Methodology

How this site was built, and how it handles uncertainty.

What this is

A reference site about Jesus of Nazareth: who he was, what he taught, what he did, and why it matters — built for seekers, students, curious skeptics, and educators. Reference tone: honest, plain, respectful. No preaching, no mockery.

How quotes are verified

1. Every saying presented as a quotation was checked against a real Bible text in a public-domain translation (default: World English Bible; KJV noted where the famous wording differs).
2. Citation format: book chapter:verse + translation (e.g., John 3:16, WEB).
3. Summaries of teachings are labeled “paraphrase” and never placed in quotation marks as his words.
4. Anything that could not be verified to a real passage was cut — not published as a quote.

How dates are handled

Two columns, always labeled: - Gospel narrative: the order and timing the Gospels present. - Scholarly dating: the range mainstream historians give, with the reasons (e.g., Herod the Great’s death in 4 BC bounds the nativity; Pontius Pilate’s prefecture AD 26–36 bounds the crucifixion). - Where the Gospels and scholarship diverge, both are shown and the uncertainty is named, not smoothed over.

Attribution discipline

• “The Gospels report…” = what the texts say.
• “Christians believe…” = what Christian doctrine teaches.
• “Most scholars conclude…” = mainstream historical scholarship.
• Denominational differences (Catholic / Orthodox / Protestant) are presented side by side without ranking.

Images

• Classical artworks are public-domain works with verified provenance (artist, death year, holder, source) recorded in the provenance log.
• Maps and timeline graphics were built for this site and are labeled as such.
• No image is a stand-in for a different real object; illustrations are labeled “illustration”.

Uncertainty policy

Claims that rest on thin or disputed evidence carry an UNVERIFIED or “debated” label from research through publication. A later stage never upgrades uncertainty into fact.

Corrections

Found an error? The package README explains how to report it. Verified corrections are fixed in source, noted in the changelog below, and re-shipped in the next dated package.

Changelog

• 2026-09-26 — v2 initial build.