When Jesus born?

[CaffeineJunkie]

While this is a common belief amongst internet atheists, there's very little if any historical evidence to support it. That's not to say that there was absolutely no influence from the cultural milieu in which Christianity developed, but the idea that they were just rebranded pagan events is a pretty baseless claim.

Christmas is a repainted Yule, complete with presents getting left in footwear, an 8-legged horse that became the basis for Santa's 8 reindeer, and evergreen trees being cut down and taken into people's homes. There are too many similarities for them to be coincidental.

Easter is based on a Jewish festival, not a pagan one.

Eostre is a Germanic pagan goddess that the holiday of Easter is named after, though I think the bunnies and dyed eggs have a different source.

Nazareth is referred to frequently in the Gospels, which were certainly written well before that date

Ah, that's news to me. I'll concede the point on Nazareth.

 

[Patine]

Christmas is a repainted Yule, complete with presents getting left in footwear, an 8-legged horse that became the basis for Santa's 8 reindeer, and evergreen trees being cut down and taken into people's homes. There are too many similarities for them to be coincidental.



Eostre is a Germanic pagan goddess that the holiday of Easter is named after, though I think the bunnies and dyed eggs have a different source.

Not quite. There were dating discrepencies in the Early Church about when to observe the Birth and Resurrection of Christ, differences of opinion that often got as nasty as differences in Christology back then. The seasonal observances, which were long also of great importance to Pagans in their rituals, were chosen as compromises. Pagan celebratory observances were adopted into Christian celebrations - at least in Western Europe, not really in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, at all - at least such adoptions and incorporations happened after a significant period of time, after those Pagan religions stopped being meaningfully peacticed actively in any significant numbers, and they were very often frowned on by Conservative clergy and reactionaries, even long ago.

 

[Plotinus]

Exactly. The fact that elements of pagan festivals were much later incorporated into the way Christian festivals were celebrated does not mean that the Christian festivals were originally based on the pagan ones. I mean, Christmas trees only go back to the Reformation, well over a thousand years after Christmas was first celebrated. So how can you point to them as evidence for the origins of Christmas? (Besides which, the evidence for pagan celebrations involving bringing evergreen trees into the house in winter is sketchy, to put it mildly; a more probable source for the custom of Christmas trees is the "tree of life" in medieval mystery plays, based on the account of Eden in Genesis. Christmas trees were invented too recently for any link to pre-Christian pagan customs to be very likely.)

In the case of Easter in particular, people who make the link to Eostre always forget two important points. First, we know nothing whatsoever about Eostre other than her name - in fact the only source for this goddess at all is a single reference in Bede. So it's not possible to infer anything about what elements of her worship, if any, were transferred to Easter. And second, this linguistic link between Eostre and Easter exists only in English. In almost all other languages, Easter is named after Passover, a reflection of its Jewish origins.

 

[CaffeineJunkie]

Christmas trees only go back to the Reformation, well over a thousand years after Christmas was first celebrated. So how can you point to them as evidence for the origins of Christmas?

They were Yule Trees for hundreds of years before that. https://okmag.com/blog/on-the-yule-trees-origins/

 

[Plotinus]

You're confusing Yule logs with solstice evergreens, neither of which was really very similar to Christmas trees (the Yule log was literally a log that was burned, and solstice evergreens were stripped of their branches, stood outside, and more closely resembled may poles). That article is really not a good source:

When Roman Emperor Constantine decriminalized Christianity in 313, the religion began to spread throughout Europe. These early Christians adopted and incorporated many pagan rituals (fertility rites of the spring were converted into Easter bunnies and eggs) and the Christmas tree evolved from those winter solstice celebrations.

Leaving aside the fact that Christianity was already decriminalised by Constantine's predecessor Galerius, this paragraph is just plain wrong. The "early Christians" did not adopt the pagan rituals described. That happened much, much later; indeed "Easter bunnies" are a twentieth-century American invention, not ancient or medieval at all. This article is exactly the kind of popular misconception that plagues discussion of this topic.

The truth is that Christmas trees are not attested until the sixteenth century at the very earliest, and even then the evidence is pretty sketchy; they didn't become widely used until the eighteenth or even nineteenth centuries. So any claim that the custom is based on pre-Christian rituals needs not only to show that those rituals were in fact similar to the Christian ones (rather than simply assuming that any ritual involving a tree was basically the same thing) but also to explain how those rituals jumped from pre-Christian times into early modern times without apparently existing in the intervening period. In fact, sacred trees are so common in religion and folklore throughout the world that trying to identify a single pre-Christian source for Christmas trees is both impossible and pointless; it's just something that people tend to do no matter what their culture, so it doesn't really need a particular historical source.

