I picked up Asimov’s Guide to the Bible recently and have been really enjoying it. I found this bit about Christmas in the chapter on Luke really interesting. It’s not a short read but an insightful and in-depth take. It gets to a few points that have always bugged me about the birth story; such as “Why is Jesus of Nazareth born in Bethlehem?” “Why would there be a census in the winter/why Dec 25?”

Here’s Asimov’s telling from the book, from the chapter on Luke:

TLDR:

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Bethlehem

One might suppose, instead, that Luke made use of the well remembered census merely as a landmark by which to date the approximate time of birth of Jesus, as Matthew used the star of Bethlehem (see page 128). The Biblical writers are rarely concerned with exact dating, in any case, and find other matters of more importance.

But there is a chance that more was involved. We might argue that Luke was faced with a serious difficulty in telling the tale of Jesus birth and that he had decided to use the census as a device to get out of that difficulty.

In Mark, the earliest of the gospels, Jesus appears only as Jesus of Nazareth. To Mark, as nearly as we can tell from his gospel, the Messiah was a Galilean by birth, born in Nazareth.

Yet this could not be accepted by Jews learned in the Scriptures. Jesus of Nazareth had to be born in Bethlehem in order to be the Messiah. The prophet Micah was considered to have said so specifically (see page 1-653) and the evangelist Matthew accepts that in his gospel (see page 132).

In order to make the birth at Bethlehem (made necessary by theological theory) consistent with the known fact of life at Nazareth, Matthew made Joseph and Mary natives of Bethlehem who migrated to Nazareth not long after Jesus’ birth (see page 138).

Luke, however, did not have access to Matthew’s version, apparently, and it did not occur to him to make use of so straightforward a device. Instead, he made Joseph and Mary dwellers in Nazareth before the birth of Jesus, and had them travel to Bethlehem just in time to have Jesus born there and then had them return.

That Mary, at least, dwelt in Nazareth, and perhaps had even been born there, seems plain from the fact that Gabriel was sent there to make the annunciation:

Luke 1:26. the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,

Luke 1:27. To a virgin [whose] name was Mary.

But if that were so, why should Mary, in her last month of pregnancy, make the difficult and dangerous seventy-mile overland journey to Bethlehem? Luke might have said it was done at Gabriel’s orders, but he didn’t. Instead, with literary economy, he made use of the landmark of Jesus’ birth for the additional purpose of having Jesus born at Bethlehem. Once Caesar Augustus had issued his decree commanding the census in advance of taxation:

Luke 2:3. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

Luke 2:4. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David)

Luke 2:5. To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

Though this device has much to be said for it from the standpoint of literary economy, it has nothing to be said for it in the way of plausibility. The Romans couldn’t possibly have conducted so queer a census as that. Why should they want every person present in the town of his ancestors rather than in the town in which he actually dwelt? Why should they want individuals traveling up and down the length of the land, clogging the roads and interfering with the life of the province? It would even have been a military danger, for the Parthians could find no better time to attack than when Roman troops would find it hard to concentrate because of the thick crisscrossing of civilians on their way to register.

Even if the ancestral town were somehow a piece of essential information, would it not be simpler for each person merely to state what that ancestral town was? And even if, for some reason, a person had to travel to that ancestral town, would it not be sufficient for the head of the household or some agent of his to make the trip? Would a wife have to come along? Particularly one that was in the last month of pregnancy?

No, it is hard to imagine a more complicated tissue of implausibilities and the Romans would certainly arrange no such census.

Those who maintain that there was an earlier census in 6 B.C. or thereabouts, conducted under the auspices of Herod, suggest that one of the reasons this early census went off quietly was precisely because Herod ran things in the Jewish fashion, according to tribes and house- holds. Even if Herod were a popular king (which he wasn’t) it is difficult to see how he could have carried through a quiet census by requiring large numbers of people to tramp miles under the dangerous and primitive conditions of travel of the times. All through their history, the Jews had rebelled for far smaller reasons than the declaration of such a requirement.

