It would require much exotic calculation, however, to deny that the single most powerful figure -- not merely in these two millenniums but in all human history -- has been Jesus of Nazareth. Not only is the prevalent system of denoting the years based on an erroneous sixth century calculation of the date of his birth, but a serious argument can be made that no one else's life has proved remotely as powerful and enduring as that of Jesus. It's an astonishing conclusion in light of the fact that Jesus was a man who lived a short life in a rural backwater of the Roman Empire, who died in agony as a convicted criminal, and who may never have intended so much as a small portion of the effects worked in his name.(Time Magazine, 6 December 1999, 86).