Most Christians throughout the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ as being on December 25 of the year. But looking through the Scriptures and other related texts, biblical scholars have had a difficult time in confirming the actual month and year of Christ’s birth, much less the actual date.
What Year Was It?
Herod the Great and the Visit by the Magi: Herod the Great reigned from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. as a client king of Judea under the Roman empire. The date of his death is a benchmark in the determination of events of the times and how they fit into today’s calendar. According to the Gospel of Matthew, a trio of Magi, or wise men, observed a celestial event from their homes in India and Persia that they believed signified the birth of the King of the Jews. They then traveled to visit Herod to inquire where they might find this King of the Jews, thereby alerting Herod of Christ’s existence. Herod asked them to return to him when they did find this king, to tell him where the infant was so that he could also go and pay homage to him. The Magi followed the star and found Jesus in Bethlehem bringing him gifts, but they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod and they left via a different route. Herod became angry when the Magi did not return, so he ordered all male babies under the age of two in the general area to be put to death. Joseph was told by an angel to leave Judea and head for Egypt as Herod wanted to kill his son. Later he was told he could return, but he chose to return to Galilee and the town of Nazareth instead of Judea.
Most biblical scholars believe this entire story to be fiction. It begins with a celestial event that cannot be determined, although a junction of planets in alignment with other stars could provide such a vista. A conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn did occur around 7 B.C.; Chinese astronomers observed a brilliant object around 4 B.C.; a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter took place in August of 3 B.C.; and Halley’s comet was visible from 12 to 11 B.C. The magi traveled from as far as India and Persia to reach Judea. Had they observed the celestial event and began traveling immediately it may still have taken weeks or even months to get there from India or Persia and rendezvous before meeting up with Herod. Of the celestial conjunctions that have taken place in more recent times, most show that the event has a duration of only a few days or a week. If what they saw lasted long enough until they had time to get to Judea, it would likely have been Halley’s comet in 12 B.C.
The end of Herod’s reign in 4 B.C. was filled with assassinations, terror, and political chaos, but nowhere is there any record of a massacre of male infants or toddlers. The historian Flavius Josephus, one of the most respected scholars of the time and place, provided substantial details about Herod’s reign and his sons who succeeded him, but nothing about any massacre.
The Census of Quirinius: The Gospel of Luke (2:1-5) correlates the birth of Jesus with the Census of Quirinius, the governor of Syria at the time, about A.D. 6. This census was claimed to be originated by Emperor Augustus so that all persons throughout the empire would be included in the tax rolls. According to Luke this mandated that Joseph and Mary travel from where they lived in Nazareth to Bethlehem, the City of David, as Joseph was descended from David. Most Biblical Scholars acknowledge that this portion of the Gospel is erroneous in that Luke, the author, was aware of Matthew’s Gospel pointing to Jesus’s place of birth as Bethlehem. There is some prophetic fulfillment in play coming from Psalm 87:6, and also a local tax disturbance that may have tarnished the event. But in the final analysis, Roman censuses had taken place before the time of Christ, and at no time did any census require the population to return to their place of birth. The censuses took place once every five years, but the difficulty in determining the exact year of Christ’s birth further complicates the determination of whether or not a census was in progress at the time.
Backdating from the Beginning of Christ’s Ministry: To arrive at an approximation of in what year Jesus was born, one avenue would be to backdate from when Christ began his ministry. That exact year is not known, but can be extrapolated by looking at the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry. Luke writes that John the Baptist’s ministry began during the “fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius” that ran from A.D. 14 to A.D. 37. That makes the fifteenth year A.D. 29, and Christ’s birth about 2-1 B.C. if he were thirty years old when he started his own ministry as indicated by Luke (3:23).
