Merry Christmas! 2015

[hisaronu]

Merry Christmas

Have a wonderful time everyone from little ole me in England

 

[tonka]

Just got back from Christmas dinner at my cousins south of Boston. Grand people.

I've known my cousin's husband for 45 years, but found out only today that his family comes from the same little Irish town as my grandmother. Skibereen.
I knew I always liked him. Now I know why!

 

[gerunc]

to all the nice people. Merry Chrismas from germany and all the best for 2016

 

[hanstop]

Merry Christmas to everyone!

 

[W!nston]

Why is Christmas on Dec. 25?

Why is Christmas on Dec. 25? A brief history lesson that may surprise you.
Washington Post | By Valerie Strauss | December 25 at 10:08 AM

Christmas is on Dec. 25, but it wasn’t always.

Dec. 25 is not the date mentioned in the Bible as the day of Jesus’s birth; the Bible is actually silent on the day or the time of year when Mary was said to have given birth to him in Bethlehem. The earliest Christians did not celebrate his birth.

As a result, there are a number of different accounts as to how and when Dec. 25 became known as Jesus’s birthday.

By most accounts, the birth was first thought — in around 200 A.D. — to have taken place on Jan. 6. Why? Nobody knows, but it may have been the result of “a calculation based on an assumed date of crucifixion of April 6 coupled with the ancient belief that prophets died on the same day as their conception,” according to religionfacts.com. By the mid-fourth century, the birthday celebration had been moved to Dec. 25. Who made the decision? Some accounts say it was the pope; others say it wasn’t.

One of the prevalent theories on why Christmas is celebrated on Dec. 25 was spelled out in “The Golden Bough,” a highly influential 19th-century comparative study of religion and mythology written by the anthropologist James George Frazer and originally published in 1890. (The first edition was titled “The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion”; the second edition was called “The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion.” By the third printing, in the early 20th century, it was published in 12 volumes, though there are abridged one-volume versions.)

Frazer approached the topic of religion from a cultural — not theological — perspective, and he linked the dating of Christmas to earlier pagan rituals. Here’s what the 1922 edition of the “The Golden Bough” says about the origins of Christmas, as published on Bartleby.com:

An instructive relic of the long struggle is preserved in our festival of Christmas, which the Church seems to have borrowed directly from its heathen rival. In the Julian calendar the twenty-fifth of December was reckoned the winter solstice, and it was regarded as the Nativity of the Sun, because the day begins to lengthen and the power of the sun to increase from that turning-point of the year. The ritual of the nativity, as it appears to have been celebrated in Syria and Egypt, was remarkable. The celebrants retired into certain inner shrines, from which at midnight they issued with a loud cry, “The Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing!” The Egyptians even represented the new-born sun by the image of an infant which on his birthday, the winter solstice, they brought forth and exhibited to his worshippers. No doubt the Virgin who thus conceived and bore a son on the twenty-fifth of December was the great Oriental goddess whom the Semites called the Heavenly Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess; in Semitic lands she was a form of Astarte. Now Mithra was regularly identified by his worshippers with the Sun, the Unconquered Sun, as they called him; hence his nativity also fell on the twenty-fifth of December. The Gospels say nothing as to the day of Christ’s birth, and accordingly the early Church did not celebrate it. In time, however, the Christians of Egypt came to regard the sixth of January as the date of the Nativity, and the custom of commemorating the birth of the Saviour on that day gradually spread until by the fourth century it was universally established in the East. But at the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century the Western Church, which had never recognised the sixth of January as the day of the Nativity, adopted the twenty-fifth of December as the true date, and in time its decision was accepted also by the Eastern Church. At Antioch the change was not introduced till about the year 375 A.D.

