1. The Virgin Birth
2. The Roman Census, Bethlehem and Nazareth
3. When Was Jesus Born?
   1. What Year Was Jesus Born?
   2. On What Day of the Year Was Jesus Born? December 25th?
4. Who Was Jesus's Father?
   1. King David and Joseph
   2. The Genealogies Are Mythological
5. The Guiding Star
6. King Herod: The Killing of Every Male Baby
7. Modern Christmas is Eclectic, Multicultural, Secular and Religious
8. Conclusions

1. The Virgin Birth

“The Prophecy of the Virgin Birth appears in Matthew 1:22-23. Matthew wrote this seventy years after Jesus Christ was born (35-40 years after he died). Up until that point no other text mentions Jesus' virgin birth. He quotes Isaiah 7:14 which was written 700 years before Jesus was born - thus claiming it was a sign, a prediction of the messiah's virgin birth.

But there is a serious problem. Matthew states that, due to prophecy, it is true that Jesus was a male line descendant of King David, and presents a genealogy at the beginning of his gospel tracing Jesus' lineage through Joseph. Matthew, apparently, like Luke and Paul and the rest of the early Christians, did not believe in a virgin birth. There are two theories that explain how this contradiction occurred. (1) A Septuagint mistranslation of the word "virgin" instead of "young woman" caused the discrepancy. The original prophecy is not that someone called Immanuel will be born of a virgin, but merely that someone called Immanuel will be born. In the original context of the story, this makes a lot of sense. (2) Matthew, writing for a Roman gentile audience in Greek, included popular myths surrounding sons of gods, who in Roman mythology were frequently said to be born of virgins. In either case, it is clear that Matthew's prophecy of a virgin birth was a mistake, and modern Bible's actually include a footnote in Matthew pointing out that the virgin birth is a Septuagint mistranslation.”

"The Gospel of Matthew, the Fraud!: 2.1. There Was No Virgin Birth" by Vexen Crabtree (1999)

2. The Roman Census, Bethlehem and Nazareth

Many authors have already written about the Roman Census, Bethlehem and other aspects of the "Christmas Story" of Jesus' birth. Some elements derive completely from folklore and aren't even mentioned in the bible, other important bits are only mentioned by one gospel writer but not by others, and all of them include historical errors. Prof. Richard Dawkins provides one the best summaries as to why the authors of the gospels would want to believe there was a reason for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem:

“When the gospels were written, many years after Jesus' death, nobody knew where he was born. But an Old Testament prophecy (Micah 5:2) had led Jews to expect that the long-awaited Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. In the light of this prophecy, John's gospel specifically remarks that his followers were surprised that he was not born in Bethlehem: 'Others say, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ shall cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?'

Matthew and Luke handle the problem differently, by deciding that Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem after all. But they get him there by different routes. Matthew has Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem all along, moving to Nazareth only long after the birth of Jesus [...]. Luke, by contrast, acknowledges that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth before Jesus was born. So how to get them to Bethlehem at the crucial moment, in order to fulfil the prophecy? Luke says that, in the time when Cyrenius (Quirinius) was governor of Syria, Caesar Augustus decreed a census for taxation purposes, and everybody had to go 'to his own city'. [...]

Except that it is historical nonsense, as A.N. Wilson in Jesus and Robin Lane Fox in The Unauthorized Version (among others) have pointed out. David, if he existed, lived nearly a thousand years before Mary and Joseph. Why on earth would the Romans have required Joseph to go to the city where a remote ancestor had lived a millennium earlier? [...] Moreover, Luke screws up his dating by tactlessly mentioning events that historians are capable of independently checking. There was indeed a census under Governor Quirinius - a local census, not one decreed by Caesar Augustus for the Empire as a whole - but it happened too late: in AD6, long after Herod's death.”

"The God Delusion" by Prof. Richard Dawkins (2006)₁

The historical evidence is examined further by Prof. Victor Stenger, who comes to the same conclusion as historians:

“History does not support Luke's Christmas story about a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the Roman world was required to go to their place of origin to be "taxed" (King James Version) or "enrolled" (Revised Standard Version). Surely such a vast undertaking would have been recorded. History does record a census affecting only Judea and not Galilee, but this took place in 6-7 CE, which conflicts with the fact that Jesus was supposedly born in the days of Herod, who died in 4 BCE.”

