I have heard that it is not very likely because there were lambs present in the account in the scripture, and sheep are born in the spring time. I would think that by winter, a sheep would not be a cuddly little lamb anymore.
ohwell I know very little about livestock and I am by no means a bible expert.

some insight and/or data would be appreaciated so I can possibly shock my hardcore christian extended family this holiday season by turning a minor tradional belief they all hold on its end.

(please no flaming or creation vs evolution debates here)


ooops edit: forgot to mention, I do believe He was born, it is
just a question of when. thank you.

Nope. If I recall, December 25th is the Roman holiday or festival or something for the goddess Minerva. The early Christian church placed Christmas there in order to appeal to the non-Christian Roman masses and/or to avoid persecution. I think a more accurate time-frame for Christ's birth would be in the spring (maybe Aprilish?). I'm pretty sure you could find it all online.

i think he was born in something in spring

No, IIRC they only made it that day because there was a pagan festival on the same day and they wanted to blend in with their celebrations.

Who cares the exact day he was born. But I say we stick with Dec. 25, it at least has an interesting colleration - the witner solstice (IIRC) and from then on the days get longer and longer, as more and more light gets into the world. The early Christians were good at choosing symbolic dates. :goodjob:

He probably existed so he might have been born anytime.

No he wasn't, he was most likely born in spring. The December date has more to do with the Pagan Holiday celebrating the winter solstice I think.

Romans corrupted the christian religion...

unlikely he was born on that date. what everyone else has said, pretty much.

No

Originally posted by Azadre
Romans corrupted the christian religion...

:confused:

How?

By creating the Roman Catholic church. :p

Cos notice he dies on a different day each year...

But yeah definitely not Dec 25.. Which Calendar changes, and placment of months changing, this may have been BC and not relevant, but I doubt there is a set date

Moved to History, for the experts...

LETS NOT CHANGE IT NOW! I'm getting Conquests for Christmas (25th). On the 26th we can move it. Maybe too... January 1st? :)

Spring most likely. I also heard a late summer theory.

Mithraism: After the conquest of Assyria in the 7th century BC and of Babylonia in the 6th century BC, Mithra became the god of the sun.
It eventually became one of the major religions of the Roman Empire, the cult of Mithra, the ancient Persian god of light and wisdom. Mithraism was similar to Christianity in many respects, for example, in the ideals of humility and brotherly love, baptism, the rite of communion, the use of holy water, the adoration of the shepherds at Mithra's birth, the adoption of Sundays and of December 25 (Mithra's birthday) as holy days, and the belief in the immortality of the soul, the last judgement, and the resurrection. Mithraism differed from Christianity in the exclusion of women from its ceremonies and in its willingness to compromise with polytheism. The similarities, however, made possible the easy conversion of its followers to Christian doctrine.

Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2002.

Makes you think about where the early ancient Christians got their ideas from doesn't it. ;)

Happy Mithras everybody. :lol:

Not likely, for so many reasons. I applaud those who posted some of the less obvious ones mentioned, particularly the observation concerning the lambs and the Mithra cult.

What is more, is that it was Emperor Constantine who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. He testified that he had a dream. In that dream he claims God told him to paint the cross on the shields of his soldiers. The battle he was to engage in, the next day, would be won if he complied. Constantine did so, his army won the day, and Christianity became the official religion. Now, since Roman culture influenced the farthest reaches of the known world, at the time, it is no wonder Christianity is so popular.

He sure as sh!te didn't come in or out of the world in the year 0. I believe the possible years he was born in were either 6 CE or 14 CE, though that is off the top of my head. I also remember there being a 1 in 365 chance that he was born on Dec. 25.

Certainly not. Just as he probably didn't look even 50% like the popular image/icon of him that's been spread all over the world by now (you know, white, long haired with beard, blue/clear eyes, brown-light brown hair, etc. and variations of the above)

Originally posted by Azadre
Romans corrupted the christian religion... The christians adopted the Saturnalia dates in order to blend in. Satunalia celbrates a mythical golden age when Saturn (indetified with the Greek Kronos) was overthrown by his son Jupiter (Zeus) and fled to Italy and dwelt there for time and (also being a harvest deity) taught the Italians agriculture. It ran Dec 17 to Dec 25. Mnay of its cerimonies (gift giving, visitations, etc) coincide with christmas practices.

This question is very easy. The answer is NO!

25.12 was a paganic fest which was changed after christianity. (25.12 is winter solstice, which was big feast day for most pagan religions.) I believe christmas has also some links to Mithra and Sol invictus.

I always heard it was really in July.

