was christ truly born in the month of december.?

Question

if no, why should his birth be Celebrated in that date/month.
who set the month of December 25 as the time Christ was born.

Answer 1

When was Jesus born?

A. Popular myth puts his birth on December 25th in the year 1 C.E.

B. The New Testament gives no date or year for Jesus’ birth. The earliest gospel – St. Mark’s, written about 65 CE – begins with the baptism of an adult Jesus. This suggests that the earliest Christians lacked interest in or knowledge of Jesus’ birthdate.

C. The year of Jesus birth was determined by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk, “abbot of a Roman monastery. His calculation went as follows:

a. In the Roman, pre-Christian era, years were counted from ab urbe condita (“the founding of the City” [Rome]). Thus 1 AUC signifies the year Rome was founded, 5 AUC signifies the 5th year of Rome’s reign, etc.

b. Dionysius received a tradition that the Roman emperor Augustus reigned 43 years, and was followed by the emperor Tiberius.

c. Luke 3:1,23 indicates that when Jesus turned 30 years old, it was the 15th year of Tiberius reign.

d. If Jesus was 30 years old in Tiberius’ reign, then he lived 15 years under Augustus (placing Jesus birth in Augustus’ 28th year of reign).

e. Augustus took power in 727 AUC. Therefore, Dionysius put Jesus birth in 754 AUC.

f. However, Luke 1:5 places Jesus’ birth in the days of Herod, and Herod died in 750 AUC – four years before the year in which Dionysius places Jesus birth.

D. Joseph A. Fitzmyer – Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America, member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and former president of the Catholic Biblical Association – writing in the Catholic Church’s official commentary on the New Testament[1], writes about the date of Jesus’ birth, “Though the year [of Jesus birth is not reckoned with certainty, the birth did not occur in AD 1. The Christian era, supposed to have its starting point in the year of Jesus birth, is based on a miscalculation introduced ca. 533 by Dionysius Exiguus.”

E. The DePascha Computus, an anonymous document believed to have been written in North Africa around 243 CE, placed Jesus birth on March 28. Clement, a bishop of Alexandria (d. ca. 215 CE), thought Jesus was born on November 18. Based on historical records, Fitzmyer guesses that Jesus birth occurred on September 11, 3 BCE.



II. How Did Christmas Come to Be Celebrated on December 25?

A. Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.

B. The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).

C. In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.[2]

D. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday.

E. Christians had little success, however, refining the practices of Saturnalia. As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor history at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, “In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.” The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.

F. The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.”[3] Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681.[4] However, Christmas was and still is celebrated by most Christians.

G. Some of the most depraved customs of the Saturnalia carnival were intentionally revived by the Catholic Church in 1466 when Pope Paul II, for the amusement of his Roman citizens, forced Jews to race naked through the streets of the city. An eyewitness account reports, “Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them and at the same time more amusing for spectators. They ran… amid Rome’s taunting shrieks and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily.”[5]

H. As part of the Saturnalia carnival throughout the 18th and 19th centuries CE, rabbis of the ghetto in Rome were forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the city streets to the jeers of the crowd, pelted by a variety of missiles. When the Jewish community of Rome sent a petition in1836 to Pope Gregory XVI begging him to stop the annual Saturnalia abuse of the Jewish community, he responded, “It is not opportune to make any innovation.”[6] On December 25, 1881, Christian leaders whipped the Polish masses into Antisemitic frenzies that led to riots across the country. In Warsaw 12 Jews were brutally murdered, huge numbers maimed, and many Jewish women were raped. Two million rubles worth of property was destroyed.

Answer 2

Even Biblical scholars agree that Jesus was born in the spring, not the winter. The main clue being that the shepherds watched their flocks at night. In Israel, that was not done until springtime because of the weather.

The reason Jesus' birth is celebrated on Dec 25 is due to the Catholic Church in medieval times trying to convert pagans from their old ways. Pagans celebrated Yule at that time (21st-23rd) and also Mithra was an ancient pagan god born of a virgin on Dec 25. The Catholic Church was famous for copying pagan holidays and rituals that everyone was familiar with and giving them a Christian spin, saying they were something brand new that was ordained by God himself.

