SCRIPTURES VERSUS HISTORIANS ON THE DATE OF BIRTH OF JESUS

The official date of birth of Jesus Christ worldwide is the 25^th of December, but there is a good chance that he was not born on that day at all. I am not trying to be blasphemous or insult the Christian religion in any way. In my religious studies class I discovered that it was the Catholic Church, which adopted the 25^th of December for symbolic reasons.

In my curiosity for knowledge, I spoke with some pastors in my local worship centre on whether Jesus was actually born on the date mentioned above, but to my amazement, they did not know the real historical date of the birth of Jesus.

Therefore, I had to do historical and scriptural searches for answer. I discovered that December 25^th was chosen as the official date of the messiah’s birth as late as 354 A.D., by Pope Liberus, because it corresponded with the pagan festival of the winter solstice, called Natalis Invicti in Latin, which means “birth of the invincible sun.”

Real image of Pope Liberus who declared 25th December as the official birth date of Jesus Christ
Photo: Google images.com

 

The French word “Noel” comes from the combination of two Celtic words, noio and hel, which means “rebirth of the sun.”

Thus the birth of Christ is compared to the birth of the sun, which plays a very important role in many ancient religious and pre-Christian pagan cults. In places where Christianity was on the rise, church authorities tried to give pagan festivals already being celebrated a Christian connection, in this case the birth of the saviour.

The choice of December 25^th was actually quite logical when you consider that Christianity took hold mainly in the formerly polytheistic Roman Empire. The Roman worshipped many small gods, but their main festival, the Saturnalia, celebrating the god Saturn took place on or around December 25^th.

 

Proof against December 25^th

There are concerning accounts, aside from being chosen in 345 A.D., that raised the question about the date of December 25^th as being the real birth date of Christ.

Many historians rely on accounts of Luke in the Bible which according to them seems to contradict the theory that Jesus was born on December 25^th. For example, the Bible states that Christ was born during a census conducted by the Romans, and for the census to take place, all citizens were ordered to return to the place of their birth. According to historians that time of the year was very cold in the middle of winter. The question is: Why would the Romans have conducted a census in the middle of winter, the coldest time of year?

According to the book of Luke, Jesus was born before the death of King Herod, and history tells us that Herod died in the year 4 B.C. – i.e. 4 years before the official birth of Christ. The facts did not add up.

 For detailed explanations visit the following websites: http://www.comereason.org/bibl_cntr/con100.asp & http:www.christianswers.net/q-aiia/census-luke2.html. 

Augustus Caesar

To return to the account of Luke on the population census carried out the year Jesus was born, there’s more than the climatic problems mentioned earlier to consider in terms of logic. There’s also the question of dates, based on historical documents in the public domain.

 

Above are real images of Augustus Caesar who was born before Jesus Christ but no single record of Jesus is available
Photo: google images.com 

 

Historical document shows that on the wall of a temple in Ankara Turkey dedicated to Augustus Caesar (63 B.C. TO 14 A.D.), who was the Roman emperor at the time, a stone slab was found called the Res Gestae Divi August, which recounts all the exploits of the emperor during his reign.



Photos: Google images.com

The document mentioned the following three censuses: the first in 28 B.C., the second in 8 B.C., and the third 14 years after the death of Christ. If we look at the biblical and historic accounts, it lacked narrative synergy. The historical accounts would make one to conclude that Jesus was not born on 25^th December, and that he was born sometimes in the year 7 B.C.

In any case, the actual date of birth of Jesus was not really an issue to me. What does matter is that he was born into the world to protect me from my sins. All that I need to do is to believe in Him and in the Almighty God who never fails.

MERRY CHRISTMAS