What considerations led the ecclesiastical authorities to institute the festival of Christmas? The motives for the innovation are stated with great frankness by a Syrian writer, himself a Christian. “The reason,” he tells us, “why the fathers transferred the celebration of the sixth of January to the twenty-fifth of December was this. It was a custom of the heathen to celebrate on the same twenty-fifth of December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and festivities the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day and the festival of the Epiphany on the sixth of January. Accordingly, along with this custom, the practice has prevailed of kindling fires till the sixth.” The heathen origin of Christmas is plainly hinted at, if not tacitly admitted, by Augustine when he exhorts his Christian brethren not to celebrate that solemn day like the heathen on account of the sun, but on account of him who made the sun. In like manner Leo the Great rebuked the pestilent belief that Christmas was solemnised because of the birth of the new sun, as it was called, and not because of the nativity of Christ.

Thus it appears that the Christian Church chose to celebrate the birthday of its Founder on the twenty-fifth of December in order to transfer the devotion of the heathen from the Sun to him who was called the Sun of Righteousness….

Yet an account titled “How December 25 Became Christmas” on the Biblical Archaeology Society’s Web site takes some issue with this theory:

Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. It is not found in any ancient Christian writings, for one thing. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth: The church father Ambrose (c. 339–397), for example, described Christ as the true sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order. But early Christian writers never hint at any recent calendrical engineering; they clearly don’t think the date was chosen by the church. Rather they see the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods.

Furthermore, it says, the first mentions of a date for Christmas, around 200 A.D., were made at a time when “Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character.” It was in the 12th century, it says, that the first link between the date of Jesus’s birth and pagan feasts was made.

It says in part:

Clearly there was great uncertainty, but also a considerable amount of interest, in dating Jesus’ birth in the late second century. By the fourth century, however, we find references to two dates that were widely recognized — and now also celebrated — as Jesus’ birthday: December 25 in the western Roman Empire and January 6 in the East (especially in Egypt and Asia Minor). The modern Armenian church continues to celebrate Christmas on January 6; for most Christians, however, December 25 would prevail, while January 6 eventually came to be known as the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem. The period between became the holiday season later known as the 12 days of Christmas.

The earliest mention of December 25 as Jesus’ birthday comes from a mid-fourth-century Roman almanac that lists the death dates of various Christian bishops and martyrs. The first date listed, December 25, is marked: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae: “Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea … ” So, almost 300 years after Jesus was born, we finally find people observing his birth in mid-winter.”

Bottom line: Nobody knows for sure why Dec. 25 is celebrated as Christmas.

—-

Here’s a little more history, this on the non-religious figure of Santa Claus. According to the St. Nicholas Center (whose Web site has a subtitle: “Discovering the Truth About Santa Claus”), the character known today as Santa originated with a man named Nicholas said to have been born in the third century A.D. in the village of Patara, then Greek and now Turkish. It is said his parents died when he was young and that the religious Nicholas, who was raised by his uncle, was left a fortune. Ordained as a priest, he used his money to help others and become a protector of children, performing miracles to help them. He was, the center says, persecuted by Roman Emperor Diocletian and buried in 343 A.D. in a church, where a substance with healing powers, called manna, formed in his grave. The day of his death, Dec. 6, became a day of celebration.

How did this man seen as a saint become Santa Claus, the one with the red suit and white beard? The St. Nicholas Center says Europeans honored him as a saint over the centuries, while St. Nicholas was brought to the New World by Columbus, who named a Haitian port for him in 1492. According to the center:

After the American Revolution, New Yorkers remembered with pride their colony’s nearly-forgotten Dutch roots. John Pintard, the influential patriot and antiquarian who founded the New York Historical Society in 1804, promoted St. Nicholas as patron saint of both society and city. In January 1809, Washington Irving joined the society and on St. Nicholas Day that same year, he published the satirical fiction, Knickerbocker’s History of New York, with numerous references to a jolly St. Nicholas character. This was not the saintly bishop, rather an elfin Dutch burgher with a clay pipe. These delightful flights of imagination are the source of the New Amsterdam St. Nicholas legends: that the first Dutch emigrant ship had a figurehead of St. Nicholas; that St. Nicholas Day was observed in the colony; that the first church was dedicated to him; and that St. Nicholas comes down chimneys to bring gifts. Irving’s work was regarded as the “first notable work of imagination in the New World.”

