Did anyone else know that this is controversial?
Monday, 24 December 2007
Christmas Disagreement
In spite of my total lack of religious knowledge, tonight I had an argument with someone (several people, actually) about the alleged date of Jesus' birth. I don't think I have ever heard anyone suggest it was any time other than the 25th of December, but now apparently the 24th of Dec has been thrown into the ring, and now that I look at Wikipedia I see that any time between October and January, or maybe May or August, is also arguable.
Did anyone else know that this is controversial?
Did anyone else know that this is controversial?
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8 comments:
Most of the religious holidays have nothing to do with when things may have actually happened.
The early Church leaders picked days in which people were already celebrating something in their previous religion (generally pagan) in order to make them more likely to want to celebrate this new religion.
Worked pretty well for them.
Yep; Christmas actually used to be some pagan winter festival in relation to the winter solstice. People believed that in this time of the year the ghosts of ancestors are very close to our world (winter storms were often interpreted as the passing of a ghost army). The thing with the christmas trees and the candles too is of pagan origin (some light festival I belive)...
Yeah, I know lots of christian religious stuff has non-christian roots and that over the centuries the church has written and rewritten everything according to their whims, but I didn't realise that there was disagreement about the date of the birth of Jesus. I mean, even if you don't accept it as the actual truth, I thought it was at least accepted as true enough to not argue about.
I can't believe Kim hasn't commented (ranted) on this.
In Germany they also celebrate Christmas on Christmas eve, which has served to confuse me no end. Christmas presents in the evening, Church in the evening, and everything going until the early hours of the morning. Craziness.
I was told last night that New Year's has also had a troubled and not-altogether-straight-forward history. Apparently (and no, I haven't actually been bothered to look this up or verify it in any way at all) using 1 January as the start of the New Year has only been tradition in Britain and America (and hence Australia) for the past 250 years. Anyone know anything else?
that sounds like a crock to me. my understanding is that january comes from "janus" - the mythical bloke who had two faces and so could look forward and back at the same time - hence the new year.
Steph - I had gotten a little behind in my reading over christmas.
Robyn - the very histriocity of Jesus is actually in doubt. So his birthday doubly so. http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm
And it's possible the confusion over new years day comes from the switch to the gregorian calendar from the julian one a few hundred years ago. Looks like New Year's was celebrated on Jan 1st, but the start of the legal year was March 25. And it was still that date in England til 1752 when they adopted the Gregorian calendar.
To quote wiki "Although England began its numbered year on March 25 (Lady Day) between the thirteenth century and 1752, January 1 was called New Year's Day, which was a holiday when gifts were exchanged."
"The Ancient Romans began their consular year on 1 January since 153 BC. During the Middle Ages under the influence of the Christian Church, many countries moved the start of the year to one of several important Christian festivals - 25 December (the Nativity of Jesus), 1 March, 25 March (the Annunciation), or even Easter"
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