Actually I’d be willing to suggest that Jesus wasn’t born on Dec 25th, but on or around September 11th, 6AD.
In the 19th century, critical scholars made a crucial decision to
reject a total lunar eclipse in January 1 BC and to accept instead one in March 4 BC, as
the chronological cornerstone for dating the death of Herod the Great, and thereby, the
possible birth years for Jesus. And so the dating error begins.
Also, there are many clues in the Gospel of Luke (and not just the information about the census) which further cement the date.
Take the story of Jesus being presented in the Temple. This provides a number of clues to the date that this happened. For example, in Jewish law, a mother who had given birth was to wait 40 days before presenting the appropriate offerings in the Temple. This is still done in Orthodox Jewish families, minus the animal sacrifices, with a special ceremony.
Now to narrow down the date of this. There was an old woman in the Temple who had been in the Temple ‘a night and a day without leaving’. Now usually the Temple was opened at sunrise and closed at sunset, but there was ONE time of the year when the Temple remained open, and this was on Yom Kippur (Night of Redemption).
This shows the 40th day of Mary’s Purification had begun at the end of Yom Kippur,
the end of the 10th day of the 7th month, because we know the Purification was done at
the earliest opportunity–at the beginning of the 40th day after birth. And since the 6th
month normally had only 29 days, simple arithmatic shows Mary’s 39 days of Purification
had to have begun around sundown on the 1st day of the 6th month, called Elul.
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This was the night of the first sighting of the new moon of Elul. The Magi in Babylon
were recording this sunset sliver of the new moon on a clay tablet. The cuneiform tablet
the Magi made at that hour 2000 years ago, along with thousands of others from Babylon,
resides in the British Museum. It is possible that this clay tablet was inscribed by one of
the famous Magi who later brought a strange set of gifts to Bethlehem. So the new moon
seen by the Magi in Babylon at the very moment of Jesus being born is recorded on one of
the tablets now in London. Cuneiform scholars have identified the date on this tablet as
equivalent to September, 11, 3 BC.
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We can also tell from Luke's Gospel that Jesus had been born in early evening, for
Luke says the shepherds were keeping watch by night, but still had time to go into town
and tell the people what they had seen earlier that evening. People rose early with the sun
in those days, and would have been asleep by 9 or 10 pm. Therefore, the birth had taken
place no later than 8 pm, and probably before 7 pm. Yet Luke says it happened at night,
which means after sunset–surely after 6 pm in September. Hence, it follows that Jesus
was born within a few minutes of 6:30-7:30 pm on the evening of September 11th, 3 BC.
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A confirmation of this time is in the book of Revelation. Historian Ernest L. Martin
consulted NASA lunar-phase tables and found the image of the heavens in Revelation 12
showed where the sun and the moon were, relative to Virgo, at the time Jesus was born,
pin-pointing sunset of September 11th of 3 BC. It seems the moon moves so quickly it is
“beneath the feet” of Virgo only a few hours every month. Moreover, the moon comes
within two lunar diameters of Virgo’s feet at the time of a new moon but once in 30 years.
The only such occurance any time near the birth of Jesus was on September 11th, 3 BC.
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Most previous attempts at determining the birth time were based upon astrology and
dating the Star of Bethlehem. No one considered 3 BC because that year had erroneously
been assumed to follow Herod’s death. However, Dr. Martin has proven that Herod did
not die in 4 BC, but in 1 BC. Scholars are now generally accepting the new chronology for
Herod, and this in turn has allowed the confirmation of the New Testament date for the
birth of Jesus. Unfortunately, many churches continue to promote the critics’ errors and
paganized traditions about the Nativity.
