16 – Jesus Was Born on 25th December
In a way, it doesn’t really matter that Christmas Day has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus Christ, son of God in the Christian faith. It has become a time of year when Christian families get together; perhaps for the only time that year. Men, women and children sometimes travel thousands of miles to meet their loved ones. As a result, the fact that Jesus Christ wasn’t born on 25th December is probably irrelevant but it is a great historical myth so it must be tackled.
Biblical scholars readily acknowledge that Jesus Christ was not born in December and the Catholic Encyclopedia admits that his birth has been assigned to every single month in the calendar by different authorities! In the Gospel of Luke, Mary and Joseph were traveling to Bethlehem when Jesus was born and shepherds had their flocks in open fields at that time. Since the weather in that region would be cold (with possible snow) at that time of the year, no shepherd would keep his flock in a field. The text also says a Roman Census was taking place. The Romans would never hold a census in winter.
So why do we celebrate Christmas on 25th December? As it happens, the celebration of Christmas began up to 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. There are sources which suggest that a celebration for pagan gods took place near the time of the winter solstice in Egypt and Syria. In around 400 B.C., the Mithraic religion (worship of Persian sun god Mithras) is probably responsible for creating the foundation of what we call Christmas today. In the Julian calendar, the 25th of December was deemed to be the date of the winter solstice and was also the ‘nativity’ of the Sun.
According to Sir James Frazer, the Christian Church deliberately chose to celebrate the birth of its founder on the 25th of December. The idea was to transfer the devotion that ‘heathen’ peoples had for the Sun onto he who was known as the ‘Sun of Righteousness’. It appears as if the decision was made by Roman Emperor Constantine in 323 AD who effectively ‘took’ the day from the cult Sol Invictus. This led to some confusion among Christians; many of whom condemned celebrations during that period. The decision made by Constantine seemingly goes against the Book of Deuteronomy which says that God warned against the adoption of pagan customs to honor Him.
It should be noted that the first suggestion of the above ‘transfer’ of Christmas Day was not mentioned until the 12th century. Since the date was set according to the Julian calendar and we have been using the Gregorian calendar since 1582, it’s obvious that this date will be completely different now. There is also the small matter of Jesus being born years before we thought which of course has ramifications with the whole AD and B.C. timelines but that’s a story for another day!