@@ryanvoll7088The Netherlands too. Sinterklaas is the original Santa Claus, and he comes with his helper Zwarte Piet on December 5th, which is the eve of St Nicholas’s Day.
@@vampyresgraveyard3307 The American Santa Claus comes directly from the Dutch Sinterklaas, who brings presents NOT on Christmas but on December 5th, the eve of St Nicholas’s Day. And no, there are NO legends of the actual St Nicholas giving children presents at or near Xmas.
I had a conversation with Chatbot about this. It gave me a similar answer; the standard “pagan plagiarism” response. I pointed out that scholars of religion usually argue against this claim, and I gave sources (including from Dan) for why Dec. 25th is not associated with pagan traditions. It then backtracked and told me that there isn’t really any historical evidence for the claim of pagan plagiarism. I then asked why it gave me that answer if it was not historically accurate. It told me that it gets its information more from conventional wisdom and popular culture rather than from academic sources; it repeats supposed common knowledge. Needless to say I lost a *lot* of trust in AI search engines on that day.
AI bots are not designed or intended to provide reliable information. That’s just not what they’re for, so it’s stupid to rely on them. They’re designed simply to analyze input text and supply a plausible continuation. So when you ask them a question they give an answer that a human might plausibly give, without regard to its accuracy. It doesn’t matter whether their answer is right or wrong, what matters is that it sounds like something a human might say.
There've been Christian groups of trying to cancel Christmas going back centuries now - it always revolves around some kind of "look at me, I'm a better Christian than other Christians" stand. It's very boring. Equally boring are the "you're not Christmasy enough!" crowd who flip out that people pandering to their religious festival aren't doing it enough for them. The whole thing is performative and incredibly tedious.
It's very selfish too. And a little grotesque. When I was a Christian, I didn't get it. But now, after years (probably a decade minimum), the Christian holiday around Christmas is not something I find good. And why? Do parents regularly look at their newborn and plan to have them sacrificed? It's kind of gross to celebrate the birth of an individual you want to sacrifice for .. reasons. But then, the Christian god has always been the greatest child killer. So maybe this entity thought it was Tuesday and it wanted its baby back ribs or something. Christians... look, dress it up however you want. I prefer a more secular Christmas with a jolly fat elf and reindeer or even a bit of Tim Burton Nightmare before Christmas. The Christian myth is just a little too dark for my taste. But you do you.
Its a terrible bullshit evasion. They're absolutely based on pagan harvest/religious days. Every single one down to the festivals of saints. It was never said to be aligned with Roman Saturnalia, but rather Germanic Yule.
@@rickwrites2612provide sources for every single one of those. And not something that claims it. A source from the time and location of all of them. Or stop making shit up. The Vatican has committed so many horrible acts. There's no need to invent petty things
@@rickwrites2612 since there's plenty of comments on this very video that make that claim, your claim is patently false. Also, Yule hasn't been around as long as Christmas. Stop lying
I was just having this discussion at a holiday party last night to push back against the "all Christian holidays are 100% pagan" misinfo. I don't remember offhand the source of every single tradition, but I knew this explanation for why Dec 25 is Christmas
Moses will toss a tree into the bitter sea and light will increase vs darkness. I must decrease (summer solstice - winter solstice) and he must increase (winter solstice - summer solstice.
@@benroberts2222 When they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore it was named Marah. So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” Then he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree; and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet.
One of many reasons I'm wary of AI. It presents what people have said as if it's an answer to your question, without any regard for accuracy, any check in place against misinformation or common misconceptions, any evaluation of (or credit to) its sources, or any caution to its users. AI might have its uses. Doing your research for you is not one of them.
AI's strengths lie in delivering consensus, and spotting deviation. The problem arises when trained on falsehoods and folk "research". When trained on high quality data, it's actually pretty damned helpful. For example, it's great at spotting tumors when trained on medical imaging data, but it would be terrible at it if they used Halloween skeletons and zombie movies and deviantart. That's basically what we're getting from CatGPT and other shitbots
@@benroberts2222 I'd say AI is very useful in situations where it's fairly easy for you to check the results, or where facts outside of those you provided are irrelevant (for example, when you use it to convert your facts into a report or documentation or the like). Treat it like a fairly new colleague who still makes mistakes because he's new to the field, maybe.
@KaiHenningsen oh I don't think it's useless, I've heard of those uses before and others. I'm just pointing out the worrying trend of AI becoming the new Wikipedia as a pseudo-authoritative source to win arguments
It's funny how people can separate their own secular and religious beliefs for Easter(bunny) and Christmas (Santa). But when ancient people practiced this, it had some sinister motivation towards modern times.
Honest question: why did they choose March 25th for the date of conception and not for the date of birth? As I understand it, it was much more frequent to assume that major figures were born and died on the same date, while using it for the date of conception was sort of a "plan b". So, again: why did they choose December rather than March?
One thing I’ve always wondered about: If we take the Biblical accounts of Jesus’ virgin birth at face value, and if we assume the date of March 25 for the annunciation is correct… why would we assume a normal pregnancy length? This was obviously not a normal conception… so do we assume Jesus started out at a single cell?
The male authors of these texts would have poorly understood pregnancy and childbirth, "roughly 9 months" was probably the limits of their imagination in this regard.
My guess is... the emaculate conception story was told to avoid scandal and possibly by Mary's parents. Young girls like her were often forced to marry their R'ists.
She might not celebrate Christmas because of this? I wouldn't care if it was totally biblical or influenced by paganism. Christmas is a joyous time of year. I'm putting up a tree. I hope she likes Chinese food.
What gets me is every culture everywhere seems to have noticed the solstices and equinoxes... okay? So they all copied each other...? Also, considering how many of these feasts are 7 to 14 days long... 1 or 2 weeks out of 52, with 4 significant celestial events... There's like a 1 in 7 chance your festival lands over one of those events. When you start fudging 2 or 3 days, like these people do with Saturnalia, now we're closer to 1 in 3 or 4. The scandal of it all!
Not every culture, or even most cultures, celebrates the solstices or the equinoxes. People who make this claim just randomly drag in any festival that happens to occur anytime within a month of the event or more, even if there’s no connection at all.
This woman has posted many videos on her spiritual journey, which quickly went towards Islam. Apparently inspired by a Mufti Menk, she started using ChatGPT in this journey. Many vids on comparing the Bible to the Quran re. topics such as peace and women's rights. Curiously she started out as an Aussie pop singer. Dan's final line applies to all of her vids: they are pretty pedestrian.
The argument of the Christian's search for astrological relevance for the birth date of their new God is very strong, and Saturnalia continuous to be suspiciously similar to Christmas. As nobody knows the real date of Jesus birth, they seem to be two good cultural approaches to the historical birth of Christmas.
Start these questions with “What is the critical consensus about….?” and you improve the accuracy of GenAI responses. In addition, the paid versions of GenAI are more accurate.
Question regarding this video: Jesus' death was determined to be March 25th based on the Passover, what year did they use for this, since we don't know what year Jesus supposedly died?
I often wonder if Emperor Aurelian adopted December 25 as the birthday of Sol Invictus from Christians as a way of encouraging them to find the imperial cult more acceptable.
Jesus born December 25th and the Christmas tree is two different things, yet both are part of the celebration, which suggest to me Christmas has some form of pagan origins.
@jdynasty7680 That may be true, however there is no historical data nor biblical occurrence that the early Christians celebrated it, nor chopped down a tree to observe it. There may be a correlation between the Christmas tree (or cutting down the tree for pagan worship) and the Ancient Sumerian tree of life. It's obvious to me that these pagan traditions started early on and made their way through different societies and people. No doubt in my mind the idea of a Christmas tree is of pagan origins.
@@toney5173 I believe the tree was borrowed from Yule, a Germanic tradition. It was Christians who ended up bringing the trees inside and decorating them. As religions spread they tend to absorb local customs and traditions into their belief systems. So, I would agree the tree would have pagan origins, however those origins are slightly different to how those earlier Christians altered those tradition. A fascinating subject, especially since so many believe these mythologies are truths.
@@jdynasty7680 I agree with the yule interpretation, but based upon the visual inspection of the Ancient Sumerian tree of life and it's ancient use, one can draw a conclusion that the idea of a tree being used in a form of worship predates the Germanic use of tree worship. It's clear to me that tree observance most likely started in Ancient Mesopotamia. ,
@@toney5173 I had read that Egyptians, Hebrews, and Chinese traditions had also used evergreen trees to symbolize eternal life. Probably hard to pinpoint exactly where it all started, perhaps they drew inspiration for a multitude of ancient/local traditions. I believe there are a lot of people in Japan now that celebrate Christmas without being Christian. Wonder what these celebrations will look like in another 500 years?
Pretty new to this take. My experience is that the "new testament" was written to be a s cohesive as possible with Judean scripture and traditions. The birth of the savior is cohesive with the lighting of the Menorah. Obviously it coincides with the solstice as well, per the many slights of hand in the composition of the new testament.....
