In response to the previous entry, "U. of Auckland Features Seminars on Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Barbarians," CJ discusses Christian history and the influence of bibilical events on the work of these authors and others. 

The date of the Crucifixion has been a subject of speculation and debate among Christians for quite awhile, but not as long as you might think; this obsession with dates, and Biblical archaeology, is actually a Medieval phenomenon.  Jesus' contemporaries understood that the gospels, along with the books of the Hebrew Bible, were allegory--they weren't so much interested in the facts of the stories as in how, and to what extent, they legitimized Jesus' role as savior.  The authors of the gospels very consciously and purposefully call on Jewish theology and mythology, when discussing Jesus.  The most famous example of this is probably in John, chapter 6, which discusses the Eucharist.  John uses a writing technique called "bracketing" to place Jesus' actions within the context of not only the Jewish Passover feast, but also the contemporaneous Pagan harvest festival.  Many modern readers don't realize that this technique would have been obvious to most early Christians--just as the author of John intended it to be.