Why December 25? The origin of Christmas had nothing to do with paganism

According to conventional wisdom, Christmas had its origin in a pagan winter solstice festival, which the church co-opted to promote the new religion. In doing so, many of the old pagan customs crept into the Christian celebration. But this view is apparently a historical myth—like the stories of a church council debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or that medieval folks believed the earth is flat—often repeated, even in classrooms, but not true.

William J. Tighe, a history professor at Muhlenberg College, gives a different account in his article "Calculating Christmas," published in the December 2003 Touchstone Magazine. He points out that the ancient Roman religions had no winter solstice festival.

True, the Emperor Aurelian, in the five short years of his reign, tried to start one, "The Birth of the Unconquered Sun," on Dec. 25, 274. This festival, marking the time of year when the length of daylight began to increase, was designed to breathe new life into a declining paganism. But Aurelian's new festival was instituted after Christians had already been associating that day with the birth of Christ. According to Mr. Tighe, the Birth of the Unconquered Sun "was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians." Christians were not imitating the pagans. The pagans were imitating the Christians.

The early church tried to ascertain the actual time of Christ's birth. It was all tied up with the second-century controversies over setting the date of Easter, the commemoration of Christ's death and resurrection. That date should have been an easy one. Though Easter is also charged with having its origins in pagan equinox festivals, we know from Scripture that Christ's death was at the time of the Jewish Passover. That time of year is known with precision.

But differences in the Jewish, Greek, and Latin calendars and the inconsistency between lunar and solar date-keeping caused intense debate over when to observe Easter. Another question was whether to fix one date for the Feast of the Resurrection no matter what day it fell on or to ensure that it always fell on Sunday, "the first day of the week," as in the Gospels.

This discussion also had a bearing on fixing the day of Christ's birth. Mr. Tighe, drawing on the in-depth research of Thomas J. Talley's The Origins of the Liturgical Year, cites the ancient Jewish belief (not supported in Scripture) that God appointed for the great prophets an "integral age," meaning that they died on the same day as either their birth or their conception.

Jesus was certainly considered a great prophet, so those church fathers who wanted a Christmas holiday reasoned that He must have been either born or conceived on the same date as the first Easter. There are hints that some Christians originally celebrated the birth of Christ in March or April. But then a consensus arose to celebrate Christ's conception on March 25, as the Feast of the Annunciation, marking when the angel first appeared to Mary.

Note the pro-life point: According to both the ancient Jews and the early Christians, life begins at conception. So if Christ was conceived on March 25, nine months later, he would have been born on Dec. 25.

This celebrates Christ's birth in the darkest time of the year. The Celtic and Germanic tribes, who would be evangelized later, did mark this time in their "Yule" festivals, a frightening season when only the light from the Yule log kept the darkness at bay. Christianity swallowed up that season of depression with the opposite message of joy: "The light [Jesus] shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5).

Regardless of whether this was Christ's actual birthday, the symbolism works. And Christ's birth is inextricably linked to His resurrection.

There were many Jews, as well as men of other tribes and nationalities, who originated religious revival groups, opposed Roman rule, and got crucified or otherwise snuffed for it. That this one crushed worm, this one loser, Jesus, should have been posthumously propped up by charlatans to pass off as their battered 'god' completely defies common sense. Alexander the Grear would have been a far more credible candidate. Or even Jesus' contemporary, Caesar Augustus.

And that the religious humbuggery of this one loser-jew, with its hoaxes, exposes, bank-frauds, imbecilities, morally decayed clergy, persecution, extirpation, internal schism, splintering, feuding, waning in every age, dying out in every age, a passe thing in every age, should last 2000 years and spread to comprise, even now, well over 1 billion people --- this also completely defies common sense.

That some of the best minds in the West in art, music, science, and law ---- Dante, Michelangelo, Bach, Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, Newton, Pasteur, Mendel, Vittoria (but there could never be enough room to list them all)--- were also quite devoted to this hoax is simply astounding.

But no need to wonder.

It's waning; it's dying out; it's a passe thing, I'm sure...

So....when the Greek says in verse 1, [Now late on Sabbath] this really means at sunrise Sunday morning....12 hours later. I think I got it now. Thankyou so much.

