The Pope is stirring up discussion surrounding Jesus’ birth just in time for Christmas.
In the final part of his three-volume work on the life of Jesus called Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, Pope Benedict XVI claims that the Christian calendar is based on a mistake made by the sixth-century monk Dionysius Exiguus (“Dennis the Small” in English).
The Pope writes: “The calculation of the beginning of our calendar – based on the birth of Jesus – was made by Dionysius Exiguus, who made a mistake in his calculations by several years. The actual date of Jesus’s birth was several years before.”
The debate over the date of Jesus’s birth in not new – as there is no reference to when he was born in the Bible – but it is interesting that someone as significant as the Pope chose to add their voice.
But the Pope did not stop there.
The Pope also said that there were likely no oxen, donkeys or other animals at Jesus’s birth. What’s next? The Christmas tree no longer being a historically accurate part of the nativity scene?
Unfortunately, the Pope did not comment on how this potential flaw in the Christian calendar influences the impending end of the world according to the Mayan calendar. Looks like we are just going to have to wait this prophecy out.