LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS INT.

When was the Messiah born?

According to the Gospel of Luke, pastors were outside taking care of their flock when they received the message from the angel about the Messiah being born in that time.

Some people say that there is only one time in the year when this happens, according to some American messianic Jews lambs cannot be born in different seasons of the year, they claim that this type of lambs are born only in the Spring, but this claim is still a theory because we have a writing from an Apostolic Church Father around the year 200 that supports the tradition of the first advent of God on December 25th. But leaving that aside, we know by the Gospels and the Prophecies that the Messiah was born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is where the sacrificial lambs for the Temple were raised. Therefore, it is evident that God used the same location for the Messiah to be born giving us a hint that He is our Passover Lamb, I mean, he was born in the place where the sacrificial lambs for the Temple were born.

Herod the Great was the Emperor when the Messiah was born, he died approx. in the year 4 BC, this means that the birth of the Messiah happened to be a couple of years before, when Herod the Great was still alive.

On February 6 BC, there was a great stars conjunction between planets like Jupiter and Saturn which is believed to be what we know as – The Star of Bethlehem -, there is a probability that this was the sign that the Maggi saw in the sky. As astronomers they had the ability to study the signs of heaven, in this case the conjunction of these planets, and later on, they determined that this event was related to the birth of a special king among the Jewish people.

Some scholars believe that the Maggi whom came either from Persia (modern day Iran) or Saudi Arabia, knew about Jewish prophecies specially those dreams or oracles that Daniel described hundreds of years before, we have to remember that Daniel was a very prominent figure and the chief of the “wise men” in Babylon. So, the Maggi studied the stars, probably had ancient knowledge about the 70 weeks of Daniel, then made a calculation and came with the conclusion that they will need to start a journey to the land of the Jews (in that time under the rule of the Roman Empire), and bring gifts to the new born king as part of the fulfillment of prophecies that we can find in the Old Testament.

Daniel 9:25–26 (LEB)
25 And you must know and you must understand that from the time of the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem until an anointed one—a leader—will be ⌊seven weeks and sixty-two weeks⌋; it will be restored and will be built with streets and a moat, but ⌊in a time of oppression⌋.
26 “And after the sixty and two weeks an anointed one shall be cut off, and ⌊he shall have nothing⌋, and the people of the coming leader will destroy the city and the sanctuary, and its end will be with the flood and on to the end there shall be war; these desolations are determined.

Firstly, the anointed one defined in the book of Daniel is the Messiah and if we make the calculations of years since the last event of the prophecy and the time of the coming of the Messiah, gives as a result the year when Jesus was Baptized by John the Baptist.

If the wise men or Maggi had this information, they calculated the date and figured out that the prophecy and the alignment of the stars where the confirmation of the major event in human history. But let’s say that they didn’t have that information, in that case, they had to read the stars through which God revealed to them the birth of His Messiah. Either way, they followed the star.

But, can we find a prophecy about the gifts of the Maggi in the Old Testament?

Isaiah 60:6 (LEB)
6 A multitude of camels shall cover you,
the young male camels of Midian and Ephah.
All those from Sheba shall come;
they shall bring gold and frankincense,
and they shall proclaim the praise of YHWH.

Isaiah seems to prophecy about nations coming to bring wealth to Zion, he talks about Midian, Sheba and Epha. The three of them are Arab nations, Epha was a son of Midian, but here is a land serving as transporter of Gold and Frankincense. This is connected to the chapter 59 where God himself will bring deliverance to his people through a Messianic figure.

Isaiah 59:20 (LEB)
20 “And a redeemer will come to Zion,
to those in Jacob who turn away from transgression,”

⌊declares⌋ YHWH.

So, this reveals that people will come from the Arab world and will bring as gifts gold and frankincense, and we see in the Gospels that they also brought Myrrh with them. We don’t know how many Maggi came to see the Messiah, maybe they were more than three; and I believe all of them brought the same gifts, I mean, each one of the Maggi brought Gold, frankincense and Myrrh. Another thing to consider is that they found the Messiah in his home in Bethlehem, and he was probably two years old when they met him and gave him the gifts, therefore, this event happened approx. in the year 4 BC. We know by Historic account that Herod the Great died in that year, probably a few days after he sent to kill all males of two years old and under.

