Christianity was the ultimate product of religious syncretism in the ancient world. Its emergence owed nothing to a holy carpenter. There were many Jesuses but the fable was a cultural construct.

The nativity yarn is a concatenation of nonsense. The genealogies of Jesus, both Matthew's version and Luke's, are pious fiction. Nazareth did not exist in the 1st century AD – the area was a burial ground of rock-cut tombs.

With multiple authors behind the original gospel story it is no surprise that the figure of "Jesus" is a mess of contradictions. Yet the story is so thinly drawn that being a "good Christian" might mean almost anything.

The 12 disciples are as fictitious as their master, invented to legitimise the claims of the early churches. The original Mary was not a virgin, that idea was borrowed from pagan goddesses. The pagan world knew all about virgins getting pregnant by randy gods: The Mythical "Virgin Mother".

Scholars have known all this for more than 200 years but priestcraft is a highly profitable business and finances an industry of deceit to keep the show on the road.

"Jesus better documented than any other ancient figure"? Don't believe a word of it. Unlike the mythical Jesus, a real historical figure like Julius Caesar has a mass of mutually supporting evidence.