Traditions, we all have them, right? Especially, the beliefs and customs that are celebrated between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Our holiday traditions bring families and friends together, they bring us closer. They are designed to bring us joy and comfort to help us see what is good in life. Christians have many traditions, especially during Christmas. Whether you are Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, or whatever the domination, Christmas time is full of family and church stories and practices. Holiday traditions are a wonderful thing, and I am not here to say they are not. Nor am I trying to destroy your idea of the birth of Jesus during the Christmas holiday. What I would like to do is to bring you the truth of scripture that surrounds the holiday season and shed light on, what the Text says about the birth of Jesus the Christ, God with us. The truth of the Bible is not relative, nor is it something to take lightly. In a lot of cases, when it comes to stories in the Bible, we have let tradition take over and truth has been concealed. This should never be. Christians should always let the word of God lead us, guide our thoughts and actions, and fight hard against false ideologies and mythical stories that twist the word of God. Over the millennia, Christians have allowed tradition to overtake Biblical truth and these traditional stories have penetrated our culture and belief systems. We have grown up with these traditional ideas, stories, and myths, taught to us by our parents who probably didn’t know better. Maybe it was our church leaders, ministers, and pastors who probably did not know better. Whoever it was, they engrained these myths into our ethos just as these myths were engrained into theirs. You may have gone your entire life believing these traditional myths about Jesus’ birth, never knowing the truth because the myth has been passed down from generation after generation and no mainstream Christian has taken the time to study or even read the birth story of Christ. As Christians, we are not to forsake the word of God. Understanding God’s truth is part of our walk with Christ. We say we want to be like Him, but if we never pick up His word, how can we know what He wants for our lives? My belief is you are here because you want to know the truth about Jesus’ birth and what the Bible says about the events that happened on that faithful night. This is an important thing. The opening of a door to Biblical knowledge. Growing in Theology.
Here are ten myths that I would like to dispel, and my hope is you will see the truth of Christ’s birth, share it, and never again be ruled by false traditions of His birth. I know this sounds harsh and again I am not here to destroy your Christmas traditions. Please keep them alive. I am simply here to give you the Biblical truth of Christ’s wonderful birth that has saved us from ourselves. Hopefully, you build on this and create new and better traditions steeped in Biblical truth rather than mythos.
#10. Myth – All 4 Gospels tell the story of Jesus’ birth.
Matthew and Luke are the only two Gospels that tell the story of Christ’s birth. The Gospel of Mark starts with John the Baptist and the Gospel of John begins by explaining the deity of Christ.
#9. Myth – The angel Gabriel appeared to Joseph to inform him that Mary was with child.
Matthew 1:18-20. Vs. 20 says “an angel of the Lord” appeared to Joseph in a dream. The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary Luke 1:26.
#8. Myth – A bright star appeared in the sky and led the shepherds to a “Stable.”
Luke 2:8-15. An angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds and told them to go to the “City of David” and the sign that they have found the Messiah will be a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. There was no star for the Shepherds b/c an angel told them where to go and what to look for.
#7. Myth – A bright star appeared in the sky and led the wise men to a “Stable.”
Matthew 2:7-11. Vs. 8 says “And he sent them to Bethlehem”. Herod sent the wise men to Bethlehem saying, “go and search diligently for the child…” Vs. 9 after listening to Herod the wise men saw a star that went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. Vs. 11 and going into the “house” they saw the child. A bright star was over the house it did not lead them to a “stable.”
#6. Myth – John the Baptist was born at the same time as Jesus.
Luke 1:26-31 and Luke 1:36-41. Vs.36 says 6 months pregnant. So, if Mary left within a day or 2 after Gabriel told her she was going to be with child then that would put John about 6 months older than Jesus. Depending on when the Holy Spirit came upon her.
#5. Myth – Jesus was born in Nazareth.
Luke 2:1-4. Vs. 4 says Joseph went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea to the City of David which is called Bethlehem.