 

"God, the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist"
Prof. Victor J. Stenger (2007)₃

A. N. Wilson's analysis of the New Testament and other historical material leads him to conclude that the birth in Bethlehem is more mythology than truth, contrasting the 'real' Jesus of Nazareth to the mythology of him as recorded in folklore and in the Bible:

“The story of the baby being born in a stable at Bethlehem because there was no room for him at the inn is one of the most powerful myths ever given to the human race. A myth, however, is what it is. Even if we insist on taking every word of the Bible as literally true, we shall still not be able to find there the myth of Jesus being born in a stable. None of the Gospels state that he was born in a stable, and nearly all the details of the nativity scenes which have inspired great artists, and delighted generations of churchgoers on Christmas Eve, stem neither from history nor from Scripture, but from folk-lore. [...] Which is the more powerful figure of our imaginations - the 'real', historical Jesus of Nazareth, or the divine being, who in his great humility came down to be born as a poverty-stricken outcast?”

"Jesus" by A. N. Wilson (1993)₄

Within his nativity story Luke also tells us that Caesar, the famous Roman Emperor, called for a census and Joseph and Mary had to return to their town of origin, Bethlehem, until the census was complete. The Roman Empire is well documented, including documentation of the Romans taxation laws and system which was based on property and wealth. At no point did the Romans require people to return to their place of birth for a census. Luke was clearly wrong about the census, the reasons for Joseph and Mary being in Bethlehem, and wrong on his opinion that Jesus' birth was of a virgin.

Matthew, the only other gospel to include information on this, does not include any of these aspects of Jesus' birth, and merely states that he was born in Bethlehem, whilst Herod was king. All of Luke's insertions about singing angels, barns, mangers and virgin birth are not mentioned in Matthew's version.

Despite the long-winded and desperate attempts to get Jesus from Nazareth into Bethlehem, it may be that they did not read Micah 5:2 correctly in the first place, and all their efforts have been misguided.

“Since the early Christians believed that Jesus was the Messiah, they automatically believed that he was born in Bethlehem. But why did the Christians believe that he lived in Nazareth? The answer is quite simple. The early Greek speaking Christians did not know what the word "Nazarene" meant. The earliest Greek form of this word is "Nazoraios," which is derived from "Natzoriya," the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew "Notzri." (Recall that "Yeishu ha-Notzri" is the original Hebrew for "Jesus the Nazarene.") The early Christians conjectured that "Nazarene" meant a person from Nazareth and so it was assumed that Jesus lived in Nazareth. Even today, Christians blithely confuse the Hebrew words "Notzri" (_Nazarene_, _Christian_), "Natzrati" _Nazarethite_) and "nazir" (_nazarite_), all of which have completely different meanings.”

"The Historical Basis of the Jesus legend" by Hayyim ben Yehoshua

How can it be that even early Christians did not know where Jesus' parents lived? Some conclude that it is because the entire story is merely a re-write of earlier, pagan god-man myths and that a historical Jesus never existed.

3. When Was Jesus Born?

3.1. What Year Was Jesus Born?

Problems exist in the contrasting Luke/Matthew accounts of Jesus' birth. Luke claims that Jesus was born when Quirinius, a roman official, was the governor of Syria. This happened during or shortly after 6ad. Matthewhowever, claims that Jesus was born whilst Herod the Great reigned over Judea, and Herod died in 5 or 4 BC. There is a huge 10/11 year gap between these two dates, and either Luke or Matthew was wrong. Given Luke's track record, and that fact that historians accept the date of 4ad for Jesus' birth, it is likely that Luke was (once again) wrong.

The Date of the Nativity in Luke: irreconcilable date contradiction 4BC or 6AD by Richard Carrier - this is a much more detailed essay about the Matthew/Luke contradiction. "Out of the two accounts, one of them simply has to be wrong."

3.2. On What Day of the Year Was Jesus Born? December 25th?

Christians for a few hundred years did not celebrate Christmas and didn't know when Jesus was born. Early Christian fathers note that only pagan sun-worshippers celebrate on the 25th of December (by our calendar). Sun worshipping religions have worshipped on Sundays, and on the Winter Solstice, for many hundreds of years before Christianity took up the practice. Jesus was not born in December, or in January. Luke 2:8 states that shepherds were out watching their flocks by night. No flocks would have been out, during winter! The average winter temperature in Israel is 5 or 6 degrees Celsius. Farmers in Israel did not allow their flocks out during such cold nights.

• "Christmas: Paganism, Sun Worship and Commercialism" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)

“Early Christian tradition preserved no knowledge of [the date at which Christ was born], and different writers made different guesses, most preferring dates in the spring. The first absolutely certain record which places it upon 25 December is the calendar of Philocalus, produced in 354 and apparently in Rome. From there it seems to have spread to Constantinople, Antioch, and Bethlehem by the end of the century, although it is not recorded at Jerusalem for almost two hundred more years and was never recognized by the Armenian church. The reason for the choice of this date, and the success of it, was stated with admirable candour by a Christian writer, the Scriptor Syrus, in the late fourth century:

 

It was a custom of the pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnized on that day.

