By Lucas Allen
The Christmas story as told in the gospels of the New Testament warms the hearts of many throughout the world. But have you ever thought about the math behind the story? There are stories behind the numbers of Christmas story you may not be aware of. Let’s take a look at Christmas by the numbers.
• 5 – As in 5 B.C., the year Jesus was born. Of course, it seems pretty contradictory to say Jesus Christ was born 5 years “Before Christ,” but historians do believe this to be the case.
Dionysius Exiguus, a sixth century monk who devised our modern system of numbering years, did his best to reconstruct the timeline back to the time of Jesus birth. Given the resources he had to work with, he came very close to setting the year 1 AD as the time of Jesus’s birth, but it generally believed he missed by about 5 years.
• 96 - As in the miles Mary and Joseph traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census. Today, it’s about a two hour drive by car. At the start of the new millienium, think days for this trip, not hours. No one would have described it as a vacation, especially a teenage girl in her third trimester.
• 500 – As in the population of Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’s birth. Actually, the exact population of Bethlehem in those days is unknown, but it probably fell between 300 and 1000, meaning it truly was the “Little Town of Bethlehem,” even by ancient standards.
• 14 and 40 – As in the ages of Mary and Joseph, respectively. There’s a huge amount of speculation in those numbers since the Bible doesn’t come out and announce their ages. However, contextual clues would lead us to believe Mary was in her early teens.
Joseph’s age is even more speculative, but the best guess is that he was in his early 40's because as a successful businessman (carpenter) it would be common to marry a much younger woman. What is scandalous in our day would have been common in theirs.
• 3 - As in three wise men. We actually don’t know if there were three wise men (or magi) as has come to be assumed in the traditions that have followed. The Gospel of Matthew doesn’t make any claims about their numbers.
It is often times assumed that there were three because they brought three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These were gifts intended for a king, which is how these magi interpreted the sign of the Christmas star.
According to historical facts, it's unlikely that Jesus was born in the winter• 10 - As in December, the tenth month. No wait, that’s not right! And yet, December does come from the Latin “decimus,” meaning tenth, just as decimeter (one tenth of a meter) and decimate (to lose one tenth of a military force) do. And come to think of it, based on their prefixes, shouldn’t September be the seventh month, October the eight, and November, the ninth.
What’s going on here? The names of these months come from the original Roman calendar, which had ten months, followed by 61 days that didn’t fit into any month, and were eventually divided into January and February as we moved towards the modern calendar.
• 25 – As in December 25, Christmas Day. Although the day commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, it’s not really known when he was born. Theories about why early Christians chose December 25 to celebrate Christ’s birthday vary. Some say it is because it is about nine months after the day early believers thought his immaculate conception occurred.
Other theories center around the fact that December 25 was the Winter Solstice on the Roman calendar or that there were other ancient festivals going on that day, so the Christians were trying to redeem a pagan holiday by making it into a holy one in accordance with their beliefs.
In reality, note that the shepherds in the story were “watching their flocks by night,” something that only happened in the warmer times of year. And no, Bethlehem is not warm in December, so Jesus was not likely born in the winter.
Obviously, Christmas is about much more than numbers. Take some time to remember that first Christmas this December.
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Watch The History Of Christmas – Videos (2 to 5) – on YouTube
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