Well, okay, I'm sure there are people who said he was born on February 29 in a leap year, so rephrase.
"Somebody not on acid said he was born in July?"
Mainstream says Xmas. Because solstice, new year's, and debauchery. (The making of Xmas prim hasn't quite finished yet, but even in the 1600s it was still a time for commoners to get drunk and laid, and let's not forget the feast of fools tradition.)
Some say fall, based on the "Mary in Bethlehem" bit and the idea that her being away from home was due to the OT requirement that each year males present themselves three times in a year, with two of those times being in the 7th month, days 1 and 15. Fall festival season at the time wasn't just a happening time for domestic travelers, but was a huge tourist draw for out-of-state Jews.
An astronomer doing some historical reconstructions claimed June, but that relies on advance knowledge of the year and what had to count as the "star" over Bethlehem. So he had two assumptions built into it, and only got airtime because it was a way for the media to stick their thumbs in Xmas believers' eyes, pull them out, and say, "What a smart boy am I!" That's the same kind of journalist who will say, "We must never allow a private Xian symbol on private land--separation of church and state!" and then, in the next breath, say, "We must declare this a national monument because Native Americans hold it to be sacred, and we must get Congress to make laws respecting the establishment of their religion." If lawfare is legal warfare, consider this to be "newsfare."
A year or two ago I read a very nice article (I really should track it down) where historians had pinned down the Gregorian calendric date some Assyrian document had to be referring to, to the day, based on some pretty defensible facts; the document contained an astronomical observation that had been oft-dated by astronomers over the years, so (finally) there was broad consensus among the few people who cared as to when it happened. But with the new research, astronomers then said, "Well, that's great! That let's us figure out how all kinds of small effects on the Earth's rotation, etc., added up over time. We knew they were there, but had no way to quantify them!" In other words, they adjusted their models based on data, in order to account for a lot of small changes. Prior to that adjustment, though, everybody assumed that since it was science, the astronomical dating had to be 100% certain when the astronomers themselves didn't say that except for PR purposes.
I'm in the fall camp.
= new reply since forum marked as read
