OK, maybe the title of my article is a little too bold. The Bible doesn’t give us the date of Jesus’s birth, so we can’t claim a particular date with certainty. But is it the case that Jesus was actually born in late summer? Is it the case that the church chose December 25 to co-opt pagan festivals? Enough people — Christians and non-Christians alike — believe these theories that they are repeated every Christmas season. Yet given the historical data we have, there’s no reason to believe them.
Let me state up front that it doesn’t really matter when Jesus was born; what matters is that he was born. Remarkably, a New Testament author never recorded the date for us, even though they could have. Surely Mary and Joseph and the shepherds remembered the date, and this date would have been known by Jesus and passed on to the apostles. Yet the Holy Spirit didn’t deem it necessary to put into writing.
If it doesn’t matter, then why defend a December 25 date? Defenders of December 25 primarily do so in response to the naysayers. It’s a matter of defending the decisions and intentions of the church, and of historical accuracy. Given the information we have, there’s no indication that the church wanted to co-opt pagan festivals. In fact, the opposite was generally true: The church wanted nothing to do with pagan practices. Christians, of all people, should want to be charitable to our ancestors and not impugn their motives.
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