Christmas, To True!

[honeychile]

Originally posted by docetboy
Happy Hanukah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Christians: Celebrate their saviors birthday on December 25th, though biblical and scholarly evidence points out that it was not during the winter and most likely around the year 4BCE, around the 15th of Tishri (falling around mid-september, the first day of the harvest festival Sukkot!). "Christ Mass" on December 25th was made popular by Pope Liberius in 354 and made official by Pope Sixtus III in 435. This coincided with the date of a celebration by the Romans to their primary god, the Sun, and to Mithras, a popular Persian sun god supposedly born on the same day. The Roman Catholic writer Mario Righetti candidly admits that, "to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, the Church of Rome found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the birth of Christ to divert them from the pagan feast, celebrated on the same day in honor of the 'Invincible Sun' Mithras, the conqueror of darkness" (Manual of Liturgical History, 1955, Vol. 2, p. 67).


Jews: Celebrate a true miracle, as a small number of Maccabee Warriors defeated the entire Syrian army and moved them out of Jerusalem, cleaned the holy temple, and relit the eternal flame, where one days worth of oil lasted eight, long enough for new oil to be brought in to keep the lamp always burning.

Early Christian missionaries were taught to convert the pagan holidays into "Christian" ones - and diluted the message in the process.

I agree that Christ was more probably born around the Feast of the Tabernacles, as that would have been the logical time to conduct a census among the Jews. That's why my family always celebrates Sukkoth to this day - a more logical "Christmas" time.