People seem to put a lot of stock in “The shepherds wouldn’t be out in the middle of winter.” But Bethlehem is at 31 degrees North. It gets chilly, but not nearly as cold as say, Scotland, where the sheep are completely fine to get snowed on. They’re covered in wool. The shepherds would have access to wool as well. The cold of a Bethlehem December night would not be a problem.
The New Catholic Encyclopedia says: “The date of the birth of Jesus Christ can be calculated only approximately. The date of December 25 does NOT correspond to Christ’s birth but to the feast of the Natalis Solis Invicti, the Roman sun festival at the solstice.” If Jesus birth was important for Christians to celebrate, the Bible would’ve told us so. From Matthew chapters 26 and 27, we understand that Jesus died at the time of the Jewish Passover, which commenced April 1, 33 C.E. Luke 3:21-23 informs us that Jesus was about 30 years of age when he commenced his ministry. Since his earthly ministry lasted three and a half years, he was about 33 1/2 years old at the time of his death. Christ would have been 34 years old six months later, which would be about October 1. If we count back to see when Jesus was born, we reach NOT December 25 or January 6, but about October 1 of the year 2 B.C.E!
There's another error in the shepherd argument. Shephreds did keep their flocks out at night, and still do, in warmer climes like Palestine/Israel. I'd also point out there's a particular Jewish feast day that the birth of John the Baptist was announced and some math with the months between that and the annunciation of Jesus work out to march. Granted as you say none of the authors were there but the reasons are more then just "pagan holidays".
There is no Jewish holiday mentioned in connection with John’s birth. The celebration of John’s birth at midsummer is calculated from the Annunciation in March, not the other way around.
@@zevsero9170 John's father Zachariah was serving a feast at the temple when the angel told him he would have a son. Based on the time between that and Mary discovering she would have a son would place Jesus's conception around march.
@ No, he was not “serving a feast”. And there is absolutely no indication of the date, even approximately, except that it was about six months before the Annunciation.
@@JustifiedNonetheless When indeed it is celebrated in many Orthodox churches. But since the very nature of a calendar is subject to debate, it's all quite academic. It's like these arguments you see in contemporary music theory about ideal and/or historical tunings in Hz, as if the second wasn't a recent and arbitrary invention.
The thing is, when the Western Church converted from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, they moved all the festivals. That is, they kept the "dates" the same, so Christmas moved from Dec 25 (Julian) to Dec 25 (Gregorian), the Annunciation moved from Mar 25 (Julian) to Mar 25 (Gregorian), etc. Although, the idea of adjusting the calendar back a week and change was to compensate for the drift the that had been noticed since adopting the Julian calendar. Back in the 1st century, the Vernal Equinox happened in late March (around the 21st I believe), but by the mid 1500s, it had drifted back to near March 10th. This was an issue because the date of Easter is calculated based on when the Equinox happens. But, as you said, it's all about interpretation. We likely will never know what the date anything actually happened, so why not continue to use the date your particular tradition holds?
@@zevsero9170 No, you're right, my mistake. The idea was current centuries earlier, and the eventual fix developed decades sooner. It was first _promulgated_ in the 1580s. And even that's arguably technically false, because of leap seconds.
It's simply that you celebrate someone's anniversary day, and you have to pick _some_ date for that. When they die, they may already be famous, and people are paying enough attention to write down the date. When they're born, not only are they probably not famous yet, not only is there a fair chance that they don't even know anyone literate, but there's a 50-50 chance that they'll never get to be adults at all. So … death days are easier picks than birth days for someone's formal anniversary. Then you just say “anniversary” or “the feast of Jim” and after a few years or decades or centuries no one is necessarily sure if that's the day they were born, the day they died, or indeed the day that did that thing with the chicken and the waterfall….
The idea in Greco-Roman times was that important figures live "complete" lives, and part of that was living for a full number of years (i.e., dying in the same day you were born). For whatever reason, the early Christian scholars decided to make it a full number of years for conception to death.
The date of Jesus birth is irrelevant. The "King/Queen's" Birthday (of England/UK) is not celebrated on the actual known day of his/her birth. There is a 1 in 365 probability that any day of the year would be he actual date of Jesus' birth. Anyway, there is no Biblical command to celebrate the birth of our LORD, so whether we do or don't in not really important.
It’s four days later now, and was when the formula for Easter was set. It was only 2 days later when it was chosen as the date of Xmas. And it was no days later when the Julian calendar was introduced and Dec 25 was officially designated as the date of the solstice.
AI is not a reliable source of knowledge. I mostly use it for artistic purposes and to brainstorm ideas for my personal fictional stories. Of course I don't use it to make stories for me
That has nothing to do with it. The old calendar was inaccurate, the year was slightly too long, until everything was happening 10 days too late. When the calendar said December 25 it was really already well into January. So the new calendar just put everything back where it belonged.
@@zevsero9170 Some Eastern Orthodox still use it. It makes Christmas odd. But everyone agrees on Easter/Pascha. I think the whole thing is a bit silly.
@ Yes, they use it, but the date of Xmas is still Dec 25. Whichever calendar you use, Xmas is Dec 25 on that calendar, 9 months after March 25 on the same calendar. And no, they don’t all agree on Easter. _Some_ Orthodox churches have accepted the Gregorian calendar for Easter, but many/most haven’t. Again, though, that doesn’t change the _date_ of the equinox used to calculate Easter, it just changes the calendar used.
Creepy that people are asking ChapGPT for factual information. ChatGPT is for debugging code and creating pat summaries of well understood things. Not actually investigating facts.
As a Pagan, I always enjoy this myth being debunked. Depending on the group, holidays and such fall on various days, though many have one on or near the Winter Solstice. Talk to actual Pagans and you will learn something quick - we have a LOT more holidays than Abrahamic religions. Inwyrdn has a minimum of 20, plus various national and international days we honor, such as July 4th (Alice in Wonderland Day) and November 11th (World Origami Day).
Well, in the medieval period two-thirds of the days of the year might have been marked by this or that saint's feast day. Many of these were co-opted by the Peace of God movement, where the ecclesiastical authority tried to reduce violence between Christian lords and knights by forbidding it on holy days (among other methods).
TIL Alice in Wonderland and origami are pagan things to be celebrated religiously You're a _neopagan_ and not a pagan. You're basically on a build-your-own religion journey of dogma One thing I didn't hear from Dan (or you) though is the fact that 9 months before the winter solstice is the spring equinox. Where'd they get that date from? Sure, it was already established. But it clearly points to the entire Judaism/Christianity versus Paganism as being a wash. There's no difference between them, except that one got state backing. Don't assume that your version of the nature (and book reading, and paper folding) religion is at better than the other guys'
Are you mad ;)? Here's what the Church of England says about _December alone:_ 1. Commemoration of Charles de Foucauld-this year, also the first Sunday of Advent; 3. Commemoration of Francis Xavier; 4. Commemoration of John of Damascus & Nicholas Ferrar; 6. Festival of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra; 7. Festival of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan; 8. Feast of the Conception of the BVM; 13. Festival of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse & commemoration of Samuel Johnson; 14. Commemoration of St. John of the Cross; 17. O Sapientia & commemoration of Eglantyne Jebb; 24. Christmas Eve; 25. Christmas Day (which is to say, the _first_ day of Christmas); 26. Feast of St. Stephen; 27. Feast of St. John the Apostle; 28. Holy Innocents; 29. Festival (I think) of Thomas Becket; 31. Commemoration of John Wyclif. The density is high enough that collisions are a real problem. Even if we only count the official biggies in the year we have: the Circumcision, the Epiphany, the Conversion of St. Paul, Candlemas, the Feast of Joseph of Nazareth, the Annunciation, the Feast of St. George, the Feast of St. Mark, the Feast of Philip and James, the Feast of St. Matthias, the Visitation, the Feast of St. Barnabas, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, St Thomas, Mary Magdalene, St. James, the Transfiguration, the Feast of the BVM, St. Bartholemew, Holy Cross, St. Matthew, Michael and All Angels, St. Luke, Simon and Jude, All Saints', St. Andrew, Christmas, St. Stephen, John the Apostle, Holy Innocents; and with variable dates Ash Wednesday, Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost and Advent. Then there's the fact that Advent and Lent take a month, Christmas lasts a couple of weeks, and Easter season is a month and a half. And of course there are periods when all kinds of random things are specifically prayed for, like peace or fishing or hospitals, which may or may not be tied to particular saints or secular commemorations. One of the things you might notice in an Anglican church is that the colours of the hangings change from red, to green, to white, to purple, to bare wood. It's a code, based on what exactly is being commemorated on that day. You have to change them quite a lot.
To help anyone who might be confused, literally all paganism is neopaganism as pagans and polytheists since time immemorial have accepted change and adaptation as a part of religion (such as Romans welcoming new gods into the pantheon or Celtic Druids adapting stories as continental Europeans came to England and Ireland). Anyone who differentiates between paganism as some fixed concept and neopaganism show how little they understand about the topic.
