Jesus was born on December 25th true or false?

Answer 1

No Jesus was certainly not born on December 25th. As it was very cold and the weather would be to harsh , to expect sheperds to keep their flocks out in the cold .

The date 25th of December is given by the early christians, as they saw that the pagans celebrated the god Satans birthday on 25th December. Then the early christians changed it as christs birthday on 25 th December.

Another, more correct view than that of the above, is that there is nothing to trump December 25th as the birth of Jesus.

Midal Eder was a 'tower of the flock' where shepherds would have stayed all the year round to watch over sacrificial lambs just outside of Bethlehem.

From Life and Times of the Messiah, Alfred Edersheim notes:

"That the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem was a settled conviction. Equally so was the belief, that He was to be revealed from Migdal Eder, 'the tower of the flock.' This Migdal Eder was not the watchtower for the ordinary flocks which pastured on the barren sheepground beyond Bethlehem, but lay close to the town, on the road to Jerusalem. A passage in the Mishnah leads to the conclusion, that the flocks, which pastured there, were destined for Temple-sacrifices, and, accordingly, that the shepherds, who watched over them, were not ordinary shepherds."

He goes on to note that such shepherds would be about their work all the year round, thus the misconception that Jesus MUST be born in a warmer month is rendered moot.

Though authenticity of the writings are questioned, both Hippolytus and Theophilus of Antioc wrote of the birth of Christ being on December 25th, and though heretical, the Donatists of Northern Africa had been celebrating a feast on that very day for some time before the Roman Holiday of Sol Invictus was invented. The above references the celebration of Saturnalia, which was anywhere from December 17th to the 22nd, but certainly never the 25th as the winter equinox is never on that day.

All that said, the traditional day was likely upheld due to the fact that, depending on which date is assigned to Passover, December 25th is exactly 9 months after it, and both Jewish custom as well as Christian theology in the early centuries AD lent themselves well to tying the conception of the Messiah as the same day as His death. Thus, in the end, no better date can be upheld than the traditional December 25th, or possibly the Eastern January 6th (celebrated as Epiphany by some) once the dust has settled and even confusion present in the early church over the date has been over-viewed, much of which exists.