Oh I get it ... like humor ... but different. Do you even understand the definition of 'context' and how it is used in the english language? Finish the sentence in context....In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week Anyone who wants to take the clear meaning of Epiphosko (tranliterated) which means "to grow light, to dawn" and change it to 'to grow dark, to night' has no common sense. But if you to want to continue to humiliate yourself in public like this, fine by me.

Matthew 28:1

First words out of the gate in Matthew 28:1.... from the original Greek Language, [Now late on Sabbath]. Some translations say after the Sabbath....they are wrong. The Angel says in verse 6, [He is not here; He has risen]

Mark 16:2

Since the Greek has no punctuation I can also say [When Jesus rose, early on the first day of the week he appeared...

Luke 24:1

If you notice in verse 3 the body was already gone and if you reconcile that with Matthew 28:1 he would have risen about sundown on the Sabbath.....so obviously 12 hours later the body would still be gone.

John 20:1

This also says [Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark]. Are you aware of the fact that early on the first day to Hebrews would mean just after sundown?

Luke 24:13

This verse says nothing about a Sunday resurrection.

John 20:19, [On the evening of the first day of the week (this would be Saturday evening our time....the evening after the end of the Sabbath, Hebrew time), when the Disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews.

I'm sorry, I do not see any thing here about a Sunday resurrection.

John 20:26

Again....nothing about a Sunday resurrection.

Acts 20:7

Paul is here speaking after a Sabbath. They were having a meal and he talked until midnight. Again, this would be Saturday night the way we reckon the days of the week.

1 Corinthians 16:2

I don't understand what you are getting at. This says nothing of a Sunday resurrection....again.

Revelation 1:10

You obviously are getting at something....I'm not sure, but I think you are trying to tell me that "the first day of the week" has some biblical significance. Now you are telling me that we should refer to it as the Lord's day. Am I getting close?

You have not provided me with scripture showing a Sunday resurrection where I have shown you scripture that says "Now late on Sabbath" [Matthew 28:1] and in the 6th verse the Angel still says.....[He is not here; He has risen.]

I win!.

You don't win.
Because you are giving Scripture the Supreme Authority, which it does not have.

The men who WROTE the Scripture have that authority, and THEY celebrated on Sunday, always did, all the way back to the First Century. This was never in dispute among them, and didn't show up in any argument that required a text or a comment from them, such that they put it into the Bible.

So what?

The Bible is not a Constitution, and it is not the highest source of law or anything like that. If you think it is, cite the passage in the New Testament that says that, explicitly.
It doesn't.
The Apostles celebrated on Sunday. And we're still doing it. While they were doing that, Jesus and the Holy Spirit kept showering them with graces. Evidently God didn't object to this change of religious celebration.

What DIFFERENCE does it make, anyway?

What's the point?
If you have fallen into the idolatry of holding up the mere Bible and effectively calling THAT God, well, then I guess quibbles like this matter.

But in the real world, where there's really a God who really has an opinion, this is pretty small beer.

Christians celebrate on Sunday because they always did. It's the Christian TRADITION, just like every word in the New Testament, the Bible itself, is a Christian TRADITION. The Old Testament was Jewish TRADITION. What purpose is served by trying to tease 12 hours out of an ancient traditional text, which has plenty of conflicts between its parts?

Let's say that you're right, and Jesus rose from the dead on Saturday, or even Friday night. What difference does that make? None. The Christians discovered it on Sunday, seized on Sunday as their "special day", the Lord's Day, and celebrated everafter on that. They weren't Jews anymore, so even on the face of the text the Ten Commandments didn't apply to them anyway (the Ten Commandments were given by God to the JEWS, not to the World. The 7 Noachide laws are the only laws that God gave to the whole world. Gentiles were NEVER under any obligation to "honor the Sabbath and keep it holy" and not do all of the prescribed things on Saturday, because they're not Jews and the law of Moses never was imposed on them and never applied to them. If you believe in the OT but not the NT, and are not a Jew by blood, the proper thing to do is be a Noachite, not to follow the Mosaic Law). They picked Sunday, so Sunday it was. And God showered them with gifts and charisms and sent them out to the whole world, and has kept sending saints and miracles ever since. So evidently God is not pissed off by this Sunday tradition thing.

Why, then, does it matter IN THE SLIGHTEST when Jesus was resurrected, or which day? Other than to be argumentative. Which serves, what? In the book of Wisdom there is the admonition not to cross the desert with a quarrelsome man.

"Precisely....the dawning (the beginning) of the first day of the week would be at sundown on the Sabbath."

