The True Date of Christ's Birth

did you know that the first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated on the 25th of December was actually in 336 ad this was during the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine he was the first Christian Roman Emperor a few years later Pope Julius the first officially declared the 25th of December as the date of the birth of Jesus would be celebrated now December 25th might have been chosen because the winter solstice in the ancient Roman midwinter festivals called Saturnalia and Dyess Nautilus SOLAS in vick's teen took place in December around this date so it was a time when people already celebrated things but there is strong biblical evidence against the fact that Christ was truly born on December 25th in fact most theologians and historians believe that Christ was born in the spring sometime between March and April so today using the word of God let's see if we can discover Christ's actual birthday [Music] some of you might ask why is it important to know what day Jesus was born and to that I answer it's the day that God became a human being the day that the word became flesh don't you want to know what day in history that that actually happened to begin with we need to understand the death of King Herod if you remember King Herod tried to kill baby Jesus so Joseph took Jesus and ran away to Egypt the family took refuge in Egypt and when they heard King Herod had died they went back to Israel let's read Matthew 215 he remained there until the death of Herod this was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the Prophet out of Egypt I called my son here it says that they were there until the death of King Herod and Matthew to 19 and 20 but when Herod died behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said get up take the child and his mother and go into the Land of Israel for those who sought a child's life are dead see here it says that when Herod died the angel came to Joseph in a dream and said that those who sought for the baby's life were dead so go back to Israel so it's important to know when King Herod died now King Herod died sometime between March 29th and April 4th that year stay with me and I'll explain how these dates are reached historically King Herod died in the year 4 BC March 29th in the year 4 BC is the solar calendar date the Gregorian date if you will however according to the Hebrew religious calendar March 29th of that year is the first day of the first month historical records show that Herod died in the 34th year of his reign the Jewish people didn't use the solar calendar but the religious calendar to figure out the regional years of the kings so starting from March 28th and before that would have been King Herod's 33rd year ring and after March 29th it would officially be King Herod's 34th year of reign so March 28th is the last day of King Herod's 33rd year of regional reign so if Herod died in the 34th year of his reign he would have had to have died after March 29th of that year now how did we reach April 4th in this year the year 4 BC Passover was April 11th from the Jewish calendar March 29th is the first day of the first month and Passover is on the 14th day of the first month so that means that March 29th is the first day of the month and April 11th becomes the 14th day of the month now the Greek historian Flavius Josephus records that on that day the king was arca Laius the son of herod not Herod himself that means the Herod had already died before that day Josephus also wrote that after our coleus became king he had a time of mourning for seven days he mourned Herod for seven days so Herod's death had to have occurred at least seven days prior to April 11th so that would have been April 4th this means that Herod died sometime between March 29th and April 4th now why is it important that we know when Herod died if Herod does not die baby Jesus cannot go to Jerusalem to perform the purification rites see Jesus came to earth to fulfill the law that's why in Matthew 5:17 the Bible says I came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it so since Jesus came to fulfill the law Jesus has to abide by the law he has to keep the law that means that Jesus didn't completely ignore the law at all times but in situations where he could fulfill the law and keep the law he did those things so now we need to understand the purification right under the Old Testament law when a woman gives birth to a baby she has to go through a purification Rite so the second thing we need to understand is that purification right when she has a baby boy she is unclean for seven days then after that she needs to go through 33 days of a cleansing ritual when you combine these you get 40 days before she is completely purified that means a mother who has given birth cannot go into the temple or even touch any of the items within the sanctuary for 40 days then on the 41st day the mother goes into the temple to give her offering of sacrifice which will make her fully purified this is God's law so Mary and baby Jesus also have to keep this law so on the 41st day they have to go into the temple to perform this purification ritual however if King Herod is still alive they cannot go into the temple to perform this in order for Jesus to go through this 41 day ritual had to kill King Herod let's read Luke 2:22 and when the days for her purification according to the law of Moses were completed they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord here it says that the days of purification were completed the word in Greek here is pleso which means it's full this means when the 41st day came when the days were full Mary and the baby Jesus came to worship God in other words it wasn't a little less or a little more than 41 days it was exactly 41 days that they came back to Jerusalem for this ritual so in order for them to fulfill