CHRISTMAS: December 25th DOES have a Biblical foundation! CHECK IT OUT! (page 4)

Leolaia

By way of comparison, here is a collection of Greek and Latin texts (primary source material) on Sol Invictus and Roman sun worship:

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/sol_invictus.htm

diamondblue1974

It certainly seems like the Pagans under Satens influence were copying the events that took place in Jesus life.

What? Centuries before?

Whilst I can see the attraction of this argument to Christians this is the only the tip of the iceberg in respect of evidence; it would seem from further evidence that even Christs teachings are not unique to previous pagan teachings centuries before. Viewed objectively it would certainly be far fetched to believe that centuries before Christ, Satan influenced people to copy Jesus's life and teachings through pagan myth!

DB74

Leolaia

As I already pointed out in another thread, it is the festival of Sol Invictus that is dated to a.d.VIII.Kal.Jan., i.e. 25 December, in the chronography of Philocalus, written in AD 354:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/chronography_of_354_06_calendar.htm

This festival was popularized by Aurelian in AD 274 and was not introduced from Syria until AD 218-222 during the reign of Elagabalus (of Syrian origin). But already by c. AD 204, Hippolytus (c. 160 -235 BC) had declared that the date of Jesus' birth was on a.d.VIII.Kal.Jan., i.e. 25 December (Commentarium in Danielem, 4.23). So the relationship between the two is rather unclear, since the date of Jesus’ birth had already been fixed before introduction of the Sol Invictus cult. I also pointed out that by AD 354, the actual date of the winter solstice no longer fell anywhere near 25 December because of the leap-year drift of the Julian calendar; in AD 354, the solstice occurred on 20 December and in AD 274 and 204 it fell on 21 December. By AD 354, the actual date of the solstice hadn’t fallen near 25 December for centuries. The date discrepancy may arise from Elagabalus’ use of the older cultic Syrian lunisolar calendar instead of the Roman official secular calendar, or the date was set when the solstice fell around 24-25 December in the second century BC (during Seleucid rule). That was the time Syrian King Antiochus IV picked Chislev 25 as the date of sacrifice to Zeus-Olympios in the Jerusalem Temple (in 168 BC), and was the day after the winter solstice. That lunisolar date has since been fixed as the first day of Hanukkah, which still often falls on 25 December (as recent as 2005). I'm not sure where Hippolytus got the idea that Jesus was born on 25 December, and there is a lot we probably don't know about solstice observances in the Roman empire in the second and third centuries AD.

I was just doing some reading of a 1991 review article in Classical Philology about the claim that Mithra was born on 25 December, and this seems to have been a suggestion made by Citoyen Dupuis (1742-1809) in his Enlightenment work on Mithraism, which in turn was based on his own conjectures of the astrological underpinnings of the religion. These theories were later undermined by additional discoveries and analysis, and there is apparently no actual evidence of such a date in ancient sources, at least AFAICS.

Leolaia

BTW, it is possible that the reference to 25 December in Hippolytus is a later interpolation, so the matter may be unclear there as well.

diamondblue1974

Leolaia; the above post was made without seeing your previous post; I am just in the middle of reviewing the information before I respond.

Cool research as always!

G

LuciousJ

We know what we know.....we believe what we believe......and as for CHRISTmas.....we are celebrating it to the fullest this year!!!! We have no reservations, no guilt and no regrets. Thank you GOD for the emaculate conception! MERRY CHRISTMAS......& GOD BLESS US....EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

L.J.

RR

Charles Taze Russell would be in agreement with you Lady:

This brings us to the second part of the appointed lesson, which stands more particularly related to the Christmas season. It matters not particularly that December 25 is not the anniversary of our Lord's birth, according to the Scriptural account; that really he was born about September 25, nine months later. One day, as well as another, will serve us to commemorate our Saviour's birth in the flesh, as a gift of God's love to a condemned and dying world. Indeed, in some respects December 25, which corresponds to the date of our Lord's annunciation or begetting by the holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, may be considered even more appropriate for celebration than the day of his death. Was it not there that the Father began the sending of his Son, began to give us the gift of the man Christ Jesus? Indeed, at his birth he was not yet the man, and he could not save us as the babe. His begetting and birth were important, but incidental to the man at thirty years offering the sacrifice and saying, "Lo, I come, as in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God." (`Heb. 10:7`.) There the great Sacrifice for sin was offered to the Father and was accepted, and the acceptance was indicated by the bestowing of the holy Spirit, which begat our Lord again to a spiritual nature on the divine plane. Reprint 4298

EVEN though Christmas day is not the real anniversary of our Lord’s birth, but more properly the annunciation day or the date of his human begetting (Luke 1:28), nevertheless, since the celebration of our Lord’s birth is not a matter of divine appointment or injunction, but merely a tribute of respect to him, it is not necessary for us to quibble particularly about the date. We may as well join with the civilized world in celebrating the grand event on the day which the majority celebrate—“Christmas day.” The lesson for the occasion is a most happy choice, fitting well to the series of lessons it follows. - Reprints 3468

Lady Liberty

Thus, it is again proven that Jesus' birth was about one year and three months before our common era, A.D. 1; for, his ministry ending when he was thirty-three and a half years old, April 3rd, A.D. 33, the date of his birth may be readily found by measuring backward to a date thirty-three and a half years prior to April 3rd, A.D. 33. Thirty-two years and three months before April A.D. 33 would be January 3rd, A.D. 1, and one year and three months further back would bring us to October 3rd, B.C. 2, as the date of our Lord's birth at Bethlehem. The difference between lunar time, used by the Jews, and solar time, now in common use, would be a few days, so that we could not be certain that the exact day might not be in September about the 27th, but October 1st, B.C. 2, is about correct. Nine months back of that date would bring us to about Christmas time, B.C. 3, as the date at which our Lord laid aside the glory which he had with the Father before the world was [made] and the taking of or changing to human nature began. It seems probable that this was the origin of the celebration of December 25th as Christmas Day. Some writers on Church history claim, even, that Christmas Day was originally celebrated as the date of the annunciation by Gabriel

Studies in the Scriptures, Vol 2, The Time is at hand, B61

http://www.ctrussell.us/

CHRISTMAS: December 25th DOES have a Biblical foundation! CHECK IT OUT!

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