The Roman Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus dated Jesus ‘ conception to March 25 (the same date upon which he held that the world was created), which, after nine months in his mother’s womb, would result in a December 25 birth .
Though December 25 is the day Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the date itself and several of the customs we’ve come to associate with Christmas actually evolved from pagan traditions celebrating the winter solstice. “In ancient Rome there was a feast called Saturnalia that celebrated the solstice.
Dec . 25 is not the date mentioned in the Bible as the day of Jesus’s birth; the Bible is actually silent on the day or the time of year when Mary was said to have given birth to him in Bethlehem. The earliest Christians did not celebrate his birth. 25 became known as Jesus’s birthday .
The first official mention of December 25 as a holiday honoring Jesus ‘ birthday appears in an early Roman calendar from 336 A.D. The celebration of Christmas spread throughout the Western world over the next several centuries, but many Christians continued to view Epiphany and Easter as more important.
The short answer is no. It is not believed Jesus was born on the day Christmas is globally celebrated. Instead, Christmas was chosen as a convenient celebratory day on the same day of a pagan holiday that celebrated the winter solstice, according to The History Channel.
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The Virgin Mary, pregnant with the son of God, would hence have given birth to Jesus nine months later on the winter solstice. From Rome, the Christ’s Nativity celebration spread to other Christian churches to the west and east, and soon most Christians were celebrating Christ’s birth on December 25 .
Using these methods, most scholars assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC, and that Jesus’ preaching began around AD 27–29 and lasted one to three years. They calculate the death of Jesus as having taken place between AD 30 and 36.
Now one scripture deals with a more festive use of trees in worship. Leviticus 23:40: And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees , branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.
Jesus ‘ brothers and sisters The Gospel of Mark (6:3) and the Gospel of Matthew (13:55–56) mention James, Joseph/Joses, Judas/Jude and Simon as brothers of Jesus , the son of Mary .
With the story of the birth of Christ coinciding with this date, many Christian symbols for Christ use the astrological symbol for Pisces, the fishes. The figure Christ himself bears many of the temperaments and personality traits of a Pisces, and is thus considered an archetype of the Piscean.
Jesus | |
---|---|
Born | c. 4 BC Kingdom of Judea, Roman Empire |
Died | AD 30 or 33 (aged 33–36) Jerusalem, Judea, Roman Empire |
Cause of death | Crucifixion |
Parent(s) | Mary Joseph |
Daily low temperatures decrease by 5°F, from 47°F to 42°F, rarely falling below 37°F or exceeding 53°F.
1: Jesus was born on December 25. This detail – the only clue in the Gospels about the timing of the birth – suggests that Jesus’s birthday was not in the winter, as shepherds would have been watching their flocks only during the lambing season in the spring.
According to this text, which Notovitch had translated into French, Jesus had spent his missing years – the years between his childhood and the beginning of his ministry – studying Buddhism in India. At the age of about 30, he’ d returned to the Middle East and the life that is familiar to us from the New Testament.