Christ is Born in Bethlehem!
The Biblical Case for Christ's December 25th Birth
Kurt Simmons
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Christmas is the most glorious time of the year. The whole year seems to pivot upon this date in the calendar. In nature, it is the time of the winter solstice when the days begin to grow longer and the dark of winter begins to recede before increasing light. In human affairs, it also occupies first place. No other day in the year approaches it for joy and specialness, or is adorned with the festivity reserved for it. The whole world over, Christmas sits atop the circle of seasons as king in the hearts of men and children. Be it art or music or works of charity, the Christmas theme touches us closest and inspires all that is best. Truly, it behooves us to thank God in the most humble way we know for the miracle of Christmas and the Savior’s birth. |
Christmas Shunned
Sadly, during the Reformation when the errors of the medieval church caused men to react against even the symbol of the cross, it was not uncommon for Christmas to be rejected as a superstitious and unauthorized innovation. Typical of the sentiments of the time are this statement by John Knox, the Scottish Presbyterian reformer:
| “By contrary Doctrine, we understand whatsoever men, by Laws, Councils, or Constitutions have imposed upon the consciences of men, without the expressed commandment of God's word: such as be vows of chastity, foreswearing of marriage, binding of men and women to several and disguised apparels, to the superstitious observation of fasting days, difference of meat for conscience sake, prayer for the dead; and keeping of holy days of certain Saints commanded by men, such as be all those that the Papists have invented, as the Feasts (as they term them) of Apostles, Martyrs, Virgins, of Christmas, Circumcision, Epiphany, Purification, and other fond feasts of our Lady. Which things, because in God's scriptures they neither have commandment nor assurance, we judge them utterly to be abolished from this Realm; affirming further, that the obstinate maintainers and teachers of such abominations ought not to escape the punishment of the Civil Magistrate.”[1] |
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Here we see Christmas lumped in together with
such things as prayer for the dead and vows of celibacy, as if these
were somehow substantively similar.
Yet one is merely a day of remembering an event in sacred
history, the others doctrines and commandments of men.
The
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Thus, while Beza, Luther, and other
reformers found no fault with Christmas, many Calvinist and
Presbyterian reformers did, adopting a rule of worship that excluded
all things not positively prescribed.
The "regulatory rule" of worship, as it came to be known, is
best described by Samuel Miller (1769-1850) in his book
The
Worship of the Presbyterian Church:
"The Scriptures being the only infallible rule of faith and practice, no rite or ceremony ought to have a place in the public worship of God, which is not warranted in Scripture, either by direct precept or example, or by good and sufficient inference."[3] |
As time has moved on and men have come to see the worship of the church less in terms of a "divine service" or liturgy whose minute rituals are all prescribed, and more in terms of a time of thanks and praise where a minister delivers a sermon appropriate to any number of occasions secular and religious, it has become increasingly difficult to convince men that it is somehow wrong for the minister to deliver a sermon about the birth of Christ at Christmas time. After all, how can it be acceptable to preach about motherhood on Mothers’ Day, the duty of father’s at Fathers’ Day, the importance of choosing Christian leaders at election time, but not permitted to proclaim the wonders of Christ’s birth at Christmas? Moreover, as most families keep some form of celebration at December 25th, it is highly incongruous to banish Christmas from the church house when we keep it in our own homes. Thus, what objection to Christmas remains today has more to do with the validity of the date assigned for Christ’s birth then the substance of its actual celebration. The balance of this article is thus directed to demonstrating the scriptural date of Jesus’ birth. We feel that the evidence for the December 25th birth of Christ is as conclusive as the nature of the case will allow and invite those who are so disposed to attempt its successful contradiction. The principle evidence from scripture discussed here consists in:
1) The baptism and wilderness fast of Christ,
2) The priestly courses and conception of John the Baptist, and
3) The arrival of the Magi and death of Herod the Great (or the Slaughter of the Innocents and execution of Antipater).
Luke’s Chronology and the
Baptism of Christ
| The only explicit reference to Christ's age and
hint to his date of birth is in the gospel of Luke.
Luke says that Jesus was baptized in the 15th year of
Tiberius on the threshold of his 30th birthday (Lk. 1:1, 23).
The 15th year of Tiberius was A.D. 29.
The A.D. 29 baptism of Christ is corroborated by Daniel's
seventy prophetic weeks where he states that the Messiah would
appear 483 years ("seven weeks and three score and two weeks") from
the commandment to restore and rebuild the gates and walls of
Jerusalem (Dan. 9:25).
