This morning when I got on social media, one of the first posts I saw was “Happy Birthday Jesus…maybe.” At this point, I am sure everyone is familiar with the idea that Christmas is unlikely to be Jesus’ birthday. However, I doubt everyone is familiar with the argument that Jesus’ birthday was September 11, 3 BC.
Ernest Martin explains a case for this in The Star of Bethlehem: The Star That Astonished the World. (I am tagging this book specifically because it can be read free online at the hyperlink tagged. Chapter 5 is specifically tagged because it lays out the case for the date.) However if you don’t want to read the case, here’s a YouTube video.
I am extremely convinced by these arguments but that is besides the point I want to make. The question I want us to ponder is, “If Jesus was born on September 11, 3 BC, should we celebrate his birthday on September 11?”
I have 2 objections to celebrate his birthday on this date:
1) In a world where Christians holidays are already seen as “stealing holidays,” we should not take away from September 11th as a memorial for the lose of the 2,977 innocent lives that occurred in 2001.
2) Jesus would not have celebrated his birthday according to the Gregorian Calendar, and neither should we.
Ernest Martin makes an important note at the end of Chapter 5 that I think each of us should take note of:
Jesus was born in early evening, and Revelation 12 shows it was a New Moon day. What New Moon could this have been? The answer is most amazing. It is almost too amazing! September 11, 3 B.C.E. was Tishri One on the Jewish calendar. To Jewish people this would have been a very profound occasion indeed. Tishri One is none other than the Jewish New Year’s day (Rosh ha-Shanah, or as the Bible calls it, The Day of Trumpets ― Leviticus 23:23–26). It was an important annual holy day of the Jews (but not one of the three annual festivals that required all Palestinian Jews to be in Jerusalem).
I think Martin begins to become a bit speculative in Chapter 6 of his book on the significance of The Day of Trumpets so I will not touch on that (yet anyways). However, my point with this is: Jesus would have celebrated his birthday on the Day of Trumpets, Tishri 1.
So I argue, if we are going to celebrate Jesus’ birthday on September 11, 3BC, let us then celebrate it the day Jesus would have, Tishri 1, 3759, the Day of Trumpets.
Be on the lookout for my post Friday (Tishri 1), where I propose my argument for the significance of The Day of Trumpets.
Sources/Further Reading
The Star of Bethlehem: The Star That Astonished the World
Youtube: Revelation, Astral Prophecy, and the Birth of Christ
Trent Hipp 