Yes, sheep in the hills of Bethlehem and in December. And, yes, the Birth of Christ was on December 25. Brother André wrote a noteworthy article for this website nine years ago defending the traditional date for Christmas. Now would be a good time to study it in order to refute any skeptics that you may know. https://catholicism.org/defense-of-christmas.html
Jimmy Akin has just posted a specific defense of the date of December 25 (or at least the month of December) from the viewpoint of shepherding in the Holy Land. Here is the start of it:
National Catholic Register: St. Luke records that when Jesus was born an angel of the Lord directed a group of shepherds to go find him.
Luke introduces this group of shepherds by saying:
And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night [Luke 2:8].
This has led to a common argument that Jesus couldn’t have been born on December 25th.
Why? Because it was supposedly too cold for the shepherds to be pasturing their flocks at night in late December.
Is this true?
Not on your life. Read the rest here.
