(avg. read time 3–6 mins.)
Luke tells us that there were shepherds in the field on the night when Jesus was born (Luke 2:8)
Inevitably, whenever someone claims that Jesus was born or could have been born on December 25, the one piece of information that is always brought up is the fact that Luke references the shepherds in the field at night when Jesus was born. It surely would have been too cold and/or too wet on a December 25 night for shepherds to be out and about with their sheep. This is claimed because of presumed weather trends, not because we have any records that tell us the temperature and weather on the date in the Bethlehem area. For extra dramatic effect, such claims online may be accompanied with a recent heavy snow in the Bethlehem area to demonstrate that shepherds would clearly not be out in such weather.
There are two possibilities that we need to contend with here before closing the case on this text. First, it could be that the winter weather was milder than such arguments assume. Second, it could be that the shepherds simply did not (and do not) care about what we think is too cold.
In terms of weather averages, remember that Bethlehem is a low-medium-altitude and low-latitude city that has a generally Mediterranean climate. At 775 meters, its altitude is just below that of Abuja, Nigeria and hundreds of meters below Amarillo, TX, where I was born. At a latitude of 31.7° N, it is just southward of the climatically comparable Amman, Jordan (31.9° N) and a few degrees below my hometown of Fritch, TX (35.6° N). It can actually tend to be colder in my home area of Texas than in Bethlehem, but many a December night has been mild or tolerable with long sleeves and long pants. In fact, many Christmases have been positively warm with temperatures in the 70s° Fahrenheit. Bethlehem’s average temperatures in December feature highs in the mid-to-upper-50s° Fahrenheit and lows in the mid-40s° Fahrenheit. There are on average 12 days with precipitation in the month of December, but that still indicates a lot of time (including on the precipitation days) when it is not raining. In fact, it is not unusual for shepherds to want to get the sheep out not long after the rain. It is also important to keep in mind that averages in days of precipitation may well have varied more significantly from the average today (the same applies, to a lesser degree, for temperature, but there is no indication that the temperature was so divergent back then as to be intolerably cold in December).
One can of course find photos of snow—including in December—in Bethlehem online. One can also find photos of snow throughout Texas in, before, and after the winter (I can recall a substantial snowfall in Amarillo in May of 2005). This does not rule out the possibility that one can have some (mostly?) mild days and nights in the course of a winter (or simply the month of December) in these regions.
But even if the winter in the year in question was not mild, those who make this argument have too often assumed that the shepherds would have cared about what they consider to be too cold. Anecdotal evidence speaks to the contrary. First, my friend and fellow PhD candidate John R. Wright served in the U.S. Army, and he was once stationed at Tikrit, Iraq (34.6° N), which is subject to more radical temperature variation than Bethlehem. He has noted that there were multiple occasions in the winter when he would be bundled up in multiple layers during his watch, but he would still see the shepherds out in the field, not terribly concerned with how cold it was. Second, my life-long friend Samuel Villa-Smith served as an interpreter and translator in Israel, specifically in Be’er Sheva, a mere 55 miles or so south of Bethlehem. In his work, he often encountered Bedouins and, no matter the time of year, even when he was bundled up in the cold, he would see them shepherding in the field, many dressed in their fine robes. Third, one of the most notable biblical shepherds, Jacob, has something to say on this matter. In Gen 31:40 he reminds Laban of how he endured nighttime frost as a servant for Laban. Apparently, he did not regard it as too cold to sleep outside in such times. Fourth, James L. Kelso, an archaeologist who lived in Jerusalem and spent a year excavating at Jericho, regularly saw shepherds with their flocks in the area during the winter, since that was in fact the best season for them to take them into the surrounding fields (indicated by the description of being “in that region” in 2:8) after “heavy rains bring up a luscious crop of new grass…. But as soon as the rains stopped in the spring, the land quickly took on its normal desert look once again.”1 Fifth, Maier notes the following comment from Stephen A. Haboush, the man once known as the “Shepherd Boy of Galilee”:
As a boy, I kept our flock through the fall of the year and up to the first of January out among the low hills and valleys around the Sea of Galilee. But during the rainy season in January and February, I would keep the sheep in the fold back of our home in Tiberias. In Judea, however, where there is only half as much annual rainfall, the shepherds keep their flocks grazing out in the valleys for most of the months of the winter season, as I know from members of my tribe.2
Likewise, Maier himself notes, “And Christmastime visitors to Bethlehem today tell of seeing shepherds out in the fields with their sheep, their heads muffled against the chilly weather in colorful keffiyehs.”3 The popular argument is thus mere presumption, not based on actual experience of shepherds or of people who have seen shepherds in the area.
Summary
There is no reason to think that the information Luke provides about shepherds being out in the field at night tells us anything about what time of year Jesus was born. It could be that the weather was mild in Bethlehem, as it often is. Or, more likely, it could be that the shepherds would be out shepherding regardless. They may not care what we think is too cold. The reference to the shepherds thus serves as neither positive evidence for a date or negative evidence against a date; it is simply not relevant.
James L. Kelso, An Archaeologist Looks at the Gospels (Waco, TX: Word, 1969), 23–24. The implied location as being close to Bethlehem also works against the argument based on rabbinic texts that winter was when the sheep were brought in. They were brought in from the wilderness, not from the fields per se.
Cited in Paul L. Maier, In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 29.
Ibid.