When Was Jesus Born?

Christians and other religious people around the world celebrate Jesus’ birthday on December 25 each year. However, many scholars dispute that Jesus was born that day. To this day, many still wonder when Jesus’ real birth date is.

If there’s anything that sets Christianity apart from other religions, it is the availability of verifiable records of events that substantiate our beliefs and the convictions we uphold. 

As a believer, you want to be able to stand up for the tenets of your faith and, above all, defend everything related to the Savior in whom you profess faith. That, among many other reasons, makes the study of Jesus’ real birthday vital.

In this article, we will answer the question, “When was Jesus born?” and other questions surrounding His birth. 

Prepare to journey with us as we go over history books, science, and the Bible to try and figure out Jesus’ actual birthday. 

Why Do We Celebrate Jesus’ Birthday on December 25?

Have you ever wondered why Christians worldwide come together to celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25? We can draw the answer to this question from ancient traditions and historical stories.

Historically, the roots of December 25 as the chosen date for Jesus’ birthday trace back to a blend of early Christianity and pagan festivals. Some researchers argue that the Roman Catholic Church picked this date to align with the winter solstice and Saturnalia, a Roman festival dedicated to celebrating the pagan god Saturn. 

It is believed that the church may have co-opted these popular pagan celebrations to mark Jesus’ birth. However, the exact date of Jesus’ birth remains a mystery. 

Early evidence reveals that it wasn’t until the late 2nd century that people started trying to determine the specific date of Jesus’ birth. By 336 AD, Emperor Constantine officially established December 25 as the day for celebrating Christ’s birth. Since then, several theories have attempted to explain why this date was the popular choice. 

One theory links Jesus’ birth to the Annunciation on March 25, with December 25 marking nine months later. Another theory connects the date to the celebration of the winter solstice in Rome during the 3rd century. 

The third theory then attempts to connect Constantine’s conversion to Christianity at the time with the choice of December 25. Since the Roman people were ready to exchange gifts and feast in celebration of Saturnalia, it would have been easy to co-opt that date as the designated Christmas day.

As for the pagan practices that likely influenced this date, the evidence leans heavily towards the Winter Solstice. This event, celebrated on December 21 or 22, marks the season when the days start getting longer. 

The occasion influenced pre-Christians to celebrate several mid-winter festivals, such as Yule in Scandinavia and Koleda in Eastern Europe. In Persian culture, they celebrated the Yalda Night, and the winter solstice fell during the same period and influenced the early Christian celebration of Jesus’ birth.

In the end, while the exact origins of Christmas are not exactly clear, the celebration of Jesus’ birth on December 25 has become a cherished tradition, reminding us to honor His life, death, and resurrection.

Early Christian Ideas on Jesus’ Birth Date

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Now, let us turn to the writings of early Christian scholars in our attempt to determine the exact date of Jesus’ birth. However, note that the Apostolic Fathers, comprising the Christians succeeding the Apostles (c. AD 80–110), offer scant details about the precise date of Christ’s birth. 

Writings such as the Didache, 1 & 2 Clement, Barnabas’ Epistle, the Shepherd of Hermas, Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians, and Papias of Hierapolis provide little clarity on this matter.

Our first hint comes from Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 35–107). In his Epistle to the Ephesians, he speaks of a new star appearing at Jesus’s birth, echoing Matthew’s account. Still, his writings did not reveal a specific date and were not different from anything you could read for yourself in the Bible.

A few years later, Justin Martyr (c. AD 100–165) spoke about Jesus’s birth but, like Ignatius, failed to reveal a specific date. He aligned himself with Luke’s narrative that Jesus was born during the census under Quirinius’s rule.

Irenaeus of Lyons (c. AD 130–200) was the first Christian scholar to make specific claims. In his work titled ‘Against Heresies,’ Irenaeus asserted that Jesus was born around the 41st year of Augustus. 

However, he was making an assumption like the others. Still, we acknowledge that he made a better attempt at narrowing the date down to between 4 and 3 BC.

Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 150–215) introduced skepticism. He disapproved of attempts by some Alexandrian Christians to pinpoint Jesus’s birth to specific days, expressing doubts about their accuracy.