Answer 3

I am as sure as I can be that Christ was not born anywhere near that time. What is celebrated in the month of December is the Jewish festival of Hannukah (the festival of lights) which celebrates the cleansing and rededication of the Temple by the Maccabees after it had been defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes. The gospels tell us that Jesus also went up to the Temple to keep this feast.

the one who set this date and time and the time commemorating Christ's birth was, I am pretty sure, Constantine sometime after his conversion in the 4th century. He would have done it by decree, just as he also decreed that all Christians should worship 'on the venerable day of the sun'. Constantine wanted to please everybody and so he kept the title'pontifex maximus' (the high priest of the babylonian priesthood) and mixed Christianity with paganism (syncretism) and arrived at something which the Early Church had never been.

Maybe because the Christian hierarchy at that time wanted to do something about the pagan festival of Saturnalia, the Roman celebration of December 25th, during which time abominable excesses of every kind surfaced amongst the populace, possibly they advised Constantine that instituting a new festival (centered upon the birth of the Son of God rather than upon the birth of the Sun) in place of the old one would effect a 'clean up'. We have the testimony of modern times as to whether that in fact has happened ...

Perhaps they meant well but, there being absolutely no foundation for it in scripture, I think what has come out of it is an ungodly mess. They had a problem with Saturnalia, but I think that what was bugging them more was actually their problem with Hannukah, for they wished more than anything else to distance themselves from the Jewish roots of the faith. However, in their desperation to escape the Jews, they fell foul of the Pagans.

Well, you might ask, when was Christ born?

Many people think that he was born at the time of Tabernacles, because of the problem with accommodation leading them to surmise that there must have been a major feast on. And also, the word does say that "the Word 'tabernacled' among us" (John 1:14). They say that it must not have been in the depths of winter time, because the sheep were out on the pastures.

Linking the main events of the Christian movement with the Jewish feasts is an inspired revelation, and thus:

Christ died at Easter = Passover and :
The Holy Spirit came = Pentecost

Logically, then Tabernacles should move on the prophetic agenda in the direction of Christ's Second Coming and not his first.

For these reasons, I turn away from Tabernacles being the time of Christ's birth and I tend to think that it must have been during February - March. This is a time not marked by any major festivals of the Jewish calendar. Maybe, Christ having come in obscurity, God wants to leave it that way and point us towards the purpose of his coming rather than the time of his birth - Passover instead.

One clue that Christ's birthdate might have been February/March/April is that he is described as being 'about thirty' (Luke 3:23) when he began his ministry, shortly after he was baptized by John. (Thirty was the minimum age one could be accepted as a rabbi). Interestingly, the greek phrase, translated 'about thirty' has a meaning of 'just about' or 'only just' thirty, with the idea that he had only just passed his birthday.

The gospel of John, following on from Jesus' baptism, shows him attending Passover (read John 1-2 for the time links) shortly thereafter, so this is the basis on which I say that Christ's birthdate was likely during the early part of (our) New Year. Interestingly, John the Baptist called him 'the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world' and for him to have been born when lambs were being prepared for Passover and for his chief work to have been directly related to that feast would accord quite well.

There is another interesting piece of information which can be surmised from this, too. John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus (Luke 1:36). If he also began his ministry at the set time (ie. 30), then he would have begun August/September/October time and that meant that, counting back from his birthday of around that time nine months, his conception would have been when Zechariah finished his priestly course in the Temple and came home to Elizabeth. I leave that study to others.

Answer 4

December? No. The Birth of Jesus was arbitrarily assigned to be near the Winter Solstice by Constantine.

So, when was Jesus born? Luke tells us that the shepherds were in the fields.

A review of key events of Jesus' life reveals that many events happened around key feasts of relevance in Israel.

For instance, His Death was on Passover, resurrection was on the Feast of First Fruits, the Holy Spirit was given on the Feast of Pentecost.

There are many theories that state that Jesus will come back during the Feast of Trumpets (the day of Atonement) (in September).

There are other theories that state that Jesus was born on the Day of Atonement (or was circumcised on the day of Atonement). Either of these two would put Jesus born in September.

Answer 5

From what I have read, it is more likely he was born in the spring.

In the early days of the church, they had converts who were accustomed to celebrating the winter solstice. I think the celebration of Christs birthday was moved near the winter solstice to in some way take the celebration at that time away from its pagan roots.

Answer 6

The records back then where not kept very well, so it is hard to figure out, but here is a good web page for you.

Answer 7

After looking at the answers, I bet you're sorry you asked!

