It began in 1517 when Martin Luther challenged the sale of indulgences. Printing spread his arguments, and longer-running discontent turned a local debate into a movement.
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Almost all scholars of the New Testament accept that Jesus lived. The case rests on Christian writings and a few non-Christian sources, not on archaeology.
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The earliest firm evidence for December 25 is a Roman calendar of 354. Scholars disagree on whether the date came from pagan festivals or from Christian calculation.
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The Dead Sea Scrolls are hundreds of ancient Jewish manuscripts found in caves near the Dead Sea. They matter because they include the oldest known copies of many Hebrew Bible books.
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The split began as a dispute over who should lead the Muslim community after Muhammad died in 632. Later conflicts, especially Karbala in 680, deepened it.
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Islamic tradition says the Quran was gathered under Abu Bakr after the Battle of Yamama, then standardized under Uthman, who sent copies to major cities.
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Buddhism moved from India through Central Asia to China between roughly the 1st century BCE and the 7th century CE, carried by merchants, monks, missionaries and empires, often in short relays.
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The Vedas are the oldest Hindu scriptures, composed in ancient India. The Upanishads are the final layer of each Veda, and they turn from ritual toward philosophical questions about the self and reality.
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Buddhism declined slowly over centuries, mainly as royal and merchant support shifted away and Hinduism absorbed much of it. Muslim invasions delivered a late blow. Experts disagree on the weight of each cause.
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Many writers say Zoroastrian ideas such as a final judgment, heaven and hell, and a devil figure entered Judaism after the Babylonian exile, then reached Christianity and Islam. The evidence is stronger for Judaism than for Islam.
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Scholars broadly agree Israelite religion shifted from polytheism to Yahweh-only worship and then monotheism, mostly by the 6th century BCE. They disagree on the causes and on what to call it.
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The documentary hypothesis holds that the Torah was woven from several separate sources, not written by Moses alone. Its classic four-source form is now widely revised.
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