The Christmas Story: the Real History Behind the Holiday’s Development

2. Debate About His Birthday All You Want; For Christians Going Holy, That’s Not the Point

To be perfectly honest though, most early Christian scholars really didn’t care about the exact date of Jesus’ birth. On the level, no one is actually sure of the exact year of Jesus’ birth (only that it was definitely in AD 1). They were mostly interested in his time as a wandering moral do-gooder, and so most accounts of his life begin with his baptism, i.e. the moment he strapped on that Messiah hood. The message is clear: if you celebrate Christmas for religious reasons, you’re celebrating Jesus’ life, not the date of his birth. It’s important THAT he lived, not so much when. Okay, blah blah blah, on to the history!