God's will he enabled them to come right on the 41st day so they could fulfill those days let's read Leviticus 12 verses one through four then the Lord spoke to Moses saying speak to the sons of Israel saying when a woman gives birth and bears a male child then she shall be unclean for seven days as in the days of her menstruation she shall be unclean on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised then she shall remain in the blood of her purification for thirty-three days she shall not touch any consecrated thing nor enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed if you know exactly what Dave Jesus performed this purification right then you can count back 41 days to his birth now hold on to that thought let's shift gears for a moment I want to focus for a minute on where Jesus took refuge in Egypt here's a map of the Mediterranean here this area is where Cairo is located many people think that Jesus took refuge in that area this spot here is Jerusalem and right under it here is Bethlehem so to come from Bethlehem all the way here is about 250 to 265 miles now the Sinai Peninsula in the wilderness is full of rocks not even a single blade of grass grows there Matthew 2 verse 11 through 13 States after coming into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother and they fell to the ground and worshiped him then opening their treasures they presented to him gifts of gold frankincense and myrrh and having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod the Magi left for their own country by another way now when they had gone behold an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said get up take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you for Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him when we look at this passage it says on the night of Jesus's birth Herod was going to kill the babies so on that night they ran away they fled now they have an infant child and a mother who was not healed from her wounds to walk through the wilderness would that make sense in those days the border between Israel and Egypt was here this place here is called the brook of Egypt and right across the border is a place called El Arish El Arish is about 91 miles from Bethlehem that is a more plausible location for where baby Jesus took refuge isn't it they say a male adult can walk between 15 and 25 miles a day so El Arish is a place you could flee to in a few days so one can safely assume that Jesus took refuge in El Arish and after Herod died God called baby Jesus back to Israel Matthew 215 states he remained there until the death of Herod this was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the Prophet out of Egypt I have called my son it says that Jesus's time in Egypt was a fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 which says out of Egypt I called my son so now we can understand exactly where in Egypt Jesus fled so we can conjecture that the baby Jesus fled into Egypt and that is where he was circumcised because he was circumcised on the eighth day the three Genesis 17 verses 10 through 14 this is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you every male among you shall be circumcised and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin and it shall be a sign of a covenant between me and you and every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations a sovereign who is born in your house who has bought with money from any foreigner who is not of your descendants a servant who is born in your house who has bought with your money shall surely be circumcised thus shall my covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant but an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin that person shall be cut off from his people he has broken my covenant here it says circumcision has to be done on the eighth day so even if Mary had just given birth she could travel than I do one mile journey to El Arish in just eight days Luke 2 verses 21 through 22 states and when eight days had passed before his circumcision his name was then called Jesus the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb and when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were completed they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord it says circumcision was performed on the eighth day and in verse 22 it says according to the law of Moses they perform the rite of purification that means verse 21 was eight days after the birth of Christ and verse 22 was something that happened 41 days after Jesus's birth so there is a 33 day gap between these two verses now we're almost there let's see if we can come to an understanding about the time and distance of travel between these places what's important here is the date of April 11th this is very important in four BC April 11th was Passover so on April 11th at Twilight just before sunset they killed the Passover lamb if you look at Exodus 12 verses 1 through 6 it says they take the Passover lamb on the tenth day of the first month and on the fourteenth day they slaughtered the lamb Passover in the year 4 BC on the solar calendar is April 11th now on the eve of April 11th the Israelites started to give sacrifices however due to events that had transpired prior to his father's death King Archelaus had to send a Tribune in command of a cohort to reason with a group of people mourning the loss of two teachers and 40 youth that his father had killed for destroying a Golden Eagle that he had placed over the temple and wait until ark Elias could return from Rome and then he would deal with this however those who came from are coleus were stoned and many of them were killed so the Greek historian Josephus records that after midnight our coleus suddenly ordered the entire army within the city to the temple Josephus records that the death toll that night was 3,000 people and our coleus sent