Hold on, now.
According to whom?
Perhaps according to a Jewish priest of the Temple, for whom days were measured by sunrises and sunsets.
But Roman days started at midnight.
And the authors of the New Testament, while most of them (maybe not Luke) were ethnically Jews and of Jewish origin, they were also writing in Greek for the audience of the whole Roman world, so they were certainly not, perforce, mentally locked into the local Jewish custom. Writing for the Roman world in Greek, and being peripatetic and living and practicing more and more among Gentiles, why does one think that the evangelists who wrote the Gospels were using Jewish traditional time for measuring days rather than the more regular time of the Roman world in which they live?
There are plenty of Orthodox Jews, indeed hasidim, living in New York City. They know the Sabbath begins at sunset and ends the following sunset. They also know that Saturday begins at midnight in the interim. People who are in their own culture but embedded in a larger, dominant, imperial culture are perfectly capable of regularly and routinely operating in both, completely naturally. Peter, Paul, Matthew, Mark, John, James, Jude...all Jews by birth, and mostly of low station. And they wrote in the imperial Greek of the overarching civilization in which their little Jewish enclave, of which they were no longer even accepted, existed.
There's no good reason to think that the Greek-speaking, Greek-writing, and obviously, therefore, outward-looking and Roman-world-connected evangelists who wrote the Gospels (because they wrote them in GREEK, which was not the native tongue of any of them except perhaps Luke) wouldn't measure the days using imperial time: midnight to midnight, just like we do, instead of the old sacerdotal Jewish ethnic time of sunset to sunset.

The authors of the New Testament (maybe Luke excepted) may have been Jews, but they were very cosmopolitan Jews, writing for an Empire, not for Jews. That's why you have to read Greek, and not Aramaic, to be able to read it.

Josephus ben Matthias, a contemporary of the authors of the Gospels, was also a Jew, indeed, a high priest of the Temple. He also wrote in Greek, aiming at an Imperial, and not merely Jewish audience. And his references used imperial standards, which everyone would understand, as he explained the Jewish standards to non-Jews.

Ethnic, sacerdotal Jews measured time sunset to sunset.
The Roman Empire measured days midnight to midnight.
The Gospel writers wrote in Greek for the Roman Empire, not in Hebrew or Aramaic for the Jews. Why do you think they used a crabbed Jewish tradition instead of the Common Customs of the Empire to which they are writing? Other than the fact that it lets you be quarrelsome?

And what difference does it make what day he was resurrected on, so long as he was resurrected. HE didn't make a point to smite his apostles for celebrating the Lord's Day on Sunday. So why do YOU think it matters all of these thousands of years later?

He was crucified, died, and was buried on Friday. Saturday was the day of rest in the tomb. He rose early on Sunday--the third day, counting inclusively

How in the world do you square that statement with Matthew 12:40 [Three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth]. The sign of the prophet Jonah, verse 39?

Mark 8:31, [After 3 days rise again]. This is 72 hours.

Mark 9;31, [He shall rise the 3rd day]. Must be at least 48 hours but not more than 72.

Matthew 27:63, [After 3 days I will rise again]. This cannot possibly be less than 72 hours.

John 2:19, [In 3 days I will raise it up]. This cannot be more than 72 hours.

The statement you made allows only 36 hours from crucifixion to resurrection.

Yes.

Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week. Thus it quickly became "the Lord's Day."

Chapter and verse, please?

Matthew 28:1
Mark 16:2
Luke 24:1
John 20:1

Luke 24:13
John 20:19
John 20:26

Acts 20:7
1 Corinthians 16:2
Revelation 1:10

Et alors?

Really, so what?

Let's presume that Jesus was resurrected 36 hours after death. This would mean that the Scriptural prophecies are inaccurate as to the precise timing of events.
So what?

Jesus himself said that the Scriptures in Leviticus and Deuteronomy were wrong about divorce, that the parts where they say "God said..." and give the divorce rules were really just Moses saying it, as an allowance to his countrymen, and really quite contrary to the will of God on the matter.

We all know that the Scriptures contradict themselves.
We also know that they were written by men, men with very imperfect understanding. We know that they were collected, compiled and transmitted by men, and that parts of them have gotten garbled along the way.
Again, so what?
If you're a Bible Worshipper, which is to say, holding up a graven image, prostrating yourself before it and saying, in effect, That's The One Perfect Thing, The Word (the Bible says that the Word is God), well, than these imperfections and glitches in the record, I suppose, threaten to tumble the whole edifice of your faith, because you've built the faith on the sand of a book written by men.

