We celebrate the birth of Jesus on the 25th of December each year. This is the year 2009, which is to say 2009 years since he was born. Was he actually born on the 25th and we decided to wait 7 days to start the calender? Or was Jesus actually born on January 1st and we moved the celebration back 7 days instead?
Mordent
Favorite Answer
Because Yule or Saturnalia - the pagan winter festival associated with the birth of the new year and the winter solstice was so powerful that it was impossible to stamp out. Therefore the Christians simply replaced the rebirth of mother earth with the birth of Christ.
Saturnalia was held from the 17th to the 23rd of december, whereas yule could be any time from the end of november until the beginning of January. The midwinter solstice is usually on the 21st or 22nd of December. Christmas naturally followed the timing of these earlier festivals. In the 3rd century Christmas could be any time from November to March, depending on where in the world you were - as it had not been centralised as to when exactly Christ's birth should be celebrated.
The Bible makes absolutely no mention of the date when Christ was born.
Andrew H
Actually it's believed that Jesus was born in 4 BC. Christ was born 4 years before himself!
As for why December 25th - an ancient winter festival was hijacked (Saturnalia).
Anonymous
B/c of the numerous iciness Solstice celebrations that handed off. The catholic church on the time desperate it would be much less annoying to take each and every of the celebrating and say it became into b/c of their faith (eye roll) because of the fact of this evergreen trees are adorned and mistletoe and holly are used as decorations, even with having NO connection to a newborn Jew being born in a barren area. i'm undecided if the lights fixtures are basically b/c or if it fairly has to do with the reality that the W.S. marks the shortest day of the 300 and sixty 5 days...the subsequent being the 1st day the solar is interior the sky somewhat longer. The nativity set did no longer look till around 1500, 1600.
J
No one actually knows when Jesus was born, so they estimated and put it on December 25th
Anonymous
Nobody knows for sure when Christ was born, in the bible it says Dec. 25, but who actually knows? They didn't follow our post-modern calendar.