@@inwyrdn3691 There does seem to be a specific neopaganist movement, though? There seem to be bookshops devoted to it, where in the past it might have been just “myth and religion”. Someone else spoke of state backing, and I thought that was a little confused; meant religions, pagan and otherwise, have had state backing from time to time. Of course that tends to make them a little more well defined and less diffuse, just as state backing imposes standards and “identity” on a dialect. Indeed, we could argue without twisting the words too much that “religion” and “language” are distinguished from “faith” and “dialect” precisely by state backing.
@@epronovost6539 hmm. I don't want to say you're wrong - but that implies wolves don't hunt in the summer. I get that shepherds in some places take their flocks to higher climes for the Summer, and bring them down in the winter, but I'm dubious towards the idea that flocks were shut up somewhere on winter nights and not summer nights. However, your explanation does account for it, so I'm not going to argue without any real knowledge myself. cheers.
The explanation for December 25th sounds right, but I wouldn't say that any suggested clues found in the Gospels must be ignored as wholly literary creations. We don't know if there's any veracity to the suggested data in the Gospels, meaning it's entirely possible that some of the information is accurate. Some favor December 25th as the date of _conception_, based on a back-calculation of a birth on or about the Feast of Tabernacles. Some theories claim that John 1:17 uses the word that means "tabernacled", which is often translated for "dwelt", as a hint of this Jewish holiday. Others have calculated the dates of various priests who were mentioned in the nativity narrative of Jesus and John the Baptist and their likely rotation of duties at the temple. And some have back-calculated the birthday based on the death-day and the understanding that Jesus lived 33 1/2 years, meaning if he died in spring, he would therefore have been born in autumn. This aligns with some ideas about shepherds. It also aligns with the claim that men had to go to the temple for Sukkot, The Feast of Tabernacles, explaining Joseph's motivation for taking the journey regardless of the veracity of claims of a census. I don't know how precise or accurate any of this is, but it seems consistent, even if it's not the convention.
We probably should ignore the details in the Gospels, because even for other ancient persons who are extremely well-attested, born into positions of much higher wealth and privilege and visibility than a Nazarene tradesman, we know almost nothing of their birth or infancy. Ancient peoples did not record such details, when half of all children, even those of the powerful, died well before adolescence. Instead they would fabricate a compelling childhood narrative when writing biographies of important persons, like the almost certainly apocryphal stories of prepubescent Alexander the Great taming a horse no grown man could, or asking Persian diplomats to his father's court questions about their military strength.
The priests’ shifts were on a 24-week rotation, so they were never on the same date from year to year. Which makes it impossible to calculate anything from it.
@@zevsero9170 If I remember correctly, the people who did the calculations used it support claims for two dates to see if the claims are consistent, not to determine a date but to support dates arrived at by other means. In other words, they're attempting to falsify a hypothesis, but it passes.
Was Jesus born on December 25? We don't know, but almost certainly not. (If for no other reason because the calendar that would have been used to make the calculation--even using the traditional March 25 date--would have yielded January 6 or 7. It wouldn't have been December 25 anyway because the modern Gregorian calendar didn't exist at the time those calculations were made, so calculating from Passover on March 25 to December 25 is just nonsense).
@@rain0069 Well, you have keep in mind, that all of this speculation isn't even using the Julian calendar that they would have used. The Gregorian calendar wasn't created unti 1582, so it's all invalid anyway.
No, what you wrote is nonsense. It doesn’t matter whether you are using the Julian calendar or the Gregorian, 9 months from March 25 gives December 25. There is no calendar in which you can add 9 months to March 25 and get a date in January.
@zevsero9170 December 25 is 9 months (251 days) from March 25, or the 359th day of the year. According to the Julian calendar (the one in effect at that time), due to a miscalculation of the length of the year, the 359th day had drifted by the year 6 CE to be January 6 or 7. Thus, your statement that, "there is no calendar in which you can add 9 months to March and get a date in January" misses the point. In fact, according to the modern Gregorian calendar, today is the 16th of December, but according to the Julian calendar, it is the 3rd of December. The Gregorian calendar was developed to correct for that drift. In fact, The Armenian Apostolic Church, which is an Oriental Orthodox Church, celebrates the birth of Jesus on January 6th, which is also known as Epiphany in Western Christian traditions. I'm glad I had the opportunity to teach you something.
Hey Dan, if it was customary for the Jews to consummate the marriage on the wedding night and even going as far producing the evidence (bloody sheet), why was Mary still a virgin when she got impregnated by God?
In what way? In terms of the date, likely not, as described in this video. In terms of what the Christian feast celebrates, not especially a far as I can tell. In terms of the particular ways different groups of Christians celebrate, it probably has accreted some of the local early winter festival traditions of whatever culture it was adapted into.
The Bible does not tell the date of Jesus' birthday. Some Bible scholars in their research believe Jesus was in the fall. Their explanations were that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to pay their taxes. Jewish tax collection was to be paid September or October.
I agree that Jesus was not born in December, i lean towards August ie Lion of Judah. However nothing is ever a coincidence. The month of December would have been chosen to fullfill a biblical prophetic event. Thats how the deception works, ie the current people they call the Israelites are not the true Spiritual Israelites etc
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So, Jesus’s conception is based on the date of his death, cuz that’s the way they rolled 2k years ago? Everywhere you turn in Christianity you’re faced with beliefs established by unscience.
"Jesus's conception"? Such a bizarre term to use here. I'm really going to need to know, in precise mechanistic terms, how a sperm went from god's balls to Mary's uterus, without passing through her vegana, before accepting the use of that term.
You’re a celebrity now Dan. And branding rules say you need to pick a look and keep it consistent. I guess what I’m saying is that I prefer the beard. 🤷🏻♂️ (Not that you should care.)
Following the liturgy of the Festivals of Moses Law, beginning with a New Year First Day of Light, in the spring vernal equinox Easter term, after Passover, the gestation of Jesus from conception of a first light of creation, sometime after April 1st, the ancient new year date, in the constellation of Aries the Ram, seeing Abraham sighted the Ram caught in the horns, or the ancient calendar, Zodiac, mentioned many times in the Bible a universal calendar, where the first day of light is in the spring, for Temple Israel, so a conception of the Messiah in the womb or Ark of the Covenant, the child would pass along the Seven Festivals of Israel's Temple worship, including the Day of Atonement where a child had to be seven months in the womb to be counted in the Temple census to pay for the atoning Korban service, and so Mary carried Jesus from conception , the First Day of Light, the day after Passover, for nine months, atoning the child to pay the sheckel coin for the cost of the priestly service on the Seventh Festival and then after nine months, around December 25th to January 6th by permutations of the Sun and Moon which is irregular and imprecise, except to the learned eye of the High Priest to discern and account for Biblical Times, seeing the regulation is begun on the fourth day of Creation the Sun, Moon and Stars are employed by God to account for Sacred Festivals, which for Israel , was Seven Festivals, from the New Year after Passover ends, to the Seventh Month Day of Atonement, releasing the woman to carry the child in a quiet private time , into winter, noting that the Bible incorporates the Zodiac in Prophesy, and regulating the Biblical Times. The New Year is about April First in the Constellation of Aries the Ram, making the reasoning simple, why Abraham found a Ram to offer at the Altar to spare his son Isaac, until the child of the consequences of the Zodiac and Prophesied Times, was a child born, called Jesus. There is no error in this report.
For a detailed analysis of this tale, see Science of the Bible, by Milton Woolley. Michael is depicted as the seven signs of Aries thru Libra in Christian art. Michael means "who is like god."
What other examples are there of people whose birth date was unknown, people wanted to know it, their death date was known or at least people pretended to know it, and so they calculated it via this death date = date of conception method? It would seem that more than enough actual birth dates and death dates would have been known to rubbish this hypothetical identity between date of death and date of conception to anyone paying a lick of attention. But maybe early church fathers really were that oblivious to presumably accessible facts. Then again, maybe this whole exercise was an exercise in exotic mathematical games set up to land on the date that they wanted to land on for cultural and/or celestial reasons. And again, it's not just mythicists who believe that the Jesus story borrowed tropes and themes from stories of other religiously significant figures. Follow the data.
Birth certificates are a recent invention, so the date of birth of someone more than one or two hundred years old is rarely known, even to the closest year. But it's more a case of a person's “anniversary” being later taken to be their birthday even if it's the day they were set on fire or thrown off a cliff or whatever that was recorded, or of someone taking “died at the age of 40” and working backwards, than it is of any superstitious assumption that people live integral numbers of years.
