Do we know that date of the birth of Jesus?

[llopez88]

I'm looking into the tradition of christmas and was wondering if we actually know the date of his birth and have evidence for it.

 

[Andrewofthetribe]

Yes it was about 2000 years ago, what does it matter when he was born, isn't it better to know when our own forefathers were born? Lets look back and see where our ancestors met Christ. How we developed to be who we are today? If we can see such a great development from within our own ancestors how great will that development be when Christ returns. Let's also hope some of us got his birthdate right, he will surely be vexed you missed his birthday. My wife still speaks to me, there is definitely more forgiveness in christs heart than my wife's. lol

 

[JackRT]

I'm looking into the tradition of christmas and was wondering if we actually know the date of his birth and have evidence for it.

Dionysius Exigius (aka Dennis the Short), a monk from Russia who died about 544, was asked by Pope John I to set out the dates for Easter from the years 527 to 626. It seems that the Pope was keen to produce some order in the celebration of Easter. Dionysius decided to begin with what he considered to be the year of Jesus' birth. He chose the year in which Rome had been founded and determined, from the evidence known to him, that Jesus had been born 753 years later. He did have an error in that because one emperor changed his name during his reign, Dionysius counted him twice.

He was almost certainly acquainted with a suggestion by Hippolytus (170–236) that the date of Jesus' birth was December 25, but the trouble was that Hippolytus had not backed up this claim with sound arguments. Dionysius, however, had just the argument: His contemporaries claimed that God created the earth on March 25. It was inconceivable that the son of God could have been in any way imperfect. Therefore Jesus must have been conceived on March 25. This meant that he must have been born nine months later—December 25. Dionysius also concluded that, as a perfect being, Jesus could not have lived an incomplete life so he must have died on March 25 as well!

December 25 was an auspicious choice. In 274, in Rome, the Emperor Aurelian declared December 25 a civic holiday in celebration of the birth of Mithras, the sun god. By 336, in that same city, Christians countered by celebrating the birth of Jesus, the son of God, on December 25. Christians in Antioch in 375 celebrated the birth of Jesus on January 6. Christians in Alexandria did not begin to celebrate Christmas at all until 430. So until Dionysius came along there was confusion over dates, and debates raged, even over the usefulness of celebrating the birth of Jesus at all. What had been universally important for all Christians—the pre-eminent event—was the celebration of Easter.

When, in 527, he formalized the date of Jesus' birth, Dionysius put Christmas on the map. Jesus was born, he declared, on December 25 in the Roman year 753. Dionysius then suspended time for a few days, declaring January 1, 754—New Year's day in Rome—as the first year in a new era of world history.

With a stroke of ingenuity Dionysius had managed to shift the attention of the church from Easter to Christmas. From this point in time it seemed only logical to celebrate the birth of Jesus before his death. If Jesus' death by crucifixion had made possible salvation for all people everywhere, so the argument went, then his birth was the sign that God was identifying with human kind by taking human form.

But Dionysius made a mistake in his calculations. Perhaps he had never read the gospel account of the birth of Jesus. In Matthew Jesus is said to have been born while Herod was still King (2:1). That would translate into 4 BC (or even earlier) according to the calculations of Dionysius. As a consequence, for Christians the year 2000 is not two thousand years after the birth of Jesus, but more like 2004.

That was not his only mistake. Dionysius followed the convention of his times and, as the Roman calendar moved from the year 753 to 754, he called the latter "year one" of the New World order—anno domini, the year of our Lord. The concept of naught (zero) didn't come into Europe from Arabia and India until about two hundred years later. As a result, centuries end with naught and begin with the digit one. So for us the year 2000 was the end of one millennium but it was not the beginning of the next: that occurred in 2001.

