Most Americans know how Christmas came to be celebrated on December 25: The Emperor Constantine chose the date because it was winter solstice in the Julian Calendar, the birthday of dying and rising gods like Mithra and Sol. Some people also know that our delightful mรฉlange of Christmas festivities originated in ancient Norse, Sumerian, Roman and Druid traditions - or, in the case of Rudolph, on Madison Avenue.
But where does the Christmas story itself come from: Jesus in the manger, the angels and wise men?
The familiar Christmas story, including the virgin conception and birth of Jesus, is found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Scholars have pointed out that these stories are somewhat disconnected from other parts of these Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. In fact, by the time he is a young boy in the temple, Jesus's parents seem to have forgotten the virgin birth. They act surprised by his odd behavior. There is never any other mention in the New Testament of these incredible events! These stories seem to be an afterthought, written later than the rest of the gospels that contain them.
Comment: Indeed. The other two gospels, Mark (which was used as a source for Matthew and Luke) and John, totally lack a birth story for Jesus. And the earliest known form of the gospel of Luke (included in the first New Testament canon by Marcion) also lacked the birth story. They are fictions written generations after the events they presume to relate.
To make matters more interesting, the stories themselves have inconsistencies and ambiguities - contradictory genealogies, for example. Our Christmas story (singular) is actually a composite.
Or consider the idea that Mary is a virgin. The Greek writer of Matthew quotes Isaiah as saying: "a parthenos shall conceive and bear a child." The Hebrew word in Isaiah is "almah," which means simply "young woman." But the Greek word parthenos can mean either a virgin or a young woman, and it got translated as "virgin." Modern Bible translations have corrected this, but it is a central part of the Christmas story.
That's a lot of added complications. If the rest of the New Testament doesn't refer to these stories or need them, then how did we end up with them? Where do they come from?
One part of the answer comes from Hellenistic culture. (It is no accident all New Testament books written in Greek.) In this tradition, when a man did something extraordinary there was the assumption that he did this because he was different, either divine or semi-divine. They would make up a story about how he came to be divine. Almost all Greek heroes were said to be born of a human woman and a god--even Alexander the Great, Augustus and Pythagoras.
The father typically was Zeus or Apollo. The god would come and sleep with the woman, pretending to be the husband or as a bolt of lightning, or some such. Greek mythology also shows up in the book of Genesis: the gods lusting after the women and coming down and mating with them.
Comment: Gaius Julius Caesar, too. His genealogy allegedly went back to Venus and Aeneas. And when a comet was sighted after his betrayal and murder, he was said to have 'ascended' into heaven, reborn as a god. Coincidentally, his ancient biographies also lack accounts of his childhood.
Why were they added to the Christian story?
Jewish Christians - the first Christians didn't believe in the virgin birth. They believed that Joseph was the biological father of Jesus. Part of their Christology was "adoptionism"--they thought Jesus was adopted as the unique son of God at some time later in life. There were disagreements about when - Mark suggests the baptism, Paul suggests the resurrection.
Over time, gentile Christianity replaced Jewish Christianity. There were Jewish-Roman Wars. The Jewish Christians were marginalized and oppressed. The Gentile branch became dominant. Eventually we get the gospel of John which pushes the sonship of Jesus back to the beginning of time. This writer is at the other end of the spectrum from the Jewish Christians.
But Matthew and Luke think that the Sonship of Jesus began at birth. And they want to tell a story that reinforces this point. Matthew and Luke are the source of the Christmas story as most of us learned it.
Why didn't the writers do a better job of cleaning the contradictions?
They did, some. This is called the "orthodox corruption of scripture." (Bart Ehrman article , book). But it appears that these birth stories were added toward the end, so scripture got frozen before they could get integrated.
I was raised that the bible was the literally perfect, "inerrant" word of God, essentially dictated by God to the writers. What you are saying about the Christmas story sure calls into question this point of view.
Which Bible?! There are thousands of manuscript variations.
Most biblical stories are probably fiction, not non-fiction. They are mythology in the deepest sense of the word. But we need to get beyond issue of whether biblical reports happened in the historical, physical sense to understand what they mean spiritually and mythically.
Ok. Back to Christmas. Of all the images from the Christmas story, the one that people fall in love with most is angels. The Christmas story is full of angels, beings of light. Is this because of the solstice tradition?
Actually it comes from the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish scriptures that were eventually adopted into the Christian Bible as the Old Testament. It also comes from the Jewish literature written between the Old and New Testaments that didn't get into the biblical canon. Some of these are even quoted in the New Testament, for example Enoch, from the 2nd Century BC. It's all about angels.
What are angels in these stories? Who are they?
