Here, it’s said once again that Dec. 25 is not Christ’s birthday. This poster suggests that a child telling his friends this might get beat up. I grew up in a Catholic home and went to catholic school for 9 months. Not once was I ever led to believe that Dec 25 was the day Jesus was squeezed out. At no time did I ever believe that anyone knew his actual Bday. In fact, it seems that every year, priests, nuns, teachers, and parents would relentlessly beat this fact into our heads.
So why is this still repeated as if it were news? The linked post provides evidence that at least one person assumes most kids don’t know this. Perhaps even that most adults don’t.
Were you ever under the impression that Jesus exited the womb on Dec. 25? Do you know any adults that think this? Kids, especially over the age of 4, that have been taught it?
December 25th as Jesus’ birthday is what I was taught, and it is still the standard belief of most devout christians in my area. When pressed, the local predikants and ministers will admit that it’s not biblical, but that’s the way it is portrayed at large in the community (pretty monolithic varieties of Calvinism).
And yes, declaring it not to be his birthday would put you at risk of ostracism around here. At least it got my daughter ostracized when she presented the facts mentioned by the OP back in middle-school in the late 90’s.
No, everybody in my church is routinely taught that Jesus was probably born sometime in the spring, and 12/25 is just a convenient day with some nice symbolism. I would tend to assume that only people who don’t learn much about their religion would think it.
That said, In the bleak midwinter is one of my favorite carols.
Not much over the age of four, no. By the time I started elementary school, my dad had already explained that we celebrate Jesus’ birthday in December, but it most likely wasn’t when he was really born because no one knew for sure when he was born, though it was unlikely to be in the winter given the shepards part of the nativity story. He also said they were ancient people called Pagans who celebrated a holiday in December already, and the Romans decided to use that day they liked as his birthday so everyone could celebrate together. (this was almost exactly the same explanation we were given by a church elder who was friends with my parents a year or two later, too) That was enough of an explanation for a five-year-old, though we did discuss the more cynical reasons that day was adopted when I got a bit older.
I have no idea how many people I knew as kids truly believed December 25th was his actual birthday, because even though I “knew the truth” I didn’t find any reason to speak to other kids about it. I think we were told that you shouldn’t talk about God at school, though. Maybe.
It’s a little complex, but the way I understood it was that it was Jesus’ “birthday” but not “the day he was born.” This for two reasons as they were explained:
Jesus was not “born” because he’s part of God, it was just his Avatar (well, okay, no one ever used THAT word, but it was the concept expressed) so it was kind of pointless to say it was his birthday since he always is/was/will be.
Jesus may or may not have been born on that day, but since it was so long ago and since nothing says that explicitly we can’t be sure, in fact my Presbyterian church even had an essay in the December brochure about when Jesus probably was born.
But regardless, they still called it a celebration of Jesus birth, it’s just much easier to equate “birthday” and “birth celebration,” especially for kids, hence the confusion… especially if no one clears that up by the time they’re All Growed Up™. I think they explained it kind of like “you don’t always have your birthday and your birthday party on the same day, do you? Well, this is Jesus’ birthday PARTY.”
But when I did bring this up, while I wasn’t scorned, it was somewhat difficult to get people to accept when I parroted it at that age.
I don’t think that I was necessarily taught that it WAS Jesus’ birthday, but I do think I just always assumed it growing up. I don’t know when I learned “The Truth”, but I do remember when I was in Jr. High reading some article or something that claimed that Jesus may have been conceived in late December and born in September. I just thought that was the coolest thing ever, and, being at a nice impressionable age, was sure it was the real thing. When I first heard all that “stuff” (and that’s how I saw it) about it being most likely he was born in springtime, even hearing how nice the symbolism with Passover was, I didn’t want to believe it. It messed up my conception idea!! LOL
I didn’t really know this until I was older, but it caused me no great consternation when I found out. I did make a point to teach my fifth grade class this (Catholic school) both because it is true and I’ve known some people that like to pull this out and say it somehow disproves Christianity and I didn’t want my students to encounter it in those circumstances.
