OVERRATED: December 25

The decorations are even up in Ho Chi Minh City over Christmas. (Well, this was November 27, but close enough.)

Now that Christmas festivities are mostly over for another year, and everyone’s putting away the decorations, it’s time to say that, if you were doing it for the traditional Christian reasons (the birth of Jesus, for those who didn’t know), you probably had the wrong day entirely. (Of course, if you used the day as a secular excuse for gift-giving and enjoying yourself, then it’s as good as any other.) There is no evidence, biblical or otherwise, that he was actually born on that day. Of the many different theories of why December 25 was chosen, the most likely is that it was already celebrated by followers of Mithras, the central god of a Hellenistic cult that developed in the Eastern Mediterranean around 100 BC. It appears that followers of Mithraism believed that Mithras was born on December 25, probably of a virgin, and his birth was attended by shepherds.

Mithras also had twelve disciples; Sunday was his sacred day; he was buried in a tomb and rose again after three days. Spooky, hey? When scholars investigated Mithraism (relatively recently – they did it early in the twentieth century), they upset some Christians by suggesting that Mithraism might have influenced Christianity. (In fairness, Mithraism continued – developing and perhaps changing its beliefs – for some centuries after Christ. Some of the influences might well have been in the other direction.)

So when was Jesus really born? Based on the Star of Bethlehem, astronomers reckon that he was born within a few hours of September 11, 3 BC. (Yes, September 11. Got a problem with that?) Historian Dr. Ernest L Martin, in his 1981 book The Birth of Christ Recalculated, even went so far as to suggest that the signs in the sky, on the night of Jesus’ birth, could only have happened on September 11, between 6:15 pm and 7:49 pm.

Of course, even if Jesus wasn’t born on December 25, a lot of awesome people were born on this day. So it’s probably not so bad.