@stephenspackman5573 Yeah, I get that birth records weren't assiduously kept back in the day and reliable death records from those times are only a little less sparse. But I have never heard of anyone else having their date if birth calculated from their (only sort of known) date of death via this odd stipulation that their date of death was also their date of conception and it is just the sort of coincidence one might be fishing for to land on the recognized day of the winter solstice. When you add in Dan's wildly false belief that only full blown mythicists believe that the MIRACULOUS fables about Jesus drew on prior fables and that the whole birth narrative is about as far out there as the miraculous tales get, you'll see why I consider Dan's annual humbuggery over the pagan origins of much of tge holiday such a huge step down from most of his work. According to Dan, despite there being no biblical mandate to celebrate Christ's birthday, some church fathers decided they needed to figure it out anyway. They then decided that Jesus died precisely on March 25. Has anyone confirmed that this lines up with the Passover of tge relevant year or what the relevant year even was? Then they invoke tge odd convention that the date of death is also the date of conception. Fir what other figures was this ever invoked. Then they calculate 9 months out and danged if that doesn't land us on the official date of the winter solstice! Amazing! We know from archeological evidence that alignments of monuments to solar positions at tge solstice go back at least to Neolithic times and the recognition of the importance of the solstices may have gone much deeper into antiquity. So thousands of years after people first recognized the solstices as profoundly important, some church fathers for the shear unbiblical hell of it mathemagic their way to getting Jesus born on the winter solstice - as it was OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED by the local culture. Biblically pointless calculation is the SOLE explanation for the Dec 25 date! This doesn't pass the giggle test.
@billcook4768 Oh yes, the Vulcans have been here since before Odin started shaving, it's all recorded in numerous episodes (deleted outtakes) of popular lore💪👽🖖
I love these concise and accurate clarifications. But I wonder if it’s time we stop referring to the date of Jesus conception and start referring to it as the date of Mary’s rape.
If you credit the story line given, she was told the plan and consented to a full and willing participation. So no, not rape. And she was so engaged with the whole thing, she hurried to joyfully tell her cousin in a nearby town. At least that's the narrative provided. Sorry to nix the melodrama you tried to generate there.
@ yes that’s the narrative the men who wrote the story have isn’t it? You’re a young girl and you’re dealing with supernatural spirits. No such thing as consent, sorry.
@@rickedwards7276 That would all depend on the force of character of the young person, male or female. Some have it in them and some do not. Only a crisis would bring that out. Also the character of Mary in this scenario might very well have responded positively to this plan, a dream of a messiah having greatly conditioned people to want to be a part of such a world -changing scenario. Only in a scenario in which God can only function as a negative force, a purely narcissistic force, could I see Mary being treated as a rape victim, a person cruelly/selfishly used for only God's gain. Mary's spiritual life is never portrayed in that manner in any gospel narrative, however. And neither is God's. You might want to see this narrative in that light, but I think that is what you bring into the account and not what you can find in it. Why? I don't know of course, but I hope it is not from personal pain or betrayal. Best.
@@elizabethkeller901 Sure. A likely story. It's no different from stories that we tell about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans singing kumbaya. It's propaganda. Besides.... this god character isn't human. This is an interspecies "interaction". Can an inferior species give consent? I mean, I can talk to my dog till I'm blue in the face but my dog still doesn't understand that human food is not for dogs. Humans would be like dogs to this god character. It screams a little bestiality vibe. Given how incoherent and incomprehensible this god character is (per the text), did Mary even understand this angel's message enough to give what we would consider informed consent? There are problems ethically with this story. It is not good of Christians to ignore the power dynamics, the age dynamics, the species dynamics, the cultural dynamics at play. At best, Mary was a broodmare and her offspring was a science experiment that had a planned "obsolescence". Note, this god did not ask for Mary's input concerning the life expectancy of her offspring. In that sense.. this god is very similar to men who kill their children even now..
I've heard you can somewhat calculate the date based on the timing of John the Baptist conception and when his father Zechariah served in the temple. It's been a while since I've read up on this so I apologize if that's been debunked.
There is no way of knowing when his clan’s turns happened to be that year. The priests were on a 24-week rotation, so they each got two or three turns a year, each time on a different date.
I mean even though it's a Chatbot, I think the point is, is it giving us the right information or wrong? If you agree that the information is correct then whatever she is doing for her content, is the least of the concern here.
I don't celebrate Christmas because I choose not to. I prefer instead to just celebrate my friends and family. It's that simple, no one is forcing you to celebrate, but take the day off because why not?
Sol Invictus Day, or Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, was a Roman festival celebrated on December 25th to celebrate the winter solstice and the rebirth of the sun god Sol Invictus.. yours is only the best explanation if you have no clue what a mystery religion was or why they would choose days of solar significance.. just saying
@digitaljanus the cult of Sol existed in Rome since the early days of the republic. You're referring to the official adoption and I'll grant you that. The issue i take is that this explanation makes the solar significance merely a "coincidence" inferring no connection
Not Saturnalia, but these dates are absolutely tied to pagan harvest and seasonal practices, especially as we move out into the time and territory of barbarians (ie fall of rome replaced by western europe) . Yule/Winter Solstice (around Dec 21) has the tree, the red elf man with the horned beasts (reindeers) becomes a Saint. And Spring Equinox (around march 23) eggs, chicks , lambs, rabbits? Even the saints days in medieval Europe were previous pagan religious days.
Ah… see, what you’re doing is applying YOUR logic, intuition, and interpretation to the available data. The problem is that you likely don’t have ALL the data and, possibly, you have incorrect data.
What's the earliest date of the observance of yule that is recorded? Also, Easter is literally during Passover. And you must provide primary sources for all of the Saints days in medieval Europe being tied to pagan religious days.
I'm just glad that they chose the same day that Santa comes.
Unless you live in Germany.
Santa comes December 5th over there.
@@ryanvoll7088The Netherlands too. Sinterklaas is the original Santa Claus, and he comes with his helper Zwarte Piet on December 5th, which is the eve of St Nicholas’s Day.
@@zevsero9170 Santa comes from a Catholic st Nicholas he gave gifts to children on Christmas or around Christmas time.
@@vampyresgraveyard3307 The American Santa Claus comes directly from the Dutch Sinterklaas, who brings presents NOT on Christmas but on December 5th, the eve of St Nicholas’s Day.
And no, there are NO legends of the actual St Nicholas giving children presents at or near Xmas.
@@zevsero9170 according to Google st Nicholas did give gifts to children
"...ineptitude and hallucinations of AI Chatbots..."
Hahahahahahahaha. Awesome.
Jeez, what a closing line lol. Don't hold back now, Dr. Dan.
I had a conversation with Chatbot about this. It gave me a similar answer; the standard “pagan plagiarism” response. I pointed out that scholars of religion usually argue against this claim, and I gave sources (including from Dan) for why Dec. 25th is not associated with pagan traditions. It then backtracked and told me that there isn’t really any historical evidence for the claim of pagan plagiarism. I then asked why it gave me that answer if it was not historically accurate. It told me that it gets its information more from conventional wisdom and popular culture rather than from academic sources; it repeats supposed common knowledge.
Needless to say I lost a *lot* of trust in AI search engines on that day.
I asked AI to give me the name of a biblical scholar. It gave me Jordan Peterson.
AI bots are not designed or intended to provide reliable information. That’s just not what they’re for, so it’s stupid to rely on them. They’re designed simply to analyze input text and supply a plausible continuation. So when you ask them a question they give an answer that a human might plausibly give, without regard to its accuracy. It doesn’t matter whether their answer is right or wrong, what matters is that it sounds like something a human might say.
As always, Dr. Dan, great info based on quality scholarship! I had accepted the "pagan festival" convention before seeing your content.
Yes, although I wouldn’t underestimate the influence of syncretism that helped introduce and establish the religion.
There've been Christian groups of trying to cancel Christmas going back centuries now - it always revolves around some kind of "look at me, I'm a better Christian than other Christians" stand. It's very boring. Equally boring are the "you're not Christmasy enough!" crowd who flip out that people pandering to their religious festival aren't doing it enough for them. The whole thing is performative and incredibly tedious.
It's very selfish too. And a little grotesque. When I was a Christian, I didn't get it. But now, after years (probably a decade minimum), the Christian holiday around Christmas is not something I find good. And why? Do parents regularly look at their newborn and plan to have them sacrificed? It's kind of gross to celebrate the birth of an individual you want to sacrifice for .. reasons. But then, the Christian god has always been the greatest child killer. So maybe this entity thought it was Tuesday and it wanted its baby back ribs or something.
Christians... look, dress it up however you want. I prefer a more secular Christmas with a jolly fat elf and reindeer or even a bit of Tim Burton Nightmare before Christmas. The Christian myth is just a little too dark for my taste. But you do you.
That close was harsh but satisfying. Merry Christmas Dan!
Firm but fair 😂
The ending: Best, concise, accurate take down I've ever heard! Congrats!!!
Its a terrible bullshit evasion. They're absolutely based on pagan harvest/religious days. Every single one down to the festivals of saints. It was never said to be aligned with Roman Saturnalia, but rather Germanic Yule.
@@rickwrites2612provide sources for every single one of those. And not something that claims it. A source from the time and location of all of them. Or stop making shit up. The Vatican has committed so many horrible acts. There's no need to invent petty things
@rickwrites2612 you really think that christiane in the 3rd century were aware of yule? Also when is the earliest mention of yule?
