Jesus' Birthday

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July 12, 2006

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to understand the present condition of the church except in the light of history. IGNORANCE of church history (ancient and modern/old and new) is more widespread even than ignorance of the Bible. MINISTERS must teach their people the facts of church history.  
 
The very customs of Christmas that are still existent, cast surprising light at once on the revelations of grace made to all the earth, and the efforts made by Satan and his emissaries to materialize, carnalize, and degrade them.  
 
UNGER’S BIBLE HAND BOOK... (pp403)(pp102)
Our traditional date of Dec. 25th, as the day of Christ's birth was set in the 4th century. It was the day settled upon by the Western church. The Eastern Church celebrates Jan 6.  Actually the day is unknown. Apparently the nativity did not occur in the winter, since the shepherds in Palestine customarily do not remain in the open with their flocks, except from spring to autumn.

When Christ was born, time was reckoned in the Roman Empire from the founding of the city of Rome.   In the 6th century A.D. when the Christian calendar, which reckoned time before and after the birth of Christ, replaced the old Roman calendar, which dated from the founding of Rome (753 B.C.), the Monk Dionysius Exiguus made an error of at least four years.  This mistake was not detected till long after the Christian Calendar had been established in popular use.  Dionysius reckoned 748 or 749 B.C. instead of 753 as the date of Rome's founding.  Hence 5 B.C. or 4 B.C. must be reckoned as the birth of Christ. (Unger’s Bible Handbook...pp 403)

CHRONOLOGY OF THIS PERIOD

6-5 B.C.  JOHN'S BIRTH ANNOUNCED...........6 MO LATER JESUS BIRTH ANNOUNCED
3 MO LATER JOHN BORN..............................  5 B.C. JESUS BORN
8 DAYS LATER JESUS CIRCUMCISED...33 DAYS LATER JESUS PRESENTED IN TEMPLE
4    B.C. MAGI VISIT THE KING........................3-2 B.C. RETURN TO NAZARETH

THE TWO BABYLONS...pp 91
There is not a word in the scriptures about the precise day of His birth, or the time of the year when He was born. What is recorded implies it could not have been in the winter on the 25th of December. At the time the angel announced His birth to the shepherds of Bethlehem, they were feeding their flocks by night in the open fields. The climate of Palestine is not so severe as the climate of this country; but even there, though the heat of the day be considerable, the cold of the night from December to February is very piercing and it was not the custom for the shepherds of Judea to watch their flocks in the open fields later than about the end of October.  

The cattle that lie in the pastures do not go into the cities until the rains descend. The FIRST rain falls in the month Marchesvan, which corresponds to the latter part of our October and early November. From this it appears the Christ must be born before the middle of October, since the first rain was not yet come.  

At the birth of Christ every woman and child was to go to be taxed at the city whereto they belonged, and some had long journeys; but the middle of winter was not fitting for such a business, especially for women with child and children to travel in. Therefore Christ could not be born in the depth of winter. Again, the shepherds lay abroad watching with their flocks in the night time; but this was not likely to be in the middle of winter. It is admitted by the most learned and candid writers of all parties, that the day of our Lord's birth cannot be determined and that within the Christian church, no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century and not till the fourth century was far advanced,  did it gain much observance.  

Why then, did the Romish church fix on December 25 as Christmas-day?  Long before the 4th century, and long before the Christian era, a festival was celebrated among the heathen at that precise time of the year in honor 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 Mass. This tendency on the part of Christians to meet Paganism half-way was very early developed.

Tertullian in his day, about the year 239, bitterly lamented the inconsistency of the disciples of Christ contrasting them with the strict fidelity of the Pagans to their own superstition. "By us," says he, "who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year's day presents are made with din and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians." 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, and 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."  The very popular name by which Christmas is known; "Yule-day" proves at once its Pagan and Babylonian origin. 'Yule' is the Chaldee name for infant or little child. The 25th of December was called, by Pagan Anglo-Saxons, Yule Day or Child's Day and the night that preceded it, Mother-Night, long before they came in contact with Christianity.

It is believed that this day not only referred to the completion of the sun's yearly course and the commencement of a new cycle, but that it commemorated the birth-day of the Grand Deliverer. Among the Sabeans of Arabia, who regarded the moon and not the sun as the visible symbol of the favorite object of their idolatry, this was regarded as a birth festival. On the 24th of the tenth month" that is December according to our reckoning, "the Arabians celebrated the birthday of the lord...that is the moon.

Even where the sun was the favorite object of worship, as in Babylon itself and elsewhere, at this festival he was worshipped not merely as the orb of day, but as God incarnate. It was an essential principle of the Babylonian system, that the sun or Baal was the one God. There can be no doubt, that the pagan festival at the winter solstice, Christmas, was held in honor of the birth of the Babylonian Messiah. The next great festival was called Lady-day. It was celebrated at Rome on the 5th of March and is alleged to commemorate the miraculous conception of our Lord in the womb of the Virgin. This of course, no one could know. However, the 25th of March was observed in Pagan Rome in honor of Cybele, the mother of the Babylonian Messiah. There are exactly nine months between March 25, and December 25th. LADY DAY and Christmas day are purely Babylonian.