Category: Questions & Answers

Do you have a question about Christianity?

Bible Questions

“This isn’t exactly a ‘Bible’ question, but why does the silver star in Bethlehem have 14 points?” – Just Curious

That’s a great question with an interesting answer! Why did they would choose a fourteen-pointed star? Why not the six-pointed star of David or even a five-pointed star of Solomon? At the conclusion of the genealogy of Jesus, Matthew writes:

“So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations,” (Matthew 1:17).

Thus the silver star has fourteen points, but even that raises more questions. Matthew was wrong! For the fourteen generations from Abraham to David, Matthew had to count both Abraham and David. The make the next group of fourteen generations, Matthew had to skip three kings and conflate Jehoiakim and Jechoniah. The last group had to include Jechoniah and Jesus to get fourteen but since it covers a period of 500 years, Matthew may have omitted a few people.

To our western way of thinking, the genealogy is wrong but Matthew wasn’t one of us. He wasn’t trying to give us an accurate genealogy at all. He was trying to emphasize Jesus is the “Son of David.” Ancient people used their alphabets to count with. (Do you remember Roman numerals from school?) So, the Hebrew name for King David, dwd, has a numeric value: (d = 4) + (w = 6) + (d = 4) then the number for David is 14!

“When was Jesus born?”

 “Was Jesus really born on December 25th?” — Ebenezer Scrooge

Although both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke describe the birth of Jesus, the Bible doesn’t tell us exactly when Jesus was born. In fact, for the first three hundred years, Christians didn’t celebrate his birth so how did people settle on December 25th as the date? There are two theories, one well known and the other not so known.

First, many people believe Christians simply adopted the Winter Solstice for the date of the holiday. This popular theory suggests that since the pagans already celebrated this holiday, the Christians simply took it over.

The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25th. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals.

Biblical Archaeology Society, August 12, 2014, http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org

The trouble with that theory is, it isn’t found in any ancient Christian writings. It wasn’t until the 12th century that anyone suggested that connection! A more interesting, but lesser known, solution involves the better-established date of Jesus’ death at the Passover (Easter).

Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus died was equivalent to March 25th in the Roman (Solar) calendar. March 25th is, of course, nine months before December 25th; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation – the commemoration of Jesus’ conception. Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born on December 25th.

Biblical Archaeology Society, August 12, 2012.

So when was Jesus born? We really don’t know. What we do know is that he was born – the Son of God Incarnate – who “will save his people from their sins.” That’s something worth celebrating! Merry Christmas indeed!