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Many scholars actually disagree on the exact date.
But using scripture as our basis, and then checking
this out, with the aid of historical text, written
as close to the actual event as possible, I want to
present to you, what, I believe, is the best
possible conclusion, putting together all the
available facts.
One thing that all scholars seem to
agree on, is that the date of Jesus’ birth was
definitely not December 25th. Now there are among
others, a couple of very simple reasons for this,
which are not exactly rocket science. One is that,
Hebrew shepherds did not keep their sheep in ‘open
field’ after the month of September – because it was
too cold. So for the angel to have visited the
shepherds on the hillside it would have to be some
other time. Not December!
The second one is that you will
remember that Joseph and Mary were required to
travel to Bethlehem to register for a census. (This
was to do with a Roman practice, involving property
tax.) Well, no Roman administrator in his right
mind, would have his whole domain required to travel
at a time when most of Judea would have been
impassable, because of prevailing weather
conditions.
Now, when it comes to an exact date,
the Bible doesn’t give us too much information, and
most recognized bible helps generally give us a year
of 4BC. This is based largely on errors, recorded by
the ancient Jewish historian Josephus of an eclipse
which was assumed to have been on March 13th of 4BC,
- shortly before king Herod died. Now this, as far
as we’re concerned, has a number of problems….
A considerable amount of time
elapsed between Jesus’ birth and Herod’s death and
the Bible tells us that the family fled to Egypt and
didn’t return until it was safe to do so, after
Herod’s death. Now we know that Herod died on 14th
February of what we know as 1BC We also know from
Turtulian (born 160AD) that Augustus began to rule
41 years before Jesus was born and died 15 years
after that event on August 19th of 14AD
Now this places Jesus birth in the
year 2BC. Turtulian also quotes, that Jesus birth
took place, 28 years after the death of Cleopatra in
30BC which is consistent again with the year 2BC.
Ireaneus (who was born about 100
years after Jesus) also noted that Jesus was born in
the 41st year of the reign of Augustus, and since
Augustus began his reign in the autumn of 43BC this
also appears to substantiate the birth of Jesus in
2BC.
Usebeus (264-340AD) (he’s generally
regarded the father of church history) ascribes the
birth of Jesus to the 42nd year of the reign of
Augustus and the 28th year from the subjection of
Egypt on the death of Anthony and Cleopatra.
Now, the 42nd year of Augustus ran
from the autumn of 2 BC to the autumn of 1BC. The
subjugation of Egypt into the Roman empire occurred
in the autumn of 30 BC, and the twenty eighth year
ran from the autumn of 3BC to the autumn of 2BC.
Consequently the only
date which would possibly meet all these conditions
is autumn of the year 2BC.
That,
(if you study it), is fairly conclusive and we can
be quite certain about the year as being 2BC.
Now if we can work out the year,
let’s see if we can work out exactly when in the
year. We know it was not in the winter for the
reasons already stated and others but there is an
approach, that can be used to zero in on this. The
date can be identified because we have a lot of
information about John the Baptist in Luke chapters
1 & 2.
Elizabeth, John’s mother, was a
cousin of Mary and the wife of a priest named
Zachariah who was of the ‘course of Abijah’ because
we read in 1 chron;24 that King David divided the
priesthood into 24 groups or courses. As a result
all the priests were in one of 24 courses and there
was a rigorous procedure as to which course or
division would serve in the temple from Shabat to
Shabat. (Sabbath to Sabbath).
The Jews were very, very particular
about this just as the Jewish scribes were about
accurate copying the Word of God down through the
centuries…..
Now when the temple was destroyed by
Titus Vespasian on August 5th of AD70 we know that
the first course of priests had just taken office –
we know this from both Josephus and (perhaps more
importantly) the Talmud, and since the course of
Abijah was the eighth course we can work backwards
to work out when Zechariah would have been on duty
and he would have ended his duties on July 13th of 3
BC.
Now, if the birth of John the
Baptist took place 280 days (9 months) after this it
would have been on April 19/20th of 2 BC. I think
it’s rather exciting that this date also happens to
be Passover that year.
It’s provocative, I think, that when
30 years later John is introducing Jesus Christ, he
repeatedly introduces him as the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world.
Passover of course is all about the
lamb! John began his ministry in the 15th year of
Tiberius Cesar and the age that a Levite went into
the ministry was 30 years old. As Augustus died on
August 19th 14AD, that would have been the accession
year for Tiberius.
If John was born on April 19/20th of
2BC, his 30th birthday would have been April 19/20th
of 29AD (or, if you like, the 15th year of
Tiberius). Now this again, would seem to confirm the
2BC date since John was 5 months older than Jesus.
This also confirms an autumn birthday of Jesus.
You may recall ( from Luke, chapters
1 & 2) that Elizabeth ‘hid herself’ for 5 months and
then the angel Gabriel announced to Mary both
Elizabeth’s condition, and also that Mary herself
would bare a son whose name would be Jesus. It says
that Mary went “with haste” to visit Elizabeth, who
was then in the 1st week of her 6th month or the
fourth week of December 3BC.
If Jesus was born 280 days later it
would place the date of his birth on 29th September
of 2BC.
This is what I believe after
studying the facts as they are laid out before us.
Now you can check back, and what
(for me) also underlines this, is the fact that this
date in 2BC was the first day of Tishri, which also
happened to be the Feast of Trumpets of that year,
which I think is very significant. So there you have
it. Using all of the information available, both
Biblical and historical, the 29th September 2BC is
Jesus’ real birthday!
So why is it that we are in a
culture that celebrates this whole event on December
25th?
Well, the early church didn’t
celebrate Jesus’ birth as such. The first recorded
mention of celebrating Jesus’ birth is in the
calendar of Fallercallus about 354AD; he assumed
that Jesus’ birthday was on Friday December 23rd
1AD!
There are several problems with
that, not least of which is that it turns out that
this day wasn’t a Friday at all !…. so it’s not
worth even going into this as a viable date! It was
in the 4th century (312ad), that the Emperor
Constantine declared that ‘Christianity was now the
official religion of the Roman Empire’ along with
the Edict of Toleration. That was when the
Christians, who were persecuted and hiding in caves,
came out and exchanged their rags for the silks of
the court, and it then suddenly became politically
correct to celebrate Christmas.
However, the Romans were used to a
whole calendar of feasts that had come down from
their pagan traditions, and what people tend to do
is adapt what they are used to doing, to whatever
the current fashions of the day dictate.
December 25th was officially
proclaimed by the church fathers in 440AD more than
a hundred years later, and it was a vestige of a
Roman holiday called Saturnalia.
Saturnalia was observed near the
winter solstice (or shortest day) which is actually
about December 22nd/23rd depending in which part of
the world etc.
This whole tradition was derived
from ancient Babylon – more specifically the
Babylonian priesthood which just about sums up the
history of Christmas and the ‘official birthday’ of
Jesus.
Incidentally, one of the traditions
linked with Saturnalia is the burning of a log on
the fire. This log took its name from the young son
of Nimrod who represented the sun god. (The sun was
thought to die in the winter at this time of year).
The ancient Chaldean name for infant was ‘Yule’ ,
which is where we get the “Yule Log’. The
following morning, the burnt remains of the log were
replaced by a trimmed tree to represent the sun’s
miraculous new birth - which is how we got our
present day Christmas tree tradition!
Pastor Bob Forder
Deal Christian Fellowship
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