From biblegateway.com
Christmas Facts and Fictions: Sorting Through Myth, History, and Scripture for the Real Story Behind the Season
Every year around this time the same questions arise, among both Christians and non-Christians: when and where was Jesus really born? Is Christmas secretly a pagan holiday? And what’s the deal with the chubby guy in red?
Since the biblical narrative often gets blended with extrabiblical tradition, art, and carols, I’m going to clear up the confusion with a bit of background info, a dash of mythbusting — and some surprising discoveries along the way.
What I’m not going to do is spoil anybody’s Christmas fun. Christmas is one of my favorite times of year, for a host of reasons extending from cozy family vibes to incarnational soteriology. I’m not going to tell you how you should or shouldn’t celebrate this holiday!
Instead, my goal is to add to the fun with some biblical context and historical facts that will help you understand and appreciate the “what” and “why” of many of our Christmas traditions — and make your own educated decision about which of them to include in your celebrations.
Was Jesus Actually Born on December 25?
Let’s get this one out of the way: the Bible does not give a date for Jesus’ birth — not in the prophets, not in the gospels, not in Paul’s letters. We don’t even get a season, though some scholars have tried to make guesses based on the fact that the sheep were out in the fields at the time (Luke 2:8), which possibly — though inconclusively — suggests warmer weather.
Indeed, the earliest attested dating of Jesus’ birth is given by Clement of Alexandria as May 20. But that was about 200 years after the fact, and Clement adds that it is disputed by other Christian groups.
It wasn’t until at least 300 AD that December 25 became the popular date.
Why December 25?
The most commonly repeated theory is that early Christians chose late December to replace pagan solstice festivals that happened around that time. Logically, that makes a lot of sense — after all, we do know that Christians occasionally adapted some aspects of pagan festival celebrations.
There’s just one problem: there’s no actual evidence for it among any ancient sources.
As Yale professor and Anglican priest Andrew McGowan explains, the earliest patristic sources (e.g., Tertullian and Augustine) determined that Jesus must have been conceived on the same day that he was crucified, which they calculated as March 25.
And what’s nine months after March 25?
You guessed it.
The truth is that we do not and cannot know on what day Jesus was born; Scripture is silent on the matter. But December 25 is as good a date as any to celebrate the birth of our Lord — especially with 1700 years of tradition behind it.
Read more here
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