@@rickwrites2612 since there's plenty of comments on this very video that make that claim, your claim is patently false. Also, Yule hasn't been around as long as Christmas. Stop lying
I was just having this discussion at a holiday party last night to push back against the "all Christian holidays are 100% pagan" misinfo. I don't remember offhand the source of every single tradition, but I knew this explanation for why Dec 25 is Christmas
Moses will toss a tree into the bitter sea and light will increase vs darkness. I must decrease (summer solstice - winter solstice) and he must increase (winter solstice - summer solstice.
Still pagan Greco-Roman garbage.
🏛️🙋🏼👈
@harveywabbit9541 what is that supposed to mean, some kind of "this looks similar if I squint therefore that's where it comes from" argument?
@@benroberts2222
When they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore it was named Marah. So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” Then he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree; and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet.
@@harveywabbit9541 u ok???
One of many reasons I'm wary of AI. It presents what people have said as if it's an answer to your question, without any regard for accuracy, any check in place against misinformation or common misconceptions, any evaluation of (or credit to) its sources, or any caution to its users.
AI might have its uses. Doing your research for you is not one of them.
AI's strengths lie in delivering consensus, and spotting deviation. The problem arises when trained on falsehoods and folk "research". When trained on high quality data, it's actually pretty damned helpful.
For example, it's great at spotting tumors when trained on medical imaging data, but it would be terrible at it if they used Halloween skeletons and zombie movies and deviantart.
That's basically what we're getting from CatGPT and other shitbots
I'm glad someone already got here to say this. I may be an old, but my being suspicious of AI results has merit, damn it!
Yep, at least Wikipedia has source citations and a talk section so you get a bit more access to authoritative info
@@benroberts2222 I'd say AI is very useful in situations where it's fairly easy for you to check the results, or where facts outside of those you provided are irrelevant (for example, when you use it to convert your facts into a report or documentation or the like).
Treat it like a fairly new colleague who still makes mistakes because he's new to the field, maybe.
@KaiHenningsen oh I don't think it's useless, I've heard of those uses before and others. I'm just pointing out the worrying trend of AI becoming the new Wikipedia as a pseudo-authoritative source to win arguments
It's funny how people can separate their own secular and religious beliefs for Easter(bunny) and Christmas (Santa). But when ancient people practiced this, it had some sinister motivation towards modern times.
This might be my favorite Dr. Dan video.
Dan, causing some 3rd degree burns at the end there! I like it!
Dan, a better Siri than Siri 😄
Siriously, lol
Being called pedestrian has to be one of the most brutal insults I have ever heard.
I read the Golden Bough and therefore...Thank you for educating me. Have a lovely Christmas time< with or without Jesus, and an excellent 2025 xxx
"Wouldn't it be more interesting if Jesus was built instead of being born, like R2D2?" Philomena Cunk😂
I’d be careful about offending the A.I. God, in the future it may condemn us to the battle bot colosseum
Honest question: why did they choose March 25th for the date of conception and not for the date of birth? As I understand it, it was much more frequent to assume that major figures were born and died on the same date, while using it for the date of conception was sort of a "plan b". So, again: why did they choose December rather than March?
One thing I’ve always wondered about: If we take the Biblical accounts of Jesus’ virgin birth at face value, and if we assume the date of March 25 for the annunciation is correct… why would we assume a normal pregnancy length? This was obviously not a normal conception… so do we assume Jesus started out at a single cell?
The male authors of these texts would have poorly understood pregnancy and childbirth, "roughly 9 months" was probably the limits of their imagination in this regard.
My guess is... the emaculate conception story was told to avoid scandal and possibly by Mary's parents. Young girls like her were often forced to marry their R'ists.
Since they didn't know about cells, no. But when struggling with "fully god, fully human", they probably assumed a 'typical' human gestation.
Virgo is at the correct position on March 25 to become impregnated. Same as the biblical Eve and mother of Horus.
@@digitaljanus
284 days, in biblespeak, is also the gestation.
"Artificial" is the key word in artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤thanks Dan!!
Dan, please reference the specific primary texts with section/verse numbers so we can dive deeper.
We all love Coca-Cola Santa, too, i believe.
She might not celebrate Christmas because of this? I wouldn't care if it was totally biblical or influenced by paganism. Christmas is a joyous time of year. I'm putting up a tree. I hope she likes Chinese food.
What gets me is every culture everywhere seems to have noticed the solstices and equinoxes... okay? So they all copied each other...?
Also, considering how many of these feasts are 7 to 14 days long... 1 or 2 weeks out of 52, with 4 significant celestial events... There's like a 1 in 7 chance your festival lands over one of those events. When you start fudging 2 or 3 days, like these people do with Saturnalia, now we're closer to 1 in 3 or 4.
The scandal of it all!
Not every culture, or even most cultures, celebrates the solstices or the equinoxes. People who make this claim just randomly drag in any festival that happens to occur anytime within a month of the event or more, even if there’s no connection at all.
But-but-but Doc Brown SAYS it, in Back To The Future-he says “Or witness the birth of Christ!?” and types in December 25, 0000!
There was no year 0. If he tried to go there he’d end up in some sort of singularity. 1 BCE was followed immediately by 1 CE.
"... pretty pedestrian." Do you want a crosswalk with that?
This woman has posted many videos on her spiritual journey, which quickly went towards Islam. Apparently inspired by a Mufti Menk, she started using ChatGPT in this journey. Many vids on comparing the Bible to the Quran re. topics such as peace and women's rights.
Curiously she started out as an Aussie pop singer.
Dan's final line applies to all of her vids: they are pretty pedestrian.
The argument of the Christian's search for astrological relevance for the birth date of their new God is very strong, and Saturnalia continuous to be suspiciously similar to Christmas. As nobody knows the real date of Jesus birth, they seem to be two good cultural approaches to the historical birth of Christmas.
Start these questions with “What is the critical consensus about….?” and you improve the accuracy of GenAI responses. In addition, the paid versions of GenAI are more accurate.
Question regarding this video: Jesus' death was determined to be March 25th based on the Passover, what year did they use for this, since we don't know what year Jesus supposedly died?
Jesus, the sun, "dies" at each sun down and is born again at each sun rise.
@@harveywabbit9541That doesn’t answer the question. It just ignores it in order to prattle on about your nonsense.
I often wonder if Emperor Aurelian adopted December 25 as the birthday of Sol Invictus from Christians as a way of encouraging them to find the imperial cult more acceptable.
Her question is waaaay too long. Her question should have been: Was Jesus born?
Jesus born December 25th and the Christmas tree is two different things, yet both are part of the celebration, which suggest to me Christmas has some form of pagan origins.
Christmas celebrations had been around for over a thousand years before German Lutherans started using Christmas trees in the 16th century.
@jdynasty7680 That may be true, however there is no historical data nor biblical occurrence that the early Christians celebrated it, nor chopped down a tree to observe it. There may be a correlation between the Christmas tree (or cutting down the tree for pagan worship) and the Ancient Sumerian tree of life. It's obvious to me that these pagan traditions started early on and made their way through different societies and people. No doubt in my mind the idea of a Christmas tree is of pagan origins.
@@toney5173 I believe the tree was borrowed from Yule, a Germanic tradition. It was Christians who ended up bringing the trees inside and decorating them. As religions spread they tend to absorb local customs and traditions into their belief systems. So, I would agree the tree would have pagan origins, however those origins are slightly different to how those earlier Christians altered those tradition.
A fascinating subject, especially since so many believe these mythologies are truths.
@@jdynasty7680 I agree with the yule interpretation, but based upon the visual inspection of the Ancient Sumerian tree of life and it's ancient use, one can draw a conclusion that the idea of a tree being used in a form of worship predates the Germanic use of tree worship. It's clear to me that tree observance most likely started in Ancient Mesopotamia. ,
@@toney5173 I had read that Egyptians, Hebrews, and Chinese traditions had also used evergreen trees to symbolize eternal life. Probably hard to pinpoint exactly where it all started, perhaps they drew inspiration for a multitude of ancient/local traditions.
I believe there are a lot of people in Japan now that celebrate Christmas without being Christian. Wonder what these celebrations will look like in another 500 years?
Pretty new to this take. My experience is that the "new testament" was written to be a s cohesive as possible with Judean scripture and traditions. The birth of the savior is cohesive with the lighting of the Menorah. Obviously it coincides with the solstice as well, per the many slights of hand in the composition of the new testament.....
People seem to put a lot of stock in “The shepherds wouldn’t be out in the middle of winter.” But Bethlehem is at 31 degrees North. It gets chilly, but not nearly as cold as say, Scotland, where the sheep are completely fine to get snowed on. They’re covered in wool. The shepherds would have access to wool as well. The cold of a Bethlehem December night would not be a problem.
The New Catholic Encyclopedia says: “The date of the birth of Jesus Christ can be calculated only approximately. The date of December 25 does NOT correspond to Christ’s birth but to the feast of the Natalis Solis Invicti, the Roman sun festival at the solstice.”
