GakuseiDon

Thanks Toto, that's interesting.

IamJoseph

Hanuka is a historical, not a biblical, festival. It is derived from a historical war event after the Hebrew bible was completed.

andrewcriddle

Further on Deygān

One problem here is that the Ancient Zoroastrian calendar is an Egyptian caendar with 365 days for the year. (In some versions intercalated with a 30 day month every 120 years) Hence Deygān is not fixed against the seasons. In the reformed Iranian calendar the first of the Deygān feast days is at the Winter Solstice but this calendar dates only from the 1920's CE.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Hi Toto

I certainly don't think Jesus was born on the 25th of December
What I think is that the date arose because Christians believed (rightly or wrongly) that Jesus died on the 25th of March. They came to believe that he was also conceived on the 25th of March and hence was born on the 25th of December.

I don't think Mediterranean Pagans in pre-Christian times celebrated the winter solstice at all. And IMVHO the oficial pagan Dies Natalis Solis Invicti was only instituted in the 4th century CE. The complication is that there does seem to be Pagan astrological interest in the 25th of December as the birth of the Sun from say 100 CE onwards. But these ideas seem to be rather marginal and obscure until considerably later.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

AFAIK Columella does not mention Saturnalia as such.

What is interesting (though maybe not significant) is that although Columella himself puts the Winter Solstice around the 23rd of December he attributes a date for the Solstice of the 17th of December to the great astronomer Hipparchus. See History of Astronomy


Andrew Criddle

Solo

IIUC, the belief in the March 25 date of conception comes from Sextus Julius Africanus Chronografiai written in ~220CE. By some mysterious coincidence, this day - the vernal equinox in the Julian calendar - also associates with another important traditional festivity of Mithraism, the tauroctony (the ritual slaying of the bull). :huh:

Jiri

andrewcriddle

Hi Jiri

Could you give your evidence that the tauroctony occurred on March 25th ?
IIUC it may well have done, but the evidence is not solid.

Andrew Criddle

Jeffrey Gibson

I'd also like to see the evidence that links it with Mithras.

Jeffrey

grog225

It seems you see only one possibility for researching and writing a book:

You write and research simulatneously.

I think the process is more often to research then write about your findings. So I'm not sure why you think that in the course of writing a book one ought to be expected to change your position. It is quite possible, but I don't think it is the way it usually works. So, yes, probably the conclusion come before the book is written. That's the way it is done. I'm sure that is the way JD Crossan wrote his book.

Solo

Refer to David Ulansey's Origin of Mithraic Mysteries (or via: amazon.co.uk). According to Ulansey's theory, the tauroctony was a symbolic representation of of the replacement in the celestial station of the sun of Taurus by Aries during the vernal equinox. Following Hipparchus' discovery of the precession of equinoxes in 2nd century BC, the astrologers surmised that a powerful god moved the celestial sphere. In the tauroctony symbolism the choice fell on Perseus, associated with (western) Mithras.
There are also claims that the association of the slaying of the bull with Easter celebrations goes back to a Zoroastrian equinox festival , in which the Bull of Creation was slayed by Ahriman.

Similar link might have existed for the worshippers of Magna Mater. I don't have Vermaseren's Cybele and Attis handy but I seem to recall that the Taurobolium initiation to the Great Goddess was also performed during the vernal equinox.

Jiri