As with most of the "Christian festivals are just rebranded pagan festivals" claims, this one rests on the assumption that the way these festivals are celebrated today reflects how they were always celebrated, allowing one to see a line of continuity from paganism into Christianity. But in fact most of the customs we are familiar with surrounding Christmas and also Easter are recent innovations. Christmas as we know it was a nineteenth-century invention. It was celebrated quite differently in early modern times and completely differently in the Middle Ages. This makes it very hard to see any historical continuity between pre-Christian practices and modern ones, because there's a gap of many centuries in between them.

Besides which, all of this is a sideshow. As I said before, the question of whether and when pagan customs were later incorporated into the way in which Christmas is celebrated is irrelevant to the question of the origins of Christmas, and it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the historical existence or otherwise of Jesus.

 

[CaffeineJunkie]

You're confusing Yule logs with solstice evergreens, and that article is really not a good source:

I'm not confusing Yule logs with anything.

That website was the third on a list of search results; I wasn't going to check them all for perfect accuracy. I can give you links to another hundred websites that all say the same thing (about the trees, not about Easter or the decriminalization of christianity)

 

[Plotinus]

And I can give you links to any number of websites that say that the world is flat. Random websites are not good sources. I don't wish to disparage the "Life and Style" section of the Oklahoma Magazine, but the fact that it appears third on a list of Google search results doesn't make it a reliable source for settling complex historical questions. Scholarly sources tell a different (and much more complicated) story from popular ones, particularly on religious topics, which is precisely the point I was trying to make in my earlier post.

Here, for example, is p. 158 of Approaches to the Study of Inter-Cultural Transfer, by Thomas Adam:

Bringing evergreen trees into the homes of upper-class families and decorating them with wax candles began at the end of the eighteenth century in the Northern and Protestant parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Stories that ascribed the invention of the Christmas tree to the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformer Martin Luther have been rightfully dismissed as legends. There is no historical evidence for the tradition of trimming trees from the time before the second half of the eighteenth century. The very first German literary record of a Christmas tree decorated with apples, sweets, and lights was found in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s famous Nutcracker and Mouse King of 1816. And the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge provided the first known observation of this custom by an Englishman. When in 1798 Coleridge traveled to Ratzeburg, which was part of the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, he observed “a great yew bow … fastened on the table” with “a multitude of little tapers … fixed in the bough … and coloured paper etc. hangs and flutters from the twigs.” He also saw presents put underneath the bough.

Adam argues that the custom of exchanging presents was a hangover from pagan customs, but the Christmas tree itself was emphatically not and is in fact considerably more recent than people usually suppose.

Once again, though, I must emphasise that this has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual topic of this thread, so I really don't see the purpose of arguing about it.

 

[Garry Denke]

John the Baptist was born 2 weeks after December solstice on 6/1/6 BCE and Jesus Christ was born 2 weeks before June solstice on 6/6/6 BCE.
Their conceptions were 6 months apart, March equinox and September equinox, respectively. Elisabeth 2 weeks late. Mary 2 weeks early.
Birth dates are in the "Book of Revelation" chapter 13, being shown day/month/year, per Dionysius Exiguus, who made no mistake.

 

[Patine]

John the Baptist was born 2 weeks after December solstice on 6/1/6 BCE and Jesus Christ was born 2 weeks before June solstice on 6/6/6 BCE.
Their conceptions were 6 months apart, March equinox and September equinox, respectively. Elisabeth 2 weeks late. Mary 2 weeks early.

I see a lot of sixes stacked, here, which makes me dubious.

Birth dates are in the "Book of Revelation" chapter 13, being shown day/month/year, per Dionysius Exiguus, who made no mistake.

I have never looked deeply into his works, but he did write around 500 years later, and thus was certainly not a first-hand source, either.

 

[Garry Denke]

I see a lot of sixes stacked, here, which makes me dubious.

Nevertheless he (Dionysius Exiguus) set Year 1 (there is no Year 0) at six (6) years after John the Baptist and Jesus Christ were born.

Pope Gregory XIII adopted 6 BCE of his (Dionysius Exiguus) decrypted Revelation chapter XIII for their Birth Year.

 

[Plotinus]

If Jesus was born in 6 BCE, how can you say that Dionysius Exiguus “made no mistake” in saying he was born in 1 CE?

And does this theory depend on identifying the two beasts of Revelation 13 with John the Baptist and Jesus? Because I think that’s going to be a tough sell.

And which work of Dionysius are you talking about? As far as I know he wrote no commentary on Revelation. Neither did he ever specify a birth month/day, or conception month/day, for Jesus. In fact he never says anything about how he calculated the date of Jesus’ birth.