If Jesus birth was important for Christians to celebrate, the Bible would’ve told us so. From Matthew chapters 26 and 27, we understand that Jesus died at the time of the Jewish Passover, which commenced April 1, 33 C.E. Luke 3:21-23 informs us that Jesus was about 30 years of age when he commenced his ministry. Since his earthly ministry lasted three and a half years, he was about 33 1/2 years old at the time of his death. Christ would have been 34 years old six months later, which would be about October 1. If we count back to see when Jesus was born, we reach NOT December 25 or January 6, but about October 1 of the year 2 B.C.E!
There's another error in the shepherd argument. Shephreds did keep their flocks out at night, and still do, in warmer climes like Palestine/Israel. I'd also point out there's a particular Jewish feast day that the birth of John the Baptist was announced and some math with the months between that and the annunciation of Jesus work out to march. Granted as you say none of the authors were there but the reasons are more then just "pagan holidays".
John the Baptist, is born at the summer solstice. The summer solstice engendered a lot celebrating.
@@harveywabbit9541No it didn’t. Not in Judaea, at that time or any other.
There is no Jewish holiday mentioned in connection with John’s birth. The celebration of John’s birth at midsummer is calculated from the Annunciation in March, not the other way around.
@@zevsero9170 John's father Zachariah was serving a feast at the temple when the angel told him he would have a son. Based on the time between that and Mary discovering she would have a son would place Jesus's conception around march.
@ No, he was not “serving a feast”. And there is absolutely no indication of the date, even approximately, except that it was about six months before the Annunciation.
Apparently if you put something into an AI voice people will take it as fact?
She must be vegan, because she wasn't ready for the beef he brought at the end.
This is why we don't trust ChatGPT kids
It never seems to be mentioned in these discussion that the modern notion of December the 25th was invented in, what, 1582.
Exactly. So, so calculating 9 months from Passover on March 25 wouldn't have resulted in a date of December 25; it would have been January 6 or 7.
@@JustifiedNonetheless When indeed it is celebrated in many Orthodox churches. But since the very nature of a calendar is subject to debate, it's all quite academic.
It's like these arguments you see in contemporary music theory about ideal and/or historical tunings in Hz, as if the second wasn't a recent and arbitrary invention.
The thing is, when the Western Church converted from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, they moved all the festivals. That is, they kept the "dates" the same, so Christmas moved from Dec 25 (Julian) to Dec 25 (Gregorian), the Annunciation moved from Mar 25 (Julian) to Mar 25 (Gregorian), etc.
Although, the idea of adjusting the calendar back a week and change was to compensate for the drift the that had been noticed since adopting the Julian calendar. Back in the 1st century, the Vernal Equinox happened in late March (around the 21st I believe), but by the mid 1500s, it had drifted back to near March 10th. This was an issue because the date of Easter is calculated based on when the Equinox happens.
But, as you said, it's all about interpretation. We likely will never know what the date anything actually happened, so why not continue to use the date your particular tradition holds?
No, it wasn’t. Not at all.
@@zevsero9170 No, you're right, my mistake. The idea was current centuries earlier, and the eventual fix developed decades sooner. It was first _promulgated_ in the 1580s.
And even that's arguably technically false, because of leap seconds.
Soooo,
it's a literary convention that
Instead of dying on your birthday
you are supposed to die on the day you were conceived ?
Given that early Christians treated Jesus' conception and crucifixion as miraculous events they might have reasoned the two should fall on the day.
It's simply that you celebrate someone's anniversary day, and you have to pick _some_ date for that. When they die, they may already be famous, and people are paying enough attention to write down the date. When they're born, not only are they probably not famous yet, not only is there a fair chance that they don't even know anyone literate, but there's a 50-50 chance that they'll never get to be adults at all. So … death days are easier picks than birth days for someone's formal anniversary. Then you just say “anniversary” or “the feast of Jim” and after a few years or decades or centuries no one is necessarily sure if that's the day they were born, the day they died, or indeed the day that did that thing with the chicken and the waterfall….
The idea in Greco-Roman times was that important figures live "complete" lives, and part of that was living for a full number of years (i.e., dying in the same day you were born). For whatever reason, the early Christian scholars decided to make it a full number of years for conception to death.
The date of Jesus birth is irrelevant. The "King/Queen's" Birthday (of England/UK) is not celebrated on the actual known day of his/her birth. There is a 1 in 365 probability that any day of the year would be he actual date of Jesus' birth. Anyway, there is no Biblical command to celebrate the birth of our LORD, so whether we do or don't in not really important.
On leap years, Jesus is born 366 times.
Of the four canonical Gospels, in your scholarly opinion, which is the most historically accurate, if any can be called such?
Happy Saturnalia
and
Merry Sol Solstice
No, it's four days after the Winter Solstice and the turn of the season towards the return of the Sun (Spring).
It’s four days later now, and was when the formula for Easter was set. It was only 2 days later when it was chosen as the date of Xmas. And it was no days later when the Julian calendar was introduced and Dec 25 was officially designated as the date of the solstice.
AI is not a reliable source of knowledge.
I mostly use it for artistic purposes and to brainstorm ideas for my personal fictional stories.
Of course I don't use it to make stories for me
In Christendom, there is a "new calendar" and an "old calendar," which affects many dates. What do you know about that, Dan?
That has nothing to do with it. The old calendar was inaccurate, the year was slightly too long, until everything was happening 10 days too late. When the calendar said December 25 it was really already well into January. So the new calendar just put everything back where it belonged.
@@zevsero9170 Some Eastern Orthodox still use it. It makes Christmas odd. But everyone agrees on Easter/Pascha. I think the whole thing is a bit silly.
@ Yes, they use it, but the date of Xmas is still Dec 25. Whichever calendar you use, Xmas is Dec 25 on that calendar, 9 months after March 25 on the same calendar.
And no, they don’t all agree on Easter. _Some_ Orthodox churches have accepted the Gregorian calendar for Easter, but many/most haven’t. Again, though, that doesn’t change the _date_ of the equinox used to calculate Easter, it just changes the calendar used.
Creepy that people are asking ChapGPT for factual information. ChatGPT is for debugging code and creating pat summaries of well understood things. Not actually investigating facts.
As a Pagan, I always enjoy this myth being debunked. Depending on the group, holidays and such fall on various days, though many have one on or near the Winter Solstice. Talk to actual Pagans and you will learn something quick - we have a LOT more holidays than Abrahamic religions.
Inwyrdn has a minimum of 20, plus various national and international days we honor, such as July 4th (Alice in Wonderland Day) and November 11th (World Origami Day).
Well, in the medieval period two-thirds of the days of the year might have been marked by this or that saint's feast day. Many of these were co-opted by the Peace of God movement, where the ecclesiastical authority tried to reduce violence between Christian lords and knights by forbidding it on holy days (among other methods).
TIL Alice in Wonderland and origami are pagan things to be celebrated religiously
You're a _neopagan_ and not a pagan. You're basically on a build-your-own religion journey of dogma
One thing I didn't hear from Dan (or you) though is the fact that 9 months before the winter solstice is the spring equinox. Where'd they get that date from? Sure, it was already established. But it clearly points to the entire Judaism/Christianity versus Paganism as being a wash. There's no difference between them, except that one got state backing.
Don't assume that your version of the nature (and book reading, and paper folding) religion is at better than the other guys'
Are you mad ;)? Here's what the Church of England says about _December alone:_ 1. Commemoration of Charles de Foucauld-this year, also the first Sunday of Advent; 3. Commemoration of Francis Xavier; 4. Commemoration of John of Damascus & Nicholas Ferrar; 6. Festival of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra; 7. Festival of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan; 8. Feast of the Conception of the BVM; 13. Festival of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse & commemoration of Samuel Johnson; 14. Commemoration of St. John of the Cross; 17. O Sapientia & commemoration of Eglantyne Jebb; 24. Christmas Eve; 25. Christmas Day (which is to say, the _first_ day of Christmas); 26. Feast of St. Stephen; 27. Feast of St. John the Apostle; 28. Holy Innocents; 29. Festival (I think) of Thomas Becket; 31. Commemoration of John Wyclif. The density is high enough that collisions are a real problem.
Even if we only count the official biggies in the year we have: the Circumcision, the Epiphany, the Conversion of St. Paul, Candlemas, the Feast of Joseph of Nazareth, the Annunciation, the Feast of St. George, the Feast of St. Mark, the Feast of Philip and James, the Feast of St. Matthias, the Visitation, the Feast of St. Barnabas, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, St Thomas, Mary Magdalene, St. James, the Transfiguration, the Feast of the BVM, St. Bartholemew, Holy Cross, St. Matthew, Michael and All Angels, St. Luke, Simon and Jude, All Saints', St. Andrew, Christmas, St. Stephen, John the Apostle, Holy Innocents; and with variable dates Ash Wednesday, Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost and Advent.
Then there's the fact that Advent and Lent take a month, Christmas lasts a couple of weeks, and Easter season is a month and a half.
And of course there are periods when all kinds of random things are specifically prayed for, like peace or fishing or hospitals, which may or may not be tied to particular saints or secular commemorations.
