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Welcome to the Rapid Bull, daily edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of striving for eternity.
Merry Christmas! This is the time of year that we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, having been born on December 25th, in the year 0 AD. Is that right? Well, this is actually one of the myths of Christmas.
Jesus actually wouldn't have been born on December 25th, nor 0 AD. There are no references in the early documents of when Jesus was born. The first we see any reference to trying to find a date for the birth of Christ was Clement of Alexandria in the 3rd century, and he had several potential dates, none of them being December 25th.
Many people would think he would have been born more in the April timeframe, in the spring. Now the first record that we have of December 25th being a birth date of Jesus is the 4th century in an edition of a Roman almanac, and that came out in 364 AD.
Now it wasn't until Pope Julius I that the date was set, for at least the Western Christians, in the 4th century. Some people say that this was a taking of a pagan holiday and making it a Christian But that ritual didn't start happening until the 7th century.
Was Jesus actually born in 0 AD? Well, no. From dating of times of events that we have historically, we would think that Jesus probably was born somewhere between 6 BC to maybe 3 AD. So the reality is Jesus was probably born, most people think, around 3 BC.
This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content, or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.