They are not Christians!

[eider]

Ah, OK.
I believe in angels and demons.
Demons are, basically, disembodied spirits.

There you are.......... spirits.
Now you're only a step away from just .....spirits.

You never find an angel trying to take over a human (or animal) body, but demons do.

How do you know that?

[eider]

Rogue has a bit of a thing about the origins of Christmas.

You will see from his reply that there is not a single reference to any academics. Only Church Fathers and a note with no reference whatsoever!

Church Fathers can be recognised as academics, mostly.
I think that @rogue said that he wrote that piece himself; I had asked him 'who wrote it'.

To be fair I don't follow too many academics, certainly not in connection with HJ studies...... but maybe Geza Vermes influenced me most.
If a person wants to do the searches for themselves, and present the findings themselves, then that's fine by me. It's the professor flag wavers who get me, they sort through their blooming box for the flag to wave in support of this point, then another flag for that point, but if all the flags are placed side by side they all dispute each other. Flag wavers irritate me a bit.

[Cow Poke]

There you are.......... spirits.
Now you're only a step away from just .....spirits.

Not really - there are clearly two divisions.

How do you know that?

I thought "according to the Bible" would be understood.
So, "according to the Bible".

[rogue06]

Rogue has a bit of a thing about the origins of Christmas.

You will see from his reply that there is not a single reference to any academics. Only Church Fathers and a note with no reference whatsoever!

As someone once said

This is hardly a scholarly exchange! One might opine the cuckoos are calling late this year!

I make no pretenses that this was an academic work, nor do I like some here, pretend to be an academic historian (although for about a week you claimed to be an anthropologist instead), but I do note that you have never even attempted to dispute much less refute a single line -- that is not counting your initial attempt to dismiss it as ridiculous despite having never bothered to even look at it^[1]




1. I provided you with a link to the post where I wrote it and then looked at the views counter. It had not changed when you summarily hand waved it away conclusively demonstrating that you offered your "expert" opinion on it without ever bothering to even look at it. Sort of like what you do with the Bible -- never actually read what you've spent years criticizing.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

As someone once said

I make no pretenses that this was an academic work, nor do I like some here, pretend to be an academic historian (although for about a week you claimed to be an anthropologist instead), but I do note that you have never even attempted to dispute much less refute a single line -- that is not counting your initial attempt to dismiss it as ridiculous despite having never bothered to even look at it^[1]




1. I provided you with a link to the post where I wrote it and then looked at the views counter. It had not changed when you summarily hand waved it away conclusively demonstrating that you offered your "expert" opinion on it without ever bothering to even look at it. Sort of like what you do with the Bible -- never actually read what you've spent years criticizing.

I was not referring to your prose but the fact that you cite not one academic.

[tabibito]

Rogue has a bit of a thing about the origins of Christmas.

You will see from his reply that there is not a single reference to any academics. Only Church Fathers and a note with no reference whatsoever!

Saturnalia was originally a one day celebration held on the 15th December, a fortnight before the end of the month. Julius Caesar added two days to the month, so there was a split between those who held to the tradition of the fifteenth, and those who held to the tradition of a fortnight before the end of the month (17th). Soon enough, it became a three day celebration, and then a week long festival. Fact remains - the day of Saturnalia was at least a week before Christmas.


Rogue's exposition of how the church developed the tradition of the 25th is plenty good enough - the primary sources don't make any mention, and give no indication, of outside influences being in play.

[rogue06]

I was not referring to your prose but the fact that you cite not one academic.

Since this appears to be so important to you all of a sudden, maybe you should start providing some scholarly resources who continue to support your various Jesus mythicism claims you've been spouting for the past several days. Not something from a popular press book or article, but scholars interacting with other scholars and doing actual academic research.

It should be interesting to see what you turn up (or what excuses you use for not doing so) given that your views have largely been abandoned wholesale among serious academics (but still get plenty of play in the popular press).

[tabibito]

Since this appears to be so important to you all of a sudden, maybe you should start providing some scholarly resources who continue to support your various Jesus mythicism claims you've been spouting for the past several days. Not something from a popular press book or article, but scholars interacting with other scholars and doing actual academic research.

It should be interesting to see what you turn up (or what excuses you use for not doing so) given that your views have largely been abandoned wholesale among serious academics (but still get plenty of play in the popular press).

Your posts are supposed to be essays of not less than 3000 words, in which you engage with and cite the various alternative opinions relevant to the topic at hand, and including a proper introduction and conclusion.

[rogue06]

Your posts are supposed to be essays of not less than 3000 words, in which you engage with and cite the various alternative opinions relevant to the topic at hand, and including a proper introduction and conclusion.

I receive a good deal of grief for those from some quarters.

[tabibito]

I receive a good deal of grief for those from some quarters.

