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“The only reason Christianity has become so culturally prominent around the world is that Constantine forced it on people and erased their prior cultures with it – it’s why so many holiday practices like a tree and ornaments, mistletoe, eggs and rabbits being associated with Easter, etc. – are rooted in Pagan practices. They were stolen.”
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell. My daughter loves dwarf hamsters. And I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.
She’s had several dwarf hamsters: Ramona, Lily, Comeau, and Crash. Comeau was her favorite but she has loved and taken great care of each of them. She even buys them birthday gifts every year despite not knowing any of their actual birthdays except for Crash.
So how about that teaser today? That is a direct quote from a good friend of mine that he shared with me in June this year. It’s great insight and I love it. These challenges cause me to dig in and search for truth. I’d already put this topic on my content calendar back in February, and I knew his perspective would make a great inclusion in this episode due to the challenge and skeptical tone it brings.
So was Jesus actually born in December? If not, why do we celebrate it then and not his actual birthday? Do we even know his actual birthday? Does celebrating it in December along with the traditional things that are a part of it have pagan roots? If so, does that mean Christians are wrong for celebrating Christmas? Does having a Christmas tree and other items as part of our celebration violate rules in Deuteronomy or other Bible passages? Can I possibly cover all of these questions in 15 minutes or less?
Let’s find out!
Let’s start with what the Bible tells us about when Jesus was born. We know that Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem due to a Roman census. We also know that shepherds were in fields at night watching over their sheep. I’ve read conflicting reports about whether or not shepherds would have been outside overnight during December due to the cold weather. Some say it would not have happened in December, others say there are mild enough nights that it could have happened in December. Regarding the census, my research does seem to indicate the weather that time of year would have made the roads bad, thus it’s unlikely Rome would have called for a census. Instead, it seems more likely that the census would have been in a more favorable time of year like the spring or fall.
We can also learn about the timing of Jesus’ birth by looking at the birth of his cousin, John the Baptist. We know that they were born six months apart. John’s father was Zacharias and he was a priest of the order of Abijah. We know that the priests were divided into 12 groups and each group served at the temple one full week at a time, twice per year. We also know that when big festivals occurred which required all Israelites to come to the temple to make sacrifices, all priests served due to the added volume of work to do.
We also learn in the book of 1 Chronicles that the group of Abijah had the 8th slot in the rotation. And we also know that the rotation started with the first week of the Jewish month of Nisan. The first chapter of Luke tells us that Zacharias encountered an angel while doing his priestly duties and that once his priestly duties were over he returned home and John was conceived. So doing some simple math tells us that John would have been conceived around mid-June, thus born in March.
Again, simple math tells us that if we have the timeline for John right, then Jesus would have been born in September. And this is what most Bible scholars believe. There are some, mostly in Catholic circles as far as I can tell, that believe Jesus was indeed born in December. They argue John was born in June. They also look at a tradition that says major prophets were born and died on the same day.
However, we know that Jesus died in the spring around Passover. To get around this seeming contradiction, they argue that rather than Jesus being BORN on the same day he died, he was CONCEIVED on the same day he died. This seems like moving the goal posts to me and is very unconvincing. I’m sure it’s even less convincing for you who are skeptics. But it’s worth mentioning as a point of reference just so we have that argument presented.
Back to September.
September is an important time of year in Jewish tradition with two major holidays occurring there. The first is the Feast of Trumpets, or Rosh Hashanah. It commemorates the creation of the world and it features things like the blowing of the shofar, which is a trumpet made from a ram’s horn. This holiday typically occurs in mid September or very early October. This year it was September 22-24. The second is the Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot. This holiday commemorates the Israelites 40 years of wandering in the wilderness after escaping Egypt. It typically occurs in late September or early October. This year it was October 6-13.
I found some fascinating research on both of these options. It seems most Bible scholars believe that it’s most likely Jesus would have been born around the Feast of Tabernacles. They often point to the first chapter of John which says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” That phrase, “dwelt among us” means to tabernacle or pitch a tent. So they see this as a clue that Jesus was born during or around the Feast of Tabernacles.
Others think that it’s more likely Jesus was born around the Feast of Trumpets. We know that when Jesus comes for the second time, it will be announced by the sound of a trumpet. So in this way, his second coming will mirror his first coming. I also found a fascinating study which looked at astronomical evidence. We know that the magi or wise men used astronomical clues to learn about the birth of Jesus. According to this source, the Feast of Trumpets seems to be the most likely time that Jesus was born.
So then why do we celebrate Jesus’ birth in December? Is my friend right?
Here’s what I learned.
In short, yes, my friend was right. Now, my friend used some pretty charged language with phrases like, “Constantine forced it on people,” “erased their prior cultures” and “they were stolen.” I won’t be getting into those claims today. Perhaps I’ll do a Constantine episode at a later date.