You know, the topic of Christ's birth was mentioned in an episode of a tv sci-fi series long since cancelled. IIRC, the name of the series was Space: Above and Beyond. They said something about Christ having been born four years prior to what is reported and at a somewhat different time of year, and based this on determining dates by recorded positions of stars.

Originally posted by Azadre
Romans corrupted the christian religion...


or did the christian corrupt the Roman religion?

Originally posted by Xen



or did the christian corrupt the Roman religion?

My thoughts exactly.

Rome corrupted Christianity, post-"Roman" Rome was the home of the Catholic Church was has corrupted the image of a Christian. What exactly has Christianity taken away from Greco-Roman polytheism, Xen?

Anyway Inhalaattori is right, the Catholic church chose a pagan holiday to "link" this meant to be holy holiday to something, to put it nicely, less than holy. It was probably the spring time, around May, when Jesus was born. After all the shepards were out, how many sheep wander around during December?

Aside from freedom of being followed once Christianism became the official religion, you mean?

Originally posted by Packer-Backer
Rome corrupted Christianity, post-"Roman" Rome was the home of the Catholic Church was has corrupted the image of a Christian. What exactly has Christianity taken away from Greco-Roman polytheism, Xen?]

what has it taken from us? it has forced away in the divine truths to aless the noblke following based on greed, and inequality- thats what it has taken not justfrom us, but from the world.

Originally posted by Packer-Backer
[B]
Anyway Inhalaattori is right, the Catholic church chose a pagan holiday to "link" this meant to be holy holiday to something, to put it nicely, less than holy. It was probably the spring time, around May, when Jesus was born. After all the shepards were out, how many sheep wander around during December?

less the holy to you, but for me, it is your holiday that is "less then holy"

I was using "less than holy" as a nicer word than evil. Also Xen what you mention in your first response was done by the Catholic church, the corrupted image of the Christian church. Catholicalism has stripped away many freedoms of many people, mostly individual and economic, having to pay the church!

But to be off topic, how did you convert to Greco-Roman polytheism in the first place?

Because anything you don't believe in is "evil" of course, so you are being "nice" by calling it "less than holy" instead.

I fail to see how Christianism as you represent it is better than the corrupt Catholicism you just denounced.

Not likely, something like a .2739% chance.

Every form of Christianity has had it's dark side besides Evangelicalism, for it is the only form of Christianity which has not had a country to rule. Christianity is not the kind of religion for big churches, it is meant to be a one-on-one ministry and not large kingdoms. Catholicalism is way too wordly, and all of the astrousities (spelling? not a native speaker) the Catholic church has commited does not add up considering what it is supposedly based on. But reformist religions like Protestantism and Lutherism have not commited much less wrong, although being too wordly and corrupted is blatantly punished. Compare things like the Inquisition to organizations like the Salvation Army.

But to be on topic: No, Jesus was born in the spring, obviously!

Originally posted by Packer-Backer
I was using "less than holy" as a nicer word than evil. Also Xen what you mention in your first response was done by the Catholic church, the corrupted image of the Christian church. Catholicalism has stripped away many freedoms of many people, mostly individual and economic, having to pay the church!

But to be off topic, how did you convert to Greco-Roman polytheism in the first place?

Do I hear an Amen?
AMEN!!

Alos let's not forget the impact of the southern baptistsand those southern religion maniacs. With all there fundelmentalism and fanactism, made Christianity and religion a bad word.

BTW, maybe Santa was born on December 25!!:lol:

Originally posted by ShiplordAtvar
You know, the topic of Christ's birth was mentioned in an episode of a tv sci-fi series long since cancelled. IIRC, the name of the series was Space: Above and Beyond. They said something about Christ having been born four years prior to what is reported and at a somewhat different time of year, and based this on determining dates by recorded positions of stars.

That theory is based on various astronomers' wish to explain the Star of Bethlehem as a prominent conjeunction of Mars, Jupiter & Saturn. But it could have been almost anything - a nova, a very long-period comet, a rogue planet (?!) or an alien spacecraft, as in Chris DeBurgh's song "A Spaceman Came Travelling"...

Back to a point Enemy Ace raised about Jesus' birth not being in the Year 0: he's quite right, since there was no such year! The Romans and early Christian church didn't use zero as a number. It was the Arabs, centuries later, who devised the concept of a null quantity in mathematics - I think. And they, of course, gave us our modern numeral system.

All I can really say is, the modern Christmas is fun! So who cares about the exact original date?

