Is Christmas Jesus' Birthday?

Jesus’ birthday has been celebrated on December 25th for nearly two millennia. Indeed, the first known commemoration of Christmas on December 25th was in A.D. 336—when Hippolytus of Rome claimed that it was the anniversary of Jesus’ birth. Only 14 years later, Pope Julius I “officially” declared December 25 to be Christ’s birthday. And yet, the Bible never mentions the date of Jesus’ birth, nor do any authoritative extra-canonical sources of the era. The Bible doesn’t even inform us about the year in which Jesus was born—though it certainly could not have been in the year zero (as so many assume) since Herod—who issued the death decree on Jesus—died in 4 B.C. Thus, Jesus had to be born at least by them, and evidence suggests He was most likely born between 7-6 B.C. We simply do not know the year of his birth, let alone the month or day on which He was born. Consequently, as well entrenched as the December 25th date is in popular culture, there is nothing to support it as the actual date of Jesus’ birth.

One common argument against a December birth is the biblical mention of shepherds out in the fields, watching their flocks by night. Some have claimed that it is highly unlikely that shepherds would be out at night in December, as it can get quite cold in Judea in December. Though others have pushed back on that argument, saying that some years the winters can be quite mild in in the region—though certainly not all winters. Thus, while shepherds out in their fields grazing flocks at night in December are not common, they are not unheard of either.

The challenge is that though the winters can be occasionally mild, there is simply no textual or historic support for a December birth. The Bible never suggests it, nor do any ancient texts contemporary with the Bible, so how are the other eleven months of the year any less likely candidates for Jesus’ birth? December is possible, though the weather may make it less likely. But it would be some 300 years after the death of Jesus before December 25th would become the proposed date, which seems odd if it actually was the date on which He was born.

Some have claimed that most Christians celebrate Jesus’s birth on December 25th because it coincides with the winter solstice, highlighting Jesus as the “light that shines in the darkness,” the light that comes into our darkness. Some scholars believe that, since December 25th was the pagan festival of Sol Invictus (the sun god of the Roman Empire), the commemoration of Jesus’s birthday was moved to that date to appease pagan converts to Christianity. However, since the first commemoration of Christmas on December 25th was in the 4th century—and prior to the establishment of the 25th as the festival of Sol Invictus—this common claim holds no water.

An Islamic Hadith (or “tradition”) places Jesus’ birth sometime in the middle of June. Jewish Talmudic sources don’t address the month of Jesus’ birth, but they do suggest that He may have been born in the early first century BCE. Both the Islamic and Jewish sources which address the date of Jesus’ birth are not contemporaneous with Christ, but date between the 8th and 11th centuries CE/AD. Thus, they are about as reliable (if not less so) as Hippolytus’s December 25th date.

In the end, there is certainly no way to know for sure when Jesus was born. We know the year zero is wrong. There is decent evidence that December is less likely than other months. There is no support for the 25th. And early Christians simply didn’t celebrate birthdays like we do today. Thus, though it might seem shocking that no one recorded the date on which Jesus was born, based on the culture of the era, it is actually not at all surprising that this escaped the attention of the earliest Christians. By the time Christian leaders started looking for events that should be commemorated by the entire Church, the window of memory had faded on this most sacred event, and those who declared the date of Christ’s birth were working off something other than historic evidence. Thus, the most we can say is that He was born somewhere between 7-4 BC, but almost certainly not actually on December 25th.

Of course, one last point is worth making. Does it matter when His birthday is commemorated? Would it make the event more sacred or impactful if we knew for sure that it was in June, or September, or April? In other words, the date of His birth matters little. What matters are the implications of His birth, life, and death in the life of the believer. Indeed, the fact that we commemorate His birth during one of the darkest, harshest times of the North American winter just serves to heighten the doctrinal reality that Jesus was born into a world plunged into darkness in order to bring light into the lives of those who believe. And two millennia later, the world is even darker—regardless of the month. Thus, regardless of when Jesus was born, as we turn to Him and exercise faith in Him, He can lift the darkness in our lives—thereby helping us to walk in the light… in December, June, April, and throughout the year.