The Reason for the Season

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Hoping you all had a very merry winter solstice.

This is the real reason for this season which is between the 21st or 22nd of December but for those of you who use the Julian calendar (Roman winter solstice) it's the 25th of December.

This mid winter festival was the last feast festival before the leaner hard winter months, were most cattle was slaughtered so that they did not have to be fed through these lean months and when most of the fermented beers & wines were ready to drink.

Due to it's astronomical importance of the suns position in the sky its were the concept of birth and rebirth comes from and the concept of new year (Hogmanay).

Mythology followed with the creation of deitites such a Mirtha, Cronus, Sol, within my own Welsh mythology it was when Rhiannon gave birth to the sacred son, "Pryderi" (my surname is Prydderch) who was also born in a stable.

These festivals all revovled around the worship of the sun or a sun god, little wonder why the concept of the son of god was invented, that uses all of the myths amalgamated into one to form the basis of a world wide myth. Christmas?

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And, slaughtering animals at this time also meant free refrigeration thanks to Mother Nature providing plenty of cold temps, snow and ice, which I am sure encouraged them to slaughter so many at one time.

Only in the Northern Hemisphere.

ruveyn

Other places they just eat them straight away, No waiting around.

Ok, but this operates from a framework that ASSUMES that one religion (Christianity) assimilated other religions into its own. Monotheism vastly predates what we understand as paganism and Greco-Roman religion. If you read the Bible, you'll notice that while there is no explicit expression of a belief in multiple deities (although there was an awareness of polytheistic cultures), the writers do set the tone that IF mythical creatures exist or ever existed, it was God who created them (book of Job, for instance).

According to Biblical scripture, monotheism was the first religion and give rise to polytheism after mankind abandoned Yahweh worship. Same pattern repeats after the flood. If mankind spread out after Babylon, it makes sense that we'd take our religion with us. Thus polytheism would have grown independently according to region and language. It should come as no surprise that each ethnic and language group would retain elements of a globally common tradition, e.g. some of the things you mentioned. All Christianity does is put it right back into proper perspective that focuses on Yahweh and no one else.

Finally, early Christians were tasked with making the gospel accessible to every culture and society they encountered. If you want to celebrate spiritual renewal and rebirth at the winter solstice, great! Celebrate it. But understand that it is God and God alone who can provide spiritual renewal and new life. The birth of Jesus represents our hope for reconciliation with our Creator, so there is nothing wrong with celebrating the birth of Christ on the day we do. I wouldn't be surprised if some new converts from paganism back in the day even came up with the idea for the days of certain long-held Christian traditions.

Incidentally, there are some Christians and pseudo-Christians who just can't let go of the fact that the celebration of Christmas coincides with a pagan holiday. It's entirely possible (and even likely) that this is not the real birthday of Christ, but I just don't see how it matters. If celebrating on a certain day of the year troubles your conscience, don't do it. What disturbs me about Christmas is the hyper-commercialization of it and the pressures that come with it. Our kids got a few gifts, some board games for the whole family, and we ate a light but filling meal. No pressure. No freaking out. No traveling. No pain in the wallet. And above all we gave thanks to God, the REAL reason for the season.

According to "The Book of the Dead" written by the way, some 1200 years before the birth of Christianity, it tells the story of Horus who was born of a virgin, performed miracles, had 12 disciples, was crucified between two criminals and resurrected after 3 days, was known as "the messiah".

Many forms of mythology predate christianity by thousands of years but if you only get your information from one book you would be uneducated to such things.

clash of views in 3, 2, 1....

of course Prud is correct

After a quick Google Search, I have found the "Book of the Dead" is actually a Egyptian funeral procession booklet of how they embalm and prepare the dead for ascension. Horus is actually referring to Jesus. Horus is Jesus reincarnate, according to the Egyptians.
Is that what you are referring to?



You really enjoy instigating don't you. It just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside doesn't it?


Best Regards,

Jake

Well there's your problem.

The bible is wrong here. No debate required. It's plain and simple wrong. The Egyptian religion came before Christianity for one. As far as I know, nearly all of the ancient Middle Eastern religions were polytheistic, though I could be wrong there.

Do some research. Not in the bible, I mean real research, looking at facts instead of children's stories.

