Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 08-26-2009, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Time after time, I have seen skeptics make a big deal of debunking the notion that Jesus was born on Dec. 25, but I do not recall ever seeing an apologist try to defend the notion.

So far as I'm aware, every Christian believes one of two things about Jesus' date of birth. (1) It probably was not Dec. 25, and in any case it doesn't make a bit of difference when it was. (2) It probably was Dec. 25, but it doesn't make a bit of difference whether it was or not.

Does this not imply that "Jesus was not born on Dec. 25" is a straw-man argument?

I have never seen a skeptic make a big deal of debunking this notion. Both Christians and skeptics know that the birthday of Jesus was first fixed at Dec 25 sometime in the 5th century and that there is no way of actually finding the real date, assuming that Jesus was born.

The idea that the date was stolen from the pagans seems to have originated with Protestant Christians opposed to so-called pagan elements in the Catholic Church.

Calculating Christmas

Quote:

The idea that the date was taken from the pagans goes back to two scholars from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Paul Ernst Jablonski, a German Protestant, wished to show that the celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25th was one of the many “paganizations” of Christianity that the Church of the fourth century embraced, as one of many “degenerations” that transformed pure apostolic Christianity into Catholicism. Dom Jean Hardouin, a Benedictine monk, tried to show that the Catholic Church adopted pagan festivals for Christian purposes without paganizing the gospel.

The date of Dec 25 is usually part of a naive list of elements that are supposed to show that Christianity was stolen/borrowed from pagans.

There is a more sophisticated version here which tried to use Biblical references to show that Jesus was not born in December (although I don't know where the information on the Essene custom came from.)

Acharya S is here and here:

Quote:

Once again it's time to raise this great debate, as we hear from our pious Christian leaders that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season." Interestingly, over the past year and a half since the release of "ZEITGEIST," in objecting to the comparison of the sun gods with Jesus based on the winter-solstice birthday of December 25th, Christian fundamentalist critics have been very vocal that Jesus is NOT the reason for the season, proving our point in the first place.

(I'm not sure what that last sentence refers to.)

Toto · 08-26-2009, 08:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Epesse

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Personally, I use the date given in Mark.

Which is, for us (me) ignorant fools?

It's a in joke. Mark does not have a nativity scene.

semiopen · 08-26-2009, 09:11 AM

It's coming back to me...

He died on the day of his conception, therefore his birth would have been nine months after his conception and his death would have been three months after his birth.

Chronology_of_Jesus

Makes perfect sense, whether accurate historically is another question.

dog-on · 08-26-2009, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by Epesse

Which is, for us (me) ignorant fools?

It's a in joke. Mark does not have a nativity scene.

Nah, Mark is fairly explicit.

Doug Shaver · 08-27-2009, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Could you give a link to these 'big deal' debunkings of the notion that Jesus was born on Dec.25th?

I withdraw the characterization.

Something I read in another thread reminded me that I have seen it mentioned on several occasions in a context suggesting that had some relevance to Christianity's credibility. However, I was not not paying sufficient attention on those occasions that I can now recall when or where they were.

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08-26-2009, 09:11 AM	#13
semiopen Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Hillsborough, NJ Posts: 3,551	It's coming back to me... He died on the day of his conception, therefore his birth would have been nine months after his conception and his death would have been three months after his birth. Chronology_of_Jesus Makes perfect sense, whether accurate historically is another question.

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