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Why Is Christmas on December 25?

Why Is Christmas on December 25?

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Starting explanation, not independently reviewed

The current answer

The Gospels give no date. Two theories compete, and the popular one (stolen from Sol Invictus and Mithras) is shakier than the internet thinks.

What remains uncertain

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Claims & evidence

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No Gospel names a day, a month, or a season for Jesus's birth.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Canonical Gospels

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Luke's detail of shepherds "keeping watch over their flock by night" (Luke 2:8) has been argued both toward spring and away from winter, but it fixes no date.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Luke 2:8

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The earliest secure attestation of December 25 as Christ's birthday sits in the Chronograph of 354, an illustrated Roman almanac compiled by the calligrapher Furius Dionysius Philocalus.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Chronograph of 354

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Early Christians held a notion of "integral age," the belief that a great prophet died on the same date he was conceived, living a whole number of years.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Sextus Julius Africanus, Chronographiai (c. 221)

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