Answer 8

No one is aware of the truly birthday of Jesus! No date is given within the Bible, so why can we have a good time it at the twenty fifth December? The early Christians undoubtedly had many arguments as to whilst it must be celebrated! Also, the start of Jesus most often did not occur within the yr 0AD however relatively previous, in approximately five, 6 or 7BC. Christmas used to be first celebrated as a correct day, at the twenty fifth December, within the fifth century, within the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine (he used to be the primary Christian Roman Emperor). He first purchased the Roman pagan 'solar-day' (the primary day of the week) and the 'sabbath' (the Christians holy day) in combination to what we now name Sunday. This date used to be most often selected in view that the Winter Solstice and the old pagan Roman midwinter pageant referred to as Saturnalia took position in December. The Winter Solstice is the day wherein there may be the shortest time among the solar emerging and the solar environment. It occurs among December twenty second and December twenty fifth. To pagans this supposed that the iciness used to be over and spring used to be coming they usually had a pageant to have a good time it and worshipped the solar for profitable over the darkness of iciness. (The Winter Solstice in Scandinavia and a few different constituents of northern Europe is Yule and is wherein we get Yule Logs from.) The Roman Festival of Saturnalia took position among December seventeenth and twenty third. There is yet another well motive why the twenty fifth can have selected. The twenty fifth March used to be additionally a sacred day to the pagans, after they celebrated the approaching of spring and new existence. The early Christians took over at the moment because the day whilst Mary used to be instructed that she might have an overly specific child, Jesus. This is referred to as the Annunciation and remains to be celebrated by means of Christians at the twenty fifth March. Nine months after the twenty fifth March is the twenty fifth December! But that is no longer the one day that Christmas is well known around the globe. Most of the sector makes use of the 'Gregorian Calendar' carried out by means of Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. Before that the 'Roman' or Julian Calendar used to be used (named after Julius Caesar). The Gregorian calendar is extra correct that the Roman calendar which had too many days in a yr! When the transfer used to be made 10 days have been misplaced, in order that the day that adopted the 4th October 1582 used to be fifteenth October 1582! Many Orthodox Churches nonetheless use the Julian Calendar and so have a good time Christmas at the seventh January. And the Armenian Church celebrates it at the tenth January!! In a few side of the UK, January sixth remains to be referred to as 'Old Christmas' as this might had been the times that Christmas might have celebrated on, if the calendar hadn't been transformed. Some pople did not wish to make use of the brand new calendar as they notion it 'cheated' them out of 10 days! Christians consider that Jesus is the sunshine of the sector, so the early Christians notion that this used to be the correct time to have a good time the start of Jesus. They additionally took over plenty of different matters from the Winter Solstice and gave them Christian meanings, like Holly, Mistletoe or even Christmas Carols! St Augustine used to be the individual who fairly began Christmas within the U.K. by means of introducing Christianity within the sixth century. He got here from nations that used the Roman Calendar, so western nations have a good time Christmas at the twenty fifth December. Then folks from Britain and Western Europe took Christmas at the twenty fifth December all over the place the sector! The identify 'Christmas' comes from the Mass of Christ (or Jesus). A Mass carrier (that's frequently referred to as Communion or Eucharist) is wherein Christians consider that Jesus died for us after which got here again to existence. The 'Christ-Mass' carrier used to be the one one who used to be allowed to take position after sundown, so folks had it at Midnight! So we get the identify Christ-Mass, shortened to Christmas. Christmas could also be frequently referred to as Xmas. Some folks do not consider it is proper to name Christmas 'Xmas' as that takes the 'Christ' (Jesus) out of Christmas. But that's no longer rather correct! In the Greek language and alphabet, the letter that appears like an X is reported 'Christos' and method 'Christ'! The image of a fish is frequently utilized by Christians (you could see a fish decal on a auto or any person dressed in slightly fish badge). This comes from the time whilst the primary Christians needed to meet in mystery, because the Romans desired to kill them (earlier than Emperor Constantine grew to be a Christian). Jesus had stated that he desired to make his fans 'Fishers of Men', so folks began to make use of that image. When 2 Christians met, one individual drew part a elementary fish form (by and large making use of their foot within the grime at the floor) and the opposite individual drew the opposite part of the fish. The Greek phrase for fish is 'Ikthus' or 'Ichthys'. There are 5 Greek letters within the phrase. It too can make up a sentence of Christian ideals 'Ie-sous Christos Theou Huios So-te-r' which in English method "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour". The moment letter of those 5 letter is X or Christos! So Xmas too can imply Christmas!