When Zacharias came home mute from his Temple service, Elizabeth got pregnant. John was conceived 6 months before Jesus was conceived. So John was born 3 months after Jesus was conceived. Jesus would be born about 6 months after John.
Back to counting the courses on the Jewish calendar puts John born at or around Passover and Jesus born around Tabernacles, assuming it was a 9 mo. pregnancy. The Fall Festivals are kinda stacked up as the Spring Feasts are, but one thing for sure, it wasn't in Dec. The shepherds were watching their flocks. Flocks aren't in the fields in Dec. To cold and the grass is dead, probably some snow.
Now we can start to look at Spiritual language used for the birth.
Luk 2:10 Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.
First "great Joy" is a term used in Tabernacles celebrations. In fact God tells His people that they MUST express "Great Joy" every Tabernacles.
Deu 16:14 And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant and the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, who are within your gates.
Deu 16:15 Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you surely rejoice. The idea was to celebrate the Lord setting them free of bondage and He came to live with them in the wilderness in booths. Another clue here is the term "All nations". All the other Feast Days were for Jews only. Tabernacles was for the whole world.
In John 1:14, John says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word "Dwelt" there is Tabernacled.( G4637 in Strong's) One main theme for the whole Bible is God living with His people.
Another clue is Jesus was wrapped in swaddling cloth. A Big theme in Tabernacles is the "Light of The World". The Jews put poles up in the courtyard of the Temple with lamps on top of them. They were very tall, maybe 70 feet or so. They had bowels on top full of olive oil and the wicks were swaddling cloth. If a Jew asked his son what those flaming poles were, their response would be "That's the Light of the World".
Jesus came into the Temple on a Tabernacles Feast and declared John 8:12.
Joh 8:12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."
Joh 9:5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
Jesus was literally screaming to the people in the Temple that He was the point of what they were celebrating. If Jesus was the Passover Lamb and died on Passover, then Scriptures were declaring that God had come to earth to tabernacle with them.
Zec 14:16 And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
Here God is saying that while He is on earth in the Last days, the world will be required to celebrate Tabernacles. Tabernacles is saying that God has come to live with His people, ergo born on that day.
I gave a 10 part, 14 hr lesson on the Feast days for my Sunday School and my home study group. The Leviticus 23 Feast days are a MUST, IMHO, for every Christian to study to understand what Scripture is telling us. Jesus said the Scriptures were written of Him. Christians are almost clueless about Jewish things. Jesus was born, lived, and died, as a Jew. this is what Paul was upset about with the Corinthians living on milk and never getting the meat. Everything in Jerusalem was a copy of what was in Heaven. So God's Kingdom resembles the Jews. They were given the oracles of God.
We have been led astray by the church of Babylon.
I could go into where Christmas and Easter came from, but most of us here already know the truth, we just can't give up our traditions. I have written many explanations here about what happened, but most don't bother even looking it up.
What people believe is a personal thing. I can't change anyone's mind. All I know is what Scriptures tell me. In Rev 18:4, God Himself tells them to come OUT of her before they are judged. The reason the church is dwindling today is because most pastors and priests can't even answer the simplest questions credibly. They may be nice people that love the Lord, but they aren't adequately trained in Scripture. For me, it's not so much that we celebrate Jesus' birthday on the wrong day, but that the day is a pagan day celebrating the birth of the Antichrist. Tammuz is the son of Nimrod that his wife said was the risen body of Nimrod. Semiramis was the "Mother of god" long before Mary and Jesus. These pagan days were incorporated into the Church Jesus started by Rome. It's not new. Go to Ezekiel 8 and read of the abomination in the Temple about Tammuz and the "Sunrise Service" with their backs turned to the Temple. IMO, God thinks its bad to venerate the wrong days and say it's for the right reasons. Your mileage may vary. Easter and Passover are almost never the same day on the Calendar. I would say it is never, but I don't know for sure since the Jewish calendar moves compared to ours, but so does Easter. Either way, Easter is named after Ishtar, Isis, or Astarte, depending on what pagan group you come from. The Leviticus 23 feast days are Rehearsals for God's days. He even says these are my days. If Passover and First Fruits are on different days than Easter, what is Easter celebrating? Every church should have a source to a Messianic Jew. Even a non Messianic Jew would be better than many Pastors teaching today. Love Israel.org, Torahclass.com, Perry Stone, Discovering the Jewish Jesus, and Gateway church in Dallas has Messianic messages there. If people rely totally on the NT and never go to the OT, there is a problem. If you hear antisemitism from the pulpit, run, don't walk, out of there. When you hear the NT changed everything so we don't need the OT, ask them what changed? Jesus came to fulfill the Tenach, not to do away with it.
What's happening today is disbelief in Scripture, taking what they want and rejecting the rest, abortion, sodomy, antisemitism, all have entered the church. This is no different than carving out a stick and falling down before it to worship a god that is not the God of the Bible. EVERYBODY will say, "That's not me!", then do exactly opposite of what Scripture says. If you don't know that the "Day no one knows" is Trumpets, how will you be "watching" for that day? The "Last Trump" only can be blown on the Feast of Trumpets, but we have people looking for the Rapture in June, May. December, ect. They don't understand the Theif in the Night is. They don't know if its pre, mid, or post Trib and can't figure out what the Bible says about it. All because they have no Jewish background or instruction.
The Jews observed Tabernacles for 3000 years before Jesus was born, but the themes of Tabernacles were fulfilled at least 9 ways by Jesus without having to figure out the courses of Abijah.
Wow, thank you and Bookmarking because I can’t absorb it all now.
One thing, would John The Baptist have been born on Passover because of how Jews always set a place for Elijah who is to come at the Passover table?
Isn’t John the Baptist this Elijah, according to the Lord?