Why is Christmas celebrated on 25th?
The Roman Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus dated Jesus' conception to March 25 (the same date upon which he held that the world was created), which, after nine months in his mother's womb, would result in a December 25 birth.
The first date listed, December 25, is marked: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae: “Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea … ” So, almost 300 years after Jesus was born, we finally find people observing his birth in mid-winter.”
Under Emperor Constantine, the Church in Rome began celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25 in 336. Some say the date was chosen to outshine the Sol Invictus and pagan celebrations.
The date of birth of Jesus is not stated in the gospels or in any historical sources, but most biblical scholars generally accept a date of birth between 6 BC and 4 BC, the year in which King Herod died.
"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." "And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins."
December 25 is celebrated globally as Christmas Day to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. The invention of pendulum clock, demise of Charlie Chaplin and the birth of Madan Mohan Malviya also took place on this day.
Dec. 25 is not the date mentioned in the Bible as the day of Jesus's birth; the Bible is actually silent on the day or the time of year when Mary was said to have given birth to him in Bethlehem.
The celebration of Christmas started in Rome about 336, but it did not become a major Christian festival until the 9th century.
The origins of Christmas stem from both the pagan and Roman cultures. The Romans actually celebrated two holidays in the month of December. The first was Saturnalia, which was a two-week festival honoring their god of agriculture Saturn. On December 25th, they celebrated the birth of Mithra, their sun god.
“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.”
Where is Christmas in the Bible?
The New Testament contains two Christmas stories, not one. They appear in Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2.
Millions of Christians do not observe Christmas. Among them are Quakers, Jehovah's Witnesses, and members of the Churches of Christ. Some of the half-dozen Christian faiths that do no celebrate Dec. 25 contend there is nothing in the Bible that says Christ was born on that day.
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world.
By God's grace, we have been able to prove both from the Bible and history that Jesus Christ was born in the month of October and not December, as is being claimed by many Christians.
Deuteronomy 16:21 says:
All in all, whether you put up a Christmas tree or not, the worship should always be about the Lord and nothing else. If that is your driving force, whether or not you put up a tree is solely up to you.
It is a time of God showing His great love for us. It can be a time of healing and renewed strength. Sure, enjoy the season but remember to rejoice as well! After all, the true meaning of Christmas is the celebration of God's ultimate gift: the birth of Jesus, the Christ child.
On Christmas Eve, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, who came into the world as the Son of God and Saviour to redeem humanity from its sins. The exact date of Jesus' birth is not known and there is no reference to it in the Gospels.
Christians celebrate Christmas Day as the anniversary of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, a spiritual leader whose teachings form the basis of their religion.
Exactly how old is Santa? According to the blog Email Santa, Santa Claus is 1,751 years old as of 2022. In fact, the origins of Santa Claus can be traced all the way back to a monk named Saint Nicholas, who was born between 260 and 280 A.D. in a village called Patara, which is part of modern-day Turkey.
The first official mention of December 25 as a holiday honoring Jesus' birthday appears in an early Roman calendar from AD 336. The celebration of Christmas spread throughout the Western world over the next several centuries, but many Christians continued to view Epiphany and Easter as more important.
When was December 25th chosen as Christmas day?
The Roman Empire, before it recognized Christianity, celebrated the rebirth of Sol Invictus on December 25, which coincided with the Roman festival Saturnalia when people feasted and exchanged gifts. Under Constantine, the Church in Rome began celebrating Christmas on December 25 in 336.
The Virgin Mary, pregnant with the son of God, would hence have given birth to Jesus nine months later on the winter solstice. From Rome, the Christ's Nativity celebration spread to other Christian churches to the west and east, and soon most Christians were celebrating Christ's birth on December 25.
St Augustine of Canterbury was the person who probably started the widespread celebration of Christmas in large parts of England by introducing Christianity to the regions run by the Anglo-Saxons in the 6th century (other Celtic parts of Britain were already Christian but there aren't many documents about if or how ...
We often refer to Jesus as Jesus Christ, and some people assume that Christ is Jesus's last name. But Christ is actually a title, not a last name. So if Christ isn't a last name, what was Jesus's last name? The answer is Jesus didn't have a formal last name or surname like we do today.
In fact, when Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast drew Santa Claus for Harper's Weekly in 1862, Santa was a small elflike figure who supported the Union. Nast continued to draw Santa for 30 years, changing the color of his coat from tan to the red he's known for today.