A slight hijack: You may or may not be saying this as the Incarnation is a subject that be be easily misworded and/or misunderstood, but are you saying that Christ’s body is a kind of shell operated by His divine self and if so is thus a common Presbyterian belief? I’m not looking for a debate or anything just understanding.
I was (Catholically) taught the story of how there was no room at the inn so the pregnant Mary was huddled in some straw when Jesus came out. Then some kings showed up with incense. I don’t recall ever being taught specifically that this all happened in the winter, but I was definitely taught that xmas was Christ’s birth. So I guess it was one of those interpretations that was glossed over until you were old enough to hear it, but by then I’d left the church far behind.
The kids that I’ve taught and have seen taught are told that it’s the date we celebrate Jesus’ birth.
However kids, being kids, often times have the attention span of fruitflies and gloss over details. Especially details that are being explained while there are christmas lists to be discussed or presents to be opened or Christmas dinner to be eaten.
I’m sure there are people who never bothered to pick up that detail.
That’s true; it can be quite difficult drumming into children’s heads that Christmas is about Jesus at all, much less when his real birthday was. When I taught small children (say, up to 6) at church, I would ask “Who is Christmas about?” And they would all answer, “SANTA!!” Even though I knew that their parents had all labored from day one to teach them about Jesus.
I think I was in my mid-late teens before I discovered that December 25th wasn’t his actual birthday, maybe even older than that. My parents are both atheists so it’s not really surprising that they weren’t really up to date on the nuances of Christian beliefs. I think I was 6 or 7 years old before I even heard of the concept of God for the first time.
Heh. This is essentially the way it was explained to us, by a Catholic priest no less. I think this would have been about sixth or seventh grade. He also added that the earliest Christians didn’t celebrate Jesus’ birthday, and when people decided they wanted to do so a few centuries later, they put the celebration at the Winter Solstice because there was already a tradition of celebrating that event in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin.
Same priest also pointed out that virtually every modern Nativity scene gets an important point wrong: nothing in the Gospels ever says the shepherds and the Wise Men were at the same place at the same time, in fact quite the opposite. The shepherds came to the stable the night the baby was born. The Wise Men came some unspecified time later and found the family in a house.
Ditto. I think I only “figured out” Christmas was supposed to be Jesus’ birthday due to the lyrics of all the carols. I don’t think I really asked anyone or tried to confirm my theory because it wasn’t important in our house. In our house, the holidays were mostly about family time, egg nog, baking stuff, and decorating a tree. It leaned heavily on more of a theme of celebrating good family tidings and was very non-religious.
I was in high school when I first heard Chirst was not born in December, but mainly because it never came up before. Our parents weren’t atheists, they were more agnostics who just didn’t practice any religion at all. I’m sure my parents knew when Christ was really supposed to have been born, but the subject never came up so we just stuck to the traditions we’d learned in a very secular school.
Telling people December 25th was not Jesus’ birthday would have been a very unpopular thing to say though. I do remember a Greek Orthodox family that celebrated some of the holidays at a different time, and a lot of people thought they were “very weird” for it.
OK - Maybe I exaggerated in the other thread that a kid would get beat up (I still think there would be a good chance if he was in the wrong sort of group of kids, and an even better chance that he would be made fun of), but when I was growing up (I never was a believer but my parents did send me to Sunday School for a while - United Church of Canada) I certainly understood that Jesus was supposed to have been born December 25. I don’t recall any discussion to the contrary until I was an adult (and that was outside of a church setting).
I don’t think my kid’s would get beat up, but given the religious war that happened over “Santa - believer or non-believer” when my daughter was in first grade, I’m guessing that it wouldn’t be a topic of Theology best discussed in lower elementary grades. SOME children are almost certainly not taught (or don’t get) the nuances.
I found out that it wasn’t likely Jesus was born on Christmas day sometime in late elementary. I was also raised Catholic. It was “the day we celebrated Christ’s birth” and no one ever said “but he probably wasn’t born that day” - I learned that from television.
I grew up singing “Happy Birthday” to the baby in the crèche every Christmas, and didn’t learn any different until late high school/college. Which surprised me, in retrospect, because my father has been a liturgist for 40+ years and my brother and I grew up knowing more about Catholicism than most kids (or adults, for that matter).