The New York Historical Society held its first St. Nicholas anniversary dinner on December 6, 1810. John Pintard commissioned artist Alexander Anderson to create the first American image of Nicholas for the occasion. Nicholas was shown in a gift-giving role with children’s treats in stockings hanging at a fireplace. The accompanying poem ends, “Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend! To serve you ever was my end, If you will, now, me something give, I’ll serve you ever while I live.”

….1821 brought some new elements with publication of the first lithographed book in America, the Children’s Friend. This “Sante Claus” arrived from the North in a sleigh with a flying reindeer. The anonymous poem and illustrations proved pivotal in shifting imagery away from a saintly bishop. Sante Claus fit a didactic mode, rewarding good behavior and punishing bad, leaving a “long, black birchen rod . . . directs a Parent’s hand to use when virtue’s path his sons refuse.” Gifts were safe toys, “pretty doll . . . peg-top, or a ball; no crackers, cannons, squibs, or rockets to blow their eyes up, or their pockets. No drums to stun their Mother’s ear, nor swords to make their sisters fear; but pretty books to store their mind with knowledge of each various kind.” The sleigh itself even sported a bookshelf for the “pretty books.” The book also notably marked S. Claus’ first appearance on Christmas Eve, rather than December 6th.

Then, in 1823, the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” later known as “The Night Before Christmas,” became popular, and the modern version of the plump Santa started to become established, what his sleigh led by reindeer and the chimney as his delivery system. By the 1920s, a jolly red-suited Santa was depicted in drawings of Norman Rockwell and other illustrators, and by the 1950s, he was portrayed as a gentle gift-giving character. That Santa became the one kids in the United States and other parts of the world know today, though in many other countries, St. Nicholas — not Santa — is still celebrated, as well.

Was Nicholas real? The bottom line from the Web site on Santa:

Some say St. Nicholas existed only in legend, without any reliable historical record. Legends usually do grow out of real, actual events, though they may be embellished to make more interesting stories. Many of the St. Nicholas stories seem to be truth interwoven with imagination. However, [certain] facts of the life of St. Nicholas could contain some part of historical truth. They provide a clear sense of his personal characteristics which are further elaborated in other narratives.

So there you have it. Some history of Christmas you may not have known before. If you made it this far, now you do.

SOURCE

The more you know ...

 

[peter123]

last Christmas evening 2015 p

 

[Shelter]

Thank you Peter for this wonderful and atmospheric clip. Many people don't like Helene - I do it and that so much!

 

[gorgik9]

I wanted to make a small series of two very different posts.

First it's Alphonse Adam's Cantique de noel (better known in the anglophone world as O Holy Night), but the important thing to me is that it's sung by the - next to Enrico Caruso - greatest male voice in the 20th century, Swedish tenor Jussi Björling (1911-1960).



I start crying ever single time I listen to this recording.

I know, I know I should have posted it before christmas, but I'm the hopeless Johnny-came-lately...

:heart::heart::heart::heart::heart:

 

[Shelter]

Hi Gorgik, I will tell you what just happened. I opened GH and I found your clip from Jussi Björling. I started it and turned it very loud. My boyfriend was in his room working. Suddenly he was beside me, very silent and his eyes wet. He is a great classic fan and he knows Jussi Björling from some records he has. So we were sitting here in front of the PC and listened to this wonderful voice and were watching these great winter pics.

And in the end, he gave me a big hug and a wonderful kiss. One of these kisses you never will forget!

Gorgik you made my day - or better our day! Thank you.

 

[gorgik9]

Why Christmas on the 25 December ?

My next post in this small series is a piece on why Christmas is on 25 December, though based on much more moderern scholarship than Valerie Strauss Washington Post-article, posted in this thread by Sniffit.

