Why did Christians label December 25th as Jesus' bithday when he was not even born in the winter?

Answer 1

For the first 300 years or so of the Christian church, the birth of Christ was not considered important and was not mentioned. What was important was the day of his death and of his Resurrection.

It is worth considering that, although the birth or creation of Pagan Gods was celebrated, the birth or creation of the Jewish God was not. This is, of course, because this God is assumed to have always been, having no beginning and no end. Since God and Christ are assumed to be one, Christ has always been and celebrating his birth is a nonsense.

In Rome December 25 was made popular by Pope Liberius in 354 and became the rule in the West in 435 when the first "Christ mass" was officiated by Pope Sixtus III. This coincided with the date of a celebration by the Romans to their primary god, the Sun, and to Mithras, a popular Persian sun god supposedly born on the same day. The Roman Catholic writer Mario Righetti candidly admits that, "to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, the Church of Rome found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the birth of Christ to divert them from the pagan feast, celebrated on the same day in honor of the 'Invincible Sun' Mithras, the conqueror of darkness" (Manual of Liturgical History, 1955, Vol. 2, p. 67).

Answer 2

Jesus was probably born in the Fall; it was the Catholic Church that began the tradition of keeping Christmas on December 25. The pagans were already keeping that date as the Winter Solstice, which was supposed to be a joyous holiday meaning the Sun was starting to return. The Catholics, when they invaded a land and christianized the pagans, adopted many of these traditions and encouraged people to worship not the Sun, but the Son. So everything got transferred over from paganism that we know today - Santa Claus, the Christmas tree, giving presents under the tree, etc. These were based on the worship of Tammuz, son of Semiramis. You may recall portions of the OT where a Hebrew king would "cut down the orchards" of the surrounding pagan nations. That's what those orchards were for - people would come and bring their offerings and place them under the trees, and the trees would be decorated with fertility symbols.

Answer 3

The date was convenient since the pagan Romans were celebrating Saturnalia and the god Mithras birthday at that time. Most scholars have said that Jesus was most probably born (if in fact there was a historical Jesus) in spring or early summer from events described in the Bible. Putting Jesus's birthday on Dec. 25th aided conversion of pagans.

Answer 4

Before Christianity was the "official" religion of the Roman empire, Dec. 25th was a pagan holiday. Early Christians masked their celebrations on the same day as the pagans to prevent themselves from being crucified. The day has simply carried over into modern times.

Answer 5

Thank you! Finally, someone admits we don't know when He was born. So many people assume it was December 25th but the Bible does not say when it was. But thank you for being willing to point out that it probably was not in the winter. Some of us don't celebrate Christmas as His birthday because no one knows when it was, but we do give gifts to others and celebrate it as a secular holiday.

Answer 6

You are absolutely right, but I juggle his birthday on January 6th r April 10th. I would say April because that's when apparently the leaves were beginning to blossom on trees.

Remember the Pagan's Winter Solstice. We also call it Yule, but, you know, the rest of the world wants to still believe it's wrong.

Edit... Lady_Blue, the pagans will not convert to chirstianity any more than the vice versa. In some cases certain people have wiccaphobia, and others have theophobia.

Answer 7

Constaintine, a Pagan, did that. He was trying to make it easy for Pagans to become a part of the new religion that eventually became known as Roman Catholic.

Protestants and Eastern Orthodox kept it the same.

Eastern Orthodox does not, however, keep Easter the same. They follow the old rules, the Jewish lunar rules and hence their Easter is often a week or so away from the Catholic/Protestant Easter.

Answer 8

Because the possiblity of Jesus being born in the spring was only discovered in relatively recent years. Archaeologists have been discovering scrolls as recently at the 1940s that imply otherwise. By changing the dates from winter to spring you are delving in to the possible Jewish Belief that the son of Mary wasn't the actual son of God but an imposter. Its a scientific debate now.

Answer 9

it was desided that the only way to get pagans of the time to believe in jesus and god was to steal there holiday which fell on the 22-23 of december and to do that they placed 25 as the day of jesus birthday and to be honest the JW's have it right christians should not celebrate jesus's birthday since no one really knows when he was born but i have a feeling that he was if he really lived was born octeber 22 not december 25

Answer 10

It's around the Winter Solstice, the Pagan celebration of the sun God and various other gods. When the Roman Empire converted to Christianity, they placed Easter at the Vernal Equinox (Pagan festival of Ostara), All Hallows at the summer's end (end of October/beginning of November, Pagan festival Samhain), and Christmas at the Winter Solstice (Pagan fesival Yule). This way they could get Pagans to convert by allowing them to keep their traditions. And why do this?

Because when the Pagans converted, they became part of the Roman Empire-- and had to pay taxes.