Dionysius’ celebrated “calculation” of the date of Jesus’ birth is actually just a brief passing comment in his work on the calculation of the date of Easter. It comes in Dionysius’ letter to Petronius, which introduces his set of tables (or “cycles”) giving the Easter dates for each year. He explains that he has adapted an earlier set of tables by Cyril of Alexandria, and adds:

This cycle of 95 years, we have striven with as much care as we could to prepare. The last - that is, the fifth - cycle of the blessed Cyril, since there are still six years remaining of it, we have prefaced to our own work. We have then composed five additional cycles, following the method of that pontiff, and indeed of that oft mentioned Nicene Council. Since Saint Cyril began his first cycle from the 153rd year of Diocletian and ended his last at the 247th, we have begun from the 248th year of that same ruler - more a tyrant than a prince. But we did not want to perpetuate the memory of that impious persecutor in our cycles, so we have chosen rather to number the years from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that the beginning of our hope might stand out more clearly for us, and so the cause of human salvation - that is, the Passion of our redeemer - might shine more conspicuously.

(Quoted in Aldan Mosshammer, The Easter Computus and the Origins of the Christian Era, OUP 2008, p. 67)

That is all that Dionysius ever says about the date of Jesus’ birth. There’s not a word about how he knew what year Jesus was born. Indeed scholars remain unsure, but there is a growing consensus that Dionysius never calculated this date at all but inherited it from earlier traditions, though precisely which ones remains unclear (there were several).

 

[Garry Denke]

If Jesus was born in 6 BCE, how can you say that Dionysius Exiguus “made no mistake” in saying he was born in 1 CE?

And does this theory depend on identifying the two beasts of Revelation 13 with John the Baptist and Jesus? Because I think that’s going to be a tough sell.

As you've pointed out D.E. nor PG-13 said that J.B. nor J.C. born in Year 1.
Yes, the second beast J.C. causes all to worship the first beast J.B.
Especially tough going against the Metrologists I.N. and B.F.

Benjamin Franklin decrypted Rev. 12-13 whilst in England in the 1700s
Sir Isaac Newton in his "Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel
and the Apocalypse of St. John" re-named Two (2) Ol' Metrologists
____________________________

IOHN: "seven heads, ten horns, and seven crowns"
https://biblehub.com/kjv/revelation/12.htm

seven heads (.0000000), six-one-six (.616), ten horns (x 10),
and seven crowns (^-7), and Metrologist (cm^3/g-s^2) tail.

gravitation G, the Letter of God, the mark.
gravitation John, the Word of God, the name.
gravitation G on!, the Sentence of God, the image.
gravitation .616 x 10^-7, the Wisdom of God, the number.

G = .616 x 10^-7 cm^3/g-s^2
World 1st G measurement.
Definitions original "cgs"

https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611-Bible/search.php?word=Iohn
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611-Bible/search.php?word=Iesus

IESUS: "seven heads, ten horns, and ten crowns"
https://biblehub.com/kjv/revelation/13.htm

seven heads (.0000000), six-six-six (666.), ten horns (x 10),
and ten crowns (^-10), and Metrologist (cm^3/g-s^2) tail.

gravitation G, the Letter of God, the mark.
gravitation Jesus, the Word of God, the name.
gravitation G's us!, the Sentence of God, the image.
gravitation 666. x 10^-10, the Wisdom of God, the number.

G = 666. x 10^-10 cm^3/g-s^2
World 2nd G measurement.
Definitions original "cgs"
____________________________

G = 2/c, c = 2/G, 2 = G*c (natural units)

IOHN John and IESUS Jesus
just Two (2) Ol' Metrologists

 

[Patine]

As you've pointed out D.E. nor PG-13 said that J.B. nor J.C. born in Year 1.
Yes, the second beast J.C. causes all to worship the first beast J.B.
Especially tough going against the Metrologists I.N. and B.F.

Benjamin Franklin decrypted Rev. 12-13 whilst in England in the 1700s
Sir Isaac Newton in his "Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel
and the Apocalypse of St. John" re-named Two (2) Ol' Metrologists
____________________________

IOHN: "seven heads, ten horns, and seven crowns"
https://biblehub.com/kjv/revelation/12.htm

seven heads (.0000000), six-one-six (.616), ten horns (x 10),
and seven crowns (^-7), and Metrologist (cm^3/g-s^2) tail.

gravitation G, the Letter of God, the mark.
gravitation John, the Word of God, the name.
gravitation G on!, the Sentence of God, the image.
gravitation .616 x 10^-7, the Wisdom of God, the number.

G = .616 x 10^-7 cm^3/g-s^2
World 1st G measurement.
Definitions original "cgs"

https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611-Bible/search.php?word=Iohn
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611-Bible/search.php?word=Iesus

IESUS: "seven heads, ten horns, and ten crowns"
https://biblehub.com/kjv/revelation/13.htm

seven heads (.0000000), six-six-six (666.), ten horns (x 10),
and ten crowns (^-10), and Metrologist (cm^3/g-s^2) tail.

gravitation G, the Letter of God, the mark.
gravitation Jesus, the Word of God, the name.
gravitation G's us!, the Sentence of God, the image.
gravitation 666. x 10^-10, the Wisdom of God, the number.