Later, when Pope Gregory tidied up the calendar on 24 February 1582, the calendar lost eleven days. To synchronise the calendar of Dionysius with the movement of the sun, October 4 became October 15, and to avoid having to make further adjustments a leap year was introduced. Pope Gregory must also have known of the mistakes made by Dionysius but all he did was to confirm them, perhaps hoping that no one would notice.

There is one other problem. Bishop Ussher (1581–1656) worked out the precise year of creation as 4004 BC (he knew about Dionysisus getting the date of Jesus birth wrong). But he also advanced the view that the earth had a total life span of six thousand years. In order to come up with this conclusion he based his calculations on all the generations mentioned in the Bible.

In reality we do not know when Jesus was born—neither the year, the month, nor the day. The chronology of our western calendar is based on mythology masquerading as theology. We do well to treat it all with the humour it deserves.

 

[Winken]

I'm looking into the tradition of christmas and was wondering if we actually know the date of his birth and have evidence for it.

We don't know the actual date and therefore have no evidence for it. The Perfect Truth is that He was born, Hallelujah!!!!!!!

 

[Andrewofthetribe]

Dionysius Exigius (aka Dennis the Short), a monk from Russia who died about 544, was asked by Pope John I to set out the dates for Easter from the years 527 to 626. It seems that the Pope was keen to produce some order in the celebration of Easter. Dionysius decided to begin with what he considered to be the year of Jesus' birth. He chose the year in which Rome had been founded and determined, from the evidence known to him, that Jesus had been born 753 years later. He did have an error in that because one emperor changed his name during his reign, Dionysius counted him twice.

He was almost certainly acquainted with a suggestion by Hippolytus (170–236) that the date of Jesus' birth was December 25, but the trouble was that Hippolytus had not backed up this claim with sound arguments. Dionysius, however, had just the argument: His contemporaries claimed that God created the earth on March 25. It was inconceivable that the son of God could have been in any way imperfect. Therefore Jesus must have been conceived on March 25. This meant that he must have been born nine months later—December 25. Dionysius also concluded that, as a perfect being, Jesus could not have lived an incomplete life so he must have died on March 25 as well!

December 25 was an auspicious choice. In 274, in Rome, the Emperor Aurelian declared December 25 a civic holiday in celebration of the birth of Mithras, the sun god. By 336, in that same city, Christians countered by celebrating the birth of Jesus, the son of God, on December 25. Christians in Antioch in 375 celebrated the birth of Jesus on January 6. Christians in Alexandria did not begin to celebrate Christmas at all until 430. So until Dionysius came along there was confusion over dates, and debates raged, even over the usefulness of celebrating the birth of Jesus at all. What had been universally important for all Christians—the pre-eminent event—was the celebration of Easter.

When, in 527, he formalized the date of Jesus' birth, Dionysius put Christmas on the map. Jesus was born, he declared, on December 25 in the Roman year 753. Dionysius then suspended time for a few days, declaring January 1, 754—New Year's day in Rome—as the first year in a new era of world history.

With a stroke of ingenuity Dionysius had managed to shift the attention of the church from Easter to Christmas. From this point in time it seemed only logical to celebrate the birth of Jesus before his death. If Jesus' death by crucifixion had made possible salvation for all people everywhere, so the argument went, then his birth was the sign that God was identifying with human kind by taking human form.

But Dionysius made a mistake in his calculations. Perhaps he had never read the gospel account of the birth of Jesus. In Matthew Jesus is said to have been born while Herod was still King (2:1). That would translate into 4 BC (or even earlier) according to the calculations of Dionysius. As a consequence, for Christians the year 2000 is not two thousand years after the birth of Jesus, but more like 2004.

That was not his only mistake. Dionysius followed the convention of his times and, as the Roman calendar moved from the year 753 to 754, he called the latter "year one" of the New World order—anno domini, the year of our Lord. The concept of naught (zero) didn't come into Europe from Arabia and India until about two hundred years later. As a result, centuries end with naught and begin with the digit one. So for us the year 2000 was the end of one millennium but it was not the beginning of the next: that occurred in 2001.

