Who did? When?
https://www.history.com/articles/history-of-christmas
>In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. Unfortunately, the Bible does not mention date for his birth (a fact Puritans later pointed out in order to deny the legitimacy of the celebration).
>Although some evidence suggests that Jesus' birth may have occurred in the spring (why would shepherds be herding in the middle of winter?), Pope Julius I chose December 25. It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival
https://www.bartehrman.com/why-is-christmas-on-december-25th...
> However, upon closer examination, this theory encounters several historical and contextual challenges. One of the key issues is the lack of any contemporary evidence from the early Christian period directly linking the choice of December 25th for Christmas to pagan festivals.
> But several decades earlier (c. 203 C.E.), a bishop from Rome, Hippolytus, wrote: “For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, was December 25th, Wednesday, while Augustus was in his forty-second year, but from Adam, five thousand and five hundred years.” (Comm. on Dan. 23.3.) [...]
> Tertullian, for example, calculated that Jesus was killed on March 25th. If Jesus had also been conceived on March 25th and you count exactly nine months later from that date, you then have Jesus’ birth on December 25th. I think this is the way early Christians came to believe that Jesus’ birth happened on December 25th.
> Moreover, unlike the previous and still most popular theory, this one is mentioned in the early sources!
> A treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which comes from the 4th century states: “Therefore, our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in March, which is the day of the passion of the Lord and his conception. For on that day, he was conceived on the same he suffered.”
Note that regardless, December 25th was regarded as the date by at least some Christians long before the fourth century. As for the mention of shepherds in the article, we have independent attestations of shepherding in winter in the area, so the question of "why would they be there in winter" is "because that's normal".
We have historical figures where we don‘t know exactly when their born. But we don‘t just write a data down.
Here is a link going in more detail and actually contradicts what I wrote. But points about the Santa Claus etc still stand. And I see no real hard evidence to the contrary either.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-decembe...
Are you perhaps confusing writing with the process of canonization? Common estimates would place the writing of the youngest book of the Bible at 95-120 AD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible#Table_IV:_New...
I think it's important to note the primary argument for even that "later" dating of the end of the first/beginning of the second century is that the gospels predict the destruction of Jerusalem. There is no "hard" argument on the lower bound, only the upper bound (earliest known physical evidence.) I don't think it's particularly wild to suggest, even for a secular historiographer, that the vague, flowery language taken to prophesy the destruction of Jerusalem could have been written without any supernatural influence. It had happened before, and tensions were high.
Luke-Acts claims to be written by an eyewitness (the latter part of the narrative of Acts shifts to first person as he describes events he allegedly participated in versus just heard and read about) and John also claims to have been written by an eyewitness. I don't think there's any particularly strong argument against that, but the scholarly consensus goes back and forth over time.
