Is there any special reason why Jesus was born when he was? Or just um... cause?

Is there any special reason why you are posting this in April? It's certainly a more likely time than December for the actual day.

Taking your question at face value....

The actual day doesn't matter, just that he was born. What he did the last day of his life was much more important.

No, it has nothing to do with the time of year. For my humanities course, The World History of Science, I read a small bit about the old belief about the age of the world (Dated at being created in 4004 BC). It got me wondering if there was a specific reason for the son of God to be brought into the world when he was. Surely there must be some significance? Otherwise, what, was it just random?

well err im not really a practicing christian but he wasn't born in december... actually most christain holidays are just made up to cover up roman holidays so yeah.

I guess I wasn't clear, I didn't mean the month, but rather the year, in history as a whole

peytros: You're exactly right. Christmas hijacked the winter solstice celebration, just like Easter hijacked the celebration for another Pagan god, which is why it's called Easter. Easter isn't a Christian term, if I recall correctly. They did that to ease the spread of Christianity to the "heathens" in the early days.

Sorry, smittens, but I misunderstood because the timing of your post was too coincidental. The church I belong to (LDS) was organized officially on April 6, 1830, and though I don't know if it's official doctrine or not I've heard it said that April 6 was also the real date of Jesus' birth. That's not made a big deal of in the church, though, since we focus more on his ministry and teachings and especially his paying for the sins of mankind and being resurrected.

As far as the year, I believe God does things according to the timetable we give him. I believe the conditions were right that He could be born among a people who would actually kill their own god (the Jews demanded it, not the Romans), so his mission could be fulfilled, and yet enough good people were there to listen that his message could spread. Just like we believe in our church that the church was organized in 1830 because at that point a place was ready that the church could be started where there was a reasonable degree of religious freedom, and it didn't happen until the person called to the task actually sat down and asked God what to do when there was so much religious confusion in the world. It's a whole "faith precedes the miracle" sort of a thing.

I hope that helps.

I don't believe the old testament predicts the actual year or date or anything of Him being born. Just the conditions of which He would be born and the conditions of which He would die (read Isaiah). Considering God protected jewish history Himself to keep the line of Abraham and then David alive to fulfill His promise of the Messiah being born of that line, and I think there was a 400 or 300 year period of the last prophet and His birth (not positive). I'd definetly say it wasn't random but planned, Probably not any specific symbolism involved in the date and God kept the time when He would be born to himself.

There's the answers I'm looking for!

So Chaos, I think you're suggestion is that (a) he needed to be born at a time when the message would spread, and (b) he needed to be born at a time where he would be killed for this message

At first that made sense, but thinking it over a bit more those two conditions do almost nothing to pick out a specific time period! [Weak argument:] We still have records of peoples from long before, and there has ALWAYS been persecution... surely a message such as Christianity would have endured better than say, the polytheistic religion of the greeks? But, [Stronger argument?], even if that was still too early, there was PLENTY of time before 0 AD when the two conditions are clearly filled, as exampled by everyone's favorite matzoh-eaters, the Jews! They faced persecution, and clearly the ideas still spread.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Christianity could have originated *instead* of Judaism, but rather that there was a long period of time where it could have come after it, in world-conditions that fulfilled your suggested requirements.

Mecha I'll get to your post in a bit, just saw the clock and realized I'm horribly late for aforementioned class. Damn these interesting discussions!

You're right smittens, there's no one time that would work, that was just a time that that would happen. I'm sure in his infinite knowledge there were many other factors, such as possibly it was just time to stop looking forward to the event and start remembering it instead. Like Tourias and I said, it's the death and resurrection that are important.

Plus, it wasn't even until quite a long time after his death, if I understand right, that the terms B.C. and A.D. even came into being. I don't think numbers were ever given in the Old Testament for any countdown, just signs; but there is a story in the Book of Mormon (LDS scripture) where in the Americas a prophet prophesied the event five years before, and put that number on it. The story was that five years to the day later the signs he predicted happened, which were basically a day and a night and a day with no darkness.

I don't know how long it took to happen, but I know that by the late 18th century a countdown was included with the Old Testament, starting from 4004 BC

I'm sure in his infinite knowledge there were many other factors, such as possibly it was just time to stop looking forward to the event and start remembering it instead.

Of course it's always possible that it's for an unknowable reason, but I think of such a reason could be hammered out it would only support Christianity, hence the point of this thread. But, when you say "stop looking forward to the event," who do you mean is looking forward to it? Surely not God? But who else would be able to look forward to it?