Later, when Pope Gregory tidied up the calendar on 24 February 1582, the calendar lost eleven days. To synchronise the calendar of Dionysius with the movement of the sun, October 4 became October 15, and to avoid having to make further adjustments a leap year was introduced. Pope Gregory must also have known of the mistakes made by Dionysius but all he did was to confirm them, perhaps hoping that no one would notice.

There is one other problem. Bishop Ussher (1581–1656) worked out the precise year of creation as 4004 BC (he knew about Dionysisus getting the date of Jesus birth wrong). But he also advanced the view that the earth had a total life span of six thousand years. In order to come up with this conclusion he based his calculations on all the generations mentioned in the Bible.

In reality we do not know when Jesus was born—neither the year, the month, nor the day. The chronology of our western calendar is based on mythology masquerading as theology. We do well to treat it all with the humour it deserves.

Are you having a crack at the whip? Good on you good Christian, let me know when you have it and please if the answer is more words than Christ fed in two sittings then can you let the Church of England know please, they like wordy documents with hidden meanings and they hid an evil right upon the alter for nearly four hundred years. Men get bored of wordy documents even before they sign them it's the reason I have just finished paying off another rubbish phone contract. I did not look at the fine print. It takes a man of real history interest to find the lies twisted among wordy documents, so please do not be aggrieved I shall not read the book but my folk have been stitched up before.

 

[Andrewofthetribe]

Dionysius Exigius (aka Dennis the Short), a monk from Russia who died about 544, was asked by Pope John I to set out the dates for Easter from the years 527 to 626. It seems that the Pope was keen to produce some order in the celebration of Easter. Dionysius decided to begin with what he considered to be the year of Jesus' birth. He chose the year in which Rome had been founded and determined, from the evidence known to him, that Jesus had been born 753 years later. He did have an error in that because one emperor changed his name during his reign, Dionysius counted him twice.

He was almost certainly acquainted with a suggestion by Hippolytus (170–236) that the date of Jesus' birth was December 25, but the trouble was that Hippolytus had not backed up this claim with sound arguments. Dionysius, however, had just the argument: His contemporaries claimed that God created the earth on March 25. It was inconceivable that the son of God could have been in any way imperfect. Therefore Jesus must have been conceived on March 25. This meant that he must have been born nine months later—December 25. Dionysius also concluded that, as a perfect being, Jesus could not have lived an incomplete life so he must have died on March 25 as well!

December 25 was an auspicious choice. In 274, in Rome, the Emperor Aurelian declared December 25 a civic holiday in celebration of the birth of Mithras, the sun god. By 336, in that same city, Christians countered by celebrating the birth of Jesus, the son of God, on December 25. Christians in Antioch in 375 celebrated the birth of Jesus on January 6. Christians in Alexandria did not begin to celebrate Christmas at all until 430. So until Dionysius came along there was confusion over dates, and debates raged, even over the usefulness of celebrating the birth of Jesus at all. What had been universally important for all Christians—the pre-eminent event—was the celebration of Easter.

When, in 527, he formalized the date of Jesus' birth, Dionysius put Christmas on the map. Jesus was born, he declared, on December 25 in the Roman year 753. Dionysius then suspended time for a few days, declaring January 1, 754—New Year's day in Rome—as the first year in a new era of world history.

With a stroke of ingenuity Dionysius had managed to shift the attention of the church from Easter to Christmas. From this point in time it seemed only logical to celebrate the birth of Jesus before his death. If Jesus' death by crucifixion had made possible salvation for all people everywhere, so the argument went, then his birth was the sign that God was identifying with human kind by taking human form.

But Dionysius made a mistake in his calculations. Perhaps he had never read the gospel account of the birth of Jesus. In Matthew Jesus is said to have been born while Herod was still King (2:1). That would translate into 4 BC (or even earlier) according to the calculations of Dionysius. As a consequence, for Christians the year 2000 is not two thousand years after the birth of Jesus, but more like 2004.