I didn't say Christianity. I said monotheism. And that goes back to God-only-knows when. If the Egyptian religion arose from a common tradition, then it only makes sense that messianic prophecies would have creeped in somewhere. It could very well be that the story of Horus was simply such a prophecy that had gotten slightly corrupted. We know that there are hints of the coming messiah all the way back in Genesis, so monotheism would have been well established long before Noah. Our best guess would place the pre-flood era some 3000 years prior to "The Book of the Dead." Archeological evidence suggests at least a regional flood in the Black Sea area 5000 B.C. or some time prior to that, so...I mean, you've got an immense period of human history during which monotheism was known and practiced. Monotheistic reverence for Yahweh, and not strictly under that name exclusively, as a primitive, original religion is more than simply plausible.

That does NOT mean that polytheism didn't exist, of course, nor does it mean that Yahweh worship wasn't obscured from time to time. Heck, Yahweh worship wasn't ever even consistently practiced after the conquest of Canaan and was at times tenuous prior to that during the wilderness period. So I'm well aware of other religions, but I highly doubt the idea, or really the likelihood, that monotheism is an amalgamation of multiple ancient polytheistic religions. In terms of Christianity as currently practiced, there is known assimilation of various cultural observances that serve to replace unacceptable pagan practices with acceptable ones, but never once are these mentioned as any kind of requirement in the Bible. Strictly speaking, much of that is a Catholic invention, and Catholicism doesn't speak for the whole of Christianity.

But what we're discussing are features of various religions. I can't discuss something that directly concerns the Bible without bringing the Bible into it.

And I'm aware that Egyptian religion predates Christianity, but I'm not talking exclusively about Christianity here.

I can't recall any other monotheistic religions of the near east or middle east. As far as I'm aware, Baal worship came pretty close. The Baals were more like patron gods attached to specific cities, and Baal Hadad was kind of like the king of all the gods. There's no denial of other gods here, so I don't really consider that to be monotheistic. And, too, the funny thing about Baal is in Ugaritic texts he is even pictured as subservient to El (also used in Hebrew scriptures as a reference to God). I have to wonder if painting El as approving of Baal was not just a device to encourage people to worship Baal. And besides that, El in Canaanite religion is depicted as the father of all the gods. In the Bible, "sons of God" are supernatural beings, but they are created beings and not to be worshiped as gods. The way I see it, Canaan and Mesopotamia derived their religion from the same sources as the earliest Hebrews. And we know that the Hebrews didn't have exclusive access to their religion since the priest Melchizedek (not related to Abraham) was a priest of--guess who?--El, specifically El Elyon.

Let's face it. Ancient near and middle easter religions loaned major elements from a common tradition that seems to have been a monotheistic religion.

Yeah...I just finished poking around on Google myself. Gerald Massey seems to have been one of the first "Christ myth" writers, and he sources the Book of the Dead. But from what I gather, support for his claims just aren't there and are grossly contradicted by other sources. My favorite claim is the virgin birth. Everyone knows that Horus was not a virgin birth. Osiris was killed, chopped into several pieces, and his penis was thrown into some body of water. Isis puts him back together, makes him a new pecker , they get it on, and out pops Horus. There's nothing virgin about it!

The most vocal contemporary Christ-myther seems to be Acharya S, but she frequently fails to support her claims...not to mention her claims are debunked so easily it's pathetic.

I'm almost sorry for saying it, but I have to liken mythers garbage to the kind of crap you get from conspiracy theorists.

Are you really saying what I think you're saying? That's just dumb.

Why would Jews speaking Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic have invented a story because "son" rhymes with "sun" in a language that didn't even exist at the time?

You are correct that it is a funeral text but to say it just shows how they embalm is massively understating it's importance in highlighting the beliefs held by the Eqyptians and their polytheistic religions.

I would like to know where in your google search you found a statement that "Horus is Jesus reincarnate, according to the Egyptians". No where in ancient Egyptian text does it make such a false claim, it talks of only Horus.

It seems that you have made this false claim to cling onto your idea of god and jesus when in reality they where invented after these times.

The thing is, though, mythers' claims are largely dated and unsubstantiated. Some mythers have made similar-sounding kinds of claims as NAKnight mentioned. You do well to distance yourself from conspiracy theorists.