First, you are now the administrator along with Rose for RF&S. I wish you well.
This is very long document is interesting... but, I do have a question. The original Roman year had 10 named months, not 12 and New Year began with Martius "March". Then in the year 45, the calendar was adjusted again.... the Julian calendar which was a sun calendar. All was good, but the over compensated for leap year. So... for several hundred years those that used the Julian calendar was adding a day every 4 years. It should have been every 128 years plus a second. By 1582, seasonal equinoxes were falling "too early," and some church holidays, such as Easter, did not always fall in the proper seasons. In that year, Pope Gregory XIII authorized, and most Roman Catholic countries adopted, the "Gregorian" or "New Style" Calendar."
For hundreds of years... people used 2 calendars so many of the "dated" documents are correct if you know which dating system was used. Otherwise... it could be off as much as 90 plus days or perhaps years.
I am not saying that Jesus was not born in December... but, I am not positive. You see, in Israel during winter (which starts on the Gregorian calendar) 21 December... it is the rainy season.... making the already cold air much more uncomfortable. And this is supported by the bible writer Ezra shows that Chislev was indeed a month known for cold and rainy weather. After stating that a crowd had gathered in Jerusalem “in the ninth month [Chislev], on the 20th day of the month,” Ezra reports that people were “shivering . . . because of the heavy rain.” The congregated people themselves said: “It is the rainy season. It is not possible to stand outside.” (Ezra 10:9, 13; Jeremiah 36:22). The ninth month, Chislev runs from mid-November to mid-December. (Ne 1:1; Zec 7:1). With this in mind, not many animals are born during this time... too early for grazing. Also, would shepherds be living in the field in tents or would they put the sheep/goats in mangers for the biter cold nights?
In the Christian Bible, there is no date indicated.... even Harold was not sure when he decided to protect himself by having all children from birth to age 2 murdered. Indeed, in Greece and Egypt (even now) each year a person does not celebrate their day of birth, they celebrate their 'name' day..... No child is given a formal name until at least one year (sometimes more) have passed due to infant mortality. So... I am not sure and really, does it matter? What matters to my mind, he was born... he taught... and he was the messiah for gentiles. The date that has always mattered... is the date of death, and we know when that happened--no doubt or question.
[quote=Doc110]12/24/2012 Here’s a Defense of the Traditional Date for Christmas . . . (Part 2)
Dr. Taylor Marshall
https://taylormarshall.com/2012/12/yes-christ-was-really-born-on-december.html Yes, Christ Was Really Born on December 25.
II. The birth of Christ would be about or on December 25:
a. Sacred Tradition also confirms December 25 as the birthday of the Son of God.
b. The source of this ancient tradition is the Blessed Virgin Mary herself.
c. Ask any mother about the birth of her children.
She will not only give you the date of the birth, but she will be able to rattle off the time, the location, the weather, the weight of the baby, the length of the baby, and a number of other details.
I’m the father of six blessed children, and while I sometimes forget these details—mea maxima culpa—my wife never does.
You see, mothers never forget the details surrounding the births of their babies.
Now ask yourself:
Would the Blessed Virgin Mary ever forget the birth of her Son Jesus Christ who was conceived without human seed, proclaimed by angels, born in a miraculous way, and visited by Magi?
She knew from the moment of His incarnation in her stainless womb that He was the Son of God and Messiah.
Would she ever forget that day?[v]
Next, ask yourself:
Would the Apostles be interested in hearing Mary tell the story ?
Of course they would.
Do you think the holy Apostle who wrote, “And the Word was made flesh,” was not interested in the minute details of His birth?
Even when I walk around with our seven-month-old son, people always ask “How old is he?” or “When was he born?”
Don’t you think people asked this question of Mary?
So the exact birth date (December 25) and the time (midnight) would have been known in the first century.
Moreover, the Apostles would have asked about it and would have, no doubt, commemorated the blessed event that both Saint Matthew and Saint Luke chronicle for us.
In summary, it is completely reasonable to state that the early Christians both knew and commemorated the birth of Christ.
Their source would have been His Immaculate Mother.
III. The Early Church Patristic Fathers Writings.
Further testimony reveals that the Church Fathers claimed December 25 as the Birthday of Christ prior to the conversion of Constantine and the Roman Empire.
The earliest record of this is that Pope Saint Telesphorus (reigned A.D. 126-137) instituted the tradition of Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
Although the Liber Pontificalis does not give us the date of Christmas, it assumes that the Pope was already celebrating Christmas and that a Mass at midnight was added.
