Toto

See this thread in BCH: Why is Christmas celebrated on Dec 25

The Bible is not clear on the year that Jesus was born.

Earl IV

I heard March (on Bones)

+or-1

:thumbs:

The December date was, as far as I understand it, finally settled on by Constantine and the Council of Nicea in the fourth century although some Christian historians claim that it is nine months after the immaculate conception. IIRC, the March date comes from the idea that Jesus was born around the time of the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE. It's really all very confusing, much easier to believe that is was all made up, IMO.

Dogfish

On 4/20? Sweet! Pffffffft....

'ere

DancesWithCoffeeCups

Moving to BC&H.

bacht

Could be. Paul allegedly had his revelation sometime in the 30s, and he says there were Christians before him (assuming there was such a person as described in the epistles). So the mythic Christ could have appeared anytime before Paul's first public preaching, maybe witnessed by Peter/Cephas or James the Just.

If there was a "kingdom" teacher in Galilee as some Q theorists believe then he probably lived before the revolt. The gospel Jesus born in the last days of Herod the Great and killed forty years before the fall of the temple doesn't show up until after 70.

ApostateAbe

Nobody knows what time of year Jesus was born, not even within any range of probability, except that there is a 100% chance that Jesus was born between January 1st and December 31st. The entire birth narrative seems to be fictional (not included in the earliest sources and force-fitted to perceived prophecy), so the argument that shepherds were out at night counts for little. We have enough trouble narrowing down the year. The traditional date of 1 BC to 1 AD (a range of one year, not two) is probably a good estimate, since Luke reports that Jesus was crucified at "about 30" years of age, and Pontius Pilate was prefect from 26 to 36 AD. The date of 4 BC is an apologist date chosen because that was the last year of Herod the Great, but we know his part in the story is fictional.

show_no_mercy

Irenaeus also reports that Jesus was close to 50 when he was executed.

Derec

And executed under Claudius rather than Tiberius.

And our two gospels that feature the birth narrative differ in the year Jesus was supposedly born. Matthew says he was born under Herod the Great, which would put it at or before 4 BCE and Luke claims that Jesus was born during the census which was held when Quirinius was governor of Syria (and which would make no sense if Judea was a client kingdom rather than part of a province) which would place it at 6 CE, 10 years after Matthean date. A holy mess in other words.

ApostateAbe

I don't know what Irenaeus' source is presumed to be, but he wrote circa 180 AD, so the gospel of Luke (circa 70-100 AD) would take precedence in a disagreement like this.