heliotis (01/06/83)
No one has mentioned something I heard, that the early Christians, in order not to get caught celebrating Christ's B.D., chose to do it on one of the Romans' holidays, so that it would be inconspicuous. Jim Heliotis P.S. Happy eastern orthodox Christmas!
rich (01/07/83)
I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to this subject, until someone bothered to bring up `truth' instead of conjecture. The Bible says Christ was born in the lambing season (I'm not a fanatic, so I won't quote any chapters and verses). Even 2000 years ago, the lambing season, even in the middle east, is late winter to spring. That would put Christ's birth right around March, +-. Celebrating His birth was something which put early Christians in grave danger, so their best alternative was to celebrate His birth on a `major' Roman holiday, assuming the stupid Romans would know no difference. The closest major Roman holiday was the Winter Solstice, a week of festivities at the end of the month now known as December. Pick a date and we'll call it Christmas. I guess the whole point is mute now anyway. Christmas begins in this country at the end of October when the major department stores decide you WILL start buying things. Note that on December 26th, all the Valentine's decorations started going up. Commercialism tries hard to replace Christ with X. It should read, have a Merry $mas. One more question: How many of you knew that our sacred little Christmas Tree was a pagen symbol (used in Druid rites, among others)?
mark (01/10/83)
#R:rocheste:-37000:zinfandel:4900004:000:160 zinfandel!mark Jan 9 17:39:00 1983 The question of the date of the birth of Jesus may be MOOT, but considering all the messages about it lately it certainly isn't MUTE. :-) Mark Wittenberg
wcw (01/18/83)
During lambing season? I don't recall reading that anyplace in the Bible. I have heard reasons (taken from supposed 'clues' in the Bible) why people believe that the birth occured during that season, but never any 'proof' of the type where the Bible states "And it was in the lambing season..". Perhaps I missed something. Could you (or someone) provide a chapter and verse? Bill Wells
bcw (01/22/83)
From: Bruce C. Wright @ Duke University Re: Lambing season It's probably somewhat variable exactly when the lambing season is, depending on specific flocks, climates, etc. At least in northwestern Pennslyvania, if you let nature take its course and don't separate the rams from the ewes when they come into heat, the lambs will typically be born in January and February. It is also not clear that this has much bearing on the exact date of the original Christmas - I have heard that in the early church it was celebrated later, around May, but that it was moved at the time of Constantine to fill the traditional Roman holiday season. I don't think there was anything about it being less risky to celebrate the holiday earlier in the early church - you have to remember that the persecution was rather intermittant, and that Christmas wasn't quite the wild celebration that it is today (or in fact as it has been since Constantine). Bruce C. Wright @ Duke University