Philipp Nothaft - The Date of Christmas
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 4 ноя 2024
- My guest today is Dr Philipp Nothaft. Philipp is a Fellow of All Souls Oxford and a historian specializing in astronomy, astrology and calendars in late antiquity, the Middle Ages and early modern Europe. He’s also the author of a key paper on the question of why Christmas falls on December 25th, which is our main topic today. It’s often claimed in pop history that Christians stole a pagan feast day and made it into Christmas, and this is a version of a thesis scholars developed in the late nineteenth century. But Philipp and several other recent scholars have bolstered an alternative theory that seems to fit the evidence better, as he’ll discuss with me today.
Further Reading
Steven Hijmans, "Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas", Mouseion, Series III, Vol. 3, 2003, pp. 377-98 and his monograph Sol: Image and Meaning of the Sun in Roman Art and Religion Vol. 1 (Brill, 2022).
Thomas C. Schmidt, “Calculating December 25 as the Birth of Jesus in Hippolytus' ‘Canon’ and ‘Chronicon’” Vigiliae Christianae Vol. 69, No. 5 (2015), pp. 542-563.
Philipp Nothaft, "Early Christian Chronology and the Origins of the Christmas Date: In Defense of the 'Calculation … Theory'" Questions Liturgiques, 94 (2013), pp. 247-65.
Greetings from Italy: I confirm that "Santa Lucia" with gift giving is a thing in Sicily and several parts of Northern Italy
Top quality sources, research, analysis, discussion, and presentation. An excellent example of atheist academics doing a much better job than Christians in understanding church history. Thank you. (Rev Andrew Clarke, Minister, Presbyterian Church of Australia)
I really enjoyed the interview. Nothaft brings up a lot of great points.
Great conversation. Thanks a lot for inviting Philipp.
Oh heck yes! I was just trying to do some reading on this earlier today!
This was an excellent episode. I love going into the weeds like this lol
Well, I thought I knew all about this topic - not even close! Excellent video, and Dr. Nothaft has a real talent for laying this stuff out for a lay audience. And it turns out he's got a bunch of vids up about ancient calendar systems? Christmas has come early!
What a stunningly good discussion. The elusive chains of inference explained carefully, and always interesting. Unexpected Chrissie pressie, even.
Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year.....'>......
The big date in The Roman Calendar close to Christmas was 1 January when the consular year began.
That's why we have two holidays so close together nowadays.
I really enjoyed this discussion and learned a lot. Will be checking out more from Dr Nothaft
Thank you.
Christmas having "pagan roots" is a notion that makes a lot of headway when having a blurred sense of the historical timeline. People who buy into it work off a belief that the customs surrounding Christmas are far older than they are, and Dec 25 for Christ's birth was an idea arrived at far later. Basically, the inverse is true --- the customs surrounding Christmas arose far later in the timeline, long after Christianization, and "Dec 25 for Christ's birth" bandied about way earlier in history than pagan-roots proponents are aware.
You’re exactly right! People really be thinking that all the elements of modern Christmas all came at the same time in one sweeping essentializing motion. Tim has discussed on his site that all the modern Christmas traditions such as trees have their roots in the Early Modern Period, far too late for any pagan origins.
Damn good, Tim.
Pierre Boyle, the seventeenth century Protestant scholar, wrote (in Various Thoughts on the Occasion of a Comet, section 85 ) the following: "It is even true that when one perceived in the ancient church that the excessively great simplicity of the worship the Apostles had taught was inappropriate to the times, in which the fervor of men’s zeal had lessened a little, and that it thus belonged to Christian prudence to introduce into the divine service the use of various ceremonies, one came to focus above all on those that had enjoyed the greatest vogue among the pagans, either because in general they were found to be appropriate to inspiring in people a respect for holy things, or because it was believed that this would be the means to win over the infidels and to attract them to Jesus Christ, through a change that would be in some manner imperceptible." Though he was a Protestant, he wrote this book from the Catholic point of view.
There's no "Catholic point of view" expressed int his quote. On the contrary. He just wasn't a diehard puritan.
God Bless you guys… hope the penny drops for you soon and you find Christ - or, more importantly, He finds you in time.
