Any damn fool knows that Christmas was originally Saturnalia. Christmas was never celebrated until almost 100 years after Constantine practically made it law to be Christian. Which is also when Catholicism started... by pagans just changing the name of their faith and not who they worship & what they believed just to get Constantine off their backs. :P
Are you serious? Any student of history and theology can trace the date of His birth by the clues in scripture.
The world celebrates the birth of Jesus on December 25th - Christmas. The early Christian church did not celebrate his birth, thus the exact date was not preserved in tradition and festival observances. The first recorded mention of December 25 is in the calendar of Philocalus (354 A.D.) which showed Jesus’ birth to be Friday, December 25, 1 A.D. The date is inconsistent with itself for December 25 of that year was, in fact, a Sunday.
The date of December 25 was officially proclaimed by the church fathers in 440 A.D., and was chosen because it Christianized the pagan festival of the Saturnalia. The winter solstice had meant the diminishing of the sun and its return again. Its central idea, the return of light, became the hope of the world in the birth of Jesus, the light of the world. The transition from paganism to Christianity was gradual, but became generally accepted after the fall of Rome in 476 A.D.
The exact date of Jesus’ birth can, however, be determined from the available historical records. The information given in the Bible concerning the time of the conception of John the Baptist furnishes one method of calculation. Elizabeth, the mother of John, was a cousin of Mary and the wife of a priest named Zacharias. Luke 1:5 states that Zacharias was a priest of the course of Abia (Abijah). Verses 8-13 state that while Zacharias executed the priests office before God in the order of his course he was given the message that Elizabeth would have a son and that they should name him John. In verses 23 and 24 it is recorded, And it came to pass that as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house.
The priests were divided into 24 classes (1 Chronicles 24:7-19) and each class officiated in the Temple for one week. The courses of the priests changed duty with the change of the week, i.e., from the end of the Sabbath at sundown until the next Sabbath. Both the Talmud and the historian, Josephus, state that the Temple was destroyed by Titus on August 5, 70 A.D., and that the first course of priests had just taken office. The previous evening was the end of the Sabbath. The course Abia (Abijah) was the 8th course, thus figuring backward we are able to determine that Zacharias ended his course and came off duty on July 13, 3 B.C., and returned home to Elizabeth. The conception of John occurred that weekend (13th - 14th) and the birth of John would take place 280 days later, namely April 19th - 20th of 2 B.C., precisely at the Passover of that year.
Elizabeth hid herself 5 months, and at the beginning of her 6th month the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, telling her of Elizabeth’s condition. At the same time Gabriel told Mary that she, too, would conceive and bear a son who would be called Jesus. Upon hearing this Mary went with haste from Nazareth to Ein Karim to visit Elizabeth, who was then in the first week of her 6th month. The time was the 4th week of December, 3 B.C. The 23rd of December of that year, according to the Julian Calendar then in use, was precisely the winter solstice. If this were the date of the conception of Jesus, 280 days later would place the date of his birth at September 29, 2 B.C., i.e., 1st Tishri, the day of the Feast of Trumpets - the Jewish New Year. This day had been set aside in the Law of Moses as a holy day. How fitting that the holy Son of God should be born on that day!
The day on which Jesus was born was not only the first day of the year but was also the first day of the 77th Sabbatic Cycle since the Jewish return from Babylonian captivity. From the re-establishment of the Sabbatic Cycles in Tishri 534 B.C. till the birth of Jesus in Tishri 2 B.C. was also a great Paschal Cycle of 532 years - a Paschal Cycle being the product of the Metonic Cycle (19) and the Solar Cycle (28), i.e., 19 x 28 = 532 years.
Luke 3:1 clearly states that John the Baptist began his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius. According to the Law of Moses a Jew was considered of age for the ministry at 30 (Numbers 4:3). Augustus had died on August 19, 14 A.D.; thus that year became the accession year of Tiberius, even though he had been involved in and associated with the Roman rulership before Augustus died. If John the Baptist had been born April 19th - 20th, 2 B.C., his 30th birthday would be April 19-20, 29 A.D., or the 15th year of Tiberius. Thus the 2 B.C. date for the birth of John is confirmed by the Biblical record. John was 5 months older than Jesus, making the birth of Jesus to be in the autumn of that year.
That his birth was in the autumn is further confirmed by the prophecy of Daniel (Daniel 9:24-27) which prophesied that there would be 3 and a half years from Jesus anointing as the Messiah until his death. If his ministry began when he was 30 (Luke 3:23) and lasted 3 and a half, and if he was crucified on the day of Passover (spring), simple arithmetic would show that his birth had to be in the autumn.
Any damn fool knows that Christmas was originally Saturnalia. Christmas was never celebrated until almost 100 years after Constantine practically made it law to be Christian. Which is also when Catholicism started... by pagans just changing the name of their faith and not who they worship & what they believed just to get Constantine off their backs. :P
I didn't know that, and I don't want to know it either.
Originally Posted by HeavenSent
You won't have to wait another 4 years.
There wont be another election for president.
Obama is the Omega President.
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