The Birth of Jesus

Many a person over the past, who knows how many years, have attempted to identify exactly when the birth of Jesus occurred and none have yet to accomplish that with any degree of certainty. The reason being, there is not enough information in the bible to lead to the date in question.

I am in no way against celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25^th or any other time. It has been tradition for way too long to change it to another time and I feel that any time is a good time to celebrate Jesus, whether it’s His birth, death and/or resurrection.

So many people, when attempting to pinpoint the actual day and/or month of His birth, have included in their determination many assumptions, estimates and hearsay from other writers that makes their conclusions nothing more that an estimate or assumption.

Because of a lack of facts there is no possibility that anyone can come to an exact month or even the day when Jesus was born. One reason is the difference in the calendars that have been used down through the ages and the unknown fact how those ancient calendars match up with our modern ones. To give an example, the bible month of Nisan falls somewhere during our month of March and April. The same applies to all the rest of the bible months. So an exact calculation can not be determined.

Even with stating all of these problems to determine dates, I can safely state that as a result of my study on the subject, the month of December could not possibly be the month of Jesus’ birth, let alone the 25^th being the day.

The one clue or the key to help us determine what the date could possibly be is in the book of Luke in the Bible. It is written in Luke Chapter one that John the Baptist was conceived at a certain time and Jesus was conceived by Mary about six months later.

To lay some background for this we see that the father of John, Zacharias was a priest and a descendent of a priest named Abijah/Abia who lived during the time of David the King of Israel. This Abijah or Abia as he was known was appointed to serve in the Temple of God during certain times of the year as was other priests. Each priest was to serve in the Temple for a seven day period, twice a year. Abia was chosen to serve in the eighth course, which would have been the eighth week that started on the 12^th day of Sivan being the third month of the ancient calendar. This month Sivan corresponded to our calendar and overlapped the months of May & June.

The father of John, Zacharias, was serving in the Temple just before the conception of John occurred. Zacharias was visited by an Angel who told him about the conception of John by his wife Elisabeth. Because Zacharias questioned the angel, the angel told Zacharias that he wouldn’t be able to speak a word until his son was born. After Zacharias completed his service in the Temple, he hurried home knowing that he was going to be mute for at least 9 ½ months.

This time of service in the Temple could have been during the first course of his service in the month of Sivan which was May/June of our calendar or his second week during the month of Kislev which was November/December in our calendar.

Luke tells us that when Elizabeth, John’s mother was in her sixth month of pregnancy, Mary the future mother of Jesus came to visit her. At this time Mary had already conceived with Jesus.

If this sixth month of John’s conception occurred after Zacharias’ first week of service during the year, it meant that Mary would have traveled to visit Elisabeth in the month of Kislev, our month of December during the winter time. It is highly unlikely for Mary to travel either on foot or on a donkey some 60+ miles in the winter time. If this had been true then Jesus would have been born 9 ½ months later in our month of September or October.

If this sixth month of John’s conception occurred after Zacharias’ second week of service in the Temple during the year, it meant that Mary would have traveled to visit Elisabeth in the month of  May or June, being pregnant with Jesus, would have his birth occurring 9 ½ months later in our month of March or April. It is much more likely for shepherds to be tending their flocks in the field versus September or October.

Another aspect to consider is this recorded in Luke Chapter two. At the time Jesus was about to be born, Caesar Augustus order everyone to travel to their city of birth in order to be taxed. Now if Augustus had ordered this to be done near December 25^th, it would have really upset the people having to do all this traveling in the dead of winter. This also is highly improbable that Augustus would take the chance for the people to revolt because of this. March would have been more likely and even maybe September, but December 25^th, I don’t think so.

So in conclusion, whether his birth occurred in March or September under either scenario could be realistic, but December is out of the question. The most important thing is not when Jesus was born, just the fact that He was.

Here is just another example that the tradition of man influences our lives more than the truth of the scriptures.

Return to Main Index Page, click here