What is the earliest mention of Jesus in the Holy Bible?

Answer 1

AnswerThe first gospel about Jesus was the Gospel According to Saint Mark, written approximately 70 CE. Jesus is also mentioned in Paul's epistles, which he probably wrote in the 40s or 50s CE, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which also appears to be one of the earliest books of the New Testament.

Matthew's Gospel and Luke's Gospel, although written much later than the above books, go back to the birth of Jesus.

Of course, there is no mention of Jesus, either directly or implicitly, in the Old Testament. However, Christians down through the ages have sought to find prophecies or other obscure mentions that just could be about Jesus. The most famous of these was a reference by the author of Matthew's Gospel. Matthew, a Greek-speaking Jew, was looking for a biblical reference he could use to prove that Jesus was prophesied to be born of a virgin. The Septuagint (An early translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language) incorrectly translated Isaiah 7:14 to say that a virgin would conceive and bear a child. The correct translation would have been "the young woman", and the young woman in question did have a child a few verses later in Isaiah. The author of the Gospel of Matthew relied on this mistranslation, taken out of context, to show that it was prophesied that Jesus would be born of a virgin.