Posted on 12/07/2005 2:36:38 PM PST by Charles Henrickson
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.
Why are you having the doubt that Jesus the Man existed. We can debate the merits of his godhood later but I would like to understand the reason for your belief that the man is myth.
Ok, here are your headlines:
Jailings of the 'leaders' of the new jewish cult (Christianity)
Leader of new cult is stoned for blasphemy
Uproar on Pentecost
Religious leaders begin to seek out and arrest leaders and members of this new cult
Cult members die refusing to denounce Jesus
I'll let you look up the details both in the Bible and other historical documents.
Well, denying reality IS "pretending". Christ did claim He was God, so if He wasn't, then He was a liar or simply crazy.
Off course, healing sick people, casting out demons, and being raised from the dead is a little tough for ordinary liars and crack pots to pull off.
Piffle. The whole idea of Yuletide was to be happy, celebrate. Including entertaining someone dressed as "King Winter" (robes, long white beard, etc), to persuade him to be kind and moderate the cold. It usually worked, after King Winter was feasted, the days began ro get longer, and the nights shorter.
The Catholic Encyclopedia has a detailed article on the origins and dating of Christmas(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm). Interestingly, it says Christmas was not among the festivals of the early Church.
"Christ did claim He was God"
I thought the closest he came was, "You say that I am."
Jesus preached the Kingdom during their lifetime, what we got was the church.
What's wrong with making fun of Pottery?
Is it any sensible way to establish a moral code, just because some bright-eyed attention-seeker bumbles around doing good deeds, all on the pages of a Book?
I'll look it up I doubt it has anything historically I haven't already been exposed too. I have a deep interest in the Roman period and in particular the mystery religions that appeared at that time. In fact I'm an archaeologist (not a biblical archaeologist). The historical existence of Jesus the man has very little doubt as there are Jewish, and Roman sources for his existence.
At one time I thought that Christianity was really a bastardized version of Mithraism created by Paul. He was the son of a Roman whose Mother was Jewish. He also grew up in Tarsus which was the center of Mithra worship. If his Father was a worshiper of Mithra and his mother a Jew he would have been exposed to both religions. When he was sent to arrest the Christians (as a Roman citizen and a Jew he was in a special position to execute Roman legal authority) he would have had to have been told the story of Jesus.
Imagine that you have all your life been brought up hearing stories of Mithra born of a Virgin, 12 disciples, died and was reborn, etc etc the same story is that of Jesus. Was Paul thinking this is my father's religion made flesh by my Mother's people.
I thought that maybe Paul who spread Christianity across the empire had possibly made the entire religion up. I was wrong, the religion existed in this form and with most of the story before Paul but Paul was in the right place at the right time. Is it possible Mithraism was God's plan created by God to touch Paul as Roman and Jew. The coincidence is almost unbelievable but they are there. Two religions that are so similar they can almost be interchanged. Paul must have seen this and it struck him like a bolt of Lightning.
Ok my rambling supposition about history is over sorry. :)
Interesting thoughts.
This is interesting!
Mithras Birthday sites:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10402a.htm
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/deities/mithra.htm
http://www.truthbeknown.com/mithra.htm
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen048.html
Who cares what day Christ was born on anyways? That ain't gonna save my soul.
hmmm.... where's the number 9?
Dime-store comparative religion. Here's a link to a previous post of mine which contains a slew of links regarding Mithraism and its "relation" to Christianity.
Umm, ... Joseph and Mary ... Bethlehem ... Roman Census ordered ... No room at the Inn ... Roman census at 0 BC ordered for around December 25 according to records ... three wise men ...
All that reading you claimed to have done and that's all you came up with? Astounding.
Jesus did indeed talk about Himself:
I and my Father are one (John 10:30).
He that has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:7-9).
Before Abraham was "I am" (John 8:58). "I am" was the covenant name for God in the Old Testament (Yahweh). The Jews understood the significance of this statement, because they picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy (John 8:59).
Remember Jesus was crucified because of blasphemy: "For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God." (John 5:18).
None of the prophets ever spoke like this. The prophets said, "Turn to the Lord and He will heal you." Jesus said, "Come unto me and I will give you rest." The prophets said, "Repent and God will forgive you." Jesus said, "I forgive your sins" (Matthew 9:2). And when someone objected and said, "Only God can forgive sins." Jesus in essence replied, "Yes, that’s quite right." All through the gospels, Jesus is taking the place of God.
What was his Old Testament name as prophecied? EMMANUEL. Do you know what that means?
Sabbath ends at sundown on Saturday. If the women waited till the end of Sabbath, it would've been on Saturday night.
From the site http://www.bethlehemstar.net/dance/dance.htm you will find this:
An astronomer tracking the movement of planets through the star field watches not so much on the scale of minutes, but on the longer scale of days, weeks and months. On this scale of time, Jupiter did stop. On December 25 of 2 BC as it entered retrograde, Jupiter reached full stop in its travel through the fixed stars. Magi viewing from Jerusalem would have seen it stopped in the sky above the little town of Bethlehem.
Merry Christmas!
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