How and Why We Missed Christ's Birth By Three Months......
Many Biblical scholars have argued from time to time that December 25th was not the actual birth date of Christ. It was just adopted as a day to celebrate the birth of Christ as a Christian substitute to the Roman festival Saturnalia in the third century. Saturnalia was celebrated as the Feast of Sun and was actually considered the birth date of the Sun God of the Romans. Catholic priests held a special mass that day for Christ and thus, it came to be known as 'Christ-mass' or 'Christmas'.
Along with the date, several other pagan traditions, rituals and customs followed the way to become associated with Christmas such as decorating fir trees and burning yule logs. According to these scholars, Christ was most probably born on September 11, 3 B.C., which was Wednesday, according to the Bible. Source:
References: ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
CLASSROAM
Influence of Zoroastrianism on other religions
Pagan Influence upon Roman Catholicism
10 Ways The Bible Was Influenced By Other Religions
Feel free to express your thoughts on the ancient historical references cited in support of today's post.
The Gospel of Mark is generally thought to be the earliest of the synoptic gospels. Since it does not include anything on
ReplyDeletethe birth of Jesus, we presume the later writers began that typical religious hagiography of opinion and righteous fiction that seems inevitable in most nascent religious development. Inevitable as well, the destruction of those thinkers and writers like Celsus and Porphyry, every copy of which were burned by furious early Christian leaders,
narrowed the blinders of orthodoxy. Those interested in the rational historical development of Christianity read the
argument of Celsus and Porphyry in the 'apologies' of Origen, Eusubius & et. al. That fractious and often vicious
development may not explain Christianity's success, but offers clues to its 4000 flavors.
I also recommend Elaine Pagel's "The Gnostic Gospels."
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