What does Christmas have to do with Jesus if He wasn't born on Dec 25?

Answer 1

No one knows for sure when Jesus was born. Some biblical scholars suggest it may have been around the month of July, August or September. Most all agree it could not have been in December.

In the 4th century, the Roman Catholic Church chose December 25th as the day to celebrate the birth of Christ or "Christ Mass" (even though nowhere in the Bible does it state we should celebrate Christ's birth). At the time, Romans were celebrating the Roman winter festival Saturnalia, commemorating the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn, and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, "the birthday of the Unconquered Sun". It is believed that the Church wanted to convert people without them having to give up their holidays. So, instead, these pagan holidays were incorporated into the Christian church under the guise of "Christ Mass".

Some people believe Saturnalia was the inspiration for the pagan festival of Yule, which celebrated the birth of the pagan Sun God, Mithras. Although not on the exact same days, Christmas customs are nearly identical to the customs of the people during these pagan winter holidays. For example, during Dies Natalis Solis Invicti "Mummers" were groups of costumed singers and dancers who traveled from house to house entertaining their neighbors. From this, the Christmas tradition of caroling was born. During the pagan festival of Yule, evergreen trees were worshipped. Mistletoe was considered a sacred plant, and the custom of kissing under the mistletoe was as a fertility ritual. Candles were lit to encourage Mithras, and the sun, to reappear next year, and hollyberries were thought to be a food of the gods. The word Yule actually means "wheel," a pagan symbol for the sun. In German paganism, Odin was a chief God with a long white beard. Children would place their boots, filled with carrots, straw or sugar, near the chimney for Odin's flying horse, Sleipnir. Odin would then reward those children for their kindness by replacing Sleipnir's food with gifts or candy. Sounds a lot like Santa Claus, but instead of boots, we now have Christmas stockings.

Today during Christmas celebrations, along with the pagan traditions of Santa Claus, caroling and mistletoe, some are found to still be worshipping the tree: "Oh, Christmas tree, Oh, Christmas tree, with all our hearts we love thee."

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It is possible to determine with the bible that Jesus was indeed born the 25 th of December. The Qumram texts show us that the priestly courses were continuously serving from Shabbat to Shabbat and scriptures say that there were 24 courses. The destruction of the temple was the nineth of Av 70 A.D. which was the 2 August. The ruling of Quirinus started in 6 BC and Herod the Great died on March 4 BC, so Jesus must have been born shy 2 years prior for he decreed the death of the boys of 2 years old or under. Therefore what you do is calculate the course of Abijah, whish is the eight, going backwards from 70 A.D. and you come to the conception of John the baptist, then 5 months and one day to the conception of Jesus and from there 9 months to the birth of Christ, the shabbath 25th of December 6 BCE at the solstice at 9:21 PM. His conception was in the month of March of the same year at Pesac. The Prophet Malachi calls him appropriately The Risen Sun. Julius Africanus and other anti Nicene writers acknowledge this date or a close date. There is evidence of christmas celebrations up to 150 A.D. There are also solstices that are pretty warm in the Bethlehem area, allowing the shepards to vigil their flocks as it is said by the evangelist

Now, most of the Cristian comunity worldwide, with just a few exceptions acknowledges Christmas as a joyful occasion and one starts to see preparations for the season as early as the ends of September and the beginning of October.

Saying that the celebration of his birth was not a mandate is a half truth, for the very night of his birth the angels of God celebrated along with the Shepard.

Saying also that some traditions are add ons from the old pagan customs is true, however, vilifying everything that has pagan origin is a big mistake. For we could not use ties, wedding rings, pants and other common things of our daily life.

Witches are known by their use of medicinal herbs, but that does not mean we should not drink a chamomile tea in good conscience.

Everyone agrees that the 3 wisemen were not israelites, and many would call them pagan, however they brought presentes to the Lord and they were accepted by Mary and Joseph!

Actually, the Wisemen were zoroastrian priest which is a monotheist religion that believes in only one God Aura Mazda, and that were waiting the coming of the King of Kings that prophet Zaratustra foresaw.

Stars are also used in magic and divination, however the prophet Balaam foresaw Jesus by inspiration and said: "...;there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Prince shall rise out of Israel,..." Numbers 24:17

So, there is the star!

And how many have slandered this wonderful wisemen, saying that they were astrologers, when zoroastrians repell astrology up to the present time!

Astrologers try to predict the future from the stars, this men just saw the star of the Prince and followed it! Actually the scriptures call stars to the angels of heaven. Perhaps the star was an angel that told them about the birth. This would explain how a star could guide them to a fixed point on earth. One just cannot follow an actual star and get anywhere.

