Yes, Christmas is Correct

The following pastor very obviously will be celebrating Christmas, but under the impression that the real date doesn't really matter.

This ANCIENT DOCUMENT Reveals When Jesus Was REALLY Born
Brandon Robbins | 18 Dec. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwe86Qqy7Cc

Let's see if I can change his mind ... at least I left the following comment:

5:59 I'm looking at your diagramme. I note that Jeoiarib is marked in Av, like in the year when the temple was destroyed.

If the courses in that year and the courses in the year when St. John was conceived were the same you have a point.

However. You have given the normal Jewish year exactly 48 weeks. 354 days by seven = NOT 48. It's 50 weeks and 4/7 of a week.

Second, the Jewish calendar had leap years.

This means one year in two or three was an extra month, an extra 30 days. 384. 54 weeks and 6 extra days. Plus the times when a year is deficient or excessive by one day.

So, a Jewish year is neither exactly 48 weeks, nor exactly 48 + 3 weeks. The course of Jehoiarib or Abijah are going to shift from year to year.

7:37 Your document for sheltered flocks from October to March is from what writer?

You see, Columella in Rome and Pumbedita Academy in Pumbedita lived under other climates.

Pumbedita is a city that is no more. Its site has been identified with Fallujah and Sippar. 33°21′N 43°47′E respectively 33°03′32″N 44°15′08″E.

Bethlehem is 31°42′16″N 35°12′23″E. A bit further South, plus closer to the Mediterranean, so milder winters.

Rome has comparable distance to the Mediterranean, but is way further North. 41°54′N 12°29′E.

We simply cannot transfer info about shepherds from Pumbedita or Rome to Bethlehem.

The shepherds staying up suggests lambing season. Do you know when the lambing season is in the Holy Land?

I find this info:

The lambing season in first-century Israel, due to the existing breed of sheep then, occurred from late March to mid-April. Shepherds would typically only watch flocks in the open at night during the lambing season. December would have been too cold and probably too rainy for the shepherds to be out at night watching their flocks.

However, this is a Nazarene ministry. They have no "about" page, so we cannot know where they are based.

However ... there is some other info, and these guys actially have shepherds right now:

At the southern end of Mount Carmel, between Zikhron Ya’akov and Binyamina, lies Ramat Hanadiv – Gardens and Nature Park – over an area of about 450 hectares, dedicated to the memory of Baron Edmond de Rothschild. At the heart of the Memorial Gardens buried the Baron and his wife. The contrast between the meticulous Gardens and the Mediterranean Nature Park around them, is one of the wonderers of Ramat Hanadiv.

Mount Carmel is in Galilee, right, a bit further North?

Winter is the busiest season in the pen – it’s kidding and lambing season.

From late November to late March there will be a number of births each day; between 100 and 200 kids and lambs will be born here.

Last time I checked, December is in that interval.

8:55 "To them, it didn't matter" ... only follows if you think their selection of very few facts into very thin booklets was what they counted future generations to have access to, from all the time that the Apostles spent with Jesus.

The normal blog for a post this format would be Assorted Retorts, go there for more like this if you liked it.