Christian Pure

18 Bible Verses for Christmas, and Why the Date Is Not in the Bible

Christian Pure Team

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Summary

  • Scripture gives no date for the birth and never asks anyone to mark it; the oldest surviving Roman calendar to list December 25 dates from 354.
  • Isaiah pictures a shoot growing from the stump of Jesse, after David’s family line has been cut down.
  • The word for good news was also used in imperial inscriptions about Augustus, the emperor Luke names in 2:1.
  • The “so” of John 3:16 usually means “in this way” in Greek, and many scholars read the verse as describing how God loved: by giving.
  • Romans 14:5-6 leaves keeping special days to each person’s conscience.

The Bible never mentions Christmas, gives no date for the birth, and does not ask anyone to mark it. The oldest surviving Roman calendar to list December 25 as the date was compiled in 354. Luke has shepherds in the fields at night, which has led some readers to doubt a midwinter date, and neither Gospel gives a month. What Scripture does supply is the material the season is built from: the prophecies, the announcement, the response of those who…

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Bibliography (Click to show)

Scripture quotations are from the New International Version.

December 25 appears as the birth date in the Chronograph of 354, a Roman almanac compiled at Rome; no earlier source fixes the day.

The shepherds Jeremiah is replacing are named and charged at Jeremiah 23:1-4.

Luke mentions the manger at 2:7, 2:12 and 2:16.

The collection Paul is raising, which ends at 2 Corinthians 9:15, runs from 2 Corinthians 8:1.

The nativity accounts themselves are set out at 19 Bible Verses on the Birth of Jesus.

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