”

"The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain" by Ronald Hutton (1996)₆

It was emperor Constantine who transferred imperial sponsorship of the day, in 323, to Christianity, from the cult of Sol Invictus. The confusion between pagan sun-god religions and their celebrations on the 25th, and the later attempts of Christians to separate themselves from Pagans, led to many Christian condemnations of the festivities of that period.

"Augustine of Hippo and Pope Leo the Great, the most famous Fathers of the fifth-century western Church, both felt compelled to remind people that Christ, and not the sun, was being worshipped then. By contrast Maximus of Turin, in the same century, exulted over the appropriation of a pagan festival of sun-worship for Christian use"₆.

The Romans were unsure on exactly what day the days started getting longer, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th were common guesses and the Pagan solstice was flanked by various sun festivals. "Saturnalia, in the days after 17th December, the latter the New Year fear, the Kalendae, from 1 to 3 January. [...] The moment at which the strength of the sun was perceived to be returning was an even more powerful, and universal one, and from 153 BCE the Roman year had officially commenced upon 1 January"₆. The Kalendae was sacred to Janus, marked by feasting and merry-making, and the exchange of gifts. "The new Christian feast of the Nativity extinguished or absorbed both of them, and a string of other holy days sprang up in its wake"₆.

The pagan elements of Christmas were so strong and apparent that the founders of modern Christianity who wanted to separate themselves from its own paganism, often complained about Christmas activities. "Among those who attacked them were some of the most renowned Fathers of the early medieval Church, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, and John Chroysologus. Especially concerned, and voluble, were Maximus of Turin, Chrysologus of Ravenna, Caesarius of Arles, and Pacian of Barcelona. In the eleventh century the denunciations had ended with these southern regions, but they were repeated by Burchard of Worms, writing in more recently evangelized Germany. More interesting for the purposes, they were still being issued in England"₆.

4. Who Was Jesus's Father?

4.1. King David and Joseph

The gospel of Matthew doesn't contain the prophecy of the virgin birth as discussed above, and indeed, this accords with much of the rest of early Christian writing.

The Old Testament - the Jewish Scriptures - prophesize that the Messiah will be born of the male line of King David. Multiple New Testament authors go out of their way to point out that this was indeed the case.

1. The Genealogies: Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38 both list long family genealogies in order to prove that Jesus was descended from David via Joseph. Matthew's is introduced with the words 'Jesus Christ, a descendant of David, a descendant of Abraham'.

2. Jesus as the Son of Joseph: In the Gospel of Luke a Jew called Simeon praises the child of Joseph and Mary; Luke 2:33 and Luke 2:48 both call Jesus the ordinary, flesh-and-blood son of Joseph and Mary (or rather, they did so in the original versions, but later edited versions did not say so!).

3. Jesus was 'of the seed of David' as prophesized: Acts 2:30 says "God hath sworn with an oath to [David] that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne".Romans 1:3 says with much clarity: "Jesus Christ our Lord which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh". Jesus is called the son and the seed of David in Matthew 1:1, Matthew 9:27, Luke 1:32, John 7:41-3, Acts 13:23, 2 Timothy 2:8, Revelations 5:5 and Revelations 22:16.

To say that Jesus was born of a virgin as Christians did in later centuries is to say that some significant Old Testament prophecies were wrong, and that Jesus's father was God, and therefore that Jesus had no male bloodline at all.

4.2. The Genealogies Are Mythological

Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38 both list long family genealogies in order to prove that Jesus was descended from David via Joseph, however, the authors appear to have actually made the details up. Luke's genealogy is completely different to Matthew's, giving 43 generations from David to Joseph (in contrast to Matthew's 28) and using an entirely different set of names. It was tradition only to list family members that are thought important... but surely Matthew and Luke would have at least picked one in common?

5. The Guiding Star

One of Matthew's plotlines is the three visitors from the East who visit the newborn Jesus. They say that a star came up in the East, however no other people in the story appear to notice this. It must have been a relatively unnoticeable event, a fairly faint star, only noticed by people who study the stars. The three visitors are called 'Star Readers' in Matthew 2:1. However no other astrologers across the world at that time document this phenomenon.

“We have no historical mention of a star lighting up the sky, although spectacular astronomical events such as comets and supernovae were frequently recorded in ancient times.”

