Chili

And don't forget:

Shepherds (eidolons on the run) looked in to understand and Wisdom entered (Magi here) while in Matthew Joseph was not home to receive when they entered and was likely contemplating what to do next without a manger or maybe he went looking for diapers because he had no swadling clothes either. Matthew is the reason why Eastern Churches celebrate Christmas on Jan 7 to make sure that it was God's idea and not the Lord's idea (filioque here = cause for the chism).

Chili

The shepherds were converted into apostels as they were Joseph's strongholds and their sheep is what he created with them to become the 4 and 5 thousand he fed by way of understanding when he was on a spiritual high and is why the scraps he had left over was bigger that the good food he began with, which is something that would turn anybody's hair white even today.

So now you know how a carpenter was also a sheep rancher to have 12 shepherds but really was a jack of all trades to have 12 of them and so exhausted the very limits of his own soul as that is where all those primary premises came from that created those sheep, and by now you must also understand why he was called the chief shepherd since the whole story takes place in the mind of one man who was called Jospeh by name, and who's buddy was Nicodemus in the final quest for liberation (towards understanding) or final round of samsara for him.

In Catholicism this is about where indulgences were levied by the Church much the same as deportation to Siberia came in handy for Russia of old.

So then, an educated answer is going to get you nowhwere except drag you back to Mark where reason ought to prevail and so Luke is a slam against education where reason must prevail above 'all things near' in the mind of the believer who's primary duty is to his own self . . . and so against reason itself as that is the stronghold that must be severed and crucified by the church that got us thusfar.

mountainman

The theme of 'the shepherd of men' is advertised in "The Shepherd of Hermas" present in the earliest Greek codices.

Doug Shaver

As a defense of skepticism, this is a waste of time. The time of year during which Jesus might have been born has no relevance to any doctrine of Christian orthodoxy. Not even the most rabid fundamentalist claims that anybody will go to hell if they doubt that Jesus was born in December.

Toto

It seems to be important to Dave31 to show that the mythical Jesus was born on the solstice.

Doug Shaver

So far as I know, he was not, originally. The myth seems to have been in circulation for a very long time before anybody said a word about when he was born.

Chili

"He must increase and I must decrease" makes reference to Jesus as insurrectionist for which the infancy is symbolic. There was no baby baby as we now babies but just awakening to the self for which there is incipient cause in the Star of Bethlehem that requires nurture in nature wherefore then there was a manger in Luke and not in Matthew with swaddling clothes in Luke to signify direction, and so is why Wisdom followed this star to pay home-age.

John must decrease because he was the water that caused Jesus to be conceived and is where Jesus must learn to walk on because in the new heaven and earth the sea is no longer and so is why Christians can walk on water, or least the Inquisitor thought they could, unles maybe old Herod got to him first.

But it has nothing to do with solstice directly or indirectly as the light here was prior to the light of common day.

Dave31

LOL, No, it's not me as even Christians concede these points of the shepherd archetype.

http://www.jlife.org.za/content/uplo...%20Extract.doc

http://bjbiblelessons.com/uploads/1shepherd.pdf

Dave31

No again, it was the early church fathers who's own research led them to the decision to accept Jesus' birth date just after the winter solstice, not me. I guess people here aren't aware of that either.

The festival for St. John's Day is one of the oldest festivals of the Christian church, which is 3 days after the summer solstice. The bible itself admits in the first chapter of Luke that John and Jesus were conceived 6 months apart. That puts Jesus' birth date at Christmas. Again, I didn't do that nor did Acharya S - the early CHRISTIANS did it.

Toto

It's not like they "researched" birth records.

Both birthdays were fixed at a time when the early church was absorbing pagan feast days, well after the earliest time of Christianity. I don't know what you think this proves.

Wikipedia But Wikipedia cites New Advent, which gives a much more complicated picture, in which different Christians placed the birth date of Jesus in every month of the year.

Certain Protestants use this history to reject the celebration of Christmas as a pagan practice adopted by the later church after it became established and corrupted by Constantine.