You can prove Jesus wasn’t born 25 December, so whose birthday was celebrated then?
Leaf disc dedicated to Sol Invictus (Roman sun god thought to be born on 25 December)
Photo by Jastrow under CCA-SA
You don’t have to turn to Church of God literature to know that Jesus wasn’t born in the middle of winter. In fact, the typology of the holy days suggests that He was most likely born on the Feast of Trumpets, which is also associated with His second coming. Some believe it was the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, which is still in the fall, as the following video depicts:
Christians are called to be people of truth. It’s not logical that God, Who has not even a shadow of turning, would condone lies, and especially if those lies are in His name. Yesterday, Life Hope & Truth posted “Is Christmas a Trap?“, and perhaps the most important point is:
2. Christmas customs oblige billions to deceive each other.
For a holiday that is supposedly religious, Christmas involves a lot of lying! Consider a few examples of how deception is built into Christmas:
- People often lie to keep Christmas presents secret.
- Parents lie to their children about the existence of Santa Claus.
- Christmas is built around the lie that Jesus’ birth was on Dec. 25.
- Many aspects of the traditional Christmas stories surrounding Christ’s birth are inaccurate and deceptive, such as the wise men arriving to present gifts to Jesus on His birthday.
The Bible is very clear that lying is sinful and something that real Christians must not do (Proverbs 12:22; Colossians 3:9).
So, if it isn’t Christ’s birthday, why do people supposedly celebrate it on that day? The simple fact is that the Catholic Church decided to make it a day of celebration to make it easier to persuade pagans to become Christian. So, they “Christianized” the day by giving it a different name and borrowing the pagan symbols and changing their meaning.
You can read the Bible from cover to cover, and the word “Christmas” never occurs within its pages. Never did Jesus command to observer His birthday, and never did the apostles keep it either. Simply put, it is a Catholic invention: Christ + mass, a mass being a religious ceremony in which the bread supposedly physically (and mysteriously) turns into the flesh of Christ and is eaten as part of “communion”.
Death and Resurrection
Why 25 December? That’s the traditional day that many ancient civilizations thought the winter solstice occurred.
It should be noted that the Roman calendar was quite a mess. It was changed several times before it eventually settled down to the Julian calendar that most of you have probably heard of.
A lot of Roman calculations were based upon how many days before the beginning of the next month occurred. Often, this was 15 days, if the month had 30 days, and so we have the “ides” that occurred before the “kalends” (the first). Most have heard the “ides of March”, for example.
Saturnalia was just a holiday season, apparently decreed to occur sixteen days before the kalends of January. It then moved to 17 December under the calendar reform of Julius Caesar. At the height of the empire, the feast lasted seven days, which puts the last day on 24 December, the day before the solstice by ancient reckoning.
The winter solstice is something that can be calculated, but only in modern times has this been feasible, so it should be no surprise that ancient calendars were often shifted around because of cruder calculations. As Wikipedia says in “Winter solstice:
Although the instant of the solstice can be calculated, direct observation of the solstice by amateurs is impossible because the sun moves too slowly or appears to stand still (the meaning of “solstice”). However, by use of astronomical data tracking, the precise timing of its occurrence is now public knowledge.
Why the solstice, though? It was the shortest day of the year, and it was often used to picture the death and resurrection of a given deity. Saturn was the exception, but then again, Saturn himself was depicted as having very contradictory attributes, being identified both as the god of agriculture and the god of destruction.
There are other deities in which the solstice is used to celebrate their literal or figurative deaths and rebirths.
What Other Deities Were Worshipped on 25 December?
The original “Madonna and child” deities were Semiramis and her son/consort Horus, as BibleTools.org explains in “Bible verses about Semiramis“. While this does not nail down the date (and it is probably impossible to know that far back), it does set the pattern we see over and over in the false resurrection narratives. This narrative was one that the Catholic Church put forward in their deification of Mary, thus polluting worship of the true God by interjecting a pagan image between their worshippers and God.
Another common theme in many of these myths is that either the god or demigod kills a bull or appears as a bull.
For example, Dionysus appears as a bull and was a god of resurrection. He is closely linked to Bacchus, from which we get the word Bacchanalia, which was a real festival often associated with drunkenness and licentiousness.