G = 666. x 10^-10 cm^3/g-s^2
World 2nd G measurement.
Definitions original "cgs"
____________________________

G = 2/c, c = 2/G, 2 = G*c (natural units)

IOHN John and IESUS Jesus
just Two (2) Ol' Metrologists

Which wonky eschatonic cult are you proscelytizing for? You might as well spill the beans.

 

[Plotinus]

The imagery in Revelation 13 is explained in Revelation 17. It specifies that the seven heads represent seven hills, and the ten horns represent ten kings. That means it's Rome, which is built on seven hills. The use of the name "Babylon" also indicates Rome, because "Babylon" at that time was a circumlocution for the then-current political power (just as is it today for Rastafarians). The horn that appears to be wounded but has healed is Nero, who was popularly believed in the late first century to have survived his supposed death and be on the verge of a dramatic comeback. (This may be the oldest recorded conspiracy theory.)

So the passage is a denunciation of Rome and its imperial power, contrasted with the spiritual power of Christ, whose appearance to John opens the whole book, and who is the Lamb who opposes the beasts.

 

[Garry Denke]

When Jesus born?

6th June 6 BCE at 6 AM
(bright morning star)

Also I want to add the question, there was the year zero?

There was no year 0
(1 BCE then 1 CE)

 

[Harv]

What did I just read? Is this 6/6/6 at 6:66am month / day / year according to the US convention or is it 06/06/0006 according to the European format? Was a correction made to adjust to the Gregorian calendar?

Did the Greeks and Romans develop and standardize the SI units we use today?

Added: I went back to check if all of this was posted on 01/04/2024.

 

[Patine]

What did I just read? Is this 6/6/6 at 6:66am month / day / year according to the US convention or is it 06/06/0006 according to the European format? Was a correction made to adjust to the Gregorian calendar?

Did the Greeks and Romans develop and standardize the SI units we use today?

Added: I went back to check if all of this was posted on 01/04/2024.

Oddly, posted 03/04/2024.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The conception dates are more interesting than the birth dates. I am curious how Holy Spirit sperm made its way into those women's vaginas. Does the HS even have sperm?

 

[Plotinus]

Well, if you’re asking what the orthodox Christian view is, no, he doesn’t. The Holy Spirit doesn’t act as Jesus’ father in the act of conception. That would result in Jesus being half human and half divine, like Gilgamesh. But he’s not - he’s fully human and fully divine, which means that all of his physical attributes, including his DNA, are of human origin. God gives Mary the power to conceive without there being a father at all.

Jesus, in Christian theology, is not literally the “son” of God in the sense that you or I are the sons of our parents. Rather, Jesus is the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, which means that he *is* God (or one of him, at least). His “sonship” is an eternal relation that he bears to the Father within the Trinity, not a temporal relation that he bears to God as a whole as a result of his human conception.

In John the Baptist’s case, God gave his parents the ability to conceive in the normal way although they were too old to do so non-miraculously. And in Mary’s case, according to Catholic theology, God intervened in her otherwise normal conception to miraculously prevent the transmission of original sin (this is the Immaculate Conception).

 

[Patine]

Well, if you’re asking what the orthodox Christian view is, no, he doesn’t. The Holy Spirit doesn’t act as Jesus’ father in the act of conception. That would result in Jesus being half human and half divine, like Gilgamesh. But he’s not - he’s fully human and fully divine, which means that all of his physical attributes, including his DNA, are of human origin. God gives Mary the power to conceive without there being a father at all.

Jesus, in Christian theology, is not literally the “son” of God in the sense that you or I are the sons of our parents. Rather, Jesus is the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, which means that he *is* God (or one of him, at least). His “sonship” is an eternal relation that he bears to the Father within the Trinity, not a temporal relation that he bears to God as a whole as a result of his human conception.

In John the Baptist’s case, God gave his parents the ability to conceive in the normal way although they were too old to do so non-miraculously. And in Mary’s case, according to Catholic theology, God intervened in her otherwise normal conception to miraculously prevent the transmission of original sin (this is the Immaculate Conception).

Yes, Glgamesh, and every Greek Hero of import (as well as Aphrodite's daughter, Helen), and several figures in Celtic, Chinese, Shinto, and some Native American and African Polythesm, as well as the Pharoanic, and Chinese and Japanese ruling lines, all have divine bloood. Christ is more like the Hindu Avatars, although they are born to fruitful couples, not virgins, but the God and the mortal lineage and nature are separate, there, too.