Christmas

The Date
The annual Christian festival held on 25 December (or 6/7 January within some Orthodox traditions), to celebrate Christ's birth. No one really knows for sure the day or year when Jesus was actually born. The tradition of the early Church held the date to be either 6 January or 25 December, depending on the calendar used. A potential problem with this, often stated, is that Jesus could not have been born in midwinter because the Bible says that the shepherds were in the fields at the time with their sheep (Luke 2.8). However, the Mishnah, a collection of ancient Jewish legal documents, shows that shepherds and their flocks were sometimes in the fields during the wintertime (Mishnah Seqal. 7.4). So a winter date is not necessarily out of the question.

Nevertheless, many argue that the selection of 25 December was more symbolic. They view the choice of this date as a snub to the pagan beliefs common in the Roman Empire at the time. On that date, people used to celebrate the birth of the sun god Mithras. Some people believe that replacing the Mithras festival with the birth of Christ was a way of edging paganism off the scene. However, there is little evidence that this is what happened and this idea only became popular in the twelfth century CE. In any case, there is another good reason for the choice of 25 December. The gospel of Luke (1.5-11, 23-24) seems to suggest that a relative of Mary (the mother of Jesus) called Elizabeth fell pregnant soon after her husband had seen a vision during the festival of Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur takes place on the tenth of the Jewish month of Tishri (September/October). Mary is said to have fallen pregnant six months after Elizabeth (1.26-45), which would be the Jewish month of Nisan (March/April). Nine months of pregnancy would therefore mean that Jesus was born some time during the Jewish month of Tebeth (December/January). There are some rough edges to this chronology, but we know from the Christian writer Augustine that it did influence the choice of 25 December in the early Church (On the Trinity, Sermon 202).

As to pinpointing the year, there are an even more complex series of factors to take into account, including the date of King Herod's death, the census of Quirinius (see below) and the age when Jesus started his career (understood from Luke 3.23 to be aged 30). Most scholars think that Jesus was born between 4-6 BCE.

The Story
The census of Quirinius is sometimes mentioned as a mistake in the Christmas story. Luke 2.1-3 describes how Jesus was born during a census (in Greek, apographe) of the Roman world. This is said to have taken place when Caesar Augustus was reigning and when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Some scholars argue that there is no evidence of such a large-scale census across the Roman Empire. They also maintain that the Romans would never make people return to their ancestral homes just to be taxed.

However, other scholars point out that apographe would be better translated ‘registration'. A registered oath of loyalty to Caesar Augustus was required throughout the Roman Empire (including Judaea) in 3 BCE to mark his silver jubilee. The problem with this is that Quintilus Varus, not Quirinius (as recorded in the Bible), was the Roman legate (governor) of Syria at this time. However, the Roman historian Tacitus indicates that sometimes, provinces were ruled by both a legate and a procurator (Tacitus, Agricola 15). So it would be entirely possible for Quirinius to have been the procurator, but not the legate, when Jesus was born. The early Christian writer Justin Martyr says this was in fact the case (Apology 1.34).

At Christmas, the subject of whether Jesus really was born in a stable sometimes comes up. Many Bibles says that the baby Jesus was laid ‘in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn' (Luke 2.7). This can conjure up images of a wooden stable at the back of a hotel, as in so many nativity plays. A number of biblical scholars have pointed out, however, that this verse would be better translated as ‘no space in the upper room' of a house. Lower rooms were often used as stables, which is why there was a manger available.

These wise men are described in the gospel of Matthew as travelling to worship Jesus, guided by a star. The Bible doesn't say that there were three of them (some traditions say there were as many as 12), but many assume that from the fact that there are three kinds of gift named (one per visitor). The visitors are described in Greek as magoi, a word which refers to priests/wise men from Persia who were both stargazers and dream interpreters. Later Christian thought linked the visitors with the kings riding camels of Psalm 72. The wise men are not named in the Bible; later tradition named them Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar.