Jesus was Not Born on Christmas Day, or Even During the Winter: Facts

Story:

Jesus was not born on Christmas Day, or even during the winter.

Since the Bible gives no actual date for Christ’s birth, it is a topic that has been left to interpretation and debate. Early Christians did not bother to attempt to pinpoint the date of his birth because they were more interested in deaths and feast days at that time.

By the fourth century, however, church leaders decided that they needed a Christian celebration to compete with the solstice celebrations of nonbelievers. They settled on December 25th and celebrated the first Feast of the Nativity in Rome in 336 AD. This directly challenged the preexisting celebration of the birth of the Cult of Mithras’s infant god of light!

Other Versions

Biblical Evidence Shows Jesus Christ Wasn’t Born on Dec. 25.

Picture Suggesting Jesus was Not Born on Christmas Day, or Even During the Winter — Jesus was Not Born on Christmas Day, or Even During the Winter

Analysis:

The messages claim that there is Biblical evidence to show Jesus was not born on the Christmas Day, i.e. December 25, or even during the winter. Let us analyze the available facts in detail, about how Christmas festival originated and how December 25 came to be associated with Jesus’ birthday.

On 25th December, Christians around the world gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth, that is what many of us have been taught, but in reality, Bible does not give any actual date for Christ’s birth.

Christmas Origin

The Bible does not mention any celebrations of Jesus’ Nativity in the Gospels or Acts; neither the date of his birth, month, nor the time of year. The biblical mention of shepherds tending their flocks at night when they heard the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) may suggest it was the spring lambing season in the cold month of December. However, on the other hand, the sheep may have been corralled (confined in enclosures) during any other season.

The extra biblical evidence from the first and second century is spare, and again, there is no mention of Jesus birth celebrations. The earliest mention of December 25 as Jesus’ birthday comes from a Roman almanac in mid-fourth-century, which lists the death dates of various Christian bishops and martyrs. The first date listed there was December 25, marked as: “natus Christus in Betleem Judeae“, i.e. “Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea”. Although December 25 was celebrated as Christmas day in the Western Roman Empire, the East (especially in Egypt and Asia Minor) celebrated it on January 6. In fact, the modern Armenian Church continues to celebrate Christmas on January 6.

Some ancient records suggest that the celebration of Jesus birth was deliberately set as a holiday at the time of Pagan Feast days, because the day was already popular as the birthday of the Sun in the pagan religious celebrations. The word Christmas actually means “Christ mass,” a special celebration of the Lord’s Supper, which is called as ‘mass’ in the Roman Catholic Church and a Communion supper in many Protestant churches.

Another Version

There is another explanation for December 25 as the Christmas day. Around 200 C.E., Tertullian of Carthage reported a calculation that Jesus was supposedly conceived and crucified on the same day of the year – the 14th of Nisan (Hebrew calendar), which was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar. And exactly nine months later, Jesus was thought to be born on December 25. In the same way, the dates of Jesus’ conception and death were linked in the East as well. They used the 14th of the first spring month (Artemisios) in their local Greek calendar, i.e. April 6 to us, which makes January 6 as the eastern date for Christmas.

Conclusion

There is no strong evidence, not even from Bible that the Christmas day December 25 is the birthday of Jesus. There’s great uncertainty in dating Jesus’ birth, and is attributed in various months in the late second century. Apart from the 25 December and 6 January dates mentioned above, some say Jesus was born on 21 March, 28 March, 15 April, 21 April, 20 May, 28 August, 18 November, or probably at the end of September.