@@paulmitchell9975 i was the same until I was 57 - and then I had a total mind-blowing epiphany out of a spiritual world ai didn’t even think existed! This was when I faced suicide by swimming out at night in the sea… I thought I was tough - but I was in hell and lacked the guts - sat there for hours shivering with utter terror … I was rescued by a wave of inner joy and love like I cannot explain, mate.
Anyway, since then, my entire life radically changed - but more than this, I now KNOW that this impossible story of this Nazarene “man” was and is fully true in every detail.
Only the miracle is real -
Eternity IS where we are headed.
So yeah, you can mock or laugh - I couldn’t care less what abject derision is leveled at me or those who have crossed over , were it not for the fact of wishing for everyone as cynical as I was for my entire alcohol soaked and womanizing and street brawling life to have this total elation and fearlessness over death - and unbelievable joyous contact with God our creator who awaits us all.
No thanks. But thanks.
You talks around the issue of the reading of Luke that implies John was conceived in Fall but forgot to return to talking about it specifically. I assume it has to do with the debate about when the order of Abia served in The Temple, which I've seen people place all over the year and all claiming to have the support of Josephus. Nothaft said that reading is wrong even though he argued it was already common in Antiquity and I'm curious why he views it as wrong.
I agree that all the Christmas is Pagan stuff is wrong, and I have my own admittedly flimsy theory that Christmas might have it origins in Christians Christianizing Hanukkah and only became literally Jesus's Birthday later. That is the actual older precedent for a Winter Religious observance happening on the 25th Day of the Month.
But my one issue the Calculation theory is that the logic of equating Incarnation with with Conception rather then Birth sounds like an inherently modern argument derived from all the politicalized flighting over Abortion. As a Pro-Choice Christian I'm well aware that Biblically and untll recently in Christian Tradition life began at First Breath not Conception. I also know that in Rabbinic Jewish Tradition the idea of assuming various Patriarchs and Prophets died the same day they were born exists but not Conception.
"Christmas might have it origins in Christians Christianizing Hanukkah and only became literally Jesus's Birthday later. "
Well, actually many Hanukkah customs were taken over from Christmas.
OTOH, while early Christians acknowledged Hanukkah and Jesus himself celebrated it, there is no logical line from Hanukkah to Christmas. "We want a festival in winter" ist not enough, especially since there were more important Jewish festivals (Sukkot) that have no Christian equivalent either.
"equating Incarnation with with Conception rather then Birth sounds like an inherently modern argument" - if so, why do festivals the "Annunication of the Lord" and the "Conception of Mary" exist?
Lifer never biblically or in Christian Tradition began "at First Breath" - that actually is a modern idea read back into texts. It is already refuted by ideas about ensoulment.
@@str.77 I think ancient Christian observance of Sukkot is where Michaelmas came from.
The Bible in Genesis two defined Adam as becoming a living Soul when God Breaths into him, same with how Ezekiel 27 visualizes the Resurrection. Also the phrase "give up the ghost" more arcuate translated mean stop breathing.
There were Mass devoted to the Annunciation because it's a story in The Bible. The Concept itself actually happens between the Annunciation and Visitation.
@@Kuudere-Kun Michaelmas is a pretty low-key thing and I don't see any commonality with Sukkot.
God breathed into Adam - but he never had a pre-birth life. Ezekiel fits even less because all these resurrected bones (if that even is the proper interpretation) already had a life. No, "give up one's ghost" is not more accurately translated as "stop breathing", even if that is most visual sign of death.
Even if you discount the Annunciation, which strictly speaking was at least a moment before Christ's conception in Mary's womb - but then again: placing it 9 months before the Nativity, suggests something - you cannot discount the Conception of Mary herself.
And no response to ensoulment?
@@str.77 Michaelmas is a Harvest Festival soon after the Spring Equinox, the exact gist of what Sukkot is.
The purpose of the Annunciation in my view is to get Mary's Consent before impregnating her.
I guess there was no need to explain about how Yule fits into this
Holy shit my man. You just got an hour long, free lecture from an actual fellow at Oxford and you're complaining it wasn't comprehensive enough? You should be on your knees, praising Tim-Berners-Lee for the opportunity.
Given that all this was settled by Christians long before they had any significant contact with anyone who marked the season of Yule, no. Yule doesn't "fit into this". Clear?
@@historyforatheists9363 I know that. Just pointing out there was no need, yet the Yule connection persists among those who don't have a clue