Christmas Day: Date revealed by Levite calendar & celebrated through the ages!

American Minute ^ | December 25, 2019 | Bill Federer

[Perseverando]

Christianity is the largest religion in the world, approximately a third of the world's population, according to Pew Research Center (2015).

Christmas Day could possibly be considered the most celebrated religious holiday on the planet.

The date of Christmas on December 25 has been studied for centuries.

Some think that since it was in the winter, shepherds would not have been in the field with their flocks, but this argument loses credibility when one considers the moderate climate of Bethlehem in December, with an average daily temperature of around 50 degrees, similar to Florida or Texas.

Some think December 25 was chosen to erase the pagan Roman winter solstice festival of Saturnalia, but this is discounted when one realizes the winter solstice is December 21-22, with celebrations beginning as early as December 17 and lasting no later than December 23.

To track down the traditional date of Christmas , it is first necessary to determine the date of the conception of John the Baptist.

The Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, explained how John the Baptist's father, Zechariah, was a Levite priest, of the family of Abijah:

"In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron."

King David divided the Levite priests into 24 family groups, called "divisions" or "courses," which took turns ministering at the altar in Jerusalem for a week at a time, twice-a-year.

This rotating schedule, called sacerdotal rota system, is recorded in I Chronicles 24:

"The sons of Aaron ... served as the priests ... David separated them into divisions for their appointed order of ministering ...

The first lot fell to Jehoiarib, the second

[Vigilanteman]

Exactly. The problem with this article is it tries so hard to pinpoint the exact date that it makes inexact assumptions such as:

1. Who get born exactly nine months after the conception date? As father of three daughters, I know the conception date for two of them due to circumstances of my wife being away and us making up for lost time, if you catch my drift. For the third (our first), we were doing the conception activity nearly daily or more, so it could've been exactly nine months, but unlikely considering the more was concentrated during a vacation period in late December and she was born in early September, so the more likely explanation was that she arrived a couple of weeks early. Possible, sure, but unlikely.

   
   

2. A major calendar change happened during the changeover from Julian (Roman) style to Gregorian (Catholic) style in various phases over a period of centuries, with England and the American colonies being the last hold-out in the 1730s. So any exact date is going to be moved out anyway. Some Orthodox sects celebrates it on January 6th, for instance.
   
3. The solstice theory is not without validity as burning yule logs and firing flaming arrows into the sky to relight the sun dates back to and even before the birth of Christ. With the crudeness of ancient time measuring devices, December 25th, or whatever it was called by the local calendars, would be about the first day ancients could tell that the length of daylight was finally growing longer again. It would have made a perfect conversion tool for early Christian missionaries and, by most rudimentary accounts, actually was.
   
4. The rainy season in Bethlehem runs from about late September until early May, so it is possible, or even probable, that shepherds could've been in their fields at anytime during this time period or perhaps longer. Recall also that the region had much higher rainfall at the time. In the Hannibal era (200 years earlier), savanna animals, including elephants, inhabited what is now the northern edges of the Sahara Desert, making it inevitable that areas further inland to the Mediterranean Sea would have received more natural rainfall than they do presently. This would have lasted until at least 200 a.d. when the Romans begin to encourage emigration to the British Isles from North Africa as desertification crept closer to the Mediterranean Sea. In short, while it doesn't disprove shepherds were likely in their fields in late December, it doesn't pinpoint it either.

[Vigilanteman]

See my post #21. You can believe in other Christmas traditions—Bethlehem as the birthplace, Mary’s virginity, etc. without pinpointing December 25th as the exact date.

I choose to celebrate that date with most of the Christian community while realizing that it could be off by as much as four months in either direction.

So what if it is? It only means mankind's calculations are imperfect, not that Christ was anything less than what he claimed to be.

[crz]

Thank you. Very thoughtful of you.

Anyway, I have been doing some study on the actual Temple location. I have come to the conclusion that the Temple was not located on the “Temple Mount” as they believe it is now.

A Roman legion housed in a three acre site as they believe it was? I doubt that. The fortress Antonia was on the top of the hill now called the Temple Mount.

We have been told a pack of lies through the time of history and by the past leaders of the churches who returned to Jerusalem and built on TOP of the ruins of the city after the Romans devastated the place.

Dont tell that to any of the Jewish leader though.

[Vigilanteman]

I have a book in my personal library by Peter Z. Malkin, one of the Mossad Team members which captured Eichmann. He grew up in pre-war Jerusalem and explored it extensively. There is layer after layer of civilization, much of it still not explored or even excavated. Needless to say, we do not even know what we don't know now.

That includes the self-proclaimed experts, for sure.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks a fool in paradise.