Dating from the commandment of Artaxerxes given to Nehemiah in 454
B.C. (Neh. 1:1; 2:1), this would bring us to A.D. 29 (483 - 454 = 29
A.D.). But if Christ was
on the threshold of his 30th birthday in AD 29, this means that he
was born in 2 B.C. A 2
B.C. birth would mean Jesus’ 30th birthday would occur sometime
before the close of A.D. 29.
Thus, Jesus turned 30 years old sometime between his baptism
and |
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Since Jesus would turn 30 years old before the
close of A.D. 29, identifying the date of Jesus’ baptism will give
us the range of months in which the Lord was born.
Daniel prophesied that Jesus would have a
three-and-a-half-year ministry (Dan.
“On the ordinary Christian interpretation, this applies to the crucifixion of our Lord, which took place, according to the received calculation, during the fourth year after his baptism by John, and the consequent opening of his ministry.”[5]
Based upon Josephus, Eusebius confirms that
Christ's ministry was confined within the space of four years,
bounded by the high priesthoods of
Ananus and Caiaphas.
Since Daniel
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At this point issues of the Jewish calendar enter in. The Jews used a luni-solar calendar. Months were determined by the new moon and hence lunar, but the beginning of the year was determined by the vernal equinox (the point in the spring at which the length of the day and night are equal), and hence solar. The first month in the Jewish ceremonial calendar was Nisan (or Abib) when Passover was celebrated. Passover occurs at evening the 14th day of Nisan at the first full moon on or after after the vernal equinox. However, a luni-solar calendar has this problem, that twelve lunar months are 11 days shorter than the solar year. In three years time the lunar calendar will lag behind the solar year by 33 days. Hence, it is necessary to periodically bring the two systems back into synchronization, or feasts nominally set to occur in spring will shortly occur in the dark of winter. |
To accomplish this, the Jews added an extra month seven times in 19 years, or about every third year. This thirteenth month was called “second Adar,” and was so added as to bring Nisan (the first month) back into synchronization with the vernal equinox. This means is that in the course of Jesus’ three-and-half-year ministry, a leap year of thirteen months would have occurred As it happens, scholars believe an intercalary month was added by the Jews in A.D. 32. The following chart, corroborated by Finegan based upon the work of Parker and Dubberstein, shows that Nisan fell in May in A.D. 33.[6]
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Date of Nisan 15 in AD 33 |
After the captivity, the Jews took their calendar from the Babylonians, even adapting the names of months (Nisan for Nisanu, etc). To determine when the Jews intercalated a leap year, we add 747 the year Anno Nabonassari (era of the Babylonian monarch Nabonassar), to the Gregorian year of our modern era, then divide by nineteen. The remainder tells us the year in the nineteen year cycle. Leap years occupied years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19 in the cycle. (Leap years are tabulated on the Metonic table, named after the Greek mathematician who discovered it.) In this case, 747 + 32 = 779 ÷ 19 = 41 with no remainder. Because the divisor is nineteen, a remainder of “zero” equals the nineteenth year of the cycle. Thus, A.D. 32 was the nineteenth year in the cycle and was indeed a leap year as affirmed by Parker and Dubberstein.[7] The intercalation of a month in the year preceding Jesus’ death means that the date that comes forward for Christ's baptism 3 ½ years earlier is Heshvan (November) 15th, A.D. 29.[8]
Jesus’ Forty-Day Fast and
Thirtieth Birthday
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Why else would Luke include the particulars he did about Jesus not yet being 30 years old if he did not intend us to understand that his birthday followed fast upon his baptism? And if by simple arithmetic the date that emerges is December 25th, what is to prevent us from receiving it as the date of Christ’s birth? Given that this is also the traditional date handed down from antiquity (see below) it is surely a very great coincidence; we believe too great to be mere chance. But, let every matter be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses.
