Jesus : Possible Year of Birth

Scholars generally conclude that Jesus was born sometime between 7-2 BC/BCE and died sometime between 26-36 AD/CE.

There is no contemporary historical evidence demonstrating the date of Jesus' birth. The common Gregorian calendar method for numbering years, in which the current year is 2010, is based on an early medieval attempt to count the years from a point of reference — namely, Jesus' birth — which Dionysius Exiguus placed, either mistakenly or intentionally, sometime between 2 BC/BCE and 1 AD/CE. The Gospel of Matthew states Jesus' birth occurred during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC/BCE, but also with the intimation that Jesus may have been as much as two years old when Herod ordered the Massacre of the Innocents, and therefore that he may have been even older at the time of Herod's death. The Gospel of Luke similarly points to Jesus' birth as having occurred during the reign of Herod the Great (i.e., sometime between 37 and 4 BC/BCE), but the author of Luke also describes the birth as taking place during the first census of the Roman provinces of Syria and Iudaea, which is generally believed to have occurred in 6 AD/CE. Most scholars generally assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC/BCE.

Christmas or Christmas Day is a holiday observed mostly on December 25 to commemorate the birth of Jesus. The earliest evidence of celebration of Jesus' birth on December 25 is found in the year 354 in Rome. It was only later that the December 25 celebration was adopted in the East, with the exception of Armenia, where his birth is celebrated on January 6. Indeed, there is no month of the year to which respectable authorities have not assigned his birth.