Strauss is mostly basing her article on James George Frazer's famous book "The Golden Bough", which makes up scholarship more than 100 years old...

Let's start with making some basic things very clear: our interest in the date and other things concerning Christmas is a relatively modern interest, not at all an interest enjoyed by early ancient Christians.

St. Francis of Assisi and the Jewish Apocalyptic preacher Yehoshua bint Mariam ben Yussuf from Nazareth.
ietro
We know pretty well when the Christmas-centered Christianity we're used to started emerging and who made it come along: His name was Francesco Pietro di Bernardone, better known to us as St. Francis of Assisi, 1182-1226. St. Francis is credited with to have staged the very first ever nativity scene / Christmas crib in 1223, and you could say that without St Francis no JS Bach's Christmas Oratorium, no O Holy Night, no J.C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, Walt Disney and no making the Yuletide Gay...

Before the high middle ages - in late antiquity and early middle ages - Christianity was centered on Easter, not on Christmas. The basic human difference between Christmas and Easter is that Christmas is about what every living kiddo and every kiddo who has ever lived experiences - being born by a mother.

Easter is about the unique founding event of Christianity - that Jesus / Yehoshua of Nazareth is said to have been execute on the cross by Pontius Pilate but was risen from the dead. Without the belief that Jesus was resurrected there can be no Christianity. It's as simple as that.

Why early Christianity was so uninterested in Jesus birthsday.

There are even more fundamental reasons why the early Christians cared nothing about the birthsday of Jesus. Let's for a moment take a slightly different track: What was Jesus? Well he was a Jewish apocalyptic preacher, just like John the Baptist before him and Paul of Tarsus after him.

The basic message of any apocalyptic preaching will be that the powers of Light and Darkness (God vs Satan, if you prefer) will soon start their big cosmic catfight, the present order of the world will be demolished and overthrown by God, and the people who've had the good sense to side with God will be taken up into his Divine Kingdom while the rabble rest will - literally - go to hell.

The key is to realize that everything will happen soon, very soon: Go and read the letters of Paul in the NT and see for yourself! So if you're a serious believer in the message that the world will end very soon, do you then think finding out when an already dead - though resurrected and, hence, alive again - person had his birthsday will seem terribly important?

I surely don't think so. I think it would seem utterly unimportant.

The apocalypt message started fading more and more from the late second century on, and to in the 4th and 5th century more and more church leaders (most notably bishop Augustin of Hippo) started arguing that no one could predict the time when the Lord would have his second coming - and anyone who tried would come close to heresy.

I think that among the more important reasons why the apocalypt message started fading and getting less popular was the very basic fact, that the christian churches started changing from just small groups of christian believers to a powerful hierarchical institution, and the radical completion of this historical process was when the Roman Emperor Constantin and his mother, the Widow Empress Helena, conversed to christianity in the early 4th century and christianity became one of the religio licita of the Roman empire (one of the legally allowed religions). In the 380s - about 70 years after Constantin's conversion - Catholic Christianity became the only legal religion of the Roman empire.

Constantin fundamentally changed Christianity AND the Roman world.

Some consequences of Constantins conversion.

When not only the emperor and his family but also the entire imperial administration and authorities started converting, among the more important changes was to construct a christian calender. The old Julian calender could be used as the sumbolic infrastructure, but the christian leaders had to bring the new content of all the holidays and festivals for the christian saints into the slots of the calender. So it's now in the 4th century it starts to get the right time to give Jesus his birthsday...

Another very important symbolic change in the 4th and 5th century was establishing the practical definition of what a christian church be to be considered a true christian church.

Constantin and his mother Helena had started building very impressive buildings in Rome and Jerusalem and started donating these magnificent houses to the bishops, but something more was needed to make an ever so splendid building into a christian church.

And what was needed was to start digging!

Go and dig out some relics where a christian saint has been buried, put the relics in a reliquary and install it in the big house. Then you've got yourselves a christian church.

