When was christ born?

[bilko2]

Seeing as weve just had christmas most would say December 25th in the year 0 right?
Apparently not. Jesus Christ may have been born in 3 or 4 BC and all indications say that it was not in winter. Infact the date of December 25th was chosen by.....

"Pope Liberius in 354 and became the rule in the West in 435 when the first "Christ mass" was officiated by Pope Sixtus III. This coincided with the date of a celebration by the Romans to their primary god, the Sun, and to Mithras, a popular Persian sun god supposedly born on the same day. The Roman Catholic writer Mario Righetti candidly admits that, "to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, the Church of Rome found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the birth of Christ to divert them from the pagan feast, celebrated on the same day in honor of the 'Invincible Sun' Mithras, the conqueror of darkness" (Manual of Liturgical History, 1955, Vol. 2, p. 67). "

www.ucgstp.org/lit/gn/gn008/gn008f03.htm

Wonder what it would be like living in year 1 and who can work out which year had two christmasses from the above link?
More to the point, why do we still celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25th?

[TheLemming]

There are thos who would contend that he didnt exist at all, with there being little other than anecdotal evidence written after the time of his life.

Several iirc benedictine monks claimed to have worked out from biblical references whtat he was born in AD600ish.


The answers to all of those questions are either:

1 - Because thats what I believe

or

2 - The minimal evidence I've scraped together could indicate that.... (insert answer here).

[rude girl]

bilko2 said:

More to the point, why do we still celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25th?

It was done to help convert pagans. Something to look forward to in the middle of winter. I'm sure I read something this year that claimed the birth of Christ was sometime around March (something to do with the shepherds being in the fields, when in Bethlehem in December the sheep would be brought down to the village???).

If they hadn't shifted it about a bit and hijacked pagan customs, do you think they'd ever have got Christianity to stick in the Northern countries? I know that I always breathe a sigh of relief after 21 December has gone by and the nights start to draw out a bit. I bloody hate long nights. Mistletoe, feasting, yule logs,getting tiddly and goodwill to all men at the winter solstice all belonged to Pagans first - I could be drawn to that you know...

[mybrainhurts]

You mean we've been conned......whatever next?

[rude girl]

mybrainhurts said:

You mean we've been conned......whatever next?

The Labour Party are not really the party of the people...

sorry love

[Bob the Planner]

Has something to do with the change from the julian to gregorian calandar too. I thought that the calendar change moved the celebration from 1 Jan 0000 to what would now be March -0006. There was a move in the 14C to move from 21st Dec as it was a pagan festival to a different date (25th)

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

..and leap years aren't every four years............

[Balmoral Green]

Bob the Planner said:

Has something to do with the change from the julian to gregorian calandar too. I thought that the calendar change moved the celebration from 1 Jan 0000 to what would now be March -0006. There was a move in the 14C to move from 21st Dec as it was a pagan festival to a different date (25th)

The change of calender only changed the date by a small amount, which is why many religions celebrate the birth of Christ on the 6th of January. Funny how in the interests of accuracy these religions were quite happy to adjust/compensate from what was a hugely erroneous position in the 1st place.