Much earlier, the American cartoonist Thomas Nast fashioned Santa Claus's image on the pages of the American magazine Harper's Weekly. The character of Santa Claus is believed to descend from Bishop Nicholas of Myra, who lived in the 4th century.
The word Christmas comes from Middle English Cristemasse, which in turn comes from Old English Cristes-messe, literally meaning Christ's Mass. Of course, we are not talking about the physical mass of Christ's body. The origin of mass, in the Christian sense of the word, is not entirely clear.
"The 25th of December was celebrated as the birthday of Mithra who was god of the sun, and the 25th of December was an important date in different religions. To compete with these other religions, the date of the birth of Jesus Christ was fixed to 25th December."
Christmas is a celebration, a time for giving and not simply a day we exchange gifts. The spirit of Christmas is in the 'togetherness', it's in the thought to which you put into thinking about others, it's a selfless time, where we forgive, take stock of what's important and become 'better' versions of ourselves.
Christmas Eve marks the end of the Advent season, the period of preparation for Christmas, which begins on November 30, or November 15 in the East. It was on this night that the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks outside Bethlehem saw the bright star in the sky that signaled the birth of Jesus Christ.
Is there Christmas without Jesus?
"In our day, especially in Europe, we are witnessing a type of 'distortion' of Christmas" in which "all reference to Christ's birth is eliminated from the holiday". In reality, however, "without Jesus there is no Christmas; there is another holiday, but not Christmas".
They saw Christmas as a wasteful festival that threatened Christian beliefs and encouraged immoral activities, to (in Stubbs' words) the 'great dishonour of God'.
Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate most holidays or events that honour people who aren't Jesus. That includes birthdays, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day and Hallowe'en. They also don't celebrate religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter in the belief that these customs have pagan origins.
The first Christmas ban was in 1644, as it coincided with Parliament's monthly day of prayer & fasting in the hope of bringing about an end to the war, and a specific ordinance was passed to emphasise this. Church services were not to be carried out that day.
We ask, "If all things have a creator, then who created God?" Actually, only created things have a creator, so it's improper to lump God with his creation. God has revealed himself to us in the Bible as having always existed. Atheists counter that there is no reason to assume the universe was created.
Discussion. In scripture, Prophetic Years of 360 days instead of normal years of 365 days has been interpreted as being equal to prophetic months of 30 days or years.
Jesus died, therefore, on Friday, April 3, AD 33 at about 3 p.m., a few hours before the beginning of Passover day and the Sabbath.
Most religious scholars and historians agree with Pope Francis that the historical Jesus principally spoke a Galilean dialect of Aramaic. Through trade, invasions and conquest, the Aramaic language had spread far afield by the 7th century B.C., and would become the lingua franca in much of the Middle East.
Of course, Jesus was a Jew. He was born of a Jewish mother, in Galilee, a Jewish part of the world. All of his friends, associates, colleagues, disciples, all of them were Jews. He regularly worshipped in Jewish communal worship, what we call synagogues.
The renovated Tomb where Jesus is thought to be buried, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem.
How did Saturnalia become Christmas?
Saturnalia, held in mid-December, is an ancient Roman pagan festival honoring the agricultural god Saturn. Because of when the holiday occurred—near the winter solstice—Saturnalia celebrations are the source of many of the traditions we now associate with Christmas, such as wreaths, candles, feasting and gift-giving.
Although most Christians celebrate December 25 as the birthday of Jesus Christ, few in the first two Christian centuries claimed any knowledge of the exact day or year in which he was born.
The modern Santa Claus is a direct descendent of England's Father Christmas, who was not originally a gift-giver. However, Father Christmas and his other European variations are modern incarnations of old pagan ideas about spirits who traveled the sky in midwinter, Hutton said.
From ancient times, the season that we now know as Christmas was a midwinter celebration called The Winter Solstice, or Yule. A pagan festival, The Winter Solstice was a time to celebrate the fact that the worst of winter was over, and the people could look forward to longer days with more sunlight in the near future.
Things like kissing under a mistletoe, carolling, wreaths, and even gift-giving were all aspects of pagan holidays that were adapted into Christmas celebrations in the early years.
Christmas Day is always celebrated on December 25 in Western Christian denominations; however, some cultures hold the primary celebration the night before, on December Eve.
History of Christmas Eve
The tradition of celebrating Christmas Eve derives partly from Christan liturgy starting at sunset, which is inherited from Jewish tradition and based on the Book of Genesis's Story of Creation, saying the first day starts in the evening and ends in the morning.