Eye on history: The early Church never celebrated Christmas - An explanation

“And the pains of child-birth drove her unto the trunk of a palm-tree. She said, ‘O, would that had died before this and had become a thing quite forgotten.”

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: Lanka Web
By A. Abdul Aziz | January 22, 2012

This is in reference an article titled above (Sunday Times – PLUS – 25.12.2011 by Rev. Brian D. Blacker), in which the writer indirectly accept the birth of Jesus Christ did not take place in December 25. Instead, he keeps on mentioning the celebration of Christmas. In open words we can say Jesus did not born on December 25. In support of this view, let me elaborate further for the benefit of the readers.

Was Jesus (Prophet Isa – alaihissalam – peace be on him) born on December 25th? According to the Holy Qur’an, the birth of Jesus took place at a time when fresh dates are found on palm-trees in Judaea. That season evidently is in the month of August-September, but, accordingly to the view generally held by Christians, Jesus was born on 25th December which day is celebrated all over the Christian world every year with great fervor.
Now this Christian view is contradicted not only by the Quran but also by history and even by the New Testament itself. Writing about the time of Jesus’s birth, Luke says; “And there were shepherds in the same country (Judaea) abiding in the field and keeping watch by night over their flocks”. (Luke: 2; 7,8) Commenting on this statement of Luke, Bishop Barns in his famous book, ‘The Rice of Christianity’, on page 79 says: “There is, moreover, no authority for the belief that December 25 was the actual birthday of Jesus.

If we can give any credence to the birth-story of Luke, with the shepherds keeping watch by night in the field near Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus did not take place in winter when the night temperature is so low in the hill country of Judaea that snow is not uncommon. After much argument our Christian day seems to have been accepted about A.D.300’. This view of Bishop Barns is supported by Encyclopedia Britannica and Chambers Encyclopedia under ‘Christmas’. Moreover, in his book ‘Commentary on the Bible’ on page 727, Peake says: ‘The season (of Jesus’s birth) would not be December; our Christmas day is a comparatively late tradition found first in the West’.

In his ‘Dictionary of the Bible’ Dr. John D. Davis, under the word, “Year” writes that dates become ripe in the month of Elul corresponds to the months of August-September. From the above records, the fact becomes quite clear that Jesus was born in the Jewish month of Elul which corresponds to the months of August-September when dates ripen in Judaea, and not on December 25th as the Christian Church would have us believe. And that is the view which is expressed by the Holy Qur’an (19: 24 – 26). It says:

“And the pains of child-birth drove her unto the trunk of a palm-tree. She said, ‘O, would that had died before this and had become a thing quite forgotten.”

”Then the angel called her from beneath her saying, ‘Grieve not. Thy Lord has placed a rivulet below thee; ‘And shake towards thyself the trunk of the palm-tree; it will drop upon thee fresh ripe dates”.

As it appears from the Gospels, there was no room in the inn in which Jesus was in Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary must have stayed in the open field and Mary might have betaken herself to the trunk of a palm-tree in order to take rest under its shade and possibly also to find some support in her throes of child-birth, as Holy Qur’an states.


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