One of the things you might notice in an Anglican church is that the colours of the hangings change from red, to green, to white, to purple, to bare wood. It's a code, based on what exactly is being commemorated on that day. You have to change them quite a lot.
To help anyone who might be confused, literally all paganism is neopaganism as pagans and polytheists since time immemorial have accepted change and adaptation as a part of religion (such as Romans welcoming new gods into the pantheon or Celtic Druids adapting stories as continental Europeans came to England and Ireland).
Anyone who differentiates between paganism as some fixed concept and neopaganism show how little they understand about the topic.
@@inwyrdn3691 There does seem to be a specific neopaganist movement, though? There seem to be bookshops devoted to it, where in the past it might have been just “myth and religion”.
Someone else spoke of state backing, and I thought that was a little confused; meant religions, pagan and otherwise, have had state backing from time to time. Of course that tends to make them a little more well defined and less diffuse, just as state backing imposes standards and “identity” on a dialect. Indeed, we could argue without twisting the words too much that “religion” and “language” are distinguished from “faith” and “dialect” precisely by state backing.
Listen to Dan and Learn!
Night/darkness/winter = autumn equinox - spring equinox aka the six nights in Genesis one.
We do know which year he was born or even where he was born.
The sun was "born" long ago.
wait - so that AI bot thinks shepherds only watch their flocks when it's warm?
Do not tell the wolves.....
During winter nights, you would keep your flocks inside your house or a barn to specifically avoid them getting hunted by wolves.
@@epronovost6539
hmm. I don't want to say you're wrong - but that implies wolves don't hunt in the summer.
I get that shepherds in some places take their flocks to higher climes for the Summer, and bring them down in the winter, but I'm dubious towards the idea that flocks were shut up somewhere on winter nights and not summer nights.
However, your explanation does account for it, so I'm not going to argue without any real knowledge myself.
cheers.
The "fields" in this tale, refers to the zodiac.
@@bengreen171
The wolves are the pastors in the fundamentalist churches.
@@harveywabbit9541
wolves in creep's clothing.
Dionysus and Dennis the Little set up A.D. and B.C. dates of Jezus birthday etc .
Rooted in Greek mythology idolatry.
The explanation for December 25th sounds right, but I wouldn't say that any suggested clues found in the Gospels must be ignored as wholly literary creations. We don't know if there's any veracity to the suggested data in the Gospels, meaning it's entirely possible that some of the information is accurate.
Some favor December 25th as the date of _conception_, based on a back-calculation of a birth on or about the Feast of Tabernacles. Some theories claim that John 1:17 uses the word that means "tabernacled", which is often translated for "dwelt", as a hint of this Jewish holiday. Others have calculated the dates of various priests who were mentioned in the nativity narrative of Jesus and John the Baptist and their likely rotation of duties at the temple. And some have back-calculated the birthday based on the death-day and the understanding that Jesus lived 33 1/2 years, meaning if he died in spring, he would therefore have been born in autumn. This aligns with some ideas about shepherds. It also aligns with the claim that men had to go to the temple for Sukkot, The Feast of Tabernacles, explaining Joseph's motivation for taking the journey regardless of the veracity of claims of a census.
I don't know how precise or accurate any of this is, but it seems consistent, even if it's not the convention.
We probably should ignore the details in the Gospels, because even for other ancient persons who are extremely well-attested, born into positions of much higher wealth and privilege and visibility than a Nazarene tradesman, we know almost nothing of their birth or infancy. Ancient peoples did not record such details, when half of all children, even those of the powerful, died well before adolescence. Instead they would fabricate a compelling childhood narrative when writing biographies of important persons, like the almost certainly apocryphal stories of prepubescent Alexander the Great taming a horse no grown man could, or asking Persian diplomats to his father's court questions about their military strength.
Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.
The priests’ shifts were on a 24-week rotation, so they were never on the same date from year to year. Which makes it impossible to calculate anything from it.
@@zevsero9170 If I remember correctly, the people who did the calculations used it support claims for two dates to see if the claims are consistent, not to determine a date but to support dates arrived at by other means. In other words, they're attempting to falsify a hypothesis, but it passes.
Was Jesus born on December 25?
We don't know, but almost certainly not. (If for no other reason because the calendar that would have been used to make the calculation--even using the traditional March 25 date--would have yielded January 6 or 7. It wouldn't have been December 25 anyway because the modern Gregorian calendar didn't exist at the time those calculations were made, so calculating from Passover on March 25 to December 25 is just nonsense).
I was always told he was born in May
@@rain0069
Well, you have keep in mind, that all of this speculation isn't even using the Julian calendar that they would have used. The Gregorian calendar wasn't created unti 1582, so it's all invalid anyway.
No, what you wrote is nonsense. It doesn’t matter whether you are using the Julian calendar or the Gregorian, 9 months from March 25 gives December 25. There is no calendar in which you can add 9 months to March 25 and get a date in January.
@zevsero9170
December 25 is 9 months (251 days) from March 25, or the 359th day of the year. According to the Julian calendar (the one in effect at that time), due to a miscalculation of the length of the year, the 359th day had drifted by the year 6 CE to be January 6 or 7. Thus, your statement that, "there is no calendar in which you can add 9 months to March and get a date in January" misses the point. In fact, according to the modern Gregorian calendar, today is the 16th of December, but according to the Julian calendar, it is the 3rd of December. The Gregorian calendar was developed to correct for that drift.
In fact, The Armenian Apostolic Church, which is an Oriental Orthodox Church, celebrates the birth of Jesus on January 6th, which is also known as Epiphany in Western Christian traditions. I'm glad I had the opportunity to teach you something.
Hey Dan, if it was customary for the Jews to consummate the marriage on the wedding night and even going as far producing the evidence (bloody sheet), why was Mary still a virgin when she got impregnated by God?
No, Christmas was most likely not on Dec. 25. I don't care about the date. I'm just glad Jesus was born!!
Does Christmas have any pagen origins?
In what way? In terms of the date, likely not, as described in this video. In terms of what the Christian feast celebrates, not especially a far as I can tell. In terms of the particular ways different groups of Christians celebrate, it probably has accreted some of the local early winter festival traditions of whatever culture it was adapted into.
Dan, love the videos but your wife has to be frustrated with all the T-shirts! Has she asked you to switch to Polos?
The Bible does not tell the date of Jesus' birthday. Some Bible scholars in their research believe Jesus was in the fall. Their explanations were that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to pay their taxes. Jewish tax collection was to be paid September or October.
Something like the scales (Libra) which were used to collect taxes.
No it wasn’t
The ONLY job I would let AI do at this point is protein folding.
Merry Crucified Mess!!!
I agree that Jesus was not born in December, i lean towards August ie Lion of Judah. However nothing is ever a coincidence. The month of December would have been chosen to fullfill a biblical prophetic event. Thats how the deception works, ie the current people they call the Israelites are not the true Spiritual Israelites etc
Christmas advice: read book called Your Life, Your Game by Keezano. I’ve read it, and it truly changed my life. It beautifully shows how connecting with God and your inner self can lead to spiritual growth and financial success. A must-read..✝️💟🙏🏼
l just bought it🎁
Website was sketchy, like those Facebook ads.
Isn’t she the content creator that’s always trying to prove atheists wrong using ChatGPT, and now she’s trying to prove Jesus wasn’t real?
So, Jesus’s conception is based on the date of his death, cuz that’s the way they rolled 2k years ago? Everywhere you turn in Christianity you’re faced with beliefs established by unscience.
Nall that is how you shut this crap down… he did wonderful at closing.. Dan just go harder next time..
Dan > ChatGPT
Anything right about Christian belief ? Anything please
So its actually April 4th to get a December 25th birth date. It happened to my baby. And the due date was always the 25.
"Jesus's conception"? Such a bizarre term to use here. I'm really going to need to know, in precise mechanistic terms, how a sperm went from god's balls to Mary's uterus, without passing through her vegana, before accepting the use of that term.
Is she a pretty pedestrian, or being pretty pedestrian? 😶
Dennis the Short?
A better question: Is Jesus a real person?
He is the real sun.
You’re a celebrity now Dan. And branding rules say you need to pick a look and keep it consistent.
I guess what I’m saying is that I prefer the beard. 🤷🏻♂️
(Not that you should care.)
Following the liturgy of the Festivals of Moses Law, beginning with a New Year First Day of Light, in the spring vernal equinox Easter term, after Passover, the gestation of Jesus from conception of a first light of creation, sometime after April 1st, the ancient new year date, in the constellation of Aries the Ram, seeing Abraham sighted the Ram caught in the horns, or the ancient calendar, Zodiac, mentioned many times in the Bible a universal calendar, where the first day of light is in the spring, for Temple Israel, so a conception of the Messiah in the womb or Ark of the Covenant, the child would pass along the Seven Festivals of Israel's Temple worship, including the Day of Atonement where a child had to be seven months in the womb to be counted in the Temple census to pay for the atoning Korban service, and so Mary carried Jesus from conception , the First Day of Light, the day after Passover, for nine months, atoning the child to pay the sheckel coin for the cost of the priestly service on the Seventh Festival and then after nine months, around December 25th to January 6th by permutations of the Sun and Moon which is irregular and imprecise, except to the learned eye of the High Priest to discern and account for Biblical Times, seeing the regulation is begun on the fourth day of Creation the Sun, Moon and Stars are employed by God to account for Sacred Festivals, which for Israel , was Seven Festivals, from the New Year after Passover ends, to the Seventh Month Day of Atonement, releasing the woman to carry the child in a quiet private time , into winter, noting that the Bible incorporates the Zodiac in Prophesy, and regulating the Biblical Times. The New Year is about April First in the Constellation of Aries the Ram, making the reasoning simple, why Abraham found a Ram to offer at the Altar to spare his son Isaac, until the child of the consequences of the Zodiac and Prophesied Times, was a child born, called Jesus. There is no error in this report.