Rely instead on the Holy Spirit and look at the big picture. Jesus lived. He healed the sick. Got a tremendous following somehow (probably because he healed the sick - look at the millions who go to Lourdes, where Jesus still publicly heals the sick today, quite often, in a beautiful shrine to his mother). Was crucified. Said he was going to come back from the dead, and...well, that's the question...DID HE, or DIDN'T HE.
If he DID, then the timing, etc., is pretty irrelevant (unless you're caught up in idolatry).
What matters is that he rose from the dead and started to shower his followers with gifts.

And still talks to people from heaven today, still makes saints of people. And when people die they still go to him, and ultimately human life has purpose, and we have a destiny that is better than the grave and rotting into dirt.

That's what matters.
Textual inconsistencies only matter if you make them matter.
You only make them matter if you have an unrealistic and untrue belief about what the Bible is.
Accept the Bible for what it is, a human attempt to capture contact with the Divine, with all of the haphazard flaws of memory and slips of the pen and misremembered things to which every human being is prone, and you're able to get the important part of it, which is that there is God, there is an afterlife, and we know what God wants of us.
All of which is very good news.
Getting lost in the bog of textualism and losing the big picture, and with it any possibility of faith. Well, that's bad news. Don't.

Are you a Jew?
If you are not, the Ten Commandments do not apply to you and never did, and you are under no obligation to keep any Sabbath.

You should go to Mass on Sunday in rememberance of the fact that there really is God, that there really is an afterlife, that God really cares for you, and that community matters because it helps carry forward God's love.

Now, if you're a Jew, you should keep the Sabbath, because God really did talk to Moses.

If you're a Jew who converted to Christianity...well...your call. Go to Saturday night vigil if it makes you feel better. God very probably doesn't care which way you do it.

The point is not to follow a bunch of niggling little rules. The point is the point: God made you and wants a relationship with you. Sunday is the normal day Christians go for fellowship. That's what the civilization is set up for. Why are you so special that you should pick another day and not be there with your fellow creatures?

.In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week

How you can, "with a straight face", say this in around sunrise instead of sunset is totally amusing to me. It must stem from your lack of simple biblical precepts. For instance;

The new day....or the Dawning begins at sunset, Genesis1:5, [God called the light "day" and the darkness he called "night". And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.]

Matthew 12:40 Christ tells us he will be in the tomb for 72 hours....the sign of Jonah the prophet. Luke 23:54, [It was the day of preparation and the Sabbath was about to begin.]

Continue on in John 19:42, [Because it was the Jewish Day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.] In other words....he was buried at sunset and according to his only sign he would give an evil and adulterous generation he would be in the tomb 72 hours. So he came out at sundown also.

"The new day....or the Dawning begins at sunset, Genesis1:5, [God called the light "day" and the darkness he called "night". And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.]"

Genesis was written down in its final form around 500 BC, and was probably in more or less its final form for a good long time before that. It was written down in a very ancient, very Hebrew Jewish world, by Esdras and similar very Hebrew men.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written down between 550 and 600 years later, in a very Greek and Roman imperial world, by Greek-speakering Jews (and perhaps Gentiles, in the case of Luke anyway) who were very much engaged in evangelizing that Empire (which is why they wrote in Greek).
In 500 BC, in the time of Ezra, the Jews measured days from sunset to sunset.
In the Roman Empire, half a millennium later, days were measured from midnight to midnight.
In Greek, "dawn" naturally means dawn.
The authors of the New Testament probably didn't speak Hebrew at all, and lived in a world in which dawn was at dawn, and the day began at midnight. That the day began at sunset or sunrise for Ezra doesn't mean anything when reading Hellenized Jewish writings of half a millennium later. Because Genesis and Matthew are bound in the same book, it's easy to think that they are all closely interrelated. But that's an error of anchoring.
Why would Matthew have thought the dawn mean the sunset?
Not in the Koine Greek world it didn't. Not in the Roman Empire it didn't. Why would he use such a strained and tortured understanding, for his world? Because Ezra or Moses did?

And why does the literal three full 24 hours matter so much to you?
If Jesus walked out of the tomb alive, that is enough.
72 hours only matters if you're trying to prove something true that needn't be true.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.