THE DATE... DECEMBER 25TH? And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. -LUKE 2:8 Are we to assume the shepherds kept sheep outside in the Winter? Fact is, the sheep were brought in under cover before mid-October to protect them from the cold rainy season that would follow. Another fact is, the winter in the Judea is at the time characterized by cold, wet, rainy conditions!! Not conditions worthy of sheep. Nor will you find shepherds outside with their sheep this time of year. Therefore it would be impossible for them to actually see the Star in the Eastern sky because the Bible is plain here... And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. -Luke 2:8-11, The key part of this passage that can easily put down the assumption that Jesus was born on December 25th is, ...there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night... This would NOT have been done in the Winter! This is absolutely impossible! According to the information we have about Palestine, the flocks were let out in the pastures in the month of March, and brought back in November, when the rainy season began. This proves plainly that the flocks were not yet brought home from their pastures, when the angels visited the shepherds. Some have the idea that there is no winter in Palestine, but that is a mistake, because sometimes it is very cold there, so that the lives of both men and beasts are in danger of the cold rain and hail storms of the winter.-- Hornes Introduction, Vol.II, pp. 23,24. Concerning this, Adam Clarke makes the following remark in his commentary: It was a custom among the Jews to send out their sheep to the desert about the passover, and bring them home at the commencement of the first rain. [See also the book, The Two Babylons, pages 91,92. ] The first rain occured around the Jewish month of Cheshvan. That is around Oct, Nov. to us. So you see the flocks were BROUGHT IN well before Dec. 25! If everyone on planet Earth that claims Jesus as Lord would place their faith in Whatsoever saith the Lord we would have a LOT less Pagan activities being practiced by Christians. All too often people get offended easily by the truth that can expose the lies they have been embracing for years. But I say, stop! look! And listen! For you are not entirely at fault here. The devil is a cunning enemy, he has placed wolves in sheeps clothing before you masquerading as Christians, preachers, priests, and ministers to declare unto you the lie of Christmas. Why? So as to confuse the Truth that is held within the Word of God. And to get all the world under his control by partaking in activities of the Pagan. The twenty-fifth of December is supposed to be the day of the birth of Jesus Christ, and its observance has become customary and popular. But yet there is no certainty that we are keeping the veritable day of our Saviours birth. History gives us no certain assurance of this. The Bible does not give us the precise time. Had the Lord deemed this knowledge essential to our salvation, he would have spoken through his prophets and apostles, that we might know all about the matter. But the silence of the Scriptures upon this point evidences to us that it is hidden from us for the wisest purposes. In his wisdom, the Lord concealed the place where he buried Moses. God buried him, and God resurrected him, and took him to heaven. This secrecy was to prevent idolatry. -R&H 12-9-1884 For the very same purpose he has concealed the precise day of Christs birth; that the day should not receive the honour that should be given to Christ as the Redeemer of the world, - one to be received, to be trusted, to be relied on as he who could save to the uttermost all who come unto him. The souls adoration should be given to Jesus as the Son of the infinite God. There is no divine sanctity resting upon the twenty-fifth of December; and it is not pleasing to God that anything that concerns the salvation of man through the infinite sacrifice made for them, should be so sadly perverted from its professed design. Christ should be the supreme object; but as Christmas has been observed, the glory is turned from him to mortal man, whose sinful, defective character made it necessary for him to come to our world. -R&H 12-9-1884 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and mans device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. -ACTS 17:29-31 Even Christmas, the day observed professedly in honour of the birthday of Christ, has been made a most effective means of turning the mind away from Christ, away from his glory. -R&H 12-9-1890 Christmas: The supposed anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ, occurring on Dec. 25. No sufficient data … exist, for the determination of the month or the day of the event… There is no historical evidence that our Lord’s birthday was celebrated during the apostolic or early postapostolic times. The uncertainty that existed at the beginning of the third century in the minds of Hippolytus and others—Hippolytus earlier favored Jan. 2, Clement of Alexanderia (Strom., i. 21) the 25th day of Pachon (= May 20), while others, according to Clement, fixed upon Apr. 18 or 19 and Mar. 28—proves that no Christmas festival had been established much before the middle of the century. Jan. 6 was earlier fixed upon as the date of the baptism or spiritual birth of Christ, and the feast of Epiphany … was celebrated by the Basilidian Gnostics in the second century … and by catholic Christians by about the beginning of the fourth century. The earliest record of the recognition of Dec. 25 as a church festival is in the Philocalian Calendar (copied 354 but representing Roman practise in 336). -A. H. Newman, Christmas, The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. 3, p. 47. Copyright 1909 by Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York A star cult, sun-worship, became (in the third century A.D.) the dominant official creed, paving the road for the ultimate triumph of Judaeo-Christian monotheism. So strong was the belief in the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus) that for example Constantine I (d. 337), himself at first a devotee of the sun cult, found it, indeed perfectly compatible with his pro-Christian sympathies to authorize his own portrayal as Helios. And in 354 the ascendant Christian church in the reign of his pious but unsavory son, Constantius II, found it prudent to change the celebration of the birth of Jesus from the traditional date (January 6) to December 25, in order to combat the pagan Sun god’s popularity—his birthday being December 25. -Frederick H. Cramer, Astrology in Roman Law and Politics, p. 4. Copyright 1954 by the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. The reasons for celebrating our major feasts when we do are many and varied. In general, however, it is true that many of them have at least an indirect connection with the pre-Christian feasts celebrated about the same time of year — feasts centering around the harvest, the rebirth of the sun at the winter solstice (now Dec. 21, but Dec. 25 in the old Julian calendar), the renewal of nature in spring, and so on. -The New Question Box - Catholic Life for the Nineties, copyright 1988 by John J. Dietzen, M.A., S.T.L., ISBN 0-940518-01-5 (paperback), published by Guildhall Publishers, Peoria Illinois, 61651., page 554.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 12:17:04 +0000
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