No wonder, for Dionysus was also a god of wine. In fact, his festival, held during the spring, featured prominently in accordance with the grape harvest. However, speaking of religious rites and such, we can also see in “Dionysian Mysteries“:
The Dionysian Mysteries are believed to have consisted of two sets of rites: the secret rites of initiation and the public rites, or Dionysia. The public rites are believed to be the older of the two. In Athens and classical Attica, the main festivities were held in the month of Elaphebolion (around the time of the spring equinox). The greater (or city) Dionysia had evolved into a dramatic festival; Dionysus was the god of acting, music and poetry for the Athenians, and the festival became an urban carnival (or Komos). Its older precursor was the lesser (or rural) Dionysia, which preserved ancient customs centred on celebrating the first wine. This festival was timed to coincide with the “clearing of the wine” (a final stage in the fermentation process), which occurred during the first cold snap after the winter solstice when Dionysus was said to be reborn.
However, we can look all the way back to ancient Egypt for a death and resurrection story. The complicated tale of Osiris, Isis and Horus closely imitate the story of Semiramis. Not much is told about the reign of Osiris, but much is made of his death by Set. His wife, Isis, searches for his 42 body parts scattered throughout the kingdom. Depending upon the date the tale was given, Isis is able with help to have Osiris resurrected, but only long enough to become pregnant by him. Isis must hide until her son Horus is born, whom avenges his father’s death.
Here is the interesting part, though. Horus was a god, so he technically had no birth date. However, “Ancient Egyptians paraded a manger and child representing Horus through the streets at the time of the winter solstice (about DEC-21).”
Horus was married to Hathor, but in some traditions, she was represented as his mother, which shows ties to the tale of Semiramis.
Horus, BTW, was the sky god and one of the most prominent of the Egyptian gods. As sky god, he controlled both sun and moon, which were said to be his eyes.
It always sooner or later comes back to the sun. So, it should be no surprise that Mithras is often tied to the sun. One of the tales is of him sharing a meal with Sol, the sun god. He also has a tale where he had slain a sacred bull. Mythraism was a definite mystery religion, similar in style to the Gnostics.
Some say his birthday was 25 December, while a few disagree. The cited Wikipedia article states:
According to M.J.Vermaseren, the Mithraic New Year and the birthday of Mithras was on December 25. However, Beck disagrees strongly. Clauss states: “the Mithraic Mysteries had no public ceremonies of its own. The festival of natalis Invicti [Birth of the Unconquerable (Sun)], held on 25 December, was a general festival of the Sun, and by no means specific to the Mysteries of Mithras.”
However, no matter, for the worship of Mithras, Sol Invictus and Jesus were melded together under Emperor Constantine (see also featured image melding both into one person):
There are many parallels between Mithraism, the religion of Sol Invictus, and Christianity. Aurelian is believed to have established the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Day of the Birth of Sol Invictus) as an annual festival[citation needed] held on the day when the sun’s daily declination visibly starts rising again after the winter solstice, namely on December 25; the birth of the central figure was thus celebrated on the day which Christians later used to celebrate Jesus’ birth (having always celebrated this at Epiphany). Other similarities include the stories of Christ and Mithra as children being visited by shepherds, the trinity, and the immortal soul[citation needed]. Sunday itself was imposed as the official day of rest by Constantine, who referred to it as the Day of the venerable Sun[citation needed]. …
~ Wikipedia, “Christianity and other religions“
The Catholic Church
Here is a telling admission from the Catholic Encyclopedia at the New Advent website about Christmas:
Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts;…
Simply put, Jesus never commanded it, the Apostles never kept it, and it is filled with pagan origins.
29 Once the Lord your God has removed from before you all the nations that you are entering and taking possession of, and you have displaced them and are living in their land, 30 then watch yourself! Don’t be trapped by following their practices after they’ve been wiped out before you. Don’t go investigating their gods, thinking, How did these nations worship their gods? I want to do the very same thing!
31 Don’t act like they did toward the Lord your God because they did things for their gods that are detestable to the Lord, which he hates. They even burned their own sons and daughters with fire for their gods!
32 Everything I’m commanding you, you must do it with utmost care! Don’t add anything to it or take anything away from it.
Simply put, the Catholic Church has always incorporated pagan rituals into its means of worship throughout its history, which is in direct violation of God’s clear command to not do so. In fact, we are to neither add to nor take away from His commands, and Christmas does both by replacing God’s ways of worship with a counterfeit!
Satan is the master counterfeiter, and he has a church as well. It is a church that has oppressed anyone who disagrees with it down through the ages, to include true Christians!
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.
6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
Simply put, you can do what God command, or you can follow the counterfeit. You can be a true Christian, or you can keep Christmas. You cannot do both.