Maybe I should have saved this for late fall, but I guess now's as good a time as any to break the bad news. History convincingly shows that December 25 was popularized as the date for Christmas, not because Christ was born on that day but because it was already popular in pagan religious celebrations as the birthday of the sun. The biblical accounts point to the fall of the year as the most likely time of Jesus' birth. But is it possible that December 25 could be the day of Christ's birth?
"Lacking any scriptural pointers to Jesus's birthday, early Christian teachers suggested dates all over the calendar. Clement. . . picked November 18. Hippolytus . . . figured Christ must have been born on a Wednesday . . . An anonymous document[,] believed to have been written in North Africa around A.D. 243, placed Jesus's birth on March 28" (Jeffery Sheler, U.S. News & World Report, "In Search of Christmas," Dec. 23, 1996, p. 58).
Scholars say that a careful analysis of Scripture, however, clearly indicates that December 25 is an unlikely date for Christ's birth. There's more reasoning to this discussion here...
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The Catholic Church was pretty notorious for hijacking local religions and coopting pieces of it in order to convert people to Catholicism.
ReplyDeleteThere's no actual proof that Jesus ever really existed...
ReplyDeleteScientific proof or historical proof? There is no scientific proof that George Wasbington existed (you aren't capable of recreating the experiment that resulted in George Washington). Historically, there's only something like 5 pieces of evidence regarding Julius Caesar in Britania. I had a coworker who refused to believe Chicago existed because he wasn't there at this particular moment in time. For those that want to believe, no evidence is required. For those that don't want to believe, no amount of evidence will be sufficient.
DeleteAnd other than a few electrons in the webbrowser, there's no evidence that you or I exist. I think I'll have a good day anyway.
yeah, other than all the people that actually saw Him and interacted with Him. your comment is unfathomably stupid.
DeleteThis was an agrian society. Crops planted in spring. Harvested in autumn. And tended constantly in between. The Romans not being fools of course scheduled the cencus in the non growing season(winter). As we do not use the same calendar the precise date does not matter. And if the early church coopted a pagan holiday, so what. Doesn't matter.
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