That was not his only mistake. Dionysius followed the convention of his times and, as the Roman calendar moved from the year 753 to 754, he called the latter "year one" of the New World order—anno domini, the year of our Lord. The concept of naught (zero) didn't come into Europe from Arabia and India until about two hundred years later. As a result, centuries end with naught and begin with the digit one. So for us the year 2000 was the end of one millennium but it was not the beginning of the next: that occurred in 2001.

Later, when Pope Gregory tidied up the calendar on 24 February 1582, the calendar lost eleven days. To synchronise the calendar of Dionysius with the movement of the sun, October 4 became October 15, and to avoid having to make further adjustments a leap year was introduced. Pope Gregory must also have known of the mistakes made by Dionysius but all he did was to confirm them, perhaps hoping that no one would notice.

There is one other problem. Bishop Ussher (1581–1656) worked out the precise year of creation as 4004 BC (he knew about Dionysisus getting the date of Jesus birth wrong). But he also advanced the view that the earth had a total life span of six thousand years. In order to come up with this conclusion he based his calculations on all the generations mentioned in the Bible.

In reality we do not know when Jesus was born—neither the year, the month, nor the day. The chronology of our western calendar is based on mythology masquerading as theology. We do well to treat it all with the humour it deserves.

Please forward to the Church of England. Lol

 

[rockytopva]

Interesting that Charlemagne was coronated December 25, 800.

 

[ChristianFromKazakhstan]

I'm looking into the tradition of christmas and was wondering if we actually know the date of his birth and have evidence for it.

I've heard that March is a better candidate as possible month of Christ's birthday. Reading the gospels, by calculating Zacharia's term in the temple as priest and also when the sheep had babies, they think that it's March. I don't know. Maybe it's all a fallacy.

In March 20-21 there is the spring equinox, the daylight becomes longer, so all those astronomically-inclined beliefs are happy with March as birthmonth of Christ also, as it goes along with their mythology and meaning. New life and all. Goddes Ishtar (Easter?) was also related to same nature rebirth stuff.

 

[ChristianFromKazakhstan]

Dionysius Exigius (aka Dennis the Short), a monk from Russia who died about 544, was asked by Pope John I to set out the dates for Easter from the years 527 to 626. It seems that the Pope was keen to produce some order in the celebration of Easter. Dionysius decided to begin with what he considered to be the year of Jesus' birth. He chose the year in which Rome had been founded and determined, from the evidence known to him, that Jesus had been born 753 years later. He did have an error in that because one emperor changed his name during his reign, Dionysius counted him twice.

He was almost certainly acquainted with a suggestion by Hippolytus (170–236) that the date of Jesus' birth was December 25, but the trouble was that Hippolytus had not backed up this claim with sound arguments. Dionysius, however, had just the argument: His contemporaries claimed that God created the earth on March 25. It was inconceivable that the son of God could have been in any way imperfect. Therefore Jesus must have been conceived on March 25. This meant that he must have been born nine months later—December 25. Dionysius also concluded that, as a perfect being, Jesus could not have lived an incomplete life so he must have died on March 25 as well!

December 25 was an auspicious choice. In 274, in Rome, the Emperor Aurelian declared December 25 a civic holiday in celebration of the birth of Mithras, the sun god. By 336, in that same city, Christians countered by celebrating the birth of Jesus, the son of God, on December 25. Christians in Antioch in 375 celebrated the birth of Jesus on January 6. Christians in Alexandria did not begin to celebrate Christmas at all until 430. So until Dionysius came along there was confusion over dates, and debates raged, even over the usefulness of celebrating the birth of Jesus at all. What had been universally important for all Christians—the pre-eminent event—was the celebration of Easter.