It is far easier to believe that Luke simply had to explain the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem for theological reasons, when it was well known that he was brought up in Nazareth. And his instinct for drama overcame any feelings he might have had for plausibility.

Judging by results, Luke was right. The implausibility of his story has not prevented it from seizing upon the imagination of the Christian world, and it is this second chapter of the gospel of St. Luke that is the epitome of the story of the Nativity and the inspiration of countless tales and songs and works of art.

Christmas

In Bethlehem, according to Luke’s account, Mary gave birth:

Luke 2:7. And she [Mary] brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

Presumably the inn was full of travelers, as all inns in Judea must have been at that time, if Luke’s story of the census is accepted. Every town, after all, would have been receiving its quota of families returning from elsewhere.

There is no indication at all at this point concerning the date of the Nativity. The feast is celebrated, now, by almost all Christian churches on December 25. This is Christmas (“Christ’s mass”).

But why December 25? No one really knows. To Europeans and North Americans such a date means winter and, in fact, many of our carols depict a wintry scene and so do our paintings. Indeed, so close is the association of winter and snow that each year millions irrationally long for a “white Christmas” though snow means a sharp rise in automobile fatalities.

Yet upon what is such wintry association based? There is no mention of either snow or cold in either Luke or Matthew. In fact, in the verse after the description of the birth, Luke says:

Luke 2:8. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

It is customary, since we have the celebration firmly fixed on Decem- ber 25, to imagine these shepherds as keeping their watch in bitter cold and perhaps in deep snow.

But why? Surely it is much more likely that a night watch would be kept in the summertime when the nights would be mild and, in fact, more comfortable than the scorching heat of the day. For that matter, it is but adding still another dimension to the implausible nature of the census as depicted by Luke if we suppose that all this unnecessary traveling was taking place in the course of a cold winter time.

To be sure, it is a mistake to think of a Palestinian winter as being as cold as one in Germany, Great Britain, or New England. The usual associations of Christmas with snow and ice-even if it were on December 25-is purely a local prejudice. It falls in the same class with the manner that medieval artists depicted Mary and Joseph in medieval clothing because they could conceive of no other kind.

Nevertheless, whether December 25 is snowy or mild makes no difference at the moment. The point is that neither Luke nor Matthew give a date of any kind for the Nativity. They give no slightest hint that can be used to deduce a day or even guess at one.

Why, then, December 25? The answer might be found in astronomy and in Roman history.

The noonday Sun is at varying heights in the sky at different seasons of the year because the Earth’s axis is tipped by 23 degrees to the plane of Earth’s revolution about the Sun. Without going into the astronomy of this in detail, it is sufficient to say that the noonday Sun climbs steadily higher in the sky from December to June, and falls steadily lower from June to December. The steady rise is easily associated with a lengthening day, an eventually warming temperature and quickening of life; the steady decline with a shortening day, an eventually cooling temperature and fading of life.

In primitive times, when the reason for the cycle was not understood in terms of modern astronomy, there was never any certainty that the sinking Sun would ever turn and begin to rise again. Why should it do so, after all, except by the favor of the gods? And that favor might depend entirely upon the proper conduct of a complicated ritual known only to the priests.

It must have been occasion for great gladness each year, then, to observe the decline of the noonday Sun gradually slowing, then coming to a halt and beginning to rise again. The point at which the Sun comes to a halt is the winter “solstice” (from Latin words meaning “sun- halt”).

The time of the winter solstice was the occasion for a great feast in honor of what one might call the “birth of the Sun.”

In Roman times, a three-day period, later extended to seven days, was devoted to the celebration of the winter solstice. This was the “Saturnalia,” named in honor of Saturn, an old Roman god of agriculture.

At the Saturnalia, joy was unrestrained, as befitted a holiday that celebrated a reprieve from death and a return to life. All public business was suspended, in favor of festivals, parties, singing, and gift-giving. It was a season of peace and good will to all men. Even slaves were, for that short period, allowed license that was forbidden at all other times and were treated temporarily on a plane of equality with their masters. Naturally, the joy easily turned to the extremes of licentiousness and debauchery, and there were, no doubt, many pious people who deplored the uglier aspects of the festival.

