Christmas, as everybody knows, is not the birthday of Christ. He was not born in the middle of Winter, we know that for sure because the sheep were out in the fields. It would have been very cold at night in the hills of Judea and it has always been the practice of shepherds in that area, not to keep sheep in the fields after about the end of October. It is also extremely unlikely that Herod would have ordered people to travel to their home towns for registration in the middle of Winter. He was actually born at the festival of Succot (Tabernacles) as I have described in my article on the Birth of Yeshua. The date would have been important to the Jews for the purpose of recording genealogies, and the authors of the New Testament were obviously interested in the circumstances of the event, but they didnt celebrate birthdays because it was not their custom to do so. It has never been a traditional Jewish custom, except insofar as they have picked up the idea from the Gentiles. So why do we celebrate Christmas on 25th December? Some people say its as good a time as any, and it doesnt really matter when Jesus was born as long as we celebrate his birth at some time. But if we are going to celebrate the birthday of Jesus on December 25th, we need to know the reason why we do it on that day because its also the traditional birthdays of Nimrod, Osiris, Jupiter, and various other representations of the child-god of the Babylonian religious system. Nimrod To understand the history of the child-god, we have to begin with Genesis 10:8-10. And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. The Bible does not identify Nimrods mother, or his date of birth, but Egyptian and Babylonian antiquities identify his mother as Semiramis, and his birthday is celebrated on 25th December. Sometimes Semiramis is referred to as the mother of Nimrod, and sometimes as his wife, leading to the belief that Nimrod married his mother. The Biblical reference to Nimrod as a mighty hunter is important because he was seen as the Saviour of the ancient world for that very reason. People were living in small, scattered villages with little protection from wild animals. Nimrod was more than just a hunter, he was also a charismatic figure who could gather people together to build walled cities where they could live in safety. They were obedient to him as their leader, and considered that their loss of independence was a price worth paying for the safety that Nimrod and his kingdom offered. There is nothing in the Bible about the death of Nimrod, but the ancient traditions suggest that he died a violent death. One tradition says that he was killed by a wild animal. Another says that Shem killed him because he had led the people into the worship of Baal. His wife-mother, Semiramis, who had risen to greatness on his account, was not going to disappear into obscurity because of his death. Instead she pronounced him to be a god, so that she herself became a goddess. She produced another son, and proclaimed him to be the resurrected Nimrod. This was not difficult, because she was so promiscuous she produced many children whose father could not be identified. She proclaimed that she had gone down to the world of the dead, rescued Nimrod and brought him back. Thus began the worship of Semiramis and the child-god, and the whole paraphanalia of the Babylonian religious system. Egyptians, Romans and Greeks After the decline of Babylon, the religion was transported to Egypt where they worshipped Isis and her husband Osiris who was mysteriously able to give the seed of procreation even after death, so that the child-god Horus was born. The mother and child deities appeared again in Pagan Rome as Fortuna and Jupiter, and in Greece as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, or as Irene, the goddess of Peace, with the boy Plutus in her arms. The myths of death and rebirth have always been associated with the cycle of agricultural seasons. In Egypt it was the inundation of the Nile, but elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere which constitutes most of the Earths land mass, it was about the death and rebirth of the Sun. The winter solstice used to be on 25 December and people have always held a festival at that time because they knew that the days would start to get longer (a matter of great importance when there was no electric lights and no imported foods, etc.) Idolatry in the Church The Roman Catholic Church, in their attempt to make converts from among the pagans, felt that they had to find a way to indentify culturally with them. They had the Biblical story of the miraculous virgin birth of Christ, so they decided it must have happened on 25 December and the pagans were invited to come to church and worship him. Thus there was a position of ambiguity, where some people might have genuinely converted to Christianity while others turned up just to indulge in the latest religious innovation. It was equivalent to the inclusion of Jesus in the Roman pantheon of the gods, a matter which the early church had firmly resisted at the cost of the death of many martyrs. Thus the Roman Catholic Church established the Madonna and child as the latest manifestation of the Queen of Heaven and her son. The Pagans made no compromises, they didnt need to, they just came and worshipped their new deities because it fitted in nicely with what they already believed. While its easy to knock the Catholic Church because of their Maryolatry, the Protestants cannot be left off the hook. The Protestant Reformation dispensed with only a part of the Babylonian system of worship. The celebration of Christmas, inherited from the Roman Catholic Church, via Pagan Rome, via Egypt, via Babylon, is still practiced as the most important event in the Protestant Christian calendar, so from that point of view the Protestants are into as much ambiguity as the Catholics. So what should we do about it? The Bible tells us: ...Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen .... Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. (Rev. 18:2-4). It says Come out of her, MY people, meaning the people who are supposed to come out are people who belong to God, i.e. born-again Bible-believing Christians. The Christmas Tree It seems a strange thing to do, cutting down a tree from the forest and putting it in your house, deprived of nourishment because the roots have been cut off. If I wanted to look at a tree I would go into the forest where there are thousands of them, growing taller and more majestic with each passing year, testifying to the glory of Gods creation. The Christmas tree is based on mythology that originated in Babylon. For those who do it in the traditional manner, the Yule Log is thrown onto the fire on Christmas Eve, representing death and destruction. Then on Christmas Day there is the tree, covered in decorations and surrounded with presents, representing new life, the resurrected Nimrod. It is also a violation of Jeremiah 10:2-5 where it is denounced as a heathen idol: Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. Are you going to have a Christmas tree in your church this year? Are you going to have one in your house? Are you going to give presents to each other on 25th December in the ambiguous veneration of a multitude of gods, and have you thought of other things you can do that will keep the children happy on that day?
Posted on: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 03:59:08 +0000
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