#4. Myth – An inn keeper told Joseph there was no room in the inn.
Luke 2:4-7. Vs. 7 says and she gave birth to her firstborn son…and laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. It never talks about an Inn keeper. This is a trick question I must admit. See next myth for more information.
#3. Myth – Jesus was born in a barn/stable because there was no room in the Inn.
Luke 2:7. Where did this idea of a stable or barn come from? Yes, because the text says a manger, but during ancient times mangers were in people’s houses as well as in barns or stables. Vs. 7 – the NIV and Youngs Literal translation uses the word “Guest Room”. The word INN is in most all translations. ESV, NASB, ASV and KJV, but the first Bible that used the word “Inn” was the King James Version in 1611. The KJV got the translation wrong. See my full article “Away in a Manger-Myth about Jesus born in a stable.” on why it was never an Inn, and that the truth is Jesus was born with family and friends in a house.
#2. Myth – The shepherds and wise men were present on the night Jesus was born.
Luke 2:15-16. Vs 16 says, and they went with haste and found Mary, Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. Says nothing about the wise men being there as well. If you go back to Matthew 2:1-3 starting in verse 1 it says now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem…behold wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.
Luke 2:9-11. Vs. 11 – and going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother…The word used here is “Paidion” which means child, not “Brefos” which means infant. The wise men came to see Jesus a year after He was born.
The wise men were astrologers and understood the constellations and movements very well. There were major astronomical happenings going on in the night sky in Palestine from 3BC to 2BC. Specifically, for 18 months from May to December. Revelation 12:1-2. The star that appeared above Bethlehem showing the wise men where to go was the planet Jupiter, which is also called the King planet.
#1. Myth – Jesus was born on December 25th.
All Biblical scholars agree it was not on December 25th. In fact, the first 300 years Christians didn’t celebrate the birth of Christ they celebrated His baptism on January 6th, and it was called the Feast of Theophany. Christians created a celebration to keep the faithful from celebrating the pagan holiday for the birth of the sun called Saturnalia. Another reason it could not have been on December 25th is notice that Luke says, “shepherds in the fields”. Fields were small plots of land, and they were right next to the desert. That is all the people in that area had to feed their family. The moment the harvest is gone, the shepherds move in. The sheep then turned the stubble into dirt. So, if the Shepherds were in the fields at the time of Jesus’ birth, it had to be after the time of the harvest and before planting. Harvest ends around July 1, and spring planting begins the moment the first rains happen, about November 1. Jesus’ birth could not have been between November 1 and July 1, which rules out December 25.
The Bible does not give us an exact date, but it does give us enough clues that we could figure it out. God designed the stars to help us understand season and to tell time, so with the stars and all the celestial things going on between 3BC to 2BC could we pinpoint the exact date?
“With software, we can create a computer model of the universe. In minutes we can produce thousands of sky maps, which was a great labor before computers. We can animate the universe in real time at any speed we choose, make months pass in moments or wind back the clock. We can view the sky precisely as it moved over Jerusalem 2000 years ago.” – Ernest L. Martin. The key to narrowing the date down is the Moon. Revelation 12:1-2 John said it was located “under her feet.” Since the feet of Virgo, the Virgin, represent the last 7 degrees of the constellation (in the time of Christ this would have been between about 180 and 187 degrees along the ecliptic), the Moon must be positioned somewhere under that 7-degree arc. But the Moon also must be in that exact location when the Sun is mid-bodied to Virgo. In the year 3 B.C., these two factors came to precise agreement for less than two hours, as observed from Palestine, on September 11. Ernest Martin believes Jesus was born on September 11 3B.C (The Star that Astonished the World pg. 92).
Is the 25th of December significant at all? Yes, the King Planet was stationary over Bethlehem and that was the day the Wise men visited Jesus in 2B.C. (The Star that Astonished the World pg. 59)
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