The Anno Domini System: In the year 525 the monk Dionysius Exiguus devised the system known as Anno Domini, or “In the Year of Our Lord” to attempt to establish a calendar going forward. He was looking to ascertain the dates of Easter for the coming century, but wanted to change the point of departure that was set in Rome at A.D. 284, the beginning of Emperor Diocletian’s reign. Diocletian was responsible for one of the worst persecutions of Christians in Roman history, and connecting the beginning of the era afterword as starting with Diocletian’s reign was objectionable for most of Christianity. It is believed that Dionysius used the backdating method from the start of Christ’s ministry to determine his birth as his new starting point. He did not tie it to any other known event anywhere along the way however, and modern research has pointed to an error of about three years. Thus, we have the years after the birth of Christ known to be “Anno Domini” (A.D.) and also “Common Era” (C.E.). Dionysius system proved to be popular, however, and spread throughout the Christian world.
What Month Was It?
The Shepherd’s View: Luke describes the scene on the Holy Night as one where shepherds were watching their flocks of sheep. Ordinarily, this happened during the months of mid-March to early October when the sheep were put out to pasture. During the winter months the sheep were brought in closer to the settlements for protection from the weather and to prevent shepherds from spending inordinate amounts of time out of doors during the cold season. This points to the spring and summer months as being the time for the Holy Night, and not December.
The Hebrew Month of Tishri: Tishri is the first month of the Hebrew year. It typically falls in mid to late September, and is keynoted by Rosh Hashanah on days one and two of Tishri and Yom Kippur on the tenth day. In Luke, the story evolves as Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, ended his stint of duty in the temple on the 10th week of the priestly cycle, or sometime from mid-May to mid-June of the year. Soon thereafter his wife Elizabeth became pregnant with John the Baptist. When Elizabeth was six months pregnant, the Angel Gabriel visited Mary, her relative (or cousin), the wife of Joseph, and explained that she would give birth to Christ. So doing some math and making some assumptions we can see that Elizabeth was six months pregnant in December, and Mary would likely be ready to deliver a baby boy nine months later in the month of September, or during Tishri. This story comes from Hebrew texts and dovetails with the shepherds’ who would likely still be out watching the sheep. The exact dates would be hard to determine however, owing to the uncertainty of the time of pregnancy and the length.
The Roman Festivals of Saturnalia and Sol Invictus: The actual date had been scrutinized by the church and others for several hundred years. The earliest evidence of it being December 25th, that can be found in writing comes from a simple sentence in the Chronograph of 354, a chronological compilation of calendar events from texts produced for a wealthy Christian named Valentinus published in the year 354. There are other factors that caused the date to gravitate towards December 25, not the least of which was the Sol Invictus Roman festival that celebrates the winter solstice, then believed to be December 25. In mid-December was the festival Saturnalia that features singing, lighting candles, gift-giving, and feasting. December 25 is also nine months after the date of the Annunciation, or when the Angel Gabriel told Mary that she would be giving birth to the Christ child. The Islamic Qur’an describes the story of Jesus as Saint Issa, in Chapter 19, and placing the date of birth in the middle of March. The season is not mentioned in either Matthew or Luke. The date of the Annunciation differs from that determined from the Hebrew records as noted above.
Conclusions: So, that’s how Christmas became affixed on December 25 of the year. With the difficulty of establishing the year of Christ’s birth, it seems acceptable to go with the Anno Domini system as modified into “the Common Era”. In the final analysis it probably does not matter as long as the date is affixed either by edict or tradition, enabling Christians throughout the world to celebrate at the same time. Verification and/or corroboration of an event that happened over two thousand years ago has proved to be very difficult for historians to do.
Sources:
Christianity.com, When Was Jesus Actually Born? By Candice Lucey, October 14, 2024.
Nationalgeographic.com, History Magazine, Biblical Stories About Jesus’s Birth Reveal Intriguing Clues About His Times, by Antonio Pinero, December 16, 2021.
Wikipedia, Census of Quirinius.
Wikipedia, Nativity of Jesus.
Wikipedia, The Date of the Birth of Jesus Christ.
The Holy Bible.
Painting: Adoration of the Shepherds by Dutch painter Mathias Stom c. 1650.
Very thorough and well-presented. This is, I think important, as well as interesting information. And, no, the historical facts do not take away from the significance of the event.