What is the date of John the Baptist’s birth date? And the date of the birth of Jesus?
Answer
The Bible doesn’t give an exact date for either the birth of John or of Jesus. We can be sure Jesus was not born on December 25th. But we cannot know the exact date of his birth.
The scripture does give us some information, though, that will help. In Luke 1:8-9 we find that John’s father was serving in the temple. In verse 5 it says he was of the “course of Abijah.” In 1 Chronicles 24:10 we are told that the course of Abijah was the eighth course. Since each of the twenty-four courses served two weeks, the eighth course would have been during the last two weeks of the fourth month of the Jewish calendar (the month of Tammuz, our June/July). In Luke 2:24 we are told that his wife got pregnant with John after his time of service. That would put John’s birth approximately mid-April, around Passover.
Mary, Jesus’ mother, was told she would have a child during the sixth month of her cousin’s pregnancy with John. (This would be about January.) Assuming a full-term pregnancy, that would put Jesus’ birth sometime in the month of Tishri (September/October). This would actually mean Jesus was born closer to (or during) Sukkos (the Feast of Booths) rather than Hanukkah (the Feast of Dedication). I like to think his Jewish birthday was 6 Tishri, but that is only because that is the same as mine. We can know approximately what month he was born in, but not which specific day. More appropriate might be 10 Tishri, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).