But I think it’s accurate to acknowledge that pagan holidays had been occurring around the third week of December and at some point, likely due to the influence of Constantine, those changed into celebrating the birth of Christ.
The winter solstice has been celebrated by many cultures around the world for thousands of years. It’s the day the days begin to get longer, thus seen as the day the sun is reborn. Many temples and structures are built around the world to celebrate the winter solstice and worship their various sun gods. On modern calendars the winter solstice occurs on either December 21st or 22nd but in ancient calendars of Rome and Egypt, it occurred on December 25th.
In the fourth century, Epiphanius of Salamis wrote his Panarion that the winter solstice was celebrated on December 25th in Alexandria as the Kikellia. He says that thirteen days after the solstice, on the 5-6 of January, they celebrated the birth of Aion, son of the goddess Kore.
As for the Roman side, Wikipedia interestingly says, “A widely-held theory is that the Church chose it (December 25th) as Christ’s birthday specifically to appropriate the Roman festival of the sun god’s birthday. According to C. Philipp E. Nothaft, a professor at Trinity College Dublin, this “is nowadays used as the default explanation for the choice of December 25th as Christ’s birthday, few advocates of this theory seem to be aware of how paltry the available evidence actually is.”
But the fact is cultures all around the globe, including the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Aztecs, Norse, Japanese, and others have celebrated the birth of some sort of sun god for at least 5,000 years. And as I said, most of those civilizations conducted their celebrations around the time of the winter solstice.
So if Jesus was likely born in September or early October, and we know that cultures around the world had been celebrating their various sun gods in late December for millennia, and that changed to celebrating Jesus due to Constantine, does that invalidate the Christian holiday of Christmas? Does it invalidate the birth of Jesus? Put differently, are Christians wrong for celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25th?
When listening to many skeptics and critics on this topic, I often hear Deuteronomy 12:29-31 or Jeremiah 10:2-4 brought up.
Jeremiah says, “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.”
Skeptics say this is God clearly forbidding things like Christmas trees.
Deuteronomy says, “When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.”
Does this passage say that Christians shouldn’t take rituals practiced by pagans to their gods and do those things as some sort of rebranded ritual to honor the God of the Bible? If so, is that what Christmas is?
The passage in Jeremiah addresses sculptured idols, not holiday evergreens. When examining this text in its proper setting, Christmas trees are nowhere to be seen unless artificially inserted into the narrative. The biblical context clearly describes the practice of cutting down timber, fashioning it into carved images, and adorning these crafted objects as false deities for worship—mirroring the idolatrous practices of neighboring heathen societies.
The Deuteronomy reference concerns adopting detestable worship practices directed toward false gods (such as offering children as sacrifices) and redirecting those same immoral rituals toward the one true God. So do the activities Christians engage in during Christmas—such as decorating trees, giving presents, displaying mistletoe, or lighting yule fires—constitute wrongdoing? The key question is whether we perform these activities as acts of devotion to our God. Clearly not.
A New Testament principle deeply applicable to this discussion appears in 1 Corinthians. Certain believers expressed concern about consuming food previously offered to pagan deities, fearing that consuming the food would constitute participation in idol worship. However, Paul taught that neither the idol nor the food itself possesses any inherent spiritual power, therefore consuming it doesn’t constitute pagan devotion. Similarly, the practice of tree decoration doesn’t represent pagan worship either.
These represent holiday customs, not sacred rituals.
The precise calendar date of Christ’s birth is ultimately irrelevant to the profound reality of what occurred. Whether Jesus entered this world on December 25th, in the fall, or during any other season doesn’t diminish the significance of the Incarnation itself. The Son of God chose to clothe Himself in human flesh, to walk among His creation, and to experience every aspect of our human condition—except sin.
What matters isn’t the day marked on our calendars, but the fact that the eternal Word stepped into time and space. His teachings didn’t lose their power, His sacrificial death on the cross doesn’t become less meaningful, the tomb remains just as empty regardless of when we commemorate His arrival.
The gift Jesus gave us transcends any earthly present we might exchange during the holidays. He offered Himself—His perfect life as our substitute, His death as payment for our rebellion, His resurrection as proof of victory over sin and death. This gift wasn’t wrapped in paper and ribbon; it was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, then later wrapped in burial cloths and placed in a tomb that couldn’t contain Him.
How then should we respond to such an incredible gift? Not with anxiety over historical dates or cultural practices, but with hearts full of gratitude and lives surrendered in worship. We respond by receiving His forgiveness, following His example, and sharing His love with a world that desperately needs hope. Whether we celebrate in December or July, with trees or without them, the call remains the same: to live as those who have been forever changed by the reality that, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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