Obviously Y'shua (Jesus) wasn't born on December 25th. Many Messianic Jewish believers including myself believe that Y'shua was conceived during Channukah and born during Sukkot mainly during Simchat Torah.
2009-10-03T16:32:40Z
Kosher Ninja, you said that there is no sect of messianic Jews with-in Judaism, apparently you never read about Shaul better known to Gentiles as Paul. Shaul was a Jewish believer in Y'shua, he went to synagogues and to the Temple. He was a Pharisee, taught by Gamaliel, the grandson of Hillel. Shaul even used the 7 Rules of Hillel in his writings.
BTW Acts 11:26 the disciples were 1st called Messianic at Antioch
2009-10-03T18:46:02Z
"Anyone meshugge enough to call himself a Jew, IS a Jew." - David Ben-Gurion
2009-10-04T17:55:34Z
Speaking of the water libation ceremony at Sukkot, Y'shua tells us He is the Living Water. Y'shua is the Mayim Hayim! Isaiah 12:3 – “Therefore with joy you shall draw water out of the wells of yeshu`ah (salvation).” Y'shua said: If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, from within him will flow rivers of living water.” John 7:37,38
Devoted12009-10-03T16:53:20Z
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From what I've learned, most Messianic Jews believe He was born TODAY! The first day of Feast of Tabernacles - because God wanted to tabernacle with His people. He was circumcised on Simchat Torah, the 8th day after His birth.
Those are some "interesting" calculations, but the reality is that there is no tangible evidence that "Jesus" was ever a real historical entity outside of the biblical accounts, and there are mountains of evidence that these stories were invented as "fables" to teach the "illiterate masses" the value of living a kind life. (In much the same way Aesop, who was contemporary with many of the NT authors, did not suspect anyone would believe there was a historical race between a tortoise & a hare.) Those who insist on pinning down the "facts" about a "real" Jesus tend to ignore the reality that there were dozens of mystics making a living doing 'miracles' around 2000 years ago in that part of the world, that no contemporary authors other than Saul (who probably invented Jesus) mention Jesus Christ (with the notable exception of Josephus), and that the Jesus Story bears an uncanny resemblance to the story of Mithra (virgin birth, resurrection, etc.), a popular myth of the time from 1000 years earlier. Debating the calculations of Jesus birthdate is today's equivalent of the learned debates that allegedly included Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas on the number of Angels that would fit on the head of a pin!
Many historians agree that due to a calendar miscalculation around 2 or 3 BC. The registration of the Jews this date is based on took quite some time. As a Messianic Jew I am sure you know more about this then I do. Would you mind emailing me with your references?
the Bible offers no date for Jesus' birth, the placement of the nativity is up for debate. However, the presence of shepherds "keeping watch over their flock by night" [Luke, 2:8] suggests the birth may have actually occurred in the spring during lambing--the only time of year shepherds watched their flocks both day and night. During the centuries immediately following Jesus' life, Church leaders made no effort to correctly date the nativity. They focused on deaths and feast days, dismissing births as secondary
From the Catholic perspective. There are two main theories. In A.D. 274, the Roman Emperor Aurelian inaugurated Dec. 25 as the pagan "Birth of the Unconquered Sun" celebration, at the calendar point when daylight began to lengthen. Supposedly, Christians then borrowed the date and devised Christmas to compete with paganism.
Aurelian's empire seemed near collapse, so his festival proclaimed imperial and pagan rejuvenation. Prior to 274 there's no record of a major sun cult at the Northern Hemisphere's winter solstice (the year's shortest day, which actually occurs before Dec. 25).
The problem with this theory is that Aurelian almost certainly created a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians, the Christians later appropriated Aurelian's festival into their Christmas. But Dec. 25 "appears to owe nothing whatsoever to pagan influences," The pagans-first theory originated only three centuries ago in the writings of Protestant historian Paul Ernst Jablonski and Catholic monk Jean Hardouin.
The first hard evidence of Christmas occurring on Dec. 25 isn't found until A.D. 336 and the date only became a fixed festival in Constantinople in 379.
However, there is an important reference in the "Chronicle" written by Hippolytus of Rome three decades before Aurelian launched his festival. Hippolytus said Jesus' birth "took place eight days before the kalends of January," that is, Dec. 25.
There's evidence that as early as the second and third centuries, Christians sought to fix the birth date to help determine the time of Jesus' death and resurrection for the liturgical calendar ---- long before Christmas also became a festival.
The New Testament Gospels say the Crucifixion happened at the Jewish Passover season. The "integral age" concept, taught by ancient Judaism though not in the Bible, held that Israel's great prophets died the same day as their birth or conception.
Quite early on, Tighe said, Christians applied this idea to Jesus and set the Passover period's March 25 for the Feast of the Annunciation, marking the angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she would give birth. Add nine months to the conception date and we get Dec. 25.
Inside the Vatican magazine also supported Dec. 25, citing a report from St. John Chrysostom (patriarch of Constantinople who died in A.D. 407) that Christians had marked Dec. 25 from the early days of the church.
Chrysostom had a further argument that modern scholars ignore:
Luke 1 says Zechariah was performing priestly duty in the Temple when an angel told his wife Elizabeth she would bear John the Baptist. During the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, Mary learned about her conception of Jesus and visited Elizabeth "with haste."
The 24 classes of Jewish priests served one week in the Temple, and Zechariah was in the eighth class. Rabbinical tradition fixed the class on duty when the Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 and, calculating backward from that, Zechariah's class would have been serving Oct. 2-9 in 5 B.C. So Mary's conception visit six months later might have occurred the following March and Jesus' birth nine months afterward.
Though it is not a matter of faith, there is no good reason not to accept the tradition of March 25 conception and Dec. 25 birth.