Then if they are conflicting why believe the bible.
So he’s NOT a Capricorn?!
Moses is an Aquarian.
Why does any of this matter?
please never shave the beard again my brother
I have a question....book of Jude: why did Michael dispute the body of Moses with Satan?
For a detailed analysis of this tale, see Science of the Bible, by Milton Woolley.
Michael is depicted as the seven signs of Aries thru Libra in Christian art. Michael means "who is like god."
What other examples are there of people whose birth date was unknown, people wanted to know it, their death date was known or at least people pretended to know it, and so they calculated it via this death date = date of conception method? It would seem that more than enough actual birth dates and death dates would have been known to rubbish this hypothetical identity between date of death and date of conception to anyone paying a lick of attention.
But maybe early church fathers really were that oblivious to presumably accessible facts. Then again, maybe this whole exercise was an exercise in exotic mathematical games set up to land on the date that they wanted to land on for cultural and/or celestial reasons.
And again, it's not just mythicists who believe that the Jesus story borrowed tropes and themes from stories of other religiously significant figures. Follow the data.
Birth certificates are a recent invention, so the date of birth of someone more than one or two hundred years old is rarely known, even to the closest year. But it's more a case of a person's “anniversary” being later taken to be their birthday even if it's the day they were set on fire or thrown off a cliff or whatever that was recorded, or of someone taking “died at the age of 40” and working backwards, than it is of any superstitious assumption that people live integral numbers of years.
@stephenspackman5573 Yeah, I get that birth records weren't assiduously kept back in the day and reliable death records from those times are only a little less sparse. But I have never heard of anyone else having their date if birth calculated from their (only sort of known) date of death via this odd stipulation that their date of death was also their date of conception and it is just the sort of coincidence one might be fishing for to land on the recognized day of the winter solstice. When you add in Dan's wildly false belief that only full blown mythicists believe that the MIRACULOUS fables about Jesus drew on prior fables and that the whole birth narrative is about as far out there as the miraculous tales get, you'll see why I consider Dan's annual humbuggery over the pagan origins of much of tge holiday such a huge step down from most of his work.
According to Dan, despite there being no biblical mandate to celebrate Christ's birthday, some church fathers decided they needed to figure it out anyway. They then decided that Jesus died precisely on March 25. Has anyone confirmed that this lines up with the Passover of tge relevant year or what the relevant year even was? Then they invoke tge odd convention that the date of death is also the date of conception. Fir what other figures was this ever invoked. Then they calculate 9 months out and danged if that doesn't land us on the official date of the winter solstice! Amazing!
We know from archeological evidence that alignments of monuments to solar positions at tge solstice go back at least to Neolithic times and the recognition of the importance of the solstices may have gone much deeper into antiquity. So thousands of years after people first recognized the solstices as profoundly important, some church fathers for the shear unbiblical hell of it mathemagic their way to getting Jesus born on the winter solstice - as it was OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED by the local culture. Biblically pointless calculation is the SOLE explanation for the Dec 25 date!
This doesn't pass the giggle test.
Not celebrate Christmas? I never have, we celebrate Jul, or Yule, because Norway🇧🇻✌️💚🖖🎄
I never realize the Vulcan salute was part of Jul :)
@billcook4768 Oh yes, the Vulcans have been here since before Odin started shaving, it's all recorded in numerous episodes (deleted outtakes) of popular lore💪👽🖖
Dan.
I love you but it’s time you jump on the crazy bandwagon and dress/sing as Elphaba
I love these concise and accurate clarifications. But I wonder if it’s time we stop referring to the date of Jesus conception and start referring to it as the date of Mary’s rape.
If you credit the story line given, she was told the plan and consented to a full and willing participation. So no, not rape. And she was so engaged with the whole thing, she hurried to joyfully tell her cousin in a nearby town. At least that's the narrative provided. Sorry to nix the melodrama you tried to generate there.
@ yes that’s the narrative the men who wrote the story have isn’t it? You’re a young girl and you’re dealing with supernatural spirits. No such thing as consent, sorry.
@@rickedwards7276 That would all depend on the force of character of the young person, male or female. Some have it in them and some do not. Only a crisis would bring that out. Also the character of Mary in this scenario might very well have responded positively to this plan, a dream of a messiah having greatly conditioned people to want to be a part of such a world -changing scenario. Only in a scenario in which God can only function as a negative force, a purely narcissistic force, could I see Mary being treated as a rape victim, a person cruelly/selfishly used for only God's gain. Mary's spiritual life is never portrayed in that manner in any gospel narrative, however. And neither is God's. You might want to see this narrative in that light, but I think that is what you bring into the account and not what you can find in it. Why? I don't know of course, but I hope it is not from personal pain or betrayal. Best.
@@elizabethkeller901 Sure. A likely story. It's no different from stories that we tell about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans singing kumbaya. It's propaganda.
Besides.... this god character isn't human. This is an interspecies "interaction". Can an inferior species give consent? I mean, I can talk to my dog till I'm blue in the face but my dog still doesn't understand that human food is not for dogs. Humans would be like dogs to this god character. It screams a little bestiality vibe.
Given how incoherent and incomprehensible this god character is (per the text), did Mary even understand this angel's message enough to give what we would consider informed consent?
There are problems ethically with this story. It is not good of Christians to ignore the power dynamics, the age dynamics, the species dynamics, the cultural dynamics at play. At best, Mary was a broodmare and her offspring was a science experiment that had a planned "obsolescence". Note, this god did not ask for Mary's input concerning the life expectancy of her offspring. In that sense.. this god is very similar to men who kill their children even now..
I've heard you can somewhat calculate the date based on the timing of John the Baptist conception and when his father Zechariah served in the temple. It's been a while since I've read up on this so I apologize if that's been debunked.
The Zechar in Zechariah is the male pointy thing. Remember the Zechar and Nekebah?
That method only has an anonymous source from decades after he died. That's what the kids call unreliable
There is no way of knowing when his clan’s turns happened to be that year. The priests were on a 24-week rotation, so they each got two or three turns a year, each time on a different date.
I mean even though it's a Chatbot, I think the point is, is it giving us the right information or wrong?
If you agree that the information is correct then whatever she is doing for her content, is the least of the concern here.
The chances are 1 in 365. But it really does not matter. We celebrate the birth of Jesus, not the day.
I don't celebrate Christmas because I choose not to. I prefer instead to just celebrate my friends and family.
It's that simple, no one is forcing you to celebrate, but take the day off because why not?
Sol Invictus Day, or Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, was a Roman festival celebrated on December 25th to celebrate the winter solstice and the rebirth of the sun god Sol Invictus.. yours is only the best explanation if you have no clue what a mystery religion was or why they would choose days of solar significance.. just saying
Yes, but there's no record of pagan religious observances on December 25th until well after the Christians were already recognizing it.
They had a Tardis, duh!
@digitaljanus the cult of Sol existed in Rome since the early days of the republic. You're referring to the official adoption and I'll grant you that.
The issue i take is that this explanation makes the solar significance merely a "coincidence" inferring no connection
@@4everseekingwisdom690
Doss the sun shine above 🗽?
The sun is female by day and male by night. The moon is male by day and female by night.
The Quran implies summertime birth date
Merry Effing Christmas 🎄🎅🤶😁
Hell no
Well if we can't count on the gospels why believe there was a historical Jesus at all? I say let's call the whole thing off and move on and be free
You could have just stopped at “was Jesus born?”
LOL Dan.
Not Saturnalia, but these dates are absolutely tied to pagan harvest and seasonal practices, especially as we move out into the time and territory of barbarians (ie fall of rome replaced by western europe) .
Yule/Winter Solstice (around Dec 21) has the tree, the red elf man with the horned beasts (reindeers) becomes a Saint.
And Spring Equinox (around march 23) eggs, chicks , lambs, rabbits?
Even the saints days in medieval Europe were previous pagan religious days.
Ah… see, what you’re doing is applying YOUR logic, intuition, and interpretation to the available data. The problem is that you likely don’t have ALL the data and, possibly, you have incorrect data.
What's the earliest date of the observance of yule that is recorded? Also, Easter is literally during Passover. And you must provide primary sources for all of the Saints days in medieval Europe being tied to pagan religious days.