And to Mecha:
I guess I don't see what this adds to the answer... I think you're just saying "There was a time period of 300-400 years where it could have happened and God picked the time he did for a reason we'll never know"? If so, I think my other posts respond to that, otherwise please clarify what you were saying.

And on another note, I'm glad a good, healthy discussion can take place even in territories where passion is (unfortunately) the most common first response. I'm trying not to let any specific religion-debate come up, but that doesn't always stop some hot-heads from reading something the wrong way!

Yeah, I understand, smittens; if I insert beliefs specific to my religion it is only to show the background with which I am approaching your question.

Yes, of course an answer to your question would only support Christianity, it is impossible that it wouldn't considering Christ's birth is what we're discussing.

Any countdown included in the Old Testament would be editorial, as far as I know, unless I'm missing something. I've only read it straight-through once, and that was a few years ago. There is a countdown footnote on every page of most copies of the Book of Mormon (well, more of a time stamp, as in 400BC, 40AD, etc.) that was put in by editors and is based on chronology in the book. For example, in the first book, Nephi writes that his family left Jerusalem and his father prophesied that it would be 600 years before Christ came (I think that's the number, don't have the book on hand at the moment), and so when someone later mentions "200 years past since our fathers left Jerusalem" the footnote would say 400BC.

By looking forward vs. looking back, for 4000 years all anyone had was the promise that some day Christ would come to atone for their sins, so that if they repented then the payment was covered by Christ. For the past 2000 years we have been able to look back on the event, with a record of what happened. It is a different kind of trial of faith, looking forward to a promised event as opposed to looking back at an event that has already happened. One trial is not more difficult than the other, but they are different trials.

[EDIT]: It just dawned on me that the countdown you mention in the Old Testament is probably based on Ussher's chronology, where he puts the date of Creation at the night preceding October 27, 4004BC. That was considered definitive for a very long time, though how you can get so specific from the scraps of history included in the Old Testament, I have no idea... haha.

Yeah, it was Ussher's theory, and it was just stuck in the margins of bibles at the time.

I meant kind of what you said, we don't know, God kept it to himself. God was protecting the bloodline to Christ, as in Matthew (New Testament) states, that no one but the Father knows when He'll return again so I think only God knew the date and was not going to share it with anyone. None of the prophets were given a date, but they were given the conditions of his birth and death and some specifics about both, like Isaiah is able to tell you how He would die, about 600 years (i think) before death by Crucifixion was even "invented"/Instituted. But no one was ever given an exact date and then of course as mentioned above the dating thing came later and also I don't think there is actually any symbolic significance to the date itself.

So basically, just my take on it, the date was kept secret for obvious reasons (satan trying to destroy the bloodline and prevent the birth). And also basically what Chaos is saying, conditions had to be right and God already had it mapped out for when.

Other than that, yeah. We don't really know, only that it happened when the right time came.

I can't really elaborate on something I don't and can't know, only the things surrounding it and all and all there's not really a way of knowing.

Hmm, two things to pick about that Mecha...

1) Even if it was kept secret so Satan couldn't ruin the party, that doesn't explain why the reasons couldn't be known after, nor why it would be unknowable now

2) Why would knowing the date allow Satan to destroy the bloodline? Either (a) He knows the bloodline, and can mess with it early, or (b) He doesn't, in which case the date won't be some revealing factor

1. we know the date after >.> and stated the reason above

2. Satan could have arranged and prepared for said date if knoweable before.

3. He did try before, on several occasions through out the Old Testament.

- cain and abel

- Esau and jacob/Israel

- Joseph and his brothers

- pharoah and all hebrew slaves

just to name a few.

No, it has nothing to do with the time of year. For my humanities course, The World History of Science, I read a small bit about the old belief about the age of the world (Dated at being created in 4004 BC). It got me wondering if there was a specific reason for the son of God to be brought into the world when he was. Surely there must be some significance? Otherwise, what, was it just random?

This isn't doctrine in my church, but speculation, but some people take the scripture (I don't remember where it is) literally that "a day to God is a thousand years to man" or whatever it says, and think that six days was six thousand years, and that now the Earth will be around for six thousand more years. There have been great prophets I think at approximately the start of each millenium (give or take), and for the fifth millenium it was Jesus's turn. I don't really follow this one myself, not literally anyway, but that is more what you were looking for tying this in to the age of the Earth and all. It would fit that it's been 6000 years since the beginning of the Old Testament according to Ussher, that would make this the last days.

