Jesus begotten Son of God #1 Christmas and Christians

The Anointed begotten Son of God

1.     Jesus and Christians

All Christians think they do know Christ Jesus. We as Christians can only do hope that those who want to become a Christian and those who call themselves Christian sincerely would be willing to investigate who that Jesus from Nazareth, who was called the Messiah, was.

When Jesus was somebody on this earth you can wonder how he came on to this earth and what he was before he came in the public picture. Then it becomes important as well to look at the teaching of that man that Christians say they are following. Do they really follow what that man said? Are those Christians really willing to listen to the words of that Master Teacher?

If you are saying you are or if you want to become a Christian you should really be eager to get to know Jesus Christ in full. Not just accepting what certain denominations say he is and was and shall be, but understanding what the Bible, the Holy Scriptures and the Word of God is saying about him.

2.     Christmas

Child singers carrying a star with icon of a saint. Bucharest, 1842

Many churches celebrate the Advent in the month of December and on the 25th of December they celebrate the birth of the Saviour Jesus. Historically Jesus, or better Jeshua (which was his real name) was born from the virgin Mary, Maria  or better Miryam/Miriam (to use the Hebrew name) in Bethlehem on the 17th October 4 before our Common Era (often indicated by –4 AD)

Most people would think “Christmas is Christian”, but we are afraid though this may be a general thinking it should really not be a Christian feast. And Christians should be able to find that there is something wrong with the so called birthday of Jesus.

According to the Holy Scriptures the angel Gabriel visited Zacharias during the course of Abia which we learn from 1 Chronicles 24:7-10, was the 8th of 24 courses during a 12 month year. Each group of priests (all except the most senior who were on duty more often) officiated in the Temple for two weeks every year. Zacharias’ turn of duty came when the 8th group (Abijah’s) attended; which was during weeks 15 and 16 after the start of the year, the month Nissan, which at our time would be in the time we call March or very early April.

The Word of God tells us that Elisabeth was conceived in early July and six months after Elisabeth, Mary was in conceived early January. A human pregnancy takes about 9 months; which brings us to an autumn date in late September/early October.

From the worldly books we also do know that the Romans wanted to count all their inhabitants late September/early October coinciding with the Week of Tabernacles, the most sacred week in the sacred calendar so that most people could make themselves free to go to the count offices for the census. The Week of Tabernacles is a memorial of Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness when the nation lived in ‘tabernacles’ (booths or tents) and when Jehovah took up residence in a ‘tabernacle’ which was pitched in the centre of the camp. (Leviticus 23:23-44)

3.     Leitmotiv

When you also carefully follow the Bible you shall be able to find a leitmotiv. When you see that the thread is the Salvation you shall also be able to notice how God guided His people through history and how prophets predicted many things. Those divinations can be clearly seen as signs for us to understand and to follow. When you look at those prophecies and the timing it all counts up and every day becomes of a certain importance. As such we can consider one occasion as the low-level memorial of Tabernacles and than we do find the high-level reality of Tabernacles when Jeshua the Son of the Highest, the Messiah, took up residence in a frail human body. In other words, God ‘tabernacled‘ with mankind giving them the protector in the person of His Son Jeshua – Jesus Christ!

4.     History

The Free Church of Scotland minister Alexander Hyslop (1807 – 1865) in his most famous book The Two Babylons: Papal worship Revealed to be the worship of Nimrod and His wife exposed the falsehood of the Roman Catholic Church. He was not afraid to use also the historical, read non theological writings and look at the historical facts. From those we can find out in which time Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem for the census and when the three wise men or magicians went to follow the star to look for this new born King of kings.

Hyslop saw the many pagan rites which were introduced by the Roman Catholic Church and claimed therefore that is was a Babylonian mystery cult, and pagan. On the other hand he thought Protestants worshipped the true Jesus and the true God. He contended that Roman Catholic religious practices are actually pagan practices grafted onto true Christianity during the reign of Constantine, but then he also saw what was happening in Protestantism and how people did want to keep certain traditions. At this point, he alleged, the merger between the Roman state religion and its adoration of the mother and child was transferred to Christianity, merging Christian characters with pagan mythology. The Goddess was renamed Mary, and Jeshua or Jesus (Hail Zeus) was the renamed Jupiter-Puer, or “Jupiter the Boy”.

Hyslop wrote: “The festivals of Rome are innumerable; but five of the most important may be singled out for elucidation -viz., Christmas-day, Lady-day, Easter, the nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the Assumption. Each and all of these can be proved to be Babylonian.” (The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hyslop, page 91)  and “… within the Christian Church no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and that not till the fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance. How, then, did the Roman Church fix on December 25th as Christmas-day? Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be presumed that in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ. This tendency on the part of the Christians to meet Paganism half-way was very early developed … Upright men strove to stem the tide, but in spite of all their efforts, the apostasy went on, till the Church, with the exception of a small remnant, was submerged under Pagan superstition. That Christmas was originally a Pagan festival is beyond all doubt. The time of the year, the ceremonies with which it is still celebrated, prove its origin. In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time, ‘about the time of the winter solstice.'” (Ibid. page 93)

Non-religious, but historical books and encyclopaedic works, often saw the faulty claims for the birthday of the person who was born at Bethlehem, lived at Nazareth, did many miraculous things, was brought before the court of Pilate and brought to dead on a wooden stake. Though even the Catholic Encyclopaedia 1911 edition agreed that “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the church … the first evidence of the feast is from Egypt.”

