Where is it mentioned in the Old & New testament that the birth of Christ is the 25th day of December?

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 earliest Christians did not celebrate his birth.

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.According to the Gospel of Matthew, the first Gospel in the canon of the New Testament, Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem when Jesus was born. The story begins with wise men who come to the city of Jerusalem after seeing a star that they interpreted as signaling the birth of a new king.

Why is Christmas on Dec. 25? (It wasn't always.)

But why December 25? Why not December 21 or 22, the actual time of the solstice? The use of this date was a remnant of the Mithraic religion, a major religion of the Roman era with close similarities to Christianity. Mithra, the god of light and wisdom, was said to have been born from a rock on December 25.

Lie! , Now for some truth.

Most Christians today probably can’t imagine Christmas on any other day than December 25, but it wasn’t always that way. In fact, for the first three centuries of Christianity’s existence, Jesus Christ’s birth wasn’t celebrated at all. The religion’s most significant holidays were Epiphany on January 6, which commemorated the arrival of the Magi after Jesus’ birth, and Easter, which celebrated Jesus’ resurrection. The first official mention of December 25 as a holiday honoring Jesus’ birthday appears in an early Roman calendar from AD 336.

But was Jesus really born on December 25 in the first place? Probably not. The Bible doesn’t mention his exact birthday, and the Nativity story contains conflicting clues. For instance, the presence of shepherds and their sheep suggest a spring birth. When church officials settled on December 25 at the end of the third century, they likely wanted the date to coincide with existing pagan festivals honoring Saturn (the Roman god of agriculture) and Mithra (the Persian god of light). That way, it became easier to convince Rome’s pagan subjects to accept Christianity as the empire’s official religion.

Interestingly enough, some Early Church leaders actually argued against trying to determine a date for Jesus’ birthday. Instead, the emphasis was on Jesus’ death and on the specific days and events leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection (since those details are given in Scripture). Since there is so little information about Jesus’ birth, the Early Church was always content to simply emphasize the virgin birth without knowing when exactly Jesus was born.

The early evidence shows that it wasn’t until the late 2nd Century until people started trying to figure out what date Jesus was born. By 336 AD, the emperor Constantine established December 25th as the date when Christians celebrate Christ’s birth. He didn’t choose a random date. Christians had discussed various dates for this celebration, and December 25th must have become an established precedent for quite some time beforehand, for Constantine often chose the most widely attested viewpoint since it would receive the least controversy.

The Pagan Connection.

The most popular explanation for the date claims the Church selected December 25th because of pagan celebrations during the same season. It is argued that the Church assumed more people would embrace Christmas if it was seen as a replacement-option from their pagan holiday. However, this actual theory was never voiced until the 12th Century. This doesn’t mean the pagan connection is false, merely that it wasn’t presented as the motivation for celebrating Christ’s birth on December 25th until the 12th Century.

“There are problems with this popular theory, however, as many scholars recognize. Most significantly, the first mention of a date for Christmas (c. 200) and the earliest celebrations that we know about (c. 250–300) come in a period when Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character.”

However much or little the earliest Christmas celebrations borrowed from pagan tradition may be up for debate, but it seems like a stretch to say Christmas was placed on December 25 as a way to “Christianize” a pagan holiday. Later generations of Christians undoubtedly borrowed from pagan holidays. Many of us have heard this as the definitive reason for the date of Christmas, and maybe it is, but it’s not as much of an open-and-shut case as many would lead you to believe.

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.

Some, including the Puritans of colonial New England, even banned its observance because they viewed its traditions—the offering of gifts and decorating trees, for example—as linked to paganism. In the early days of the United States, celebrating Christmas was considered a British custom and fell out of style following the American Revolution. It wasn’t until 1870 that Christmas became a federal holiday.

Spring, Based off John the Baptist’s Birth.


A final view is based off John the Baptist’s birthday. John’s father, Zecheriah, was a priest in the line of Abijah. While he was offering incense before the altar of God, the LORD promised him a son: John. Later, when Mary was pregnant, she went to visit her elderly cousin who was also miraculously pregnant: Elizabeth, John’s mother. The angel Gabriel told Mary that Elizabeth was six months pregnant at the time of the annunciation (Luke 1:36). So, Jesus’s birthday is roughly six months after John’s.

As a priest in the line of Abijah, Zecheriah would serve in the temple twice each year. One of those times would take place during the rainy season when travel would be difficult, making it an unlikely time for governors to call for a census. That means his temple service likely took place during the late-Spring. We don’t know how much time elapsed between his service in the temple and Elizabeth’s pregnancy, but it was most likely a short time. Accordingly, Elizabeth became pregnant in May/June, gave birth to John the Baptist in February/March, and then Jesus would be born six months later in August/September.