LOL! Just because Christmas and Easter are on the dates that they are?
"LOL! Just because Christmas and Easter are on the dates that they are?"
- No reason to laugh. Read about Mithraism and Zoroastrianism, both religion pre-date Christianity yet strikingly share many of the same beliefs, rituals and stories. However, to answer your question, the date Christmas and Easter fall on are neither coincidences nor the actual time corresponding to the religious occurrence Chriatians celebrate them for. In other words, Jesus was not born on Dec. 25th. As for Easter or Christ’s resurrection, it’s a little more complicated.
- Prior to A.D. 325, Easter was variously celebrated on different days of the week, including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. In that year, the Council of Nicaea was convened by Emperor Constantine. It issued the Easter Rule which states that Easter shall be celebrated on the first Sunday that occurs after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. However, a caveat must be introduced here. The "full moon" in the rule is the ecclesiastical full moon, which is defined as the fourteenth day of a tabular lunation, where day 1 corresponds to the ecclesiastical New Moon. It does not always occur on the same date as the astronomical full moon. The ecclesiastical "vernal equinox" is always on March 21. Therefore, Easter must be celebrated on a Sunday between the dates of March 22 and April 25.
Here is an interesting website that goes over the history of Christmas.
http://www.new-life.net/chrtms10.htm
"When was Jesus born? Nothing is absolutely certain, because we are dealing with implications and assumptions, but a good guess from the Scriptures and history is September 29, 5 B.C"