Jesus wasn't born on December 25th
Jesus was born on December 25th.
1Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
2Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
3When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
4And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
5And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,
6And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.
7Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.
8And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.
9When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.
10When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
11And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.
Well, those pesky scientists have done it again. According to calculations done using star-charting software, a very bright star (actually the planets Jupiter and Venus lined up together) suddenly hung over the town of Bethlehem on June 17th in the year 2BC.
Australian stargazer Dave Reneke, editor of Sky and Space magazine, used complex computer software to chart the exact positions of all celestial bodies and map the night sky as it would have appeared over the Holy Land more than 2,000 years ago.
He discovered that a bright star really did appear over Bethlehem 2,000 years ago - but pinpointed the date of Christ's birth as June 17, and not December 25.
Scientists claim the Christmas star was most likely a magnificent conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter, which were so close together they would have shone unusually brightly as a single 'beacon of light' which appeared suddenly.
Mr Reneke says the wise men probably interpreted it as the sign they had been waiting for, and they followed the 'star' to Christ's birthplace in a stable in Bethlehem, as described in the Bible.
Generally accepted research has placed the nativity to somewhere between 3BC and 1AD.
Using the St Matthew's Gospel as a reference point, Mr Reneke pinpointed the planetary conjunction, which appeared in the constellation of Leo, to the exact date of June 17 in the year 2BC.
Some fervent believers of the Bible understandably may be very skeptical about the revelation that Jesus wasn't born in December, but the truth is the Bible is not specific as to when Jesus was born. Both Matthew and Luke assign Jesus' birth to "the days when Herod was king of Judea"--this would put the birth before 3BC, which I realize seems a bit confusing with the annotation BC meaning Before Christ and Christ being born 3 years before then, but stay with me.
According to Luke, Jesus was "about thirty years old" when John baptised him "in the fifteenth year of Tiberius"--i.e., 28-29AD. This would seem to cooberate the scientists' work putting Christ's birth in the year 2-1BC.
Clement of Alexandria (ca. 200 AD) reports diverse opinions on the subject of what exact day Christ was born. According to him, some chronologists dated the birth as April 19; others on May 20. Clement, himself, assigned November 17, 3BC as the day Jesus was born.
The reason December 25th became Jesus' birthday was that it was erroneously calculated as the winter solstice, the date upon which the sun stops dipping so low in the sky and the days become longer. This day had already been the date of celebration for the central pagan festival of Mithraism, the natalis invicti solis, or birthday of the unconquered sun. As early as the 2nd Century, most Eastern Christians (those in Asia Minor, the Balkans, North Africa, and the Middle East) had been celebrating the Nativity on January 6, but Rome and the Western churches celebrated on December 25 and, over the centuries, the Eastern churches eventually gave in.