When, in 527, he formalized the date of Jesus' birth, Dionysius put Christmas on the map. Jesus was born, he declared, on December 25 in the Roman year 753. Dionysius then suspended time for a few days, declaring January 1, 754—New Year's day in Rome—as the first year in a new era of world history.

With a stroke of ingenuity Dionysius had managed to shift the attention of the church from Easter to Christmas. From this point in time it seemed only logical to celebrate the birth of Jesus before his death. If Jesus' death by crucifixion had made possible salvation for all people everywhere, so the argument went, then his birth was the sign that God was identifying with human kind by taking human form.

But Dionysius made a mistake in his calculations. Perhaps he had never read the gospel account of the birth of Jesus. In Matthew Jesus is said to have been born while Herod was still King (2:1). That would translate into 4 BC (or even earlier) according to the calculations of Dionysius. As a consequence, for Christians the year 2000 is not two thousand years after the birth of Jesus, but more like 2004.

That was not his only mistake. Dionysius followed the convention of his times and, as the Roman calendar moved from the year 753 to 754, he called the latter "year one" of the New World order—anno domini, the year of our Lord. The concept of naught (zero) didn't come into Europe from Arabia and India until about two hundred years later. As a result, centuries end with naught and begin with the digit one. So for us the year 2000 was the end of one millennium but it was not the beginning of the next: that occurred in 2001.

Later, when Pope Gregory tidied up the calendar on 24 February 1582, the calendar lost eleven days. To synchronise the calendar of Dionysius with the movement of the sun, October 4 became October 15, and to avoid having to make further adjustments a leap year was introduced. Pope Gregory must also have known of the mistakes made by Dionysius but all he did was to confirm them, perhaps hoping that no one would notice.

There is one other problem. Bishop Ussher (1581–1656) worked out the precise year of creation as 4004 BC (he knew about Dionysisus getting the date of Jesus birth wrong). But he also advanced the view that the earth had a total life span of six thousand years. In order to come up with this conclusion he based his calculations on all the generations mentioned in the Bible.

In reality we do not know when Jesus was born—neither the year, the month, nor the day. The chronology of our western calendar is based on mythology masquerading as theology. We do well to treat it all with the humour it deserves.

As the calendar changed, that "old" Dec 25 now falls to 7 January at least in 2017

 

[ChristianFromKazakhstan]

Interesting that Charlemagne was coronated December 25, 800.

Statistically, probably around 1/365 or ~0.3% of the world's population or about 20M people on earth were born on Dec 25th.

 

[rockytopva]

Statistically, probably around 1/365 or ~0.3% of the world's population or about 20M people on earth were born on Dec 25th.

Charlemagne breathed a lot of life into the Christian church and reigned over a huge empire. I would not be surprised if Christmas as we know it came out of this reign.

 

[ChristianFromKazakhstan]

Charlemagne breathed a lot of life into the Christian church and reigned over a huge empire. I would not be surprised if Christmas as we know it came out of this reign.

Pater Europa as they call him. Interesting, maybe maybe.

 

[JackRT]

I've heard that March is a better candidate as possible month of Christ's birthday. Reading the gospels, by calculating Zacharia's term in the temple as priest and also when the sheep had babies, they think that it's March. I don't know. Maybe it's all a fallacy.

In March 20-21 there is the spring equinox, the daylight becomes longer, so all those astronomically-inclined beliefs are happy with March as birthmonth of Christ also, as it goes along with their mythology and meaning. New life and all. Goddes Ishtar (Easter?) was also related to same nature rebirth stuff.

If we are to believe the birth narrative that the shepherds were "with their flocks in the fields by night" then this enables us to place the birth within a few weeks. Shepherds corralled their sheep at night. The corrals were simply low walls of rough fieldstone. The gate was just a gap in the wall across which the shepherd would lay his bedroll. This was not done in lambing season in order to prevent newborn lambs from being trampled and injured in the crowded corral. This would put the birth in the early spring in late March or early April.