"God, the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist" by Prof. Victor J. Stenger (2007)₃

The language used in the Bible indicates that this element of the story was taken from Zoroastrianism, as the magi are given Zoroastrian titles and bear the same gifts as stated in Zoroastrian myth.

6. King Herod: The Killing of Every Male Baby

The next part of Matthew, two, tells us of King Herod's anger at the three wise men and then of the killing of every child. Surely, the slaughter of every male child (Matthew 2:16-17) in Bethlehem, Ramah, and the surrounding area would have got mentioned in many places, such as Josephus' detailed accounts of the times, in fact it would likely cause the downfall of such an immoral, monstrous leader who issued such orders! Incidentally, the other 'great' leader in the Bible to issue such orders was Moses, Numbers 31:17-18, Joshua 6:21-24, in both cases killing all the women/young/old in a city in two separate occasions.

“Surely there would have been a record of Herod's slaughter of innocent children - had that really happened. The Jewish scholars Philo (c.50) and Josephus (c. 93) described Herod as murderous and killing some family members to keep them from challenging his throne. Yet neither mentions the slaughter of the innocents.”

"God, the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist" by Prof. Victor J. Stenger (2007)₃

Many other myths, including more ancient Roman ones, had an event where all the male children were killed, and the famous Romulus and Remus story is (once again) a good, famous example.

It is likely that Herod's orders to kill all those children, and the star that went noticed by all except three astrologers from "the East", did not actually happen. Both Luke and Matthew appear to, well, make things up, and none of these things are mentioned in the other two gospels, nor in the recovered Gospel of Thomas.

There are no birth records for Jesus, nor any first hand accounts of his life, so that these two contradictory and inaccurate accounts are the only snippets of information that we have. It is possible that Matthew/Luke were referring to a myth when they talked of Jesus' and his early life. It seems highly likely that Luke, when writing of the events that surrounded Jesus' birth, was thinking of the famous Roman myth (that was around well before the Jesus' myth) of Romulus and Remus - who also were born by a virgin, and also had a king ordering the slaughter of all the other children in the same area.

7. Modern Christmas is Eclectic, Multicultural, Secular and Religious

Some other elements of Christmas bare no resemblance to either pagan religions, historical events, or Biblical exegesis.

“Christmas is a multicultural, multi-religious festival. It combines sun worship, polytheism, pagan nature religions, Christianity and other myths and traditions. When Christians complain it is too pagan, or when lay folk complain it is too religious, or when both groups complain it is too commercial, they are all in need of realizing that Christmas is a commercial fusion of nature-based festivals. Agents of the Politically Correct complain it is too culturally or religiously homogenous. In reality, the date of the 25th accords with Sun Worship thousands of years old, the Christmas tree and some of the decorations are pagan, the Nativity stories are pagan, Mithraistic, Roman and Christian. In addition to all of its rich history, Christmas has now become largely a secular holiday and a commercial enterprise with many tacky, mass-produced, plastic and branded items such as Santa Claus's red uniform, designed by Coca Cola. The non-religious can celebrate the commercial and social event, Christians can pretend Christmas has something to do with Christ, pagans can celebrate nature, and all can be happy. The critics largely concentrate of the portions of Christmas they don't like, and claim that those portions ruin the rest of it. As long as no-one tries to "capture the flag" and exclude others - and as long as councils

The paganism inherent in Christmas, such as decorating trees, is warned against in the Bible; and there are no Christian birthday celebrations in the Bible either. These, combined with the fact that early Christians celebrated Christmas in April or May until it was changed to match with 25th of December, a major pagan holiday. Emperor Constantine, who effected this switch, done so in order to harmonize Christianity with paganism. It is almost certain that Christians should not attempt to celebrate Jesus' birthday, and they certainly shouldn't do so at Christmas.”

"Christmas: Paganism, Sun Worship and Commercialism"
Vexen Crabtree (2008)

8. Conclusions

Mostly derived from pagan myths, Jesus' birth stories are very dubious, and it very likely that all such beliefs were written retrospectively by the Roman gospel writers, or were assumed from the outset. There is no evidence or reason to believe that they actually occurred. Events such as King Herod's killing of every male child simply could not have gone unnoticed, these pagan myths were however assumed of all god-man saviours. Modern Christmas is a combination of pagan and ancient practices. Its eclectic nature makes it a multicultural event suitable for appropriation by nearly anyone, including staunch secularists. Jesus' existence remains a mystery, we cannot validate even the simplest facts about his birth, and this fact has led some scholars to cast doubt on Jesus' entire existence.