So in the days when Jesus was born, they didn’t have press, and so forth, like we have today, and radio, and television. News just come merely from lip to ear. And when Jesus was born, some magis was watching for the Star of Jacob to rise, so they followed it over from the Orients and worshipped Him out on the hillside—or in the Bethlehem manger, rather, as a young child. Not a little infant like Christian tradition has it, it was a young Child: baby’s two years old. Herod went to immediately killing children from two years old down. Why’d he kill them from two years old if it’s just a little new suckling baby a few hours old? See? Strange how people can get things mixed up, isn’t it? See? He was a young Child. A young child’s not an infant: a young child. He was two years old. So the magis come from the Orients, following a star that led them to the Child. The shepherds was on the hill, a bunch of peasants out there, herding the sheep, not on the 25th day of December. That’s Catholicism. Along in April, 25th day of December, it’s as cold as it is in Indiana on Judaea. So they wasn’t laying out there on a hill in that snow watching sheep. So that’s just something they set up so they taken on that way. But He wasn’t born on December the 25th. You ought to go to over there one time and see how they laugh at that.

A Testimony, 1953-06-07, Connersville, IN, §10