partly in a response to pagan religions, which had a winter celebration called saturnalia, and the early christians wanted to have a christian focus in the wintertime. and it's almost symbolic in a sense that you celebrate the light coming into the world at the very darkest point of the year. >> the gospels tell us that jesus is born during the reign of herod the great. >> there is also the question about the year of jesus' birth. >> herod the great, according to the standard consensus, died in the year 4 b.c. now, the gospel of matthew, with the story of the massacre of the innocents, says that herod had children less than two years old murdered. and so, from that, if herod dies in 4 b.c., you count back two years, and scholars typically come up with a date of, say, 6