When was Jesus born?

 

I was asked that question once by an old and valued (and much missed) friend and teacher, Morrie Lord.

If I asked that today, since it's almost Christmas, it's easy to go with tradition and say December 25.

But anyone who has studied history knows that the historical Jesus was probably not born on that day we designate December 25, and probably not even in the year we designate as either 1 AD or 1 BC (most calendars do not have a year Zero).

So, when was Jesus born?

It’s one of those “trick” questions, isn’t it?

For example, I was once asked “How many stories are there in the Bible?” When I’ve asked that question, I usually get these looks from people who know there is some sort of trick answers, but can’t figure out what it might be. After all, there are 66 books that make up most of our Bibles.

But to say that means there are 66 stories discounts all the stories contained within those books. Somewhere along the way, monks or scribes or publishers decided the Bible could be more easily read if divided into chapters, and there are (by a quick search) 1,189 chapters in the Bible. Does that mean there are 1,189 stories? No, because some chapters are continuation of stories, particularly in the historical books.

Even to say each story – take the story of King David, for instance – is made up of individual stories: David as the shepherd boy; Davis slaying Goliath; David as the renegade running from King Saul; David as King …

But The answer – what might seem like the ‘trick’ answer – is that there is only one story in the Bible: the story of God. Christians believe the Bible is there to tell us about God and God’s relationship with mankind. If you should ever be asked “how many stories are there in the Bible,” you can smugly answer “One.”

That brings me back to the original question, “When was Jesus born?”

When asked, my mind went into historical overdrive. I knew the answer wasn’t December 25, 1 AD or 1 BC. That date was first made official by Pope Julius I in 350 AD, and codified, for lack of a better word, in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a reform of the Julian calendar.

I had read, somewhere along the way, of historians analyzing references to known historical events mentioned in the nativity accounts in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, and working backward from the estimation of the start of the ministry of Jesus; of studying astrological or astronomical alignments having to do with the “star” that the Gospels say led the Wise Men to see Jesus; or even using the idea of time of the year based on when shepherds might actually in the field “keeping watch over their flock by night.”

Historical accounts of the figures mentioned in the Gospels suggest the actual date might be been between what we now would call either 6-7 AD (based on the Census account, which the non-Biblical historian Josephus describes), or between 4-6 BC, which is when Herod – another prominent figure in the Biblical story – died.

There are other theories as well, based on other historical events.

As for the actual day, there is a lot of theorizing about December 25 based primarily on the winter solstice because of its symbolic theological significance. The theory is that because the solstice is when the “short” winter days (in terms of daylight) begin to lengthen with longer hours of sunlight, which represents the Light of Christ entering the world. (The Feast of St. John is June 24^th, the point in which the length of daylight begins to lessen, a reference to John saying of the “Light of the World,” “I must decrease, that He may increase.” See the significance?)

Other scholars suggest September; still others – including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) - say the birth took place in early to mid-April.

As I tried to come up with an answer to “When was Jesus born?”, my mind was racing with thoughts of AD and BC and December and September and April.

Yet the Apostle Paul, in the book of Galatians, gives this answer: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law …”

When was Jesus born? In the fullness of time.

It’s another of those “clever” answers that some of us might call a word game, like “how many stories are there in the Bible” and “who reigns in Hell?”

The "fullness of time" - when, according to His Sovereign plan, everything was in place for Jesus to become a babe, and set in motion the events that would change the world. 

But what struck me about the question was how often I, as a human of middling intelligence, so easily get caught up in minutia. Ask me a question, and I will analyze the answer to death, taking a very literal approach to every word of query.

Yet it occurs to me that God sees a bigger picture. We see the unfolding of history on a timeline, occurring sequentially because that’s how we live. God is timeless. Even the name He gives Himself to Moses, “I AM,” is present tense, suggesting to me that God has neither past nor future and all of eternity is one big “present tense” to Him. We humans measure time; to God, it simply “is.”

Which, as we approach another New Year, brings me to another phrase I find myself repeating more frequently in these days when things around us seem more disturbing, more disruptive to old-fashioned norms, more deadly even. You often hear people shake their heads and say, “The world is falling apart.”

To which I remind myself that, as a Christian, the Bible tells me the world is not falling apart; God’s plan is coming together.

When, you ask? 

In the fullness of time.