D.M. Murdock made CNN. I wish the History Channel would scrap Ancient Aliens and give her a TV Show to make her work (and that of other mythicists) more widely known. In fact, midwinter festivals, including Saturnalia and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, were broadly celebrated in ancient Rome. In ancient Egypt, there was a festival that marked the birth of a child sun-god, Horus, whose mother (called Isis) was a virgin. Indeed, this child was laid in a manger, one of many similarities with the Christmas story. Scholars have been all over this, going back to one of the earliest Christian writers, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, who noted the similarities. (The details of this connection will be found in a recent book by Barbara G. Walker and D.M. Murdock, Man Made God: A Collection of Essays.) There is just no doubt that ancient cultures felt a strong need to proclaim the season of a new sun, the start of the fresh agricultural and astrological season that signaled hope in the bleak midwinter, as the beautiful Christian hymn puts it well.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 15:50:36 +0000
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