The Content of the faith – Incarnation
In the decades around the birth of Jesus, the ancient world was waiting for something – or rather, Someone. Jewish and pagan sources alike speak of a growing conviction that a world–ruler would arise from Judea. For Israel, this meant the long–promised Messiah; for the Gentiles, a mysterious king destined to rule the world.
Jewish historian Flavius Josephus notes that, in the first century, it was “commonly believed” in Israel that a great ruler would soon come from their nation. Many scholars trace this expectation back above all to the Book of Daniel (cf. Dan 7:13–14; 9:24). In Daniel 9:24–27, the famous prophecy of the “seventy weeks,” Jewish interpreters saw not literal weeks but symbolic “weeks” of years. The Hebrew SHABUIM points to periods of seven years – seventy “sevens,” or 490 years – counted from a royal decree to rebuild Jerusalem, often linked to Artaxerxes I (458–457 BC) or Cyrus (538 BC. Either way, the timeline lands roughly in the very century when Jesus lived.
This wasn’t just a Christian rereading after the fact. The Qumran community by the Dead Sea – highly respected for its biblical interpretations – also seems to have expected a Messiah on this basis. Other Jewish circles did similar calculations, which explains the intense messianic excitement recorded in the Gospels.
Alongside Daniel, Genesis 49:10 played a big role:
“The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.”
By the time of Christ, Jews saw Roman domination and the end of native kingship as a sign that this prophecy was being fulfilled. Herod the Great was effectively the last “king” of the Jews. After his death, Judea’s autonomy collapsed for centuries. For many Jewish believers in Jesus, it was obvious: the sceptre had departed, the promised One had come. Those who rejected Jesus often re–read the text as referring not to a person, but to the whole people of Israel.
Interestingly, it’s in this same period that Jews fixed the canon of the Hebrew Bible (24 books), closing public revelation in their understanding – just as Christians claim the Messiah Himself was entering history. Within a generation, the Temple was destroyed in AD 70, the sacrificial system ended, and the Jewish people were scattered. The stage of the Old Covenant, in its visible structures, had effectively come to a close.
The star that caught the world’s attention
Saint Matthew reports that “wise men from the East” arrived in Jerusalem asking, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East” (Mt 2:1–2). Centuries later, astronomer Johannes Kepler noticed that in 7 BC there was a rare triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces – a striking astronomical event.
Kepler then discovered a Jewish commentary by Rabbi Abarbanel saying the Messiah would come when Jupiter and Saturn met in Pisces. Other Jewish sources echo a similar idea. Meanwhile, the famous Babylonian astrological school at Sippar taught that, beginning in 7 BC, a “Lord of the World” was to be expected in Palestine. Cuneiform tablets from Sippar, deciphered in 1925, record that triple conjunction in 7 BC (29 May, 1 October, 5 December) as unusually prominent. A once–in–roughly–800–years alignment, modern astronomy confirms it.
Egyptian planetary tables stored in Berlin, which track planetary movements from 17 BC to AD 10, back up Kepler’s calculations. So when Matthew speaks of an extraordinary “star,” he’s not describing a fairy tale garnish, but something that made serious eastern observers – probably steeped in Babylonian tradition – look toward Judea.
Interestingly, Roman historians noticed the same mood of expectation. Tacitus and Suetonius both report a widespread belief that a world–dominating ruler would arise from Judea. In other words: at the rough time and place of Jesus’ birth, Jews and pagans alike were looking toward Palestine for a coming king.
A unique case in religious history
Here’s something striking: Judaism and Christianity stand alone in claiming that their central figure was foretold across many centuries in specific prophecies. For roughly two millennia before Bethlehem, Israel’s prophets spoke of a coming Anointed One. None of the great founders of other religions – Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad – were preannounced in this way within a coherent, continuous sacred tradition.
From a Christian perspective, the entire Old Testament is a long, dramatic build–up to one Person: the Messiah, Jesus Christ. He is the “hinge” of Scripture – the One in whom, as the Church teaches, all God’s promises find their “Yes” (cf. 2 Cor 1:20).
Recognising that this long–awaited Messiah could appear as a poor baby in a Bethlehem stable was hard enough. Recognising that He is not only man but true God – and that this God had a human face and a precise date of birth – was humanly unthinkable for most of Jesus’ contemporaries.
The God of Israel, Yahweh, was utterly transcendent: unseeable, unimageable, even His Name carefully avoided. To say “this man is God” sounded like blasphemy. That is exactly why the Sanhedrin condemned Jesus:
“He has blasphemed… He deserves death” (cf. Mt 26:63–66).
