The Exact Day of Christ’s Birth

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Is it possible from biblical information to know the exact day (even the hour) when Christ was born of the Virgin Mary?
 

In the New Testament there are three places that speak about the period of the nativity of Jesus. One is about his birth when the shepherds gave gifts to him as recorded in the Gospel of Luke (2:1-20), a second description is recorded about the time the Magi (or Wise Men) gave gifts to Christ almost 15 months after his birth (Matthew 2:1-18), and the third is found in the Book of Revelation chapter 12. In the latter section there is astronomical evidence given by the apostle John that gives any astronomer (and one who has even a basic knowledge of the early Hebrew calendar that the Jews went by in the time of Jesus) some precise information that will allow anyone to calculate the birth of Christ to a precise day of the year, and indeed, to within an hour and a half of the time of his birth. Believe it or not, this is easy to demonstrate.

The key to the matter is John’s reference to the Sun and the Moon. To anyone living in the first century looking at this description from an astronomical point of view about this child to be born who would rule the earth with a rod of iron, they would be struck by clarity of the time period therein indicated. First, if the Sun is literal (and there is every reason to believe that John intended it that way), we are told that it is mid-bodied to a woman (that is, "clothing her") who is located in heaven. Indeed, the Moon is also located at the same time "under the feet" of this woman. Since John said that this was a "sign" – a "wonder" in the King James (Revelation 12:1), this is the same word which was used throughout the Greek world at the time to denote a "sign of the Zodiac." The only woman located in the Zodiacal circle is that of Virgo (and Christ was prophesied to be born of a Virgin).

For the Sun to be located in the sign of Virgo (and mid-bodied to her), this gives a date each year from about August 27^th to September 15^th. But the Moon travels over twelve times faster through the ecliptic (the circle of the Zodiac) and for it to be "under the feet" of the Virgo narrows the time to only one day in the year within the twenty day period mentioned above. In the year Christ was born the Moon could only be in that position on the evening of September 11^th. And since John said that this "sign" could be seen in heaven, if one accepts this literally as referring to an astronomical description, this could only have been seen by an observer on earth between sunset (about 6:15 pm local time at Jerusalem) and moonset which was just about 7:45 pm. With this information, it thus becomes possible from the New Testament to date the very day Jesus was born, and to within an hour and a half of the event. This can be arrived at quite easily by any astronomer in a matter of minutes who has proper astronomical tables. [For detailed information on this interesting event, and proof which shows the year in which Jesus was born, read my 220 page book titled: "The Star that Astonished the World."]

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