WA S J ESUS A S BOR N ON 2 5 DECEM BER ? Jalees Ahmad Jalees is a missionary serving in the Ahmadiyya Archive and Research Centre and Al Hakam. He is also part of the Ismael editorial team
This would mean that Christmas wasn’t observed by the Roman church until about 300 years after Jesus’as death, meaning that the practice of celebrating Christmas cannot even be traced back to the early Christians.
Every year, as we approach December, the world begins to prepare itself for “that time of year” again: Christmas – the second major event of the Christian calendar, which celebrates the birth of Jesusas. With no clear evidence of Jesus’as date of birth, one can only wonder how this date came about. With no date indicated in the Gospels, how do we know that this is the actual date Jesusas was born as there are strong biblical references pointing against the fact that Christ was born on 25 December. In fact, most scholars and theologians believe that Jesusas was born sometime in spring. According to the New Catholic Encyclopaedia (Second Edition), the first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated on 25 December was in 336 AD. This was during the time of the Roman Emperor, Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor.
The Bible does not tell us of the exact date of Jesus’as birth and we find no accounts of any celebrations being held by the early church i.e. the people we read about in the book of Acts, which provides us with accounts of the birth and growth of the early church. The people of Acts where known as the people who followed Jesus’as submissively and to the letter. Thus, if they didn’t observe Christmas as being Jesus’as birth, then can we really call Christmas a Christian festival? That, however, is a discussion for a later article. As time progresses, with all its inconsistences, one may ask how we can know, if not the exact date, then
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