Did you know? (Sunday, December 24, 2023)

The specific date of Jesus’ birth is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible, and there is no definitive biblical evidence indicating that he was born on December 25th. The Gospels in the New Testament do not specify the exact date of Jesus’ birth but provide accounts of the events surrounding his nativity. The Church ultimately settled on December 25 at the end of the third century. One theory is that the date was selected to coincide with the Roman Empire’s celebration of the rebirth of Sol Invictus (Roman god of the sun) on the same date. According to, Prof. Candida Moss, however, “The real reason for the selection of Dec. 25 seems to have been that it is exactly nine months after March 25, the traditional date of Jesus’ crucifixion… As Christians developed the theological idea that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same date, they set the date of his birth nine months later.”