By RESTITUTO C. BASA.

ROMAN Catholics and Protestants celebrate Christmas on December 25.
The Greek Orthodox Church does it on January 6.

Some minor Christian sects mark Christmas in September.

Why the variance? When was Jesus actually born?

Source of info: The best source of information should be the four Gospels in the New Testament, to wit: the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

These Gospels are the biographies of Jesus. But sad to say, not one of them stated the day, month and year when Jesus was born.

Some Bible scholars find clue on his birth in what St. John the Evangelist wrote in John 1:14, quoted hereunder:

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
Key word: The key word in the above text is dwelt. The original of the New Testament was written in Greek, the lingua franca of the world when Jesus was born.

In the Greek text, the word which has been translated into English as dwelt was tabernacled.

Thus John 1:14 should read as follows: “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.”

Using John 1:14 as reference, some Bible scholars opine that Jesus may have been born on the day the Jews were celebrating their Feast of the
Tabernacle.

The Jewish Feast of the Tabernacle falls on our month of September.
What was the Tabernacle? The tabernacle was a temporary mobile tent which the Jews used as their house of worship during their 40-year exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land.

It had to be a tent because it was moved from pone place to another as they progressed in their travel in the wilderness towards the Holy Land.

They called the house of worship tabernacle. When the Jews finally became permanent settlers in the Holy Land, they celebrated this event every year. They called the celebration the Feast of the Tabernacle.

Some Bible scholars believe Jesus was born on the day when the Jews were celebrating their Feast of the Tabernacle.

Origin of December 25 feast.: In the early years of the Christian Church, the birth of Jesus was not celebrated.

It was the Roman emperor Aurelian who initiated the December 25 festival in the year 274 A.D. But the celebration was not for the birth of Jesus. It was for their pagan god Sol Invictus, the sun god.

Pagan Rome had so many gods; thus the city had so many religious festivities. To bring order to the chaos, the authorities decided to unify the feasts to just one, to be celebrated on December 25, the feast day of the Sol Invictus.

Thus, our Christmas feast on December 25 is rooted in pagan religious feast.

Our early Church Fathers took the irony of it all with a grain of salt. Because what really counts in the Christian faith is Christ’s resurrection from the dead.