 

[CodyFaith]

I believe it was Christmas day, and I believe modern scholarship is purposely steering the church away from celebrating the birth of Christ.

(Haters gonna hate).

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I'm looking into the tradition of christmas and was wondering if we actually know the date of his birth and have evidence for it.

Matthew says it was during Herod the Great's reign, so before 4 BC. Luke says it was during Quirinius's census so 6 AD.
The jury is still very much out on what year Jesus was born, I am afraid.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Dionysius Exigius (aka Dennis the Short), a monk from Russia who died about 544, was asked by Pope John I to set out the dates for Easter from the years 527 to 626. It seems that the Pope was keen to produce some order in the celebration of Easter. Dionysius decided to begin with what he considered to be the year of Jesus' birth. He chose the year in which Rome had been founded and determined, from the evidence known to him, that Jesus had been born 753 years later. He did have an error in that because one emperor changed his name during his reign, Dionysius counted him twice.

He was almost certainly acquainted with a suggestion by Hippolytus (170–236) that the date of Jesus' birth was December 25, but the trouble was that Hippolytus had not backed up this claim with sound arguments. Dionysius, however, had just the argument: His contemporaries claimed that God created the earth on March 25. It was inconceivable that the son of God could have been in any way imperfect. Therefore Jesus must have been conceived on March 25. This meant that he must have been born nine months later—December 25. Dionysius also concluded that, as a perfect being, Jesus could not have lived an incomplete life so he must have died on March 25 as well!

December 25 was an auspicious choice. In 274, in Rome, the Emperor Aurelian declared December 25 a civic holiday in celebration of the birth of Mithras, the sun god. By 336, in that same city, Christians countered by celebrating the birth of Jesus, the son of God, on December 25. Christians in Antioch in 375 celebrated the birth of Jesus on January 6. Christians in Alexandria did not begin to celebrate Christmas at all until 430. So until Dionysius came along there was confusion over dates, and debates raged, even over the usefulness of celebrating the birth of Jesus at all. What had been universally important for all Christians—the pre-eminent event—was the celebration of Easter.

When, in 527, he formalized the date of Jesus' birth, Dionysius put Christmas on the map. Jesus was born, he declared, on December 25 in the Roman year 753. Dionysius then suspended time for a few days, declaring January 1, 754—New Year's day in Rome—as the first year in a new era of world history.

With a stroke of ingenuity Dionysius had managed to shift the attention of the church from Easter to Christmas. From this point in time it seemed only logical to celebrate the birth of Jesus before his death. If Jesus' death by crucifixion had made possible salvation for all people everywhere, so the argument went, then his birth was the sign that God was identifying with human kind by taking human form.

But Dionysius made a mistake in his calculations. Perhaps he had never read the gospel account of the birth of Jesus. In Matthew Jesus is said to have been born while Herod was still King (2:1). That would translate into 4 BC (or even earlier) according to the calculations of Dionysius. As a consequence, for Christians the year 2000 is not two thousand years after the birth of Jesus, but more like 2004.

That was not his only mistake. Dionysius followed the convention of his times and, as the Roman calendar moved from the year 753 to 754, he called the latter "year one" of the New World order—anno domini, the year of our Lord. The concept of naught (zero) didn't come into Europe from Arabia and India until about two hundred years later. As a result, centuries end with naught and begin with the digit one. So for us the year 2000 was the end of one millennium but it was not the beginning of the next: that occurred in 2001.

Later, when Pope Gregory tidied up the calendar on 24 February 1582, the calendar lost eleven days. To synchronise the calendar of Dionysius with the movement of the sun, October 4 became October 15, and to avoid having to make further adjustments a leap year was introduced. Pope Gregory must also have known of the mistakes made by Dionysius but all he did was to confirm them, perhaps hoping that no one would notice.