The Bible calls them the sons of God, the Divine Council. The word used for God in parts of the Hebrew Bible, Elohim, is plural implying a family of deities. Angels are the lesser gods of the deposed pantheon of ancient Israel. They are under the rulership of Yahweh. Together with Yahweh they are part of Elohim, a plural word that we translate "God" in the book of Genesis. Elohim/God says "Let us make humans in our image." Christians understand this to refer to the trinity, but that is a later interpretation. These angels came from the ancient pantheons of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Many of these gods come from stars. There is a strong astral dimension. "Heavenly Hosts" are stars.
Comment: And these 'stars' were previously comets, as Victor Clube and Bill Napier, among others, have made clear in the work. See also Laura Knight-Jadczyk's Comets and the Horns of Moses.
The Luke story focuses on one angel specifically: Gabriel. Is he the archangel?
Gabriel is the Angel of the Lord. He is one of two angels who are named in the Jewish canon and the Christian canon outside of the apocrypha: Gabriel and Michael. They are the angels of mercy and judgment. Gabriel means "Strong One of El." He is first named in Daniel.
If you go into an Eastern Orthodox church you have two icons on the north and south. Michael is on the North to fight with Satan who lives there. Gabriel is on the south. He is more like what the angels originally were, which is messengers of the gods. That is what angel means. The idea that God has a special messenger is exactly what we read about in the Middle Eastern mythologies. Each of the earlier gods has his own special messenger. Enki, who becomes Yaweh, has Isimud. The goddess Inana has Ninshubur. Each high god will have an envoy or assistant, who is a lesser god. The angel of the lord is the same thing. The distinction between angels and gods came later.
Is he a star person? Or one of those semi-divine descendents of gods and women?
He is one of the gods who would come down to earth.
Why do you say that?
The offspring of the gods mating with women are called Gaborim--from the same root as Gabriel. In the second century, Gabriel appears in the Epistula Apostolorum. It talks about Jesus and these secret teachings that he gave to his apostles after the resurrection. One of the secrets is that he is actually Gabriel. After Gabriel took on flesh and united with Mary, then he becomes Jesus. The idea that Christ was an angel was extremely popular in the early church. Later we find this really strict separation between humans and angels; between gods and angels. (more)
We have time for just one more favorite Christmas story: The Star of Bethlehem and the Magi.
The Magi are astrologers. They are Zoroastrian priests. Just to the east of the Roman Empire was the Persian Empire, which was Zoroastrian. They see this star at its rising (the better translations don't say in the East). The astrologers paid a lot of attention to this. It is likely that what this refers to was a heliacal rising, which is the first time that a star appears over the horizon during the course of a year. They thought this was a sign of the Jewish messiah. Scholars speculate that they would have been living in Babylon, where there were lots of Jewish merchants. The Jews had been there from the time of the Jewish exile from Babylonia. We have cuneiform records from them.
Are you assuming that this story is historical?
Think of it as a frog and pond. The pond is real, the frog is not. They are fictional stories in a real setting. They don't always get the details of the setting right, but they are fictional characters in real places. The Magi follow their star from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. The author has in mind a real star that would be in front of you in this situation. It would have to be a star in the far southern sky. Remember what I said about the Heavenly Host being stars? The star in Matthew and the angel in Luke are two variants of the same mythology.
My former fundamentalist head is spinning. Is there anything else you'd like to say in closing?
We need to be able to appreciate these stories as myths, rather than literal histories. When you understand where they come from, then you can understand their spiritual significance for the writers and for us.
That sounds like another interview. Thank you.
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Looks like you're goin' to hell.
Well then, I sincerely hope Lucifer is my host.
We have always found that the Bible does have truth, but you need to ask of God for help in understanding it. Thus said, when God created the Lord God and the Lord God created humanity out of the dust of the Earth, we know that humanity was created by the Lord God, who is Man, with a capital M, what others call angels. They work empathetically with humanity through their Pineal and the Speciel Mind, for humanity is more than their genetics. They are many but they are of one Mind.
Whether or not Mary was a virgin is not important, but what is important is that the Speciel Memory given to the ova she carried was that of Man and so JeSus was born "divine", if you wish, but more than humanity, but what humanity should evolve toward. He was the Perfect Pattern and He showed us the way to live by always loving our Father in Heaven, or Man, our Creator, and by loving our brethren and by always following the Will of our Father in Heaven, Man, because not only do they see Time as all one, but they can see into the hearts of men and they know the Reason of Things to know what to do when and by whom.
