was Jesus really born on December 25?

[Pariah]

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.

 

[Evie]

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.

 

[Chauliodus]

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.

 

[Amenhotep7]

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

 

[Inter4]

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.

 

[Pariah]

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

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.

 

[Zoke0]

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.

 

[Tsargrad]

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

 

[Sir Bugsy]

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

 

[Pariah]

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."

 

[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.

 

[Pariah]

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.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

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.

 

[Evie]

*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.

 

[Pariah]

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).

 

[violentjack]

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

 

[NankingDan]

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.

 

[Tom|420]

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

 

[Cullyn]

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.

[rant]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.[/rant]

 

[Xen]

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