During this time, we also read the following words of Theophilus (A.D. 115-181), Catholic bishop of Caesarea in Palestine:
“We ought to celebrate the birthday of Our Lord on what day soever the 25th of December shall happen.”[vi]
Shortly thereafter in the second century, Saint Hippolytus (A.D. 170-240) wrote in passing that the birth of Christ occurred on December 25:
The First Advent of our Lord in the flesh occurred when He was born in Bethlehem, was December 25th, a Wednesday, while Augustus was in his forty-second year, which is five thousand and five hundred years from Adam.
He suffered in the thirty-third year, March 25th, Friday, the eighteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, while Rufus and Roubellion were Consuls.[vii]
Also note in the quote above the special significance of March 25, which marks the death of Christ (March 25 was assumed to corresponded to the Hebrew month Nisan 14 – the traditional date of crucifixion).[viii]
Christ, as the perfect man, was believed to have been conceived and died on the same day—March 25.
In his Chronicon, Saint Hippolytus states that the earth was created on March 25, 5500 B.C.
Thus, March 25 was identified by the Church Fathers as the Creation date of the universe, as the date of the Annunciation and Incarnation of Christ, and also as the date of the Death of Christ our Savior.
In the Syrian Church, March 25 or the Feast of the Annunciation was seen as one of the most important feasts of the entire year.
It denoted the day that God took up his abode in the womb of the Virgin.
In fact, if the Annunciation and Good Friday came into conflict on the calendar, the Annunciation trumped it, so important was the day in Syrian tradition.
It goes without saying that the Syrian Church preserved some of the most ancient Christian traditions and had a sweet and profound devotion for Mary and the Incarnation of Christ.
Now then, March 25 was enshrined in the early Christian tradition, and from this date it is easy to discern the date of Christ’s birth.
March 25 (Christ conceived by the Holy Ghost) plus nine months brings us to December 25 (the birth of Christ at Bethlehem).
Saint Augustine confirms this tradition of March 25 as the Messianic conception and December 25 as His birth:
For Christ is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered;
So the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since.
But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.[ix]
In about A.D. 400, Saint Augustine also noted how the schismatic Donatists celebrated December 25 as the birth of Christ, but that the schismatics refused to celebrate Epiphany on January 6, since they regarded Epiphany as a new feast without a basis in Apostolic Tradition.
The Donatist schism originated in A.D. 311 which may indicate that the Latin Church was celebrating a December 25 Christmas (but not a January 6 Epiphany) before A.D. 311.
Whichever is the case, the liturgical celebration of Christ’s birth was commemorated in Rome on December 25 long before Christianity became legalized and long before our earliest record of a pagan feast for the birthday of the Unconquered Sun.
For these reasons, it is reasonable and right to hold that Christ was born on December 25 in 1 B.C. and that he died and rose again in March of A.D. 33.
Taylor’s new book The Eternal City also makes an argument in defense of the traditional BC/AD dating as being 100% accurate.
[i] The Chronography of AD 354. Part 12: Commemorations of the Martyrs. MGH Chronica Minora I (1892), pp. 71-2.
[ii] I realize that there are two courses of Abias. This theory only works if Zacharias and Elizabeth conceived John the Baptist after Zacharias’ second course – the course in September.
If Saint Luke refers to the first course, this then would place the birth of John the Baptist in late Fall and the birth of Christ in late Spring.
However, I think tradition and the Protoevangelium substantiate that the Baptist was conceived in late September. [iii]
Josef Heinrich Friedlieb’s Leben J. Christi des Erlösers. Münster, 1887, p. 312.
[iv] The Greek tradition especially celebrates Saint Zacharias as “high priest.”
Nevertheless, Acts 5:24 reveals that there were several “chief priests” (ἀρχιερεῖς), and thus the claim that Zacharias was a “high priest” may not indicate a contradiction.
The Greek tradition identifies Zacharias as an archpriest and martyr based on the narrative of the Protoevangelium of James and Matthew 23:35:
“That upon you may come all the just blood that hath been shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel the just, even unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom you killed between the temple and the altar.”
(Matthew 23:35)
[v] A special thanks to the Reverend Father Phil Wolfe, FSSP for bringing the “memory of Mary” argument to my attention.
[vi] Magdeburgenses, Cent. 2. c. 6. Hospinian, De origine Festorum Chi
(End Part 1)[/quote]