There is one other problem. Bishop Ussher (1581–1656) worked out the precise year of creation as 4004 BC (he knew about Dionysisus getting the date of Jesus birth wrong). But he also advanced the view that the earth had a total life span of six thousand years. In order to come up with this conclusion he based his calculations on all the generations mentioned in the Bible.

In reality we do not know when Jesus was born—neither the year, the month, nor the day. The chronology of our western calendar is based on mythology masquerading as theology. We do well to treat it all with the humour it deserves.

Aurelian declared 25 December a festival in honour of Sol Invictus, not Mithras. They are not the same.

 

[JackRT]

Aurelian declared 25 December a festival in honour of Sol Invictus, not Mithras. They are not the same.

There were a number of Mithraic cults. If I recall correctly the cult of Sol Invictus was popular among the Roman military and involved a "Baptism of blood".

 

[AvgJoe]

I'm looking into the tradition of christmas and was wondering if we actually know the date of his birth and have evidence for it.

Speculation as to the time of Jesus’ birth dates back to the 3rd century, when Hyppolytus (ca. 170-236) claimed that Jesus was born on December 25. The earliest mention of some sort of observance on that date is in the Philoclian Calendar, representing Roman practice, of the year 336. Later, John Chrysostom favored the same date of birth. Cyril of Jerusalem (348-386) had access to the original Roman birth census, which also documented that Jesus was born on the 25th of December. The date eventually became the officially recognized date for Christmas in part because it coincided with the pagan festivals celebrating Saturnalia and the winter solstice. The church thereby offered people a Christian alternative to the pagan festivities and eventually reinterpreted many of their symbols and actions in ways acceptable to Christian faith and practice.

December 25 has become more and more acceptable as the birth date of Jesus. However, some argue that the birth occurred in some other season, such as in the fall. Followers of this theory claim that the Judean winters were too cold for shepherds to be watching their flocks by night. History proves otherwise, however, and we have historical evidence that unblemished lambs for the Temple sacrifice were in fact kept in the fields near Bethlehem during the winter months. With that said, it is impossible to prove whether or not Jesus was born on December 25. And, ultimately, it does not matter.

The truth is we simply don’t know the exact date of our Savior’s birth. In fact, we don’t even know for sure the year in which He was born. Scholars believe it was somewhere between 6 B.C. and 4 B.C. One thing is clear: if God felt it was important for us to know the exact date of the Savior’s birth, He certainly would have told us in His Word. The Gospel of Luke gives very specific details about the event, even down to what the baby was wearing – “swaddling clothes"—and where he slept—“in a manger" (Luke 2:12). These details are important because they speak of His nature and character, meek and lowly. But the exact date of His birth has no significance whatsoever, which may be why God chose not to mention it.

The fact is that He was born, that He came into the world to atone for our sins, that He was resurrected to eternal life, and that He’s alive today. This is what we should celebrate, as we are told in the Old Testament in such passages as Zechariah 2:10: “'Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,' declares the LORD.” Further, the angel that announced the birth to the shepherds brought “good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). Surely here is the cause for celebration every day, not just once a year.

For more on what year He was born~~~> What year was Jesus Christ born? When was Jesus born? & was He actually born in September~~~> Was Jesus actually born in September? .

 

[JackRT]

Cyril of Jerusalem (348-386) had access to the original Roman birth census, which also documented that Jesus was born on the 25th of December.

I very much doubt the truth of that claim. A Roman census, except in Italia, was not about enumerating people but about property and business assets for the purpose of taxation. There might have been a birth record kept in the Temple archives but they were destroyed in AD 70. In short, there is no documentation that December 25 was the birth date.

 

[1John2:4]

I'm looking into the tradition of christmas and was wondering if we actually know the date of his birth and have evidence for it.

Some believe He was born on Sukkot. I am not sure, He never asked His disciples to celebrate His birth, just honor His death on Passover. Some people on the internet have some pretty good arguments if you google Yeshua was born on Sukkot you can check out some them.