In the third century, Julius Africanus (c. AD 180–250) provided a date for Jesus’s birth in his work, ‘History of the World,’ claiming that it was in 2 BC. However, this seems to be more tied to the beginning of Christ’s ministry, not His birth.

For Tertullian of Carthage (c. AD 160–225), Jesus Christ was born during the 41st year of Augustus, likely around 3 BC, agreeing with Irenaeus. On his part, Eusebius of Caesarea (c. AD 260–340) supported the 2 BC timeframe, referencing the forty-second year of Augustus and the 28th year after the subjugation of Egypt.

How Early Writers Predicted Jesus Birthday?

From the facts highlighted above, we can draw a timeline of what early Christian writers believed was the timeframe of Jesus’ birth. The table below shows how these writers predicted Jesus’ birthday and their estimated timelines:

What the Bible Says About the Date of Jesus’ Birth

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The Bible, particularly the Gospel accounts in Matthew 2 and Luke 3, provides key insights into the birth of Jesus. These chapters link Jesus’s birth with the time of King Herod’s rule. 

Herod, as we learn, passed away around the spring of 4 BC, setting a solid starting point for investigating Jesus’s birth because we know that it occurred before Herod’s death.

Matthew 2:1 declared that Jesus was born in Bethlehem during King Herod’s reign. Matthew’s account tells us that wise men from the East visited Jesus, and by verse 9, we find them standing over a “young child.” While his exact age isn’t specified, the Greek term “paidion” implies that he was a young child rather than an infant. 

Additionally, the tragic event of the slaughter of children (Matthew 2:16), where those two years old and under were targeted, further suggests that Jesus was already a young child. 

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and sent out and killed all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding countryside, from two years old and under, according to the exact time which he had learned from the wise men. (Matthew 2:16)

This aligns with Herod’s death in 4 BC, indicating that Jesus’s birth likely occurred in the previous year or earlier.

Luke’s account connects Jesus’s ministry to the reign of Tiberius, with John the Baptist beginning his ministry in the fifteenth year of Tiberius’ rule (Luke 3:1–3). 

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. He came into all the region around the Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for remission of sins. Luke 3:1-2

Calculating backward, this hints at Jesus starting His ministry around AD 28 and being born roughly in 3 BC. Luke 2:2 associates Jesus’s birth with the census during the reign of Cyrenius (Quirinius) in AD 6–7. However, some scholars challenge this belief, claiming that it may be an error. 

The only way to resolve this discrepancy is to dig up evidence or information about an earlier census.

Insights From the Book of Mormon on Jesus’s Birthday

The Book of Mormon offers a unique perspective on the birth year of Jesus through a passage in 3 Nephi 8:5. It mentions a significant event — a great storm — on the 34th year, first month, fourth day, which some believe might align with the day of Jesus’s death mentioned in Matthew 27:51–52. 

This connection implies that if we can establish Jesus’s death date, we may also be able to deduce his birth year.

However, to unravel the Book of Mormon on this subject matter, we must take special caution because of the unpredictable nature of the evidence. For example, while the passage in 3 Nephi references the Nephite calendar, it is still unclear how long a Nephite year is. 

Scholars have suggested that Nephite years were likely 365 days long, and this assumption forms the basis for calculating the birth year of Jesus. However, there are still many challenges in analyzing all the evidence from the Book of Mormon. We outline some of them below:

• First, we’re not sure how many months and days make up a year for the Nephites.
• The Nephites didn’t always follow the regular calendar; they sometimes used Lehi’s leaving date for specific things.
• There’s a difference between the 600 years from Lehi leaving to Jesus being born in the Nephite calendar and our current calendar.
• In the Book of Omni, they use moons to figure out how long things last.
• Besides the 600-year prediction, the appearance of a special star suggests that more clarity is needed to determine exactly when Jesus was born.

One thing is certain when carefully analyzing the above evidence: If the Nephites strictly followed a purely lunar calendar with 29½ days per month, Jesus’s lifetime in a solar calendar would be around thirty-two years. 

But if the Nephites adjusted their lunar calendar to match the solar cycle or followed a true solar calendar, Jesus’s lifetime would be approximately thirty-three years and a few days. From these, we can then count backward to get the accurate date of Jesus’ birth. 

Bible Calculations of Jesus’ Birth Date From His Death

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Calculating the actual birth date of Jesus will require us to do some digging through the scriptures. One way to calculate it is to figure out the year of his death and then work backward around 30 to 33 years. 