Calender and churches - it's all about the saints.

Almost like in Gay Heaven...:rofl:

 

[gorgik9]

Hi Gorgik, I will tell you what just happened. I opened GH and I found your clip from Jussi Björling. I started it and turned it very loud. My boyfriend was in his room working. Suddenly he was beside me, very silent and his eyes wet. He is a great classic fan and he knows Jussi Björling from some records he has. So we were sitting here in front of the PC and listened to this wonderful voice and were watching these great winter pics.

And in the end, he gave me a big hug and a wonderful kiss. One of these kisses you never will forget!

Gorgik you made my day - or better our day! Thank you.

Such glad tidings: Shelter's BF started crying and Shelter got a deep kiss - and all just because the magic dwelling in Jussi Björling's voice :big hug:

 

[Shelter]

My next post in this small series is a piece on why Christmas is on 25 December, though based on much more moderern scholarship than Valerie Strauss Washington Post-article, posted in this thread by Sniffit.

Strauss is mostly basing her article on James George Frazer's famous book "The Golden Bough", which makes up scholarship more than 100 years old...

Let's start with making some basic things very clear: our interest in the date and other things concerning Christmas is a relatively modern interest, not at all an interest enjoyed by early ancient Christians.

St. Francis of Assisi and the Jewish Apocalyptic preacher Yehoshua bint Mariam ben Yussuf from Nazareth.
ietro
We know pretty well when the Christmas-centered Christianity we're used to started emerging and who made it come along: His name was Francesco Pietro di Bernardone, better known to us as St. Francis of Assisi, 1182-1226. St. Francis is credited with to have staged the very first ever nativity scene / Christmas crib in 1223, and you could say that without St Francis no JS Bach's Christmas Oratorium, no O Holy Night, no J.C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, Walt Disney and no making the Yuletide Gay...

Before the high middle ages - in late antiquity and early middle ages - Christianity was centered on Easter, not on Christmas. The basic human difference between Christmas and Easter is that Christmas is about what every living kiddo and every kiddo who has ever lived experiences - being born by a mother.

Easter is about the unique founding event of Christianity - that Jesus / Yehoshua of Nazareth is said to have been execute on the cross by Pontius Pilate but was risen from the dead. Without the belief that Jesus was resurrected there can be no Christianity. It's as simple as that.

Why early Christianity was so uninterested in Jesus birthsday.

There are even more fundamental reasons why the early Christians cared nothing about the birthsday of Jesus. Let's for a moment take a slightly different track: What was Jesus? Well he was a Jewish apocalyptic preacher, just like John the Baptist before him and Paul of Tarsus after him.

The basic message of any apocalyptic preaching will be that the powers of Light and Darkness (God vs Satan, if you prefer) will soon start their big cosmic catfight, the present order of the world will be demolished and overthrown by God, and the people who've had the good sense to side with God will be taken up into his Divine Kingdom while the rabble rest will - literally - go to hell.

The key is to realize that everything will happen soon, very soon: Go and read the letters of Paul in the NT and see for yourself! So if you're a serious believer in the message that the world will end very soon, do you then think finding out when an already dead - though resurrected and, hence, alive again - person had his birthsday will seem terribly important?

I surely don't think so. I think it would seem utterly unimportant.

The apocalypt message started fading more and more from the late second century on, and to in the 4th and 5th century more and more church leaders (most notably bishop Augustin of Hippo) started arguing that no one could predict the time when the Lord would have his second coming - and anyone who tried would come close to heresy.

I think that among the more important reasons why the apocalypt message started fading and getting less popular was the very basic fact, that the christian churches started changing from just small groups of christian believers to a powerful hierarchical institution, and the radical completion of this historical process was when the Roman Emperor Constantin and his mother, the Widow Empress Helena, conversed to christianity in the early 4th century and christianity became one of the religio licita of the Roman empire (one of the legally allowed religions). In the 380s - about 70 years after Constantin's conversion - Catholic Christianity became the only legal religion of the Roman empire.