AD 70 and the Course of Jehoiarib
The December birth of Christ can also be
demonstrated by reckoning backward from the destruction of
"In Taan. 29 [i.e., the Talmudic Tractate
Taanith, on Fasting and Fast-days[9]] we have
the notice, with which that of Josephus agrees (War 6:4, 1, 5), that
at the time of the destruction of the
The Course of Abijah and
Conception of John the Baptist
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Edersheim’s conclusion can be corroborated. The late December birth of Christ can be shown by reconstructing the priestly cycles. There were twenty-four courses of priests (I Chrn. 24:7-18). Each course served one week twice each year, plus such additional weeks necessary to fill out the year (51 weeks in a normal year, but 56 in a leap year). Assuming each course advanced each year to the next station, the whole cycle of priestly ministration would be fulfilled in twenty-four years, at which point the cycle would begin anew.[11] Of the twenty-four courses, only two concern us, the first, which was Jehoiarib, and the eighth, which was Abijah, to which Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist belonged. The courses began the cycle each year at the Sabbath at or next before Tishri 1. |
Knowing from Jewish tradition that the course of Jehoiarib was serving when the temple was destroyed on the 9th of Ab, A.D. 70, we can identify the station in the twenty-four year cycle. From there we can find when the cycle began. Then, by reckoning backward in twenty-four year increments to the course preceding the conception of John the Baptist in 3 B.C., we can putatively identify the week and month Zechariah was serving.
The number of steps from the first station of Jehoiarib’s second course, to Ab 9-15 is twenty-one stations. Thus, A.D. 70 was the twenty-first year in the twenty-four year cycle. To return to the beginning of the cycle we subtract twenty years from A.D. 70, which brings us to A.D. 50. Subtracting twenty-four more years brings us to A.D. 26; this course would therefore have consisted of the years A.D. 26-49. Twenty-four more years brings us to A.D. 2; this course would have consisted of the years A.D. 2-25. 24 years more bring us to 23 B.C. (there was no year zero). This course would have consisted of the years 23 B.C. to 1 A.D.
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Counting forward from 23 B.C. to 3 B.C. when John was conceived shows that the course of Abijah would have been serving at its twenty-first station when Gabriel appeared to Zechariah (23 B.C. to 3 B.C. = 21). Assuming Zechariah’s course was in its second ministration, this would mean he was on duty the week of Elul 27-Tishri 4. Based on statements in Luke, John was just less than six months older than our Lord (Lk. |
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Arrival of the Magi & Death
of Herod the Great
(or the Slaughter of the
Innocents & Herod's execution of Antipater)
The evidence here is more tangible and subject
to fewer uncertainties than that of the priestly courses, but
happily validates those conclusions all the same.
Matthew reports that Magi came from the east
seeking the new-born King. When word of this reached Herod, he
learned from the scribes and elders of the Jews that Christ would be
born in
| When Herod learned that the Magi had returned
home another way, he ordered the Slaughter of the Innocents.
The Armenian church believes that the Slaughter of the
Innocents occurred 15 weeks after the birth of Christ.
This would place it in the first week of April which agrees well with the time frame implicit in a December
25th birth, Mary’s 40-day cleansing and the presentation of baby
Jesus at the temple, followed by the holy family’s return to |
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Josephus reports
that Herod, knowing the Jews would rejoice at his death, ordered all
the principal men of the realm to assemble to
In a chapter reporting the witty sayings of
Augustus Caesar, Macrobius states that when Augustus was told about
the Slaughter of the Innocents and the execution of Herod's son,
Antipater, Augustus said "it is better to be Herod's hog, than his
son."[12]
This provides secular verification of Matthew’s account; it
also places the Slaughter of the Innocents near the time of
Antipater’s death.
Josephus reports that Herod survived Antipater by only five days
(Josephus, Antiquities XVII, vi, vii; Wars I, xxxii).
We know that Herod was concerned about the succession of his
throne, changing his will in the final days of his life, naming
Archelaus as his successor (Josephus, Wars I, xxxii, 7).
Doubtless, Herod’s purpose in ordering Antipater’s execution
was more than personal vengeance, and was calculated to help ensure
Archelaus’s unimpeded succession.
Similar concerns also lay behind Herod’s desire to destroy
the Christ child and the Slaughter of the Innocents.
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Josephus and Macrobrius and Matthew therefore validate one another’s accounts of Herod in the final days of his life. More to the point, however, Macrobrius indirectly signifies that the Slaughter of the Innocents was one of Herod’s last acts on earth. Where we tend to assume that Joseph and Mary were in Egypt a long while, perhaps as much as several years before Herod died, we find instead that they were there only a short time. This in turn allows us to reckon backward from Herod’s death to arrive at an approximate time for the birth of Christ. |
According to the best sources (Filmer, Finegan,
Martin), Herod died sometime after the eclipse of
Church Fathers
This represents the evidence from scripture for the December 25th birth of Christ as we presently understand it. Further evidence (among other) exists in the universal practice of the church and tradition of the church fathers. The testimony of the church fathers is almost unanimous in favor of the December 25th birth of Christ. The weight of their testimony also comes down in favor of his birth in the year 2 B.C. (For a full discussion of the year of Christ's birth, see W.E. Filmer, here and our article here.)
