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Thread: Do you believe the Christmas story?

  1. #101
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: Do you believe the Christmas story?

    Quote Originally Posted by conon394 View Post
    Hundreds of prophecies you seem to be inflating a bit. And of course a fair number of his conteperay Jews begged to differ.
    conon394,

    If they were contemporaries of course many did but then they weren't seeking a modest Jew like Jesus, rather a military figure like David and Jesus didn't fit that picture to them over and above the fact that they didn't have the full picture that we have today. In this modern day and age many Jews are being converted because these prophecies in both Covenants are combined in one great Book as well as the mass preaching they can enjoy should they wish.

  2. #102
    Mayer's Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Do you believe the Christmas story?

    No, I think it is quite likely that Jesus wasn't born in december and that Christmas is a late-christian invention and/or adoption of pagan festivities around winter solstice.
    Early christians did not celebrate birthdays and the excess of consumerism is also at odds with a man who preached poverty and personally threw out moneylenders.

    The most important christian holiday will always be Easter.
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  3. #103
    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: Do you believe the Christmas story?

    The most important christian holiday will always be Easter.
    OK Personally lapsed polish Catholic. Wife, Presbyterian but happy to go Methodist or Lutheran as needs be depending on the local congregation (It can be hard in the rural west of the US). My girls proud catholic school girls. In any case my wife would totally agree she has never gone to a Christmas mass or such and is always nattering on and making Easter the day she rallies everyone to be at a service because it is the day that matters even if she has to go to the Catholic version and cross her arms - I think I am supposed too it as been over 40 years since my last confession.
    Last edited by conon394; February 05, 2019 at 12:11 PM.
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  4. #104
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: Do you believe the Christmas story?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mayer View Post
    No, I think it is quite likely that Jesus wasn't born in december and that Christmas is a late-christian invention and/or adoption of pagan festivities around winter solstice.
    Early christians did not celebrate birthdays and the excess of consumerism is also at odds with a man who preached poverty and personally threw out moneylenders.

    The most important christian holiday will always be Easter.
    Mayer,

    Easter wouldn't exist if Jesus Christ had not been born of a woman to become a man yet it does because He was more than a man, He was God with us Who gave Himself for us and rose from the grave that we who believe on Him might do so also. So Christmas is as important as Easter to celebrate despite the argumentation of the exact dates, why? Because like communion it is a remembrance of Him becoming our sacrifice to pay for our sin which He did. We do it because of the faith, His faith, that He imbued in us the moment we believed or as He put it are born again of the Spirit of God. At His birth we read that only the shepherds plus myriads of angels were present to make the announcement yet at His rising, He made His own entry back from the grave by personally being seen by many hundreds proving to them and the world just Whom He said He was and is. What could be more marvelous than that?

  5. #105
    MaximiIian's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Do you believe the Christmas story?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mayer View Post
    No, I think it is quite likely that Jesus wasn't born in december and that Christmas is a late-christian invention and/or adoption of pagan festivities around winter solstice.
    You'd be surprised how complex it is. Early Christians calculated Jesus' birthdate as being in late December based on some peculiarities with Jewish messianic beliefs. The date coinciding with the Winter Solstice is, by contemporary accounts, largely coincidental; the first suggestion that it might be connected comes from a Syrian Christian writer in the twelfth century.
    They readily adopted pre-Christian cultural customs, but of course for Christian converts these were just their own cultural customs. You can't exactly culturally appropriate from your own culture.

  6. #106
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: Do you believe the Christmas story?

    Quote Originally Posted by MaximiIian View Post
    You'd be surprised how complex it is. Early Christians calculated Jesus' birthdate as being in late December based on some peculiarities with Jewish messianic beliefs. The date coinciding with the Winter Solstice is, by contemporary accounts, largely coincidental; the first suggestion that it might be connected comes from a Syrian Christian writer in the twelfth century.
    They readily adopted pre-Christian cultural customs, but of course for Christian converts these were just their own cultural customs. You can't exactly culturally appropriate from your own culture.
    MaximiIian,

    Herod died around 4-6 BC meaning when Jesus died supposedly in the year 33 AD Jesus could have been 40 when He went on the cross simply because He was around 2 years of age by the time the wise men saw Him. Forty is a much more Biblical figure and therefore beginning His ministry at 30 He would have been preaching the Kingdom for 10 years which again is a Biblical number. These estimates I get from the Scriptures so I could be wrong but I don't think so. John 8:57 appears to show that the remarks in that passage make Jesus out to be around 40. So, concerning His actual birth date we are left with little information but we do know that Herod's advisors claimed males birthed up to two years were to be killed. If that killing was limited to the Bethlehem area then it is unlikely to have been acknowledged in the wider Jewish community.

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