In the Roman calendar - a very poor and erratic one before the time of Julius Caesar - the Saturnalia was celebrated the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth of December. Once Caesar established a sensible calendar, the winter solstice fell upon December 25 (although in our own calendar, slightly modified since Caesar’s time, it comes on December 21).

In the first centuries of the Roman Empire, Christianity had to compete with Mithraism, a form of Sun-worship with its roots in Persia. In Mithraism, the winter solstice was naturally the occasion of a great festival and in A.D. 274, the Roman Emperor, Aurelian, set December 25 as the day of the birth of the Sun. In other words, he lent the Mithraist holiday the official sanction of the government.

The celebration of the winter solstice was a great stumbling block to conversions to Christianity. If Christians held the Saturnalia and the birth of the Sun to be purely pagan then many converts were discouraged. Even if they abandoned belief in the old Roman gods and in Mithras, they wanted the joys of the holiday. (How many people today celebrate the Christmas season with no reference at all to its religious significance and how many would be willing to give up the joy, warmth, and merriment of the season merely because they were not pious Christians?) But Christianity adapted itself to pagan customs where these, in the judgment of Christian leaders, did not compromise the essential doctrines of the Church. The Bible did not say on which day Jesus was born and there was no dogma that would be affected by one day rather than by another. It might, therefore, be on December 25 as well as on any other.

Once that was settled, converts could join Christianity without giving up their Saturnalian happiness. It was only necessary for them to joyfully greet the birth of the Son rather than the Sun. If December 25 is Christmas and if it is assumed that Mary became pregnant at the time of the annunciation, then the anniversary of the annunciation must be placed on March 25, nine months before Christ mas. And, indeed, March 25 is the day of the Feast of the Annunciation and is called Annunciation Day or, in England, Lady Day, where “Lady” refers to Mary.

Again, if the annunciation came when Elisabeth was six months pregnant, John the Baptist must have been born three months later. June 24 is the day on which his birth is celebrated.

December 25 was gradually accepted through most of the Roman Empire between A.D. 300 and 350. This late period is indicated by the date alone.

There were two general kinds of calendars in use in the ancient Mediterranean world. One is the lunar calendar, which matches the months to the phases of the Moon. It was devised by the Babylonians, who passed it on to the Greeks and the Jews. The other is the solar calendar, which matches the months to the seasons of the year. It was devised by the Egyptians, who passed it on, in Caesar’s time, to the Romans, and, by way of Rome, to ourselves.

The lunar calendar does not match the seasons and, in order to keep it from falling out of line, some years must have twelve lunar months and others thirteen, in a rather complex pattern. To people using a solar calendar (as we do) the lunar year is too short when it has twelve months and too long when it has thirteen. A date that is fixed in a lunar calendar slips forward and backward in the solar calendar, although, in the long run, it oscillates about a fixed place.

The holidays established early in Church history made use of the lunar calendar used by the Greeks and Jews. As a result, these holiday shift their day (by our calendar) from year to year. The chief of these days is Easter. It is the prime example of a “movable holiday” and each year we must look at the calendar to see when it might come. All the other movable holidays are tied to Easter and shift with it.

When Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire and even became the official doctrine of the land, early in the fourth century, it began to make increasing use of the Roman calendar. It became rather complicated to adjust the date of Easter to that calendar. There were serious disagreements among different portions of the Church as to the exact method for doing so, and schisms and heresies arose over the matter. Those holidays that came into being comparatively late, when Christianity had become official in the empire, made use of the Roman calendar to begin with. Such holiday dates slid back and forth on the lunar calendar but were fixed on solar calendars such as our own. The mere fact that Christmas is celebrated on December 25 every year and that the date never varies on our calendar is enough to show that it was not established as a religious festival until after A.D. 300.