Joan of Arc heard Man's voice, as did Osayo Kitamura from Japan. There are many who hear Man's voice. In America our mentor who used the Identification Delamer Duverus heard Man's voice and gave us quite the understanding. He was murdered by our government by black, unmarked helicopters spraying poison on him.
'Man' as you put it is a jealous deity. Believes in genocide, makes mistakes, tried to wipe every single one of us out (and failed again).
Surely there are better examples/rules we can follow than those of the god of Abraham. I have been watching our 'peaceful interactions' during this holiday. Heheh! It would benefit many if this celebration were to stop.
It was the Alien Mind which tried to get Abraham to kill his son, which Abraham didn't want to do, and fought against, but it was a true Angel of God, Man, who stayed Abraham's hand. You can't imagine how deceiving the Alien Mind is, Satan is, and this is what causes all the confusion.
We agree, there are not many following the teachings of JeSus: "Blessed are the Meek, for they shall inherit the Earth." The meek are not timid, but are those who refuse to resort to violence and turn to God instead. "Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord. "I will recompense." "Blessed are the peacemakers."
go down to earth and let himself get murdered by a bunch of low tech romans.
What a load of bunkum.
In "The Mustard Seed" Bagwan Shree Rajneesh explains that Mary is a virgin because Jesus was reborn through himself. It would seem to me that he accomplished this through the conscious gathering of knowledge.. "Thinking with a hammer" as Laura would put it.
To understand the "Lamb of God" you have to understand the myth of Prometheus. He was an immortal to whom Zeus gave knowledge that would aid humanity. The knowledge was said to be about fire, but it could be about anything, like what JeSus taught. After Prometheus gave the knowledge to humanity, the myth goes on to say that Zeus punished Prometheus for giving humanity that knowledge and chained him to a rock. Everyday an eagle would come and peck out his liver, but because he was immortal, his liver would regenerate. The next day the same thing happened. Another eagle would come and peck out his liver. This happened until Hercules broke his chains.
The understanding is this: Prometheus was probably not an immortal, but because he had Zeus, or God or Man, working through him empathetically, their mind could aid in his recovering each time the eagle attacked. The eagle is not some glorious bird, it is a predator and we know it as the Alien Mind or Satan. The Alien Mind would attack Prometheus because of the truths he brought for humanity. Each time the eagle attacked, Zeus marked it for removal from the Earth. If Zeus didn't remove it from the Earth, the Alien Mind would hide the truths, destroy them and then humanity would not have them to aid them in their evolution. Zeus would come to the Earth himself if he could, but the portals had to be closed because of the Alien Mind. Zeus didn't want them escaping into other parts of the Somata.
The same thing happened to JeSus. He didn't save us from our sins through his blood as many religions say, but He saved us by bringing us knowledge to help us in our evolution, and then He became a target for the Alien Mind, especially since Jerusalem was the Seat of the Beast at the time, and He helped Man/God remove the Alien Mind, or some portion of the Alien Mind, from the planet through His life, suffering, and then death. His teachings did much to aid humanity, but the truth of the teachings are being destroyed daily. Their destruction started early with Paul and the false vision of the Alien Mind given to Paul on the road to Damascus.
We saw this again with our mentor who used the Identification of Delamer Duverus. He brought more truth for humanity and then he was attacked daily like torture as the Alien Mind tried to kill him by mind, and when that didn't work, they sprayed him with poison from black, unmarked helicopters. It seems the Seat of the Beast is now in our government, but that comes as no surprise to those at SOTT.
What am I bid for this ยฃ500000 Vladimir Putin, Patek Fllippe wrist-watch? Heh-heh-heh.
What is the point in these myths, when people just end up worshipping myths, worshipping the people that tell these myths, and worshipping the various versions of people, real or imagined that 'star' in these myths?
'Worship" is a sucking action. Parasitic and self-defeating.
reach for the truth with your heart
if it feels like a lie go back til when it felt real
and reach again
as many times as it takes
reach for the truth
until you unravell
and open the way in humbleness to the universe or god if you so wish to address so
then we will save the light
truth is the key
And JoShua IS Jesus. And he is Shiva, that saved his devouted follower Matt from the God of Death: Yama.
These came from VEDIC MYTHOLOGY. And the Hellenistic "Greeks" are the Yoni/Ionians.
Having this Seattle Theologian explain it will mislead you:he is clueless because he is still caught up in the later mythology derived from VEDIC myths.
Geb is "The Cackler" the Goose. He is VishNu.
Married to Nut. Ancient IndoAryan myth of Mudriya, "land of Mud." EGYPT.
Scrambled "Cohen."
Yahweh was a man. He was Yuya. "Joseph."
The Mother is appalled Her children as so misled. Yuya was not a just or good