, chances are you aren’t aware of the complex cultural background and symbolism that these descriptions draw on. For instance, original readers of the Book of Revelation may have imagined the first horseman as a Parthian archer and the fourth horseman, Death, as a naked young man with wings, since that’s how the personification of Death is usually portrayed in ancient Greek art.

Was Jesus Copied Off the Greek God Dionysos?

As everyone reading this is doubtlessly already aware, there are hundreds of memes and articles out there on the internet claiming that Jesus was “copied off” various pagan deities. The usual culprits include Horus, Dionysos, Mithras, Attis, Tammuz, Adonis, Sol Invictus, et cetera. I have already written a detailed article debunking claims about Jesus being copied off of Horus. Now I am going to debunk the claims about Jesus being copied off of Dionysos.

This article will be a lot more nuanced than my article about the alleged parallels between Horus and Jesus, however, since there really are some significant parallels between Jesus and Dionysos; they just aren’t nearly as numerous or as significant as Mythicists on the internet often claim. There is some evidence that some Christians may have intentionally shaped certain stories about Jesus in response to stories about Dionysos, but there is no good evidence to suggest that Christians just “copied” Jesus wholesale off of Dionysos.

When Was Jesus Really Born?

Most people assume that Jesus of Nazareth was born on 25 December 1 AD. Superficially speaking, this assumption makes a great deal of sense. After all, Christians today celebrate Jesus’s birth every year on December 25th and our modern Anno Domini dating system, which is ostensibly based on the year when Jesus was born, begins with the year 1 AD.

Unfortunately, things are never quite so simple. The truth is, we genuinely have very little idea when Jesus was born. There is no mention of the exact date of Jesus’s birth anywhere in any of the earliest surviving Christian writings and it was not until around the fourth century AD that December 25th was settled on as the day on which Christians would celebrate Jesus’s birth. Even the year of Jesus’s birth is uncertain; all we can say is that he was probably born sometime between c. 10 BC and c. 4 AD.

Was Jesus Copied Off the Egyptian God Horus?

Every year, around this time, you start seeing memes claiming that Jesus is “a copy of” some pre-Christian deity. One of the most popular deities for people to claim Jesus is “a copy of” is Horus, a god who was worshipped in ancient Egypt from prehistoric times until after the rise of Christianity in around the fourth century AD. Horus was believed to have been the son of the god Osiris and the goddess Isis. He was closely associated with the pharaoh and he is usually depicted in ancient Egyptian art with the head of a falcon.

The truth is, all the memes claiming that Jesus is “a copy of” such-and-such deity are wrong. Historians agree that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure who lived in Galilee in the early first century AD and who was crucified in Jerusalem in either 30 or 33 AD under the orders of the Roman governor of Judaea, Pontius Pilatus. The stories about Jesus’s life recorded in the gospels are certainly heavily embellished with legend and fiction, but, ultimately, there was a real man who stands behind the mythological tradition. While the stories about Jesus recorded in the gospels have probably been influenced to varying extents by stories of various pagan deities, it is entirely wrong for anyone to claim that the whole story of Jesus is copied directly from any single pagan deity.

Of all the deities Jesus is often claimed to have been copied off of, Horus is one of the most commonly mentioned, but also one of the most absurd. I actually included an extremely brief debunking of the claim that Jesus is based on Horus in this article I published on my website in March 2018, but I received some flak over the fact that I did not quote any specific claims from proponents of the Jesus-Horus connection and respond to them. I suppose, then, it is about time that I wrote a more complete response to the alleged connections between Jesus and Horus.

Why Are Babies in Medieval Paintings So Creepy?

I have recently discovered that there seems to be something of a widespread notion that babies in medieval paintings look “creepy.” I have never personally thought that babies in medieval paintings look particularly “creepy,” but this seems to be a notion that a lot of other people have.

Even if you’re like me and you don’t think that medieval babies necessarily look “creepy,” there is no denying that babies in a lot of medieval paintings don’t exactly look like real-life babies. Instead, for the most part, they look like tiny middle-aged men. The reason why they are portrayed this way is actually extremely fascinating and has to do with the way people in the Middle Ages thought about the purpose of art.

Was Jesus Married to Mary Magdalene?

The notion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married is one that has received a great deal of attention in popular culture. For instance, the idea of a conjugal union between Jesus and Mary Magdalene was a central plot point of the 2003 mystery thriller novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Meanwhile, you can find all kinds of articles online, many of them influenced by The Da Vinci Code, contending that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. It seems to be a very popular idea.

I have debunked claims from The Da Vinci Code before; for instance, in this article I published in August 2019, I debunk the misconception popularized by The Da Vinci Code that the books of the New Testament were chosen by Constantine I, when, in reality, the New Testament canon was mostly agreed upon long before Constantine I was born and what issues there were with the canon in Constantine I’s day were not resolved until long after his death. In this article, however, I will be tackling the most fundamental contention of the novel: the contention that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had offspring.

Historically speaking, it is highly, highly improbable that Jesus ever married or ever had any offspring. None of the canonical gospels ever even remotely imply that Jesus had a sexual relationship with anyone or that he ever had any offspring, nor do even the later apocryphal gospels imply either of these things. Furthermore, there are some very good reasons to believe that Jesus did not marry or have a sexual partner and that he did not have any offspring.

No, the Romans Did Not Just “Steal” All the Greek Deities

Lots of people seem to wrongly assume that the Romans “stole” the Greek gods and just renamed them. People often portray this as though it were an act of plagiarism, like one student copying another student’s homework. It is easy to see how they have gotten this impression, since they know the Greeks came first and that the names of the Greek and Roman deities are used today interchangeably. The problem is that this is not at all what actually happened.

In reality, the ancient Greeks and Romans originally had separate deities with different names, different mythologies, and different attributes. These deities were worshipped in different and unique ways that were specific to the culture in which they were venerated. In other words, the Romans had their own deities. Then, due to immense Greek cultural influence in Italy, the Romans gradually came to identify their own native deities with the Greek ones.

In the process, the Romans adopted the traditional stories and distinctive divine attributes belonging to the Greek deities and attributed them to their own deities as well. Eventually, by around the first century AD or thereabouts, the Greek and Roman deities had become largely indistinguishable from each other and they were widely seen as the same deities only with different names.

Was Pontius Pilate a Historical Figure? Yes.

I have now written several articles on this website in which I have presented the evidence that is currently available for the historicity of various figures from ancient times. For instance, I have written entire articles presenting the evidence for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, Alexander the Great, and King David. I also presented the evidence for the historicity of Pythagoras in this article and the historicity of Socrates in this article, although in neither case was historicity the main subject of the article. In this article, I intend to present the evidence for the historical existence of Pontius Pilate.

Although we can never be absolutely, 100% certain about anything in history, we can be about as certain that Pontius Pilate was a real historical figure as we can about anything historical. Furthermore, contrary to the claims you frequently hear from evangelical apologists, no sane historian has ever disputed that Pontius Pilate was a real historical figure. There may have been some kooks at some point who disputed it, but the real historians have basically always agreed that Pontius Pilate existed, since the historical evidence for his existence is so overwhelming.

Greek Deities Mentioned in the New Testament

Many people are familiar with the Greek and Roman deities from reading about classical mythology as children. One thing many people are not aware of, however, is that there are actually quite a few direct references to a number of different Greek deities in the Book of Acts in the New Testament, which describes the apostles visiting Greek cities and encountering opposition from supporters of traditional Greek religion. The deities mentioned in the Book of Acts by name are Zeus, Hermes, Artemis, and the Dioskouroi.