Augustine was bishop of Hippo and one of the
most influential writers of the early church; his imprint remains
even to this day.
Augustine is not the earliest source for the Dec. 25th birth of
Christ, but he announces a principle regarding the universal
practice of the church that is important at the outset, so we will
take his evidence first.
In his 118 Epistle to Jannuarius, speaking of the yearly feasts then
observed, Augustine states:
"Those feasts concerning which we have no
express scripture, but only traditions, which are now observed all
the world over; we ought to know that the keeping of them was
commended unto us, and instituted (or commanded) either by the
apostles themselves, or general councils, of which there is a most
wholesome use in the church of God; such are the feast of our Lord's
Passion, Resurrection Ascension into heaven, and the coming down of
the Holy Ghost, which are now kept holy with a yearly solemnity."
In the following epistle (119), Augustine then
says:
"It chiefly behooves us that upon the day of
our Lord's nativity, we should receive the sacrament in remembrance
of him that was born upon it, and upon the return of the year to
celebrate the very day with a feasting devotion."
The point we should solemnly consider here is
Augustine's observation that whatever was practiced universally
throughout the church in the whole world was presumably set in place
by the apostles or by a general church council.
But as no council established the Feast of the Nativity, it
exists by tradition, and this presumably from either "word or
epistle" (II Thess. 2:15; 3:6; I Cor. 11:2, 23) handed down from the
time of the apostles - a proposition we Protestants will receive
with reluctance, but which cannot be lightly dismissed in view of
the fact that scripture provides confirmation for the received
tradition. Concerning the date of Christ's birth, Augustine states:
“He was born, according to tradition, upon
December the twenty-fifth.” (On the Trinity, 4.5, Post Nicene
Fathers 3.74)
Regarding the Baptist’s June birth, Augustine said:
“John came into this world at the season of the
year when the length of the day decreases; Jesus was born in the
season when the length of the day increases.” (Sermon In Natali
Domini xi).
Thus, Augustine places John's birth at the summer solstice and Jesus' birth upon Dec. 25th, at the winter solstice.
Apostolic Constitutions -
Circa AD 70-250
The
Apostolic Constitutions are a compilation, whose material is derived
from sources differing in age.
Early writers were inclined to assign them to the apostolic
age, and to Clement Romanus (A.D. 70), but they are now generally
assigned to the second or third century.
In the Fifth book, Sec. III, we find:
"Brethren, observe the festival days; and first of all the birthday which you are to celebrate on the twenty-fifth of the ninth month."
Theophilus, Bishop of
"We ought to celebrate the birth-day of our
Lord on what day soever the 25th of December shall happen."
(Magdeburgenses, Cent. 2. c. 6. Hospinian, de orign Festorum
Chirstianorum)
Hippolytus of
Hippolytus of Rome provides one of the earliest
known references to the December 25 birth of Christ, in his
commentary on Daniel:
“The first coming of our Lord, that in the flesh, in which he was born at Bethlehem, took place eight days before the calends of January, a Wednesday, in the forty-second year of the reign of Augustus, 5500 years from Adam.” (Commentary on Daniel 4:23)[13]
The eighth before the calends of January is the twenty-fifth day of December, and the forty-second year of Augustus was 3/2 BC.
Diocletian AD 244-311
Nicephorus wrote an ecclesiastical history in
which he reports Diocletian's destruction of a church on Dec. 25th,
filled with worshippers celebrating the Lord's Nativity:
"At
Further evidence for December 25th is found in the Roman city calendar for the year 354. This calendar lists burial places of the martyrs (Depositio martyrum) arranged in the order of the days of the year on which festivals were held in their honor. It is believed by some that the calendar first dates to 336, but was later revised and extended to the year 354. The sequence of festivals in the church year begins with the item:
“VIII Kal. Ian. Natus Christus in Betleem
Judeae”
The eighth day before the calends of January is
December 25th. Thus, in the year AD 336, the festival of the birth
of Christ was held on Dec. 25.
We note that in each of these cases the tradition that Jesus was born on December 25th stands upon scripture or the received testimony of earlier ages and nowhere upon the “Christianization” of the pagan solstice or festival of the “unconquered sun” (sol invictus) as is so often suggested. The circumstance that Jesus was born at the time of the solstice should no more disturb us than his resurrection at the vernal equinox when pagans celebrated the rebirth of the earth following the pall of winter death. To the contrary, we should glory at the appropriateness and poetic beauty of a winter birth when the dark of sin and death began to recede before the Sun of Righteousness (Mal. 4:2) and light of salvation.