Every gift given to the toddler Messiah had a prophetic meaning. Gold represents his royal status as king of the heavens and the earth, Frankincense was burned and used in the Temple on the Altar of Incense in front of the Holy of Holies. It was considered a valuable and precious offering… Therefore, Frankincense represents the sacrifice of the Messiah, because he will give his life as an offering… as a ransom taking away the sins of many. The last and not less important was the Myrrh, it was a component of the holy anointing oil which in one hand represents prayer and consecration, and in the other hand was used as a substance for embalming and perfuming, therefore, it represents the death and burial of the Messiah.

Until now, we have been gathering some information about the first two years of life of the Messiah, so, we can calculate his birth taking as reference the visit of the Maggi and the death of Herod the Great. This tells us that he was born two years before the Maggi came to visit him, around the same year when the star of Bethlehem appeared to them because of the great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter which happened in the year 6 BC. This means, we can confirm that the Messiah had to be born in the time of the Spring of that same year or during Winter. Another thing to consider, and we talked about this previously… is that the types of lambs used for the Sacrifice in the Temple were born on Bethlehem, in the case of being born on the Spring, that would have been in the month of Nissan (Late March and Mid April) and in the other case on Kislev (late December).

If take as reference the death of Herod the Great which is supposed to be between March and April of the year 4 BC, and we make a difference between his month and year of death and the age of the Messiah when Herod sent to kill all males of 2 years old and under. If we calculate using this reference, we come to the conclusion that the toddler Messiah was around 2 years old. Therefore, late March – Mid April 4 BC minus 2 years will give us as a result, late March – Mid April 6 BC. And if we use the Jewish calendar and we calculate the equivalent year, Herod’s death was in Nissan 3757, minus 2 years this will give us as result Nissan 3755.

Now that we have the approximate month and year of birth, we can calculate a specific day based in the biblical prophetic hints about the Messiah and the feasts in the month of Nissan. We know that the Messiah died in the beginning of the feast of Passover according to the gospels, this is Nissan 14th. And in the Old Testament the Messiah is a king… an anointed one, also, one of the gifts of the Maggi was gold which represents his royal status; this means, he could be born in the new year celebration for kings and festivals, that is Nissan 1st. Therefore, the date of birth of the Messiah in case of being born on the Spring was 1st of Nissan 3755 which is Saturday, March 20th of 6 BCE.

But like I said in the beginning there is an Apostolic Church Father that contradicts the date of birth on the Spring and place it on December 25th allowing to calculate the date of conception of the Messiah on March probably of the year 5 BCE, which will be Nissan 3754 of the Hebrew Calendar. Using this date, we will observe that his conception would be around the new year celebration for kings and festivals on Nissan 1st, which tells us that in both cases is announced and celebrated the incarnation of the King of kings.

But where can we find that our tradition of celebrating Christmas is hundred percent Christian and not pagan? Bellow I quote St. Hippolytus in his work “Commentary on Daniel” written around 205 AD where it is evident that for the Catholic Church, the official birthday of the Messiah was December 25th:

“For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, eight days before the Kalends of January [December 25], the fourth day [Wednesday], while Augustus was in his forty-second year, but from Adam, five thousand and five hundred years. He suffered in the thirty-third year, eight days before the Kalends of April [March 25], the day of preparation [Friday] the eighteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, while Rufus and Roubellion were Consuls.”

Conclusion

The Messiah was born in the same place where the sacrificial lambs for the Temple were born, the writing of St. Hippolytus of Rome dissipates all doubts and confirms the celebration on December 25th as being established by the Church since by the time he wrote about it in his Commentary on Daniel, the Church already had the tradition of celebrating the first advent of God on the same day we do it now days, this tradition then was established before the year 200 AD and St. Hippolytus account is giving us the right to reject the wrong idea of Christmas being related to a pagan celebration to commemorate the Sol Invictus that in reality was created around 274 AD to compete against the birth of the Christian God. Therefore, we can conclude that the Messiah who is called the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, was conceived around March 25th, he is the lamb that took our place and died (was sacrificed) as our Passover Lamb. His birth was announced when the stars aligned to let the creation know that the King of the Universe was about to take the form of flesh to save us all and this happened according to our early source on Wednesday, December 25th of 6 BC.

Leo Ramirez.