heralds around the city announcing the cancellation of Passover now imagine that pass over everyone from all over the nation would come to Jerusalem but on April 12th the king sent them all away to their homes that means that Mary and Joseph could not perform the purification Rite on the 12th when Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem to perform the purification Rite they met Simeon and Anna and when they were performing the purification Rite they were not bothered by any soldiers this means that they must have performed the right before April 12th because on April 12th they could not perform any of these rituals now in order to know about the route of travel we need to figure out the distance between El Arish and Nazareth a lot of people think that Mary and Joseph went straight from ela reach directly to Jerusalem to perform the rituals that's why they can't figure out what the Bible means because the Bible clearly states that they didn't go straight from lrish to Jerusalem but first went to Nazareth of Galilee let's read Matthew 2 verses 19 through 23 but when Herod died behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said get up take the child and his mother and go into the Land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead so Joseph caught up took the child and his mother and came into the Land of Israel but when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod he was afraid to go there then after being warned by God in a dream he left for the regions of Galilee and came and lived in a city called Nazareth this was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets he shall be called a Nazarene clearly the Bible states that Joseph was afraid to go to Jerusalem so he went to live in Galilee now from lrish to Nazareth is about a hundred and fifty miles this is a distance that they could make in about six days remember that we've already discussed now that an adult male usually walks 15 to 25 miles a day if you're really slow you can make it about 15 miles a day and if you walk fast you can cover 25 miles a day especially if you have a donkey you just throw all of your luggage or the woman and the baby on the donkey exodus 420 is an example of this Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on a donkey it says that Moses brought his children and says that he put them on a donkey as he walked also in a separate instance from Beersheba to Jerusalem about 50 miles Abraham put all of his things on a donkey and he and Isaac walked a three-day journey this means that they walked two full days if you devine fifty by two days you walk 25 miles a day so we can see if they had a donkey they could cover 25 miles a day if Joseph had placed Mary and Jesus riding on a donkey they could have covered 25 miles a day it was also customary in those days to have women and children ride on donkeys during a long journey some people say that Joseph and Mary were really poor so where did they get the donkey from remember the made eyes they brought gifts for Christ one of those gifts was gold they had gold they could sell the gold and buy eight donkeys if they wanted to so the distance that they would have covered is about a hundred and fifty miles it would have taken them around six days next we have to think about the distance from Nazareth back to Jerusalem from Nazareth it is about 65 miles to Jerusalem however going from Nazareth to Jerusalem is an uphill journey so it takes a little longer we can assume that it took them somewhere around three days to make it so nine days of travel total another thing we also have to take into consideration is the Sabbath day they can't travel on the Sabbath in the year 4 BC April 7th was the Sabbath and a lot of scholars think King Herod died somewhere around April 1st so let's put all this together let's say this is the month of April here we have the first one Herod's supposedly died and here we have the seventh which is a Sabbath let's say early in the morning of April 1st they start out they can walk six days cover 150 miles from lrish to Nazareth then on the seventh day this is the Sabbath so they can't go anywhere they prepare a place to live and gather the things that they will need to perform it's a purification right when they reach Jerusalem so if they start to leave on the eighth day they can arrive in an Jerusalem on the 10th they could perform the purification rites before God on the morning of the 11th then after they finish they can return to Nazareth because that's where they continued to live now remember on the eve of the eleventh and into the twelfth Arcola has killed three thousand people when you take all of these things into account it is correct to say King Herod died on April 1st and when you count 41 days backwards from April 11th Passover in the year 4 BC you come to the date of March 2nd in the year 4 BC that is the day that Jesus must have been born in order for Mary to fulfill the purification rites on the morning of the 11th so Jesus Christ the Saviour of mankind the seed of the woman promised to Adam who came to destroy the works of the devil was born on Friday March the 2nd in the year 4 BC and how's that for Christmas trivia share that one with your family at Christmas dinner and show everyone how smart you are if you enjoyed this study please like the video and share it don't forget to subscribe so you can keep up to date with my latest videos when they're released and Merry Christmas [Music] you

Channel: HistoryofRedemption

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Keywords: Christmas, Baby Jesus, Jesus, Christ, Messiah, Date, Birth, March, April, Josephus, Flavius Josephus, Herod, Archelaus, King Herod, Passover, 4BC, Jesus's Birth, Jesus's Actual Birth Day

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Length: 17min 31sec (1051 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 25 2016