I should clarify to avoid confusion, the not known part is "why the exact date?" only that that was the right time and all the conditions were met, we can't know what every specific condition could have been, we can only see so much...For all we know the time of the year, the weather, technology, people to be alive, buildings to be built and so on.

the known part after is that we can see the general idea of the conditions being met and of course we know the date now :P

Well, Smitty, essentially what happened to generate the 4004 BC date, was that some monks in the 1600's decided to attempt to calculate the age of the earth, since some "Scientist" rabblerousers were starting to say things like "The Earth Revolves Around the Sun", which everyone at the time KNEW to be poppycock. The Catholic Church decided to settle some of the scientific questions with good old dogma and put out some feelers to folks who might be able to help them out with this.

So, essentially, folks like Dr. John Lightfoot, Bishop James Ussher and Augustin Calmet calculated that 4004 BC number by counting backwards from Jesus' crucifixion (found in Roman records apparently, since the Romans were nothing if not scrupulous - thanx Pilate!). So, 33 BC - 33 years = 0, and from then on backwards through the bible, using the wonderfully fun books from the old Testament like Kings, Leviticus, Exodus, Genesis and Deuteronomy to trace the bloodline of Jesus back to the Adam and Eve progenitors. (Remember the "_____ begat ______, who lived to the age of 356, and begat _______, who married ___ and lived to be 450, and begat ______" paragraphs in the Bible? Yeah, they used those to count backwards. I'm sure that was absolutely precise and accurate.)

I will state that this methodology is purely ridiculous, and directly contradicted by almost any scientific test you can come up with. As we all know, most scientific methods put the age of the earth at around 4.5 billion years old.

As far as Jesus being born on Christmas Day, yes, Prof. Chaos is right, the Winter Solstice festival was appropriated by Early Christians mainly as an ingenious usurpal of a pagan holiday to further their own (Christian) ends. Same thing with Easter, Spring equinox and all that.

And none of that matters, really. Nitpicking the dates, I mean.

You could tell me, say, that Jesus was the Son of God, but traveled here via subspace neutrino tightbeam transmission, reconstructed from nanoassembly bots in the Virgin Mary's womb and was previously a triple-headed preacher from Globulon IV in the Thraknar system. It wouldn't matter to me.

The pivotal truths, stunning insights and profound love and understanding that came from Jesus are universal to any self-aware being. His death freed us all from having to worry about the whole "life after death" thing. (Protip: Yeah, he's already got it for us, and we're all meeting up in the after-party; Jesus took care of our cover charge.)

The real awesomeness of the whole thing is that, when you look back at it, all the events seem to be almost perfectly timed. The Apostles of Jesus begin their ministry at the time when the Roman Empire is tiring of their pantheon of useless "gods", the miraculous conversion of St. Paul from Saul, and the eventual acceptance of Christianity as the "official" Roman religion somewhere around A.D. 400 as I recall. The dying Roman Empire was used to incubate Christianity, and in the diaspora after the fall of the Roman Empire, it only spread further. Pure genius on God's part.

The thing is, I'm sure God & Jesus could care less about how we report the actual DATES of birth of Jesus or the creation of the world, or any of that. I'm fairly certain that they care more about their message, and whether we're listening or not.

As always, Leber, you made the point thoroughly, accurately, and entertainingly. :) I was trying to be diplomatic about the ridiculousness of the methods.... you're exactly right. And thanks for the enlightenment on the historical timing in the context of the Roman Empire. I didn't even think of that, and I think you're exactly right.

I wish the debate between a 6000 year old Earth and a 4.6 billion year old Earth wasn't such a major one. So much of the Old Testament was symbolic, and has been lost through thousands of years of translations and transcriptions. Besides, how was Moses to explain (if God even told it to him this way) the conflict between gravitational and inertial forces causing gas to accumulate and spin and become our solar system, let alone evolution? Much easier to say he divided light from dark, land from sea, and put the plants and animals on the Earth in a specific order, and formed us from clay. None of it is wrong at all, and the bottom line is God made the Earth, Jesus was born, payed for our sins, died and was resurrected, and all we're asked to do is serve others as he did. So simple, and should be something even a non-Christian or atheist could endorse even without believing in Christ as a literal person.

"...and the bottom line is God made the Earth, Jesus was born, payed for our sins, died and was resurrected, and all we're asked to do is serve others as he did. So simple, and should be something even a non-Christian or atheist could endorse even without believing in Christ as a literal person."

Nope.