Time is probably the most abetrary unti in existence (followed by money). It all depends upon when yuo start your common era. For example the Greek common era was around 683 BC (that year maybe off, but it is the 1st olympics). Months of the year are equally insane. The calendar added two months (August and July) for the sake of Julius and Augustus Cearser. So, whether Christ's birth was in Winter,spring,summer or fall is a different question, because it relies on the the season. My opinion is that it had to of happened in spring. Whether the day, month, year is totally abertrary to me.

Sorry for the spelling, I'm having what you could call an off day.

Originally posted by Zoke0
Time is probably the most abetrary unti in existence (followed by money). It all depends upon when yuo start your common era. For example the Greek common era was around 683 BC (that year maybe off, but it is the 1st olympics). Months of the year are equally insane. The calendar added two months (August and July) for the sake of Julius and Augustus Cearser. So, whether Christ's birth was in Winter,spring,summer or fall is a different question, because it relies on the the season. My opinion is that it had to of happened in spring. Whether the day, month, year is totally abertrary to me.

Sorry for the spelling, I'm having what you could call an off day.

Exactly Units measuring time have change often, April fool's is based on an old calender where ppl celebrated April 1st as the beginning of the year and as mentioned July and August were simply added.

Thats just from our current calender, many other cultures/civilizations used different calenders.

Especially with our calender's 'leap year' things can get real messy, since there are actually 365 and 1/4 days in the year.

If Doctors can't properly estimate the due date of a baby, then I doubt Jesus's birth is specifically on that date.

I like the quote about Jesus dieing on different days, for some reason Easter is always on a Sunday.

haven't historians be able to pin point it better, by correlating it to the 'tax season', which was the reason for the trek to Bethlehem. I guess the Sheep/lamb theory is the most valid, unless the bible had a misquote and there were no new born sheep.

Originally posted by Azadre
Romans corrupted the christian religion...

Hey man, I take offense to that! I'm a Roman Catholic, the first and original Christian church, and darn proud of it!:rant: Jesus was not born on Dec. 25th, but like Lefty Scaevola said, they wanted to be more pleasing to the major religions of the time.

Don't be disrespecting my church!:splat::rant::cry:You don't see us disrespecting your religion/church!:mad:

Except of course that to most historians there is no reason for the trip to Bethlehem in the first place because nobody has the slightest clue where Matthew got his "everyone had to go to the town of origin of their family" bit.

I think most historians agree whether Jesus was genuine or a load a hokey, he did exist.

Yes, he did. There is outside evidence on that.

However the only place where the "going to the town of origin of your family for tax season" bit is mentionned is Matthew - or whichever of these four said it. *No* other source mentions it. At best (and I don'T believe that) it's a detail that other sources forget to mention (and it seems too big for detail-dom).

At worst, it's a mistake or deliberate falsehood in the bible.

On the topic of the comparative contents of the 4 Gospels, aren't there also many 'Apocryphal' gospels which are no longer included in the standard Bible? Some tell of young Jesus bringing clay birds to life - sounds absurb, but no more fantastic than some of his accepted miracles.

Because Matthew's gospel succeeded in becoming a mainstream Christian text, we accept the circumstances of Jesus' birth as he depicted them. What else is there to go on? If Mary & Joseph were poor and unimportant, one can't expect many official records of them - except, of course, the very census for which they supposedly travelled to Bethlehem.

Until someone discovers the original transcripts by King Herod's administrators, and actually cross-references the parents of Christ, there'll never be a way to support Matthew's story. So what? Most people have never needed to.

Yeah, but historically until we find some other source the whole "going to your hometown for tax reasons" deal is bollocks. It makes no sense to begin with (why have everyone suddenly moving around to pay their taxes?), and you'd figure it would be recorded in *some* historical sources if that's the way the romans proceeded.

Hey man, I take offense to that! I'm a Roman Catholic, the first and original Christian church

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Ya, Catholicism just sprang up right when Jesus die. :rolleyes:

Of course it didn't! But Catholicism was the first Christisn church to be officially formed.:p

He was born on Ocotber-September. Let me explain. Christ died at the age of 33 and a hafl years. He died on Nisan 14th wich is more or less april on our calendar.

Originally posted by Amenhotep7
Of course it didn't! But Catholicism was the first Christisn church to be officially formed.:p

The way I was taught, the "Early Christian Church" of the Roman Empire wasn't exactly Catholic until the Great Schism, when it divided in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. I'm not sure if this was before or after the fall of Rome itself.

I've also learned that the Catholic and Orthodox split symeltanielsly (I almost hurt myself there). Now the Catholic church was indefinetly the first heavy hitter when it came to christain churches then. Not alot is really known about the Orthodox church compared to the Roman Catholic.

From what I have read, the birth of Jesus, and the events surrounding it and what people believe, it really sounds like a Revolution...