We must first consider the date of Jesus’s death. According to the Gospels, Jesus died during the rule of Pontius Pilate, roughly between AD 26 and 36, and it happened during the Jewish festival of Passover. 

However, there’s a small difference among the Gospels regarding the exact day of Jesus’s death. Matthew, Mark, and Luke suggest it was on the day of Passover (Nisan 15), while John places it on the day of Passover preparation (Nisan 14), a day before. Hence, there is a slight discrepancy in the Gospel accounts.

Some scholars argue for a Thursday crucifixion instead of the traditional Friday. They use John’s account and the mention of a high day in relation to the Sabbath in John 19:31 as grounds for this argument. However, this interpretation is not widely accepted.

In any case, we have established the probable days of Jesus’s death as either Nisan 14 or 15 on a Friday. Building on this, scholars have tried to narrow down the possible years using astronomy. 

By considering the month (Nisan), the day of the week, Friday, and the day of the month (14th or 15th), they attempt to calculate when the new moon (start of the month) occurred for that particular month. This could help determine the specific year when Jesus was crucified.

One attempt suggests Friday, April 3, AD 33, as the likely date of Jesus’s crucifixion based on ancient lunar cycles. This calculation aligns with the idea that Jesus was crucified on Nisan 14, as the Gospel of John indicates. Note that these calculations and interpretations are still subject to debate among scholars because of the uncertainties surrounding them.

Lunar Calculations That Predicted Jesus Christ’s Birthday

Another way to determine the birth date of Jesus Christ from another angle will require lunar calculations. Like the other angles, calculating Bible and Mormon book predictions, we can use lunar prediction to pinpoint the exact date of his crucifixion and work backward to estimate the year of his birth.

The process begins with theoretical dates for the 14th and 15th Nisan, aligning with the crucifixion period. For instance, in AD 30, the 14th Nisan would theoretically fall on Friday, April 7, while the 15th Nisan on Saturday, April 8.

Ordinarily, these calculations should help us establish when Jesus was crucified and narrow it down to His birth year from there. Yet, there is a big problem with this thinking, which is the fact that astronomical calculations can’t precisely reveal the actual date of the Passover celebration during Jesus’s time. 

The ancient Jewish calendar relied on observations, not calculations. This nuance leaves it susceptible to errors, especially in sighting new moons. According to the law of Moses at that time, spotting a new moon marked the start of a new month. 

But other factors like poor weather conditions and unreliable witnesses could make it hard to tell exactly. In fact, false sightings of new moons were a common observational error at the time, affecting the calendar’s accuracy.

History has also shown that there have been disagreements among Jews about the exact day of Passover, which is also proof that we cannot fully rely on the Jewish calendar or even modern astronomical calculations.

Considering this uncertainty and combining it with evidence from the Book of Mormon and the Gospels about Jesus’s lifespan, we get a range of possible birth years. From this combined evidence, we can estimate a death date around AD 29 or 30, a ministry beginning around AD 27, and a birth date approximately between 6–5 BC.

• Related Article : What Did Jesus Look Like?
• Related Article : The Crucifixion of Jesus

Does It Matter When We Celebrate Jesus’ Birthday?

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In the grand scheme of things, it does not matter which calendar date we pick to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. We may be unable to calculate the exact date, and it has raised a series of theological debates over the years. 

But if it mattered so much what day Jesus was born, perhaps God would have revealed it in the Bible. If the Bible — our guidebook — kept it out, then we can say it’s not the most important part of the story.

What should be more important to us as Christians is the why and how of Jesus’s birth. Christmas itself is primarily about God showing love to us. John 3:16-17 says God sent His Son not to condemn but to save us. 

Changing the current date from December 25 will prove problematic in these times. For one, school calendars and public holidays are already set around this time. The economies of many developed nations also get a boost during this season. 

Also, even if December 25 does not make sense to everyone, it helps unify the global church. People have more time to come together without the pressure of work or school, and the church has a chance to connect with the community during the holiday season. 

The joy of carols may even spark an interest in the real story behind Christmas and draw non-believers to church. 

The exact date does not matter as much as the fact that it did happen. What Christians ought to focus on is the revolutionary message of love and hope that Christ brings.