So, Christmas has a lot to do with Christ and is genuine christian tradition.

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As stated in above Answers, December 25th is a pagan festival and has nothing to do with Christmas. (Indeed, Satan knows Scripture better than anyone and has had plenty of time to counterfeit ALL Christian festivals and Holy Days/Holidays). It is known that traditionally in the Middle East a person's age was reckoned from their time of conception and not their birth, which would make Jesus born late September - possibly on the Feast of Trumpets or Day of Atonement, but no-one knows for certain.

Answer 2

The holidays, customs and traditions of this world are not based upon the dictates of The Bible, but at the command of its god, Satan the Devil, whom man chose to worship and obey as his god in the Garden of Eden.

Only two "birthday" observances are recorded in the Bible; one in the Old Testament and one in the New. And both of those were celebrated by pagan, heathen leaders... Pharaoh and Herod. The Bible doesn't promote the heathen practice of birthday observance... the world does.

So, the celebration of "Jesus' birthday" isn't commanded by God, but by the god of this world... along with all the other pagan customs and traditions that the world and all of its merchants anticipate and depend each year, to try to stay economically solvent for another year.

Jesus reveals that much of man's worship of Him is in vain for just that reason:

"These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far away. Their worship is a farce, for they replace God's Commandments with their own man-made teachings. For you ignore God's specific laws in order to hold on to your own traditions." (Mark 7:7-9 NLT New Living Translation)

Nowhere in God's Word are His servants commanded to celebrate Jesus' birthday on any day, whatsoever... or in any way whatsoever... much less, by giving everyone else in the world a present, but Him. Nor does the Bible condone the heathen practice of "tree-worship" that the world ignorantly observes by wastefully killing off millions of trees every year, and setting them up in your house [see Jer.10:1-4] for a week or two.

The world does it on the command and dictates of this world's god: through the pagan customs and traditions handed down and traced back to the world-ruling empires of the past. Paul spent most of his time [and writings] trying to keep these heathen practices out of the Gentile churches that he planted in the name of the LORD. But, when his death finally took him out of Satan's way... they took root, anyway... and they quickly grew into the false modern professing "Christian" religion that the world has come to moderately tolerate, today.

No, the world doesn't do "Jesus' birthday" at the command of the Bible; but IN SPITE OF IT.

"As such, you break the law of God in order to protect your own tradition. And this is only one example. There are many, many others." (Mark 7:13)

Answer 3

There are lots of different theories. December 25th. is of course not consistent across all churches (The Coptic church celebrates Christmas in January!). Unlike Jeiwsh feast days and Easter, there is no scriptural requirement to celebrate Christmas so the day could have been put anyway (the date is not really that important - it's the fact that God entered human history in the form of a man that's important). From the dates that Zecharaiah (John the Baptist's father) was likely to have served in the Temple, it is probable that Jesus was born in Spring or Autumn (September is a possible month). Jesus' birth (and the immediate visit of the shepherds) does of course get confused in nativity scenes with the visit of the Magi or wise men. These came on a separate occassion much later (Jesus is described using the Greek word for 'toddler' rather than 'baby') and the Magi visit the family in a 'house'. This was therefore more than a year later (remember they had to get to Judah from Persia, which is a long trip ona camel or on foot!). This of course ties in with Herod killing chldren under two which would make no sense if they arrived at the same time as the shepherds immediately after Jesus' birth. Putting this together means that possibly the Magi arrived at around the mid winter time and that in the joining together of the birth narrative with the Magi visit story Christmas was placed at the likely time of the latter but that is only a theory. What is certain is that it was useful for the Christian church to be able to replace the Roman pagan Saturnalia midwinter festival with something.

As stated the date is not really important but do please read the accounts in Matthew and Luke again together with the Old Testament prophecies in Isaiah, Micah etc. (preferably in a modern version like The Message or NIV) and wonder at God's plan for saving mankind from the consequences of its own folly and arrogance. Note the little nuances like the fact that the lowest of the losw in the social strata (shepherds) got to see the Messiah first whilst the rich and powerful came later! There are some really interesting things going on in this story which are not really reflected in the westernised version of the story we see in our standard nativity plays and pictures .

Answer 4

Good question. Christmas as long as other holidays are all from pagan origin. Jesus never celebrated his own birthday. The only thing he told us is at Luke 22:19, when he said to remember his death. This is something that Jehovah's Witness do every year. For more information about the subject and more please visit wwwdotjwdotorg