But to as what day he was born, I honestly could not say... But probably just down the road from Brian Coen :)

There is no way of actually knowing when he was born, they just didn't a) keep those kind of records, and b) didn't really care unless you were someone important.

A better question what year was he born? and where was he born?

We know that Herod died in 4 BCE. We know that census' were taken in 8 BCE and 6 CE.

Let me preface what follows by saying that I am a Christian and believe that Jesus (actually his name should be Joshua, but that's a different topic) is the Messiah.

When the Romans took a census it was to know how many people they had (they didn't have an F11 key to check) and who was available to tax (they also didn't have a city screen).

I follow the logic that it is most likely that Jesus was born in Nazareth. Why?
1. The local officials wanted to collect the taxes. Who in their right mind would allow the taxes to be send to a different region. Nazareth is in Galillee and Bethlehem is in Judea. That would be like Governor Arnold allowing New York to collect taxes from Californians.
2. Only the head of a household had to register and he reported the members of his household. So even if Joseph did have to go to Bethlehem to register he certainly wouldn't have drug his pregnant fiancee with him. If Mary (actually Miriam, but who's counting) was still his fiancee, he wouldn't report her anyway. Mary's father would report her. Scripture is a little vague on that.
3. There is no record of an Roman officals requiring people to travel to their ancestral homes to register. Once again this is illogical and would create an economic nightmare. Essentially it would shut down the economy causing the loss of a lot of tax money.
4. There wasn't a specific day to register. The census usually took place over several months or years. Even today, the US census is done over four months. So let's say, they did have to travel to Bethlehem and Joseph did have to take his family with him, they certainly wouldn't travel 100 plus miles with a young girl in her ninth month. They would wait, have the child, have the bris, make their offering at their local synogogue, then travel.
5. People were usually registered at their home or place of work by officals that went door to door so that they wouldn't miss anyone that potentially had any money.

Does all that shake my beliefs, sometimes it does. But the Gospel message still resounates with me, and I'm still a Christian.

Merry Christmas

Do you have any more theories like this about the life of Christ? Perhaps it's not too late to market them as "The Gospel According to Sir Bugsy."

These aren't my ideas. They are the ideas of Albert Schweitzer, John Dominic Crossan, and Gerd Ludemann to name a few. These people have been researching these things for a very long time and have written some very interesting works. I don't think searching for the truth detracts from the Christian message. I question everything and listen to all theories.

Originally posted by Sir Bugsy
I don't think searching for the truth detracts from the Christian message. I question everything and listen to all theories.

:) That's the attitude! One can be devoutly religious and still want to find the seed of truth beneath long-distorted stories. As I said before, surely the exact date isn't essential - the goodwill message of Christmas is what's important. And the wisdom Jesus brought into the World is his true legacy: it's OK to be uncertain about the details of his life, as long as we follow his teachings.

As Kahless put it:
Perhaps the words are more important than the man. :king:

Pariah,
I couldn't have said it better. The words and the message are what pulls me through my doubts.

Oh, I forgot to add John Meier to the list. All four of these gentlemen have very interesting writings on the historical Jesus.

*applauses Sir Bugsy quietly*

Good summary of the points against the census forcing them to go to Bethlehem thing.

And may I add, it's good to see a believing Christian who doesn't implicitly admit that if the bible and history contradict each other, then history must be in the wrong as some fundamentalists are prone to do.

If only more people would focus more on the core message ("Love thy neighbor" for a start) instead of just about everything else but NOT that in the book...The teaching of Jesus are about how to share and forgive, but too many people made it a religion about sins and shunning or shaming those who commit it.

Yes.. too often have self-proclaimed good Christians taught punishment rather than forgiveness, even when the "sin" - e.g. being an unmarried mother - doesn't personally harm anybody else. That's got to be against the true meaning of Christmas (especially if Mary was pregnant by someone - ANYONE - other than her husband).

nope jesus was born in may

at that time when jesus was born, thats roman time, most of people were pagans,who liked to decorate the trees every 25 decembaer, for at that time roman god mistra or something like that was born

since people didnt know exact date when jesus was born, they took the pagan god birthday dec 25 and made that day when jesus was born even though thats not historical truth

The theory that I've heard is that Jesus was really born in August, because the scriptures say he was born around the time of the harvest, which was in August. The popular religion of the Roman world was the cult of Mithras. Mithras was a Zororastrian diety who was suppossedly the son of God who existed to fight a Satan-like figure (can't remember his name). This cult was especially popular with soldiers, thus it was well-repsected by most of the common classes as well. The cult had a winter festival dedicated to Mithras that occured every December 25th. Thus, It is possible that early Christains changed the date in order to blend in better with the world's popular cult.

