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

WORLD Magazine ^ | Dec 10, 2005 | Gene Edward Veith

[Sentis]

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.

[Godzilla]

The forty year gap between 'resurrection' and the writing of Mark should have been filled with such religious turbulence it would have made the Antioch Evening News.

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I'll let you look up the details both in the Bible and other historical documents.

[GLDNGUN]

I'm not pretending at all. As I said, up until recently I believed there was a Jesus of Nazareth. I'm not so sure now. At any rate, he was not god.

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.

[Oztrich Boy]

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

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.

[gcruse]

Thanks!  And for your own personal enlightenment, might I recommend this book?

[skandalon]

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.

[gcruse]

"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.

[Oztrich Boy]

Amazing how many of the people who believe this bilge make fun of Harry Potter books as works of fiction.

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?

[Sentis]

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. :)

[gcruse]

Interesting thoughts.

[SuziQ]

This is interesting!

[Mushinronshasan]

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

[Captiva]

Who cares what day Christ was born on anyways? That ain't gonna save my soul.

[Captiva]

Sounds a little bit like Calypso Louie trying to explain something.

hmmm.... where's the number 9?

[mikrofon]

As a (rank) amateur astronomer, I was always intrigued by the various attempts to explain the Star of Bethlehem as an actual astronomical event.

One of the more interesting theories involved the planet Jupiter ("Star of Kings") performing a number of very close conjunctions with the bright star Regulus (from the Latin for "king") in the constellation Leo ("The Lion" - as in "of Judah"), during the course of the year 2 BC.

Based on the timing of these multiple conjunctions along with the fact that Venus (the "Mother Star") joined the celestial dance towards the autumn of that year, it was inferred that Christ was born in the more shepherd-friendly September of 2 BC, and the Magi (who were Persian astronomers with knowledge of Jewish prophecies) visiting the Holy Family "in the house" in Bethlehem around the end of December, when Jupiter stopped its cycle of retrograde motion in the sky (i.e. "stood still above them").

Of course, this is quite speculative, and there is some dispute re: the actual view of the sky in the Middle East at that time -- the important thing is that a Savior is Born to Us, and that's what we should commemorate during this "Holiday" season.

[AHerald]

December 25 was the birthday of Mithras, who was also born of a virgin, in a cave, died for mankind and ascended into heaven about two centuries before Christ.

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.

[JustDoItAlways]

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 ...

[GLDNGUN]

I thought the closest he came was, "You say that I am."

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?

[Junior]

Sabbath ends at sundown on Saturday. If the women waited till the end of Sabbath, it would've been on Saturday night.

[GLDNGUN]

That is EXACTLY what I was referring to.

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!