The Chambers Encyclopaedia 1908 Edition Vol.111 page 222, in her article on Christmas writes: “It is nevertheless almost certain that the 25th of December cannot be the nativity of the Saviour, for it is then the height of the rainy season in Judaea, and shepherds could hardly be watching their flocks by night in the plains … Not casually or arbitrarily was the festival of the nativity celebrated on the 25th of December. One of the principal causes that co-operated in fixing this period was that almost all the heathen nations regarded the winter solstice as the turning point of the year – the beginning of the renewed life and activity of the powers of nature, and of the gods who were merely the symbolic personifications of these. In more northern countries this fact must have made itself peculiarly palpable – hence the Celts and Germans, from the oldest times, celebrated the season with the greatest festivities. At the winter solstice the Norsemen held their great Yule-feast in commemoration of the fiery sun-wheel, and believed that during the twelve nights from the 25th December to the 6th January they could trace the personal movements and interferences on earth of their great deities, Odin, Beretha, etc. Many of the beliefs and usages of the old Germans, and also of the Romans, relating to this period, passed over from heathenism to Christianity, and have partly survived to the present day.”

5.     Agreement to tradition

The first Christians having become an object of hatred, agreed in the 4th century CE to accept the Greek and Roman symbols for their gods and to let Christian feasts fall together with Heathen feasts.

In the 1970 edition  page 538, article on Christmas, Chambers Encyclopaedia wrote: “There is no authoritative tradition as to the day or month of Christ’s birth … The winter solstice was regarded as the birthday of the sun and at Rome a pagan festival of the nativity of ‘sol invictus’ was introduced by the Emperor Aurelian on 25th December 274. The church, unable to stamp out this popular festival, spiritualised it as the feast of the Nativity of the Sun of Righteousness. When Christianity spread northwards it encountered a similar pagan festival also held at the winter solstice – the great Yule feast of the Norsemen. Once again Christmas absorbed heathen customs. From the various sources came the Yule log, the Christmas tree introduced into England from Germany and first mentioned in 1789.”

Not only Greek and Roman but in the West also a lot of Germanic heathen element have entered Christendom. We can find many of the heathen feast Jul or Yule, a Nordic name for that was celebrated in the middle of January. There were at least two such feasts or offerings every year in Scandinavia, one in midsummer and one in midwinter.
The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.” Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681.(Increase Mather, A Testimony against Several Prophane and Superstitious Customs, Now Practiced by Some in New England (London, 1687), p. 35. See also Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday, New York: Vintage Books, 1997, p. 4 + Nissenbaum, p. 3.)

Though several Christians would not listen to famous scholars and historians revealing amazing facts they could take their lessons from the Bible and make their own analysis from what is given as data in the Holy Scriptures.
+

To be continued

++

Related articles

• Advent & Christmas (deaconjohn1987.wordpress.com)
  Love of the Babe of Bethlehem, who was born to redeem us, caused
  Catholics, in centuries long gone by, to introduce into our churches
  a representation of the crib, the Divine Babe, The Blessed Mother,
  St. Joseph, and the Shepherds. St. Francis of Assisi deserves the
  credit of making this practice very popular. His zeal prompted him to
  place at Graccio a representation of the cave of Bethlehem. His plan
  permitted the Faithful vividly to grasp the story of Bethlehem and to
  realize the poverty and suffering of our Saviour in the bleak, cold
  stable where He was born. The plan has spread to churches in all
  parts of the world.
• Cardinal: Pray to Mary, who is our teacher (ivarfjeld.wordpress.com)
  Since we have direct access to God through Jesus the Messiah, you make a mockery of Him, when you do not listen to His instructions.
  Jewish Miriam was a sinner, a created being. Those who worship created beings, have been lead into an idolatrous life. If such people to not repent, they will all perish.  Those you will find in the Kingdom of Heaven, have all lived by faith in Him.
• The Savior of the World was born by a Virgin! (ivarfjeld.wordpress.com)
  The question of whether or not Jesus’ mother Mary was actually a virgin, or if it even matters if she was, is causing tremendous controversy in many parts of what calls itself “The Christian World” today.
• Often we see that Christmas has not much to do any more with what some consider the reason to celebrate.
  Last night (innerdialect.wordpress.com)
  through Christmas and New Year. Maybe all the wars they rumor will come. The earthquakes and floods,. Rapture even. Dear Lord, dear heaven, all the things we grumble about : prices and petrol, pollution and naughty kids running up and down the stairs…