The Certainty of Christmas

The Certainty of Christmas

By Dr Livingston Smith

Why the Story at the Heart of Christmas Still Matters

At Christmas, we gather around a story that has shaped centuries: that of a child born in obscurity, to a poor family, in a forgotten corner of the Roman world. For us Christians, this story is believed to be historical. Yet many Christians are unaware that the historical reliability of the New Testament, especially the accounts surrounding Jesus, is one of the most rigorously examined subjects in modern scholarship.

This matters. The credibility of the New Testament is not an abstract academic concern; it concerns a text around which millions of people organize their lives, shape their moral vision, and anchor their deepest hopes. If the Christmas story is true and rooted in history as I do fervently believe, then it offers not only comfort, but certainty.

How Historians Evaluate the New Testament

Modern historians do not ask whether a text is “inspired.” Instead, they apply the same criteria used to evaluate any ancient historical document. New Testament scholar Michael Licona outlines four such criteria:

Whether an account provides an essentially faithful representation of what occurred

Whether many reported details can be independently verified

Whether the author chose sources judiciously

Whether those sources were used reliably

When these criteria are applied to the Gospels, particularly the Gospel of Mark, the results are striking.

Mark is widely regarded as the earliest Gospel and draws heavily on firsthand testimony. According to early Christian tradition, Mark recorded what he remembered Peter preaching. In addition, Mark’s narrative aligns closely with the testimony of Paul, who visited Jerusalem within a few years of Jesus’ death and spent time with Peter, James (Jesus’ brother), and John. This places Paul, and the traditions he records, in direct contact with eyewitnesses as early as the mid-30s AD, scarcely three years after Jesus’ public ministry.

One fascinating detail supporting this reliability is linguistic. Although the Gospels were written in Greek, Mark preserves Jesus’ original Aramaic words on several occasions.

Historical Data for Jesus and the Resurrection

The historical case for Jesus does not rest on the New Testament alone. In his landmark work Ancient Evidence for the Life of Jesus, Gary Habermas identifies twelve facts about Jesus that are widely accepted by historians, including skeptics. Among these are that Jesus died by crucifixion, that his disciples lost hope after his death, that they later believed they experienced appearances of the risen Jesus, and that this belief radically transformed them.

Four of these facts are considered core and are accepted by virtually all critical scholars:

Jesus died by crucifixion

His followers believed they had seen him alive again

These experiences transformed fearful disciples into bold witnesses

Paul, once a persecutor of Christians, converted after believing he had seen the risen Jesus

Any serious historical explanation must account for these facts. Claims of fraud, hallucination, or conspiracy fail to explain the depth, consistency, and cost of these convictions many of which led the earliest Christians to suffer persecution and death.

Non-Christian and Ancient Sources

Jesus is not a figure known only from Christian writings. Roman historians such as Tacitus and Suetonius refer to Christ and early Christians. The Jewish historian Josephus mentions James “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.” Pliny the Younger records Christians meeting on a fixed day of the week—Sunday—to worship Christ as God.

Even the Jewish Talmud, compiled in the second century, refers to Jesus’ execution and his disciples. Habermas draws on seventeen extra-biblical sources and concludes that, using standard historical methods, they provide a broad and reliable outline of Jesus’ life and death independent of the New Testament.

Archaeology and the World of the Gospels

Archaeology further grounds the Gospel narratives in history. Discoveries have confirmed Roman practices of crucifixion and burial, including the remains of a crucified man named Yohanan, whose ossuary bears evidence consistent with the Gospel accounts.

The Nazareth Decree, issued by Emperor Claudius, forbids the disturbance of graves possibly reflecting early controversy surrounding claims of an empty tomb. Excavations have uncovered the Pool of Siloam, Peter’s house in Capernaum, first-century tombs in Nazareth, and the famous Pontius Pilate inscription confirming his historical role as Prefect of Judea.

Even daily life is illuminated: a first-century fishing boat discovered near Magdala—home of Mary Magdalene—shows the kind of vessel Jesus and his disciples would have used. These discoveries do not prove faith, but they consistently confirm the historical setting the Gospels describe.

The Moral Revolution Christmas Began

The historical reliability of Christianity matters not only because it tells us what happened, but because of what that history set in motion. Historian Tom Holland, in his important work Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, reminds us that many of the ideals we take for granted today—human dignity, equality, compassion, justice, and care for the vulnerable—are not self-evident or universal. They are, in fact, deeply rooted in the Christian tradition.

In the ancient world, power, status, and dominance ruled the day. But Christianity overturned that order. It placed at the center of moral thought a crucified man, and proclaimed that the last shall be first and the weak shall be strong. This radical inversion of values, placing humility above pride, service above power, and sacrifice above self-interest—has shaped our civilization in ways we often forget.

Even in secular contexts today, our emphasis on the rights of the oppressed, the importance of forgiveness, and the worth of every individual continues to echo the moral revolution sparked by the teachings of Jesus Christ. Christmas, then, is not merely the remembrance of a birth; it is the beginning of a transformation that still shapes the moral landscape of the modern world.

The Certainty That Christmas Offers

This field of research is vast. As Licona once remarked, even a lifetime of study would barely cover a third of the available scholarship. Yet the cumulative case is clear: when examined by the same standards applied to all ancient history, the New Testament stands as a remarkably reliable collection of documents.

At Christmas, Christians do not merely celebrate a comforting story. They celebrate an event rooted in history God entering the world at a specific time and place. The same God who, as physicist Michael Turner notes, fine-tuned the universe with such precision that it resembles “throwing a dart across the entire universe and hitting a bull’s eye one millimeter wide,” is the God Christians believe entered history as a child.

So, Christmas must not be seen merely as a ceremonial pause. It is a moment to anchor ourselves again in the moral and spiritual foundations that continue to guide us forward. In a world of rapid change, shifting norms, and technological upheaval, it is values grounded in faith that provide a steady compass.

If such a God exists, then Christmas is not wishful thinking. It is a reasonable hope grounded in evidence. And in an uncertain world, that may be the greatest gift Christmas offers: not just wonder, but certainty.