Let me guess ... you are then accused of writing a polemic.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Saturnalia was originally a one day celebration held on the 15th December, a fortnight before the end of the month. Julius Caesar added two days to the month, so there was a split between those who held to the tradition of the fifteenth, and those who held to the tradition of a fortnight before the end of the month (17th). Soon enough, it became a three day celebration, and then a week long festival. Fact remains - the day of Saturnalia was at least a week before Christmas.

Not according to Paul Maier

The Romans of the time not only celebrated their Saturnalia festival at the close of December, but they also thought that December 25 marked the date of the winter solstice [instead of December 21], when they observed the pagan feast of Sol Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun, which was just in the act of turning about to aim northward once again.

Then there was the feast of Poseidon which was widely celebrated at the beginning of winter, mostly in the second quarter of Poseideon the month named after that festival, which at Athens and elsewhere corresponded to December/January.

And this re the Calculation Theory [CT].

The best-developed elaboration of CT to have been presented thus far is due to Thomas J. Talley and his 1986-monograph Origins of the Liturgical Year. Building on previous efforts by scholars such as Louis Duchesne [1889] and Hieronymus Engberding [1952] Talley essentially holds that Christmas on December 25 was derived from the day of Christ's Passion, for which commemorative dates in the Julian calendar had already been established in the late-second or early-third centuries. Assuming that Christ spent a perfect number of years in the flesh, Christian scholars established a chronological parallelism between the conception in Mary's womb [Annunciation] and his death on the cross, which were both assigned to March 25, the Roman day of the vernal equinox. In a further step, they added a schematically round number of nine months to the date of Jesus' conception to arrive at his birth on the day of the winter solstice, December 25. ...The attractiveness of CT relies in its simplicity, that is, in the way it presents the dating of the nativity as the natural outcome of an evolving process of thought about the chronology of Jesus' life and its interconnections with the cardinal points on the Julian calendar. Its downside consists chiefly in the fact that it rests on suppositions that find no direct confirmation from contemporary sources. [see C. P. E. Nothaft, "The Origins of the Christmas Date: Some Recent Trends in Historical Research", Church History, December 2012, Vol.81 [No. 4] pp. 903-911]

Nothaft ends his paper with:

Indeed, one of the most encouraging trends in recent research on Christmas's history is its critical stance towards sweeping narratives and a readiness to consider explanations that are more multi-faceted and to accept a more diverse range of factors than has previously been the case. Whether we will eventually be treated to a definitive account on this basis, ultimately depends on the ability of future scholars to order the existing tangle of terse and often conflicting sources in new and creative ways

In the second century Clement of Alexandria dismissed speculations [referring to them as superstitions] that placed the date of the birth of the Christ on 19 April of 20 May . He considered the birth date to be 17 November. Other dates included 28 March and 2 April but not 25 December.

[rogue06]

Let me guess ... you are then accused of writing a polemic.

tl/dr and wall of text were typical, but my favorite were those who would claim my providing numerous citations amounted to quote mining clearly demonstrating they didn't understand the term but just knew enough that it's bad to hurl it as an accusation.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Since this appears to be so important to you all of a sudden, maybe you should start providing some scholarly resources who continue to support your various Jesus mythicism claims you've been spouting for the past several days. Not something from a popular press book or article, but scholars interacting with other scholars and doing actual academic research.

It should be interesting to see what you turn up (or what excuses you use for not doing so) given that your views have largely been abandoned wholesale among serious academics (but still get plenty of play in the popular press).

As I have never contended that a figure that we now refer to as Jesus of Nazareth never existed, your short term memory problem appears to be in evidence yet again.

[rogue06]

Not according to Paul Maier

The Romans of the time not only celebrated their Saturnalia festival at the close of December, but they also thought that December 25 marked the date of the winter solstice [instead of December 21], when they observed the pagan feast of Sol Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun, which was just in the act of turning about to aim northward once again.

I'm surprised that Maier would think that the Romans were too ignorant to make an accurate calculation given that figuring these out appears to be fairly common among Neolithic civilizations.

Initially, it was celebrated in mid December on the 17th of the month and got expanded to a week long celebration by Cicero's time lasting through the 23rd (although, IIRC, Augustine would reduce it to three days but later Caligula expanded it to five). So even if the Romans were somehow confused that still isn't the 25th.

Further, I'd challenge you to find anything in the riotous celebration that was this festival, that you could say that the early Christians copied. As the Greco-Roman poet Publius Papinius Statius said

Who can sing of the spectacle, the unrestrained mirth, the banqueting, the unbought feast, the lavish streams of wine? Ah! now I faint, and drunken with thy liquor drag myself at last to sleep

Come to think of it, that does sound like some family traditions I'm familiar with.

[rogue06]

As I have never contended that a figure that we now refer to as Jesus of Nazareth never existed, your short term memory problem appears to be in evidence yet again.

Jesus Mythicism isn't just the concept that He never existed. It also includes the idea that Christianity borrowed everything from pagan sources. The latter is what you promote.