| Christ's
Birth
The opening of the Third
Millennium harmonized with the traditional date for the first Christmas.
The birth of Jesus is arguably the most important day to
celebrate in a new millennium. But
there is plenty of doubt about when that birth took place.
There is no clear historical
record of the date and year of Jesus’ birth.
Although his birth is recounted in two of the Gospels, Matthew
and Luke, neither assigns a date.
There are two main theories
surrounding the choice of December 25 for the nativity.
The first looks to the third century Roman-pagan celebration
coinciding with the winter solstice.
As the days began to lengthen again, Dec. 25 became a festival
for the rebirth of the unconquered sun. Christians,
who believed that Christ was the real, unconquered source of light, put
his birth on the same date.
The second theory looks to
the passion of Jesus. According
to early speculation the actual day of Christ’s Passion fell on March
25 in the year Jesus died. Some
Christians believed that Jesus died on the anniversary of his
conception. For this reason
March 25 became also the celebration of the annunciation.
Looking forward nine months, the birth of Jesus was placed on
December 25.
The traditional year of Jesus
birth was fixed in the mid-sixth century by Dionysius Exigus, a monk and
scholar who set the calendar according to the system we now know as A.D.
(anno domini, “in the year of the Lord”) .
However Matthew and Luke both say Jesus was born during the reign
of Herod the Great, which scholars now calculate from 37 to 4 B.C.
Oddly enough then, Jesus was probably born “before Christ”.
Although the actual birth
date of Jesus may not be known, He was born, and the millennium
commemorates that birth by recognizing that all of time hinges on the
life of Jesus.
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