Why is Christmas December 25th? When Was Jesus Really Born?

Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th?  Most people assume that it has always been a Christian holiday and that it is a celebration of the birth of Jesus.  But it turns out that Jesus was not born on December 25th.  However, a whole bunch of pagan gods were born on that day.

In fact, pagans celebrated a festival involving a heroic supernatural figure that visits an evergreen tree and leaves gifts on December 25th long before Jesus was ever born.  From its early Babylonian roots, the celebration of the birth or “rebirth” of the sun god on December 25th came to be celebrated under various names all over the ancient world.  You see, the winter solstice occurs a few days before December 25th each year.

The winter solstice is the day of the year when daylight is the shortest. In ancient times, December 25th was the day each year when the day started to become noticeably longer.  Thus it was fitting for the early pagans to designate December 25th as the date of the birth or the “rebirth” of the sun.

The truth is that thousands of years before there was a ”Santa Claus”, there was another supernatural figure who would supposedly visit a tree and leave gifts every December 25th.

His name was Nimrod.

The celebration of December 25th goes all the way back to ancient Babylon.

According to ancient Babylonian tradition, Semiramis (who eventually became known as the goddess Astarte/Asherah/Ashtoreth/Isis/Ishtar/Easter in other pagan religions) claimed that after the untimely death of her son/husband Nimrod (yes she was married to her own son), a full grown evergreen tree sprang up overnight from a dead tree stump. Semiramis claimed that Nimrod would visit that evergreen tree and leave gifts each year on the anniversary of his birth, which just happened to be on December 25th.

This is the true origin of the Christmas tree.

The following are just some of the pagan gods that had “birthdays” on December 25th….

Mithras

Horus

Attis

Dionysus the son of Zeus

Tammuz

Hercules

Perseus

Helios

Bacchus

Apollo

Jupiter

Sol Invictus - (The “Unconquered Sun”)

When the Roman Catholics decided to make December 25th a “Christian holiday” in the fourth century, they simply adopted a long standing pagan holiday and kept most of the same pagan traditions.

For example, the ancient Babylonian “Christmas tree” became known as a symbol of fertility throughout the ancient world.  The pole, balls, and tinsel (phallus, testes, semen) represented various aspects of male fertility, while wreaths were always fashioned in a circle to represent female fertility.

So Merry Christmas to all! You can read more about this fascinating history here.