We all (Ok most of us!) know how the Jesus story has been lifted from pagan mythology. It was travelling in the Mediterranean almost 1000 years before him. The virgin birth, baptism in the river, resurrection etc were actually taken from stories of Osiris, Dionysus, Adonis, Attis, Horus and Mithras. But come on even the date of birth had to be stolen??? For dim-wits who still haven’t followed, yes, ‘The Saviour’ wasn’t born on December 25th!
The Bible has as many cases of plagiarism against it as the next Bollywood movie you will catch in the theatre or Pritam’s next composition. The cave-men who wrote His story just did a pre-historic cut (wiping out Paganism mercilessly)-copy (a very accurate one)-paste (and we give you JESUS).
To prove that this is not a hoax, I give you the whole story:
From its early Babylonian roots, the celebration of the birth or "rebirth" of the sun god on December 25th came to be celebrated under various names all over the ancient world. You see, the winter solstice occurs a few days before December 25th each year. The winter solstice is the day of the year when daylight is the shortest. In ancient times, December 25th was the day each year when the day started to become noticeably longer. Thus it was fitting for the early pagans to designate December 25th as the date of the birth or the "rebirth" of the sun.
Let's even pretend for a while that my pal J.C. existed and the Bible accurate. So where did Christmas come from? Well, the truth is that the word "Christmas" is not actually found anywhere in the entire Bible. In fact, the word "Christmas" was not even invented until about a thousand years after Jesus left this earth. The Catholic Encyclopedia even admits this: "The word for Christmas in late Old English is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ, first found in 1038." But Jesus was not even born on December 25th. The reality is that it would have simply been far too cold for shepherds to be out with their sheep at night in Israel on December 25th. The vast majority of Christian scholars now acknowledge this. So when was Jesus actually born? Based on the information we have in the Scriptures, it appears that it is most likely that Jesus was born in the autumn season.
So how did December 25th come to be celebrated by Christians? Well, by the time the Roman Empire legalized Christianity in the 4th century, most of the other religions in the empire were celebrating the birth of their gods on December 25th.
So in the year 350 A.D., Pope Julius I declared that the birth of Jesus would be celebrated on December 25th from then on. There appears to be little doubt that Pope Julius was trying to make it as painless as possible for pagan Romans to convert to Catholicism!
Also thousands of years before there was a "Santa Claus", there was another supernatural figure that would supposedly visit a tree and leave gifts every December 25th. His name was Nimrod!
According to ancient Babylonian tradition, Semiramis claimed that after the untimely death of her husband Nimrod, a full grown evergreen tree sprang up overnight from a dead tree stump. Semiramis claimed that Nimrod would visit that evergreen tree and leave gifts each year on the anniversary of his birth, which just happened to be on December 25th!
Dampened the Holiday spirit have I? Ho Ho Ho (It’s not Nimrod laughing but the Grinch) :D
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