December 14, 2003. ש The Shepherds at Bethlehem: Special Passover Sheep? In church today, a poem was read which was based on the idea that the shepherds tending their flock at Christ's birth were taking care of special sheep whose lambs would be used in the Temple sacrifices. Bethlehem is near the Temple, so this has some plausibility. The idea seems to have sprung up as a way to make it plausible that shepherds were tending flocks at night in the middle of the winter, a strange time to be sleeping outside. But it looks like the idea doesn't work.

Let us start with the problem of dating the birth of Jesus to December 25. In "When Was Jesus Christ Born?" Mario Seiglie says,

The temperature in the area of Bethlehem in December averages around 44 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius) but can drop to well below freezing, especially at night.
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A common practice of shepherds was keeping their flocks in the field from April to October, but in the cold and rainy winter months they took their flocks back home and sheltered them.
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The Bible mentions that Elizabeth conceived shortly after her husband, the priest Zacharias, had finished serving his course at the temple, called "the division of Abijah" (Luke 1:5, 8). This was six months before Mary became pregnant with Jesus. Back in King David�s day, the priestly course had been separated into 24 turns, or divisions (1 Chronicles 24:7-19). These began in the first month (1 Chronicles 27:2), March or April of our modern calendar, and, according to Talmudic and Qumran sources, rotated every week until they reached the end of the sixth month, when the cycle was repeated (beginning in September-October) until the end of the year.
During the festival season, all the priests would come to the temple to serve. Luke shows us that Zacharias�s service was not during a feast season, since it was the division of Abijah that was in charge of the temple, and Zacharias was chosen to present the incense offering.
The division of Abijah was the eighth division, or shift, which normally would take place close to three months after the start of the cycle in March-April. This would place Elizabeth�s conception around June or, if it was Zacharias�s second yearly turn, around December.
The Bible does not specify which of the two shifts it was. Regardless, nine months after one of the two dates John the Baptist was born. This would place his birth in March or September. Six months later, Jesus� birth would have been around September or the following March. Whichever way it occurred, according to the time of the division of Abijah, a December birth for Christ is out of the question.
The Roman rulers knew that taking a census in winter would have been impractical and unpopular. Generally a census would take place after the harvest season, around September or October, when it would not seriously affect the economy, the weather was good and the roads were still dry enough to allow easy travel.

I haven't seen a full attempt at an explanation of the idea that the shepherds were taking care of Temple lambs in December in Bethlehem. The websites I've seen that mention the idea cite vaguely to Jewish sources, or to Talmud sources that actually don't support the idea, as Mr. Seiglie explains:

The Talmud, in Baba Kamma 79b-80a mentions a rule prohibited overgrazing: "The rabbis taught: 'Flocks of animals should not be raised in Israel, but can (be) in the wooded areas or in Siria, and also where it is inhabited.' Another teaching says: 'No flocks should be raised in Israel, but can (be raised) in the wilderness area of Judea.'"
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Concerning the temple sheep, the Talmudic source is speaking of the Passover sacrifices and places the limit of finding the sacrificial lambs within one month before the Passover, meaning they would have to be determined in February or March. This is a far cry from the temple-sheep theory, which proposes that the sheep were grazing three months before Passover, with their shepherds weathering freezing weather so the priests would have sheep available for Passover.

The poem that was read in church was "No Ordinary Sheep," by Ruth Graham Bell. It wasn't really a poem, but a statement about the Temple lamb idea broken up on the page.

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