The Gregorian calendar (which is in use worldwide today) was created by a guy called Gregoire somewhere during the middle age, and ajusted by the end of the middle age (the first version only had 10 months, January and February been added later), and stabilized only at the beginning of the Classic era. There were no such thing as a month called December at the time Jesus was borned, and probably no other mean of remembering when it was. And unlike the Quebec cultural habit (can't tell for outside Quebec), there wasn't any snow on the day Jesus was born :P

Just a few point about the Roman Catholic Church, of which I am a member.

The church has never said that the 25th December is the day of the birth of Christ, but only it is the day when we celebrate the birth of Christ.

The date will never be known, but we do have some rough ideas. The star of Bethlehem may have been a comet see in October of 3 or 4 BC. An English astronomer wrote a very good book on this, which tied the date down quite specifically. And naturally I can't bloody remember his name or the title of the book. I hate Wednesdays!

I also saw a BBC program about Christ last year, which suggested that Joseph and Mary returned to Bethlehem to live with josephs family until their child was born. The “manger” as we know it is not a stable at the side of an inn, but probably a cave, which people actually lived in. Remember in those time the animal lived in the same dwelling as the people, for extra heat as much as anything.

As for the Catholic Church being evil. No we’re not. Things have been done in the past, which were evil, but it was men who did that evil, not the church. The reason differentiate is his, the Catholic Church exposes a message of love forgiveness and protection of life. The murders and massacres carried out in the Holy Churches name were either as a result of political reasons or religious fanaticism. For ever wrong the Catholic Church is accused of remember that they also do a lot of good.

a few points to make-

A)The Roman Catholic church is by no means the first church, and it is by no means the church that can make a real cliame to lead christianity as such, tradition wise, it is the greek orthadox church which strethes the farthes, and depeding on you veiw of things, would have been the church Constantine founded, not catholsicim, though neither of them matter, as it the Egytipan Coptic Church which is older then either of them.

B)apeerntlly, the same comet identified with Jesus' birth is also identified with being the same comet claimed by Agustus to be be Julius Caesars' soul ascendi9ng into heaven. its a small world after all huh? ;)

C)I have heard somthing about a story in which mary was raped, but I dfont know anything about it to be honest, which while not really bringing anylight to when Jesus was apperntlly born, is a rather interesting novelty to toy with in the mind...

D)the tradition of a winter festival is a longheld tradition by nearlly,if not all ancient western religions

Nice to see so many new faces posting. Pls carry on. :)

Originally posted by Cullyn
The date will never be known, but we do have some rough ideas. The star of Bethlehem may have been a comet see in October of 3 or 4 BC. An English astronomer wrote a very good book on this, which tied the date down quite specifically. And naturally I can't bloody remember his name or the title of the book. I hate Wednesdays!

Some other specialists claim that events and locations described in the Bible at the time of Jesus where closer to 100 AD, in particular the temple where Jesus were going. A mistake of 100 years, in a time where there wasn't any fixed calendar, isn't that bad when you think of that afterall.

However, since the Bible was written sometime after those events happened it is quite possible that it's the ones who wrote the Bible who did the mistakes, possibly describing the events and locations of their time because they did not know how it really was 100 years ago.

The Bible aim was about the Message of the Christ. It is very possible that those who wrote it did not take a great care about the details, such as dates, exact locations and events. They put more care into the details regarding Jesus himself.

It's hard to discuss history surrounding the Bible and Jesus without hurting believers.

He was born 17th april 7BC, according to a nice documentary on discovery.

Seriously, I don't have a clue. It isn't possible to trace the birthdate of the lad. You can launch hundreds of nice theories to prove that you are right claiming he is born on a certain date in a certain year, but you can't prove it. If I have to make a guess, he is born between 40 BC and 40 AD. Probably right if you asume he did excist.

Originally posted by Mescalhead
He sure as sh!te didn't come in or out of the world in the year 0. I believe the possible years he was born in were either 6 CE or 14 CE, though that is off the top of my head. I also remember there being a 1 in 365 chance that he was born on Dec. 25.

Well thats because there was no year 0. He was born in 4BCE and died in 29AD.

Chrismas has everybody confused nowadays.

I laughed my ass off when I read in the newspaper that Muslim people did not want a christmastree in their house because it is a christian symbol...



:lol:

Actually he was born on April 17(or was it 16), 6 BCE.

I saw it on the history channel back during christmas time. The dated astrological timeline backwards to when all the starts were exactally that in the bible.