when was Jesus born?

Question

in a recent posting, i asked what people made of the fact that the birth-date of Jesus (Dec 25) coincides with that of several other mythical saviors - only to be informed that

a - Jesus was not born on Dec 25 (more like late June)
b - the bible makes no mention of his birthday

This leads to two more questions:

1. When is his birthday (and I am really interested in sources here, preferably NON biblical ones)
2. Why does Christianity celebrate his B-Day on the 25th, if they think he was not born then.... and here i am not looking for the Christian perspective - I am familiar with the non-christian reasoning as to why Dec. 25.

I know it might be a bit much to ask...but can we keep this one to the facts and not turn it into a big 'fire and brimstone' session?

OK....please - I do not consider 'I WOULD THINK' a source....

OK - you win - I give up..... is it really not friggn possible to have a reasonable discussion about a matter in question without having to endure lectures about personal believes, unbased opinions and other intellectual diarrhea? I guess not....

Answer 1

X-mas

Answer 2

He was probably born in late May, 6 BC. At that time, Jupiter appeared in a constellation the Persians believed related to the Jews, and they considered Jupiter to be the king planet. For this reason, they believed a new king of the Jews had been born. The earliest pictures of the three wise men show them wearing a type of hat that was only worn in Persia. Also, a strange phenomenon of this was that it appeared to change course, so once they got to Jerusalem, it shifted slightly, and would have appeared in the direction of Bethlehem, instead.

The reason we celebrate December 25 is the Romans originally celebrated the birth of the god Mithras on December 25. The early church tended to co-opt the holidays of other groups to make it more palatable to be Christians (That's how we get the eggs and rabbits at Easter, too). Since there was already a holiday on the books for the birth of a god, they just told the people that what they were celebrating was not the birth of Mithras, but the birth of Christ.

Answer 3

1. January 6, 4 B.C.

2. The linkage between Christmas and Hanukkah is more likely historical. That is, it is more likely that the choice of 25 December as the date of Christmas was guided by a tradition that His birth fell on 25 Kislev.

We find some support for this date in the Nativity story. The report that the shepherds spread "abroad" the news of Jesus' birth (Luke 2:17) and then "returned" rejoicing (Luke 2:20) resolves into fuller detail if we suppose that these events took place during a feast. "Abroad" means specifically that they carried the news to the many devout Jews assembled in Jerusalem. "Returned" means that after visiting Jerusalem during the closing days of the feast, they returned home to Bethlehem. We understand also why Bethlehem was so crowded at this time. Among those seeking lodging were not only some like Joseph who had come to Bethlehem for the enrollment, but also some others who were traveling in connection with the feast.

Evidence favoring 25 Kislev as the date of Christ's birth does not undermine the tradition that He was born on 6 January. On the contrary, it so happens that in 4 B.C., 6 January was the Babylonian 25 Kislev (40).

Answer 4

Good question. We do not know the exact day of Jesus' birth, but it certainly was not December 25th. The evidence for this is simply the Bible states the "shepherds were keeping watch over their fields at night" the evening He was born, and this is something that shepherds would not do during the winter months.

December 25th was chosen as the day to celebrate Jesus' birth. It was the same day as a Pagan holiday which I believe was a day honoring the sun.

It is also interesting to note that we do not know the exact year of Jesus birth. The calendar we use was designed using the year of Jesus' birth as the year One, but the calculations were later found to be off by about 4 years, and perhaps as many as 8 years. So Jesus was not born in the year 1, but sometime between 8 and 4 B.C. Isn't that interesting?

Answer 5

The following dates are from various studies of the birth of Christ. You can read the full text by following the URL's in the source list.

(1.) Best Guess: September 29, 5 B.C.

(2.) The objective of this study is to demonstrate that Christ was born in 3BC rather than the commonly accepted years of anywhere from 4 to 7BC. This evidence is based upon modern discoveries in the fields of history, archaeology, and astronomy.

(3.) Martin thinks the birth of Jesus was in September 3 BC, and the
probable date of the Magi was Dec. 25, 2 BC.

(4.) The traditional view with few dissenters is that Jesus was born shortly before the death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C.

Answer 6

The date of Dec. 25th is not universally presumed to be the birth of Jesus. Some groups celebrate the birth in January.

A poor assumption made by some religious scholars marks the date of conception as being on the same day as the date of death. So if you know the date of death, you then add to that the gestation time ... and miraculously you will have the date of birth.

Scientific, accurate, reasonable? Not really.

Answer 7

Yeah, Jesus was NOT born on Dec. 25. It's impossible. I can give scriptural references, but since you asked primarily for non biblical sources. I'll respect that. I found this interesting article:

Origin of Christmas - The Traditions and Controversies
For today's Christian, the origin of Christmas is, and should be, the birth of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Bible. Nothing more and nothing less. However, most of what we witness on December 25th each year has absolutely nothing to do with that blessed day, which probably occurred in late summer or early fall about 2,000 years ago. In fact, most of the customs and traditions of Christmas actually pre-date the birth of Jesus, and many of them are downright deceptive in their meaning and origin. Here are a few examples:

The date of December 25th probably originated with the ancient "birthday" of the son-god, Mithra, a pagan deity whose religious influence became widespread in the Roman Empire during the first few centuries A.D. Mithra was related to the Semitic sun-god, Shamash, and his worship spread throughout Asia to Europe where he was called Deus Sol Invictus Mithras. Rome was well-known for absorbing the pagan religions and rituals of its widespread empire. As such, Rome converted this pagan legacy to a celebration of the god, Saturn, and the rebirth of the sun god during the winter solstice period. The winter holiday became known as Saturnalia and began the week prior to December 25th. The festival was characterized by gift-giving, feasting, singing and downright debauchery, as the priests of Saturn carried wreaths of evergreen boughs in procession throughout the Roman temples.

Answer 8

if you use johns birth as your time frame since we know when that was buy a resent discovery about the feast of abiah that's when his father was told to go home and Lay with your wife and see will conceive even though he was 98 or so and his wife was 2 years younger he did and john was born 9 months latter six months into her pregnancy johns mother saw that Mary came to visit telling them of the visit from the lord on that was on December 25Th 9 months later she gave birth to the LORD Jesus September 29Th Christmas is the day the lord came to live in this earth or his conception date this is also Prof from the word that life starts at conception.

Answer 9

Jesus was not born in December . The way they were dress, put it like October. Christians celebrate December 25 to go along with the Roman catholic church and now it is pure business people spend like crazy on gifts there is spiritual meaning.

Answer 10

Jesus was concieved 6 months after His cousin, John The baptist. His conception was Dec 25th, making His birth, around Sept 28-29th.

Answer 11

Jesus was born about nine months after Joseph secretly had sex with Mary. December 25 wasn't the day of either event, but it is very close to the winter solstice and if you have a holiday during winter solstice, all the pagans will join your celebration.
It might be a little distasteful to you, but it's true.