Even later, Islam would express a similar protest. On the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, one reads the inscription:
“The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a Messenger of God… Far be it from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son.”
For both Jews and Muslims, the Christian claim – that the eternal Son of God truly became man, suffered, died, and rose – is the central “scandal.” Yet from the Catholic point of view, this scandal is precisely the heart of the Gospel.
Why Jesus didn’t vanish like the other “messiahs”
The first century saw a string of supposed messiahs. Men like Barabbas, Theudas and Bar Kokhba led revolts against Rome, were crushed, and disappeared from the stage of history. Their movements died with them.
Jesus was different. After His humiliating execution, His Jewish followers quickly proclaimed something absolutely bold: He had risen, and He was not just a prophet, but true God and true man. They risked their lives to say this, starting in the very city where He’d been crucified.
Saint Paul, himself a former persecutor of Christians, would later write:
“God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name… that every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil 2:9–11).
From a purely historical angle, the explosive spread of this belief – that a crucified Jew was God – across the Roman Empire, preached first by Jews who feared blasphemy above all else, demands an explanation. For the Catholic, the only adequate one is the one the Church has always given: God Himself entered history, died, and rose.
So, when was Jesus actually born?
We know more about Jesus’ place in history than about almost any other ancient figure. Roman writers like Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius, Jewish historians like Josephus, and of course the New Testament itself, all converge on His historical reality.
Jesus was born when Octavian Augustus ruled Rome (30 BC–AD 14) and Herod the Great ruled Judea (37–4 BC). In the sixth century, Pope John I asked the monk Dionysius Exiguus to calculate the year of Christ’s birth. Dionysius placed it in the year 754 “from the founding of Rome” (our AD 1). Modern research, however, suggests he miscounted by about six or seven years.
Taking into account Herod’s death and the astronomical data, many scholars think Jesus was born around 7–6 BC, that is, in the year 747/748 ab urbe condita (from the foundation of Rome). Ironically, the mistake stuck – so our entire calendar still pivots around a slightly mis–dated birthday. Yet the symbolic truth remains: history is now measured “before Christ” and “after Christ.”
The shocking claim of Christmas
Here’s where Christianity pulls no punches: Christmas isn’t just about a sentimental baby scene. It’s the claim that the eternal Son of God truly took flesh and became one of us. As the Catechism puts it, the Word “became man so that we might become ‘partakers of the divine nature’” (CCC 460; cf. 2 Pet 1:4). St Gregory Nazianzen famously summed it up: “God became man so that man might become god” – by grace, not by nature.
The Incarnation is God stepping across the infinite gap caused by sin, not with overwhelming power, but in the vulnerability of a newborn child. He takes on our human condition, carries our sins, and through His death and resurrection conquers Satan, sin and death, opening heaven to us.
And yet, notice how discreet this revelation is. God does not force Himself on anyone. In Jesus, His divinity is “hidden” in ordinary humanity. Recognising Him as Lord is always an act of faith. He respects our freedom too much to crush us with glory. The Child of Bethlehem is both the tenderness of God and His delicate respect for human freedom.
That same humble love appears again when Jesus kneels to wash the disciples’ feet (cf. Jn 13:1–15) and when He silently accepts the Cross. His omnipotence shows itself not in domination, but in self–emptying love.
A God who shares our humanity – and raises our dignity
By becoming man, God “has united himself in some fashion with every man” (Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, 22). This is more than a pious line. It’s the foundation of Catholic teaching on human dignity.
If the Son of God truly took on human nature, then every human life has a sacred, inviolable worth – from conception to natural death, regardless of health, race, status or intelligence. The measure of a person is not what he can “produce,” but the fact that he shares the same nature Christ assumed.
This is why Jesus can say:
“As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).
In loving the weakest, we meet Him. In rejecting them, we reject Him.
The Christmas mystery that never stops
The drama of Bethlehem isn’t a once–off event locked in the past. Christ “came to his own home, and his own people received him not” (Jn 1:11). That scene repeats itself whenever He knocks at the door of a human heart – and finds it still “too full” to make room.
Yet wherever someone chooses to live the Gospel, to persevere in prayer, to rise again after sin in Confession, and to receive Jesus in the Eucharist as “daily bread,” the mystery of Christmas is renewed. As Saint Edith Stein wrote, we see “the miracle of the Holy Night renewed upon altars bedecked with lights and flowers: ‘And the Word was made flesh’.”
The Child of Bethlehem is still the quiet centre of history. The question, as always, is simple and personal: will we let Him in?