Conclusion
The evidence for the December 25th birth of Christ is as conclusive as the nature of the case will allow: Luke’s chronology, the testimony of Jewish tradition and Josephus regarding the destruction of the temple and the priestly courses, the execution of Antipater and slaughter of the Innocents (or the arrival of the Magi and death of Herod the Great) and the voice of the church fathers all combine to affirm that the traditional date for the Savior’s birth is scripturally based and scripturally sound.
May God bless you and your family at Christmas
as you pause to remember the day when the Christ-child was born in
NOTES:
[1] Knox's History, Vol. 2, p. 281. Cf. John Knox, Works (David Laing, ed.; Edinburgh: James Thin, 1895), Vol. ii, p. 190.
[2]
In Knox, Works, Vol. vi, pp. 547-48. The same
position is expressed in the Second Scotch Confession
(1580), which rejects the "dedicating of kirks, altars,
days."
[3]
Miller, pp. 65. This same concept would later find its way
into the Churches of Christ of the Stone/Campbell movement
of the early 19th century through Campbell who was of
Presbyterian background.
[4] Assertions Jesus was born in 6 BC based upon Herod's asserted death in 4 BC contradict scripture and are wrong. A 2 BC birth and the fact Jesus was not yet 30 yrs. old at the time of his autumn baptism AD 29 obviates the possibility of a Jan. 6th birthday as held by the early Eastern church, Beckwith, and others. Finegan, § 473, p. 278.
[5]
J. E. H. Thomson, Daniel – The Pulpit Commentary
(Hendrickson,
[6] Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (Hendrickson, 1964, 1998), p. 363
[7]
See the article The Babylonian Calendar after R.A.
Parker & W.H. Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology at
http://www.friesian.com/calendar.htm
[8]
The Jewish calendar rarely coincides with our own.
Nisan 15 of the former era sometimes translates into
May 3rd in our calendar and era.
This brings up a point: when translating important
dates from one system to another, it is traditional to
preserve the day by merely transferring it to the nearest
equivalent in the target calendar.
For example, Judas Maccabaeus cleansed and
rededicated the temple after its desecration by Antiochus
Epiphanes on Casleu 25, 164 BC.
This is commemorated by the feast of Dedication (Jn.
10:22), modernly “Hanukkah,” which is always celebrated on
December 25th (the traditional date of Jesus’ birth) even
though Casleu 25 actually may fall on some other day from
year to year in the Gregorian calendar. Similarly, when
reckoning backward from Christ’s death Nisan 15 to his
baptism we figure from May 15th, not May 3rd, for it is
Jewish dates we are dealing with and seek to identify, not
Gregorian.
[9]“Rabbi Yose used to say: Propitiousness is assigned to a propitious day and calamity toa calamitous day. As it is found said: When the temple was destroyed, the first time, that day was immediately after the Sabbath, it was immediately after the Sabbatical year, it was (during the service of) the priestly division of Jehoiarib, and it was the ninth day of Ab, as the second time (the temple was destroyed).” Seder ‘Olam Rabbah (30.86-97), as quoted in Finegan, p. 107, § 203. Rabbi Yose ben Halafta was active in AD 150, eighty years after the event, and so is an important witness. He is confirmed by Josephus, Wars VI, iv, 1, 5.
[10] Alfred Edersheim, The Life and
Times of Jesus the Messiah (8th ed.,
[11] Evidence that the courses advanced each year and did not maintain the same position in the calendar from year to year is preserved in the saying of Rabbi Abbahu (AD 300) in Jerusalem Talmud y. Sukka 5.7-8. Finegan, 133, §242. It also consists in the tradition that Jehoiarib was serving the week of the 9-15th of Ab in AD 70, for unless the courses advanced, it would not have been serving at that station.
[12] Saturnalia, II, 4, 11 - "Cum audisset inter pueros quos in Syria Herodes rex Iudaeorum intra bimatum iussit interfici filium quoque eius occisum, ait: Melius est Herodis porcum esse quam filium."
[13] Hippolytus, Commentaire sur Daniel (trans. Maurice Lefevre; SC 14; Paris: Cerf, 1947; trans Beckwith, RQ9 (1977): 74. By our reconstruction of the priestly courses, Dec. 25th in 2 B.C. fell upon a Friday, not Wednesday as stated by Hippolytus.
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Adoration of the Shepherds
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