KING JAMES BIBLE DICTIONARY

NATIVITY, noun

1. Birth; the coming into life or the world. The feast of Christmas is observed in memory of Christs nativity

2. Time, place and manner of birth; as, to calculate ones nativity

3. State or place of being produced.

These, in their dark nativity the deep Shall yield us pregnant with infernal flame.

The birth of our Lord took place at the time and place predicted by the prophets (Genesis 49:10; Isaiah 7:14; Jeremiah 31:15; Micah 5:2; Haggai 2:6-9; Daniel 9:24, 25). Joseph and Mary were providentially led to go up to Bethlehem at this period, and there Christ was born (Matthew 2:1, 6; Luke 2:1, 7). The exact year or month or day of his birth cannot, however, now be exactly ascertained. We know, however, that it took place in the "fulness of the time" (Galatians 4:4), i.e., at the fittest time in the world's history. Chronologists are now generally agreed that the year 4 before the Christian era was the year of Christ's nativity, and consequently that he was about four years old in the year 1 A.D.