Constantin fundamentally changed Christianity AND the Roman world.

Some consequences of Constantins conversion.

When not only the emperor and his family but also the entire imperial administration and authorities started converting, among the more important changes was to construct a christian calender. The old Julian calender could be used as the sumbolic infrastructure, but the christian leaders had to bring the new content of all the holidays and festivals for the christian saints into the slots of the calender. So it's now in the 4th century it starts to get the right time to give Jesus his birthsday...

Another very important symbolic change in the 4th and 5th century was establishing the practical definition of what a christian church be to be considered a true christian church.

Constantin and his mother Helena had started building very impressive buildings in Rome and Jerusalem and started donating these magnificent houses to the bishops, but something more was needed to make an ever so splendid building into a christian church.

And what was needed was to start digging!

Go and dig out some relics where a christian saint has been buried, put the relics in a reliquary and install it in the big house. Then you've got yourselves a christian church.

Calender and churches - it's all about the saints.

Almost like in Gay Heaven...:rofl:

Wow Gorgik - again I'm nearly breathless while reading your highly interesting post.

What you are writing here is more than a simple post - it is ingenious knowing. And what is again more than ingenious is that you are communicating your knowledge in a very fascinating manner. I always feel like to be in an University and learn fascinating things from history.

I really hope to read in the months to come more posts like this one about all themes of the history of mankind.

Thank you so much for this one.

 

[gb2000ie]

My next post in this small series is a piece on why Christmas is on 25 December, though based on much more moderern scholarship than Valerie Strauss Washington Post-article, posted in this thread by Sniffit.

Strauss is mostly basing her article on James George Frazer's famous book "The Golden Bough", which makes up scholarship more than 100 years old...

Let's start with making some basic things very clear: our interest in the date and other things concerning Christmas is a relatively modern interest, not at all an interest enjoyed by early ancient Christians.

St. Francis of Assisi and the Jewish Apocalyptic preacher Yehoshua bint Mariam ben Yussuf from Nazareth.
ietro
We know pretty well when the Christmas-centered Christianity we're used to started emerging and who made it come along: His name was Francesco Pietro di Bernardone, better known to us as St. Francis of Assisi, 1182-1226. St. Francis is credited with to have staged the very first ever nativity scene / Christmas crib in 1223, and you could say that without St Francis no JS Bach's Christmas Oratorium, no O Holy Night, no J.C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, Walt Disney and no making the Yuletide Gay...

Before the high middle ages - in late antiquity and early middle ages - Christianity was centered on Easter, not on Christmas. The basic human difference between Christmas and Easter is that Christmas is about what every living kiddo and every kiddo who has ever lived experiences - being born by a mother.

Easter is about the unique founding event of Christianity - that Jesus / Yehoshua of Nazareth is said to have been execute on the cross by Pontius Pilate but was risen from the dead. Without the belief that Jesus was resurrected there can be no Christianity. It's as simple as that.

Why early Christianity was so uninterested in Jesus birthsday.

There are even more fundamental reasons why the early Christians cared nothing about the birthsday of Jesus. Let's for a moment take a slightly different track: What was Jesus? Well he was a Jewish apocalyptic preacher, just like John the Baptist before him and Paul of Tarsus after him.

The basic message of any apocalyptic preaching will be that the powers of Light and Darkness (God vs Satan, if you prefer) will soon start their big cosmic catfight, the present order of the world will be demolished and overthrown by God, and the people who've had the good sense to side with God will be taken up into his Divine Kingdom while the rabble rest will - literally - go to hell.

The key is to realize that everything will happen soon, very soon: Go and read the letters of Paul in the NT and see for yourself! So if you're a serious believer in the message that the world will end very soon, do you then think finding out when an already dead - though resurrected and, hence, alive again - person had his birthsday will seem terribly important?

I surely don't think so. I think it would seem utterly unimportant.

The apocalypt message started fading more and more from the late second century on, and to in the 4th and 5th century more and more church leaders (most notably bishop Augustin of Hippo) started arguing that no one could predict the time when the Lord would have his second coming - and anyone who tried would come close to heresy.

I think that among the more important reasons why the apocalypt message started fading and getting less popular was the very basic fact, that the christian churches started changing from just small groups of christian believers to a powerful hierarchical institution, and the radical completion of this historical process was when the Roman Emperor Constantin and his mother, the Widow Empress Helena, conversed to christianity in the early 4th century and christianity became one of the religio licita of the Roman empire (one of the legally allowed religions). In the 380s - about 70 years after Constantin's conversion - Catholic Christianity became the only legal religion of the Roman empire.

Constantin fundamentally changed Christianity AND the Roman world.

Some consequences of Constantins conversion.

When not only the emperor and his family but also the entire imperial administration and authorities started converting, among the more important changes was to construct a christian calender. The old Julian calender could be used as the sumbolic infrastructure, but the christian leaders had to bring the new content of all the holidays and festivals for the christian saints into the slots of the calender. So it's now in the 4th century it starts to get the right time to give Jesus his birthsday...

Another very important symbolic change in the 4th and 5th century was establishing the practical definition of what a christian church be to be considered a true christian church.

Constantin and his mother Helena had started building very impressive buildings in Rome and Jerusalem and started donating these magnificent houses to the bishops, but something more was needed to make an ever so splendid building into a christian church.

And what was needed was to start digging!

Go and dig out some relics where a christian saint has been buried, put the relics in a reliquary and install it in the big house. Then you've got yourselves a christian church.

Calender and churches - it's all about the saints.

Almost like in Gay Heaven...:rofl:

Also - predicting that the end is coming any minuite now and being wrong for a few years is not too embarassing, being wrong for a few decades is starting to look bad, but being wrong for centuries on-end is not tennable, hence the apocalyptic stuff dying out.

Also - as the church became established as an organisation run by and for men, it became ever more about power and wealth. The Vatican is the pefect embodiment of what became of Jesus's band of rebbels under the Roman Empire.

Holidays == profit. A nice big holiday for Jesus's birth would be a nice earner - guess we better pick a date and get celerating!

What I love is that if the bible is un-erring, Jesus could never have been born, because if you belive Matthew he was born during the reign of King Herod, if you you belive Luke, he was born when Quirinius run a census in Judea.

The Matthew conveniently omits to say WHICH Herod, was it Herod The Great, or his son? Either way, it doesn't matter, because Herod's son was the LAST king of Judea ever - he was so bad at his job that the people ASKED Rome to come in and take over, so they did! And, the guy they put in charge was Quirinius, the governor of Siria. One of his first actions was to organise a census to meausure just how much richer Rome had just gotten.

So, if Matthew was right Jesus must have been born at least two years before 6AD (Matthew puts the slaughter of the innocents, also by Herod, at 2 years after the nativity), but, if Luke is right, Jesus MUST hve been born AFTER 6AD. So, what dates are both BEFORE 4AD, and AFTER 6AS? NONE! Ergo, if the bible is always correct, there was no Christmas

Personally, I think the Bible is a bunch of stories to illustrate a point, and not a history, so Matthew just made up the whole thing with the star and the wise men and the slaughter of the innocents and the flight to Egypt, because it sounds like the kind of birth a great man should have.

B.

 

[W!nston]

Ever since we watched Bill Moyer's TV series 'Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth' I've seen through the myths of all religions. Joseph Campbell was a great man. This series explained why people want to believe myths that religions are built upon.

Anyone who has never watched the series should find it and watch it. In lieu of that you can always read the book.

Here are some free pdf downloads:

Joseph Campbell’s “Four Functions of Myth”

Joseph Campbell's 'The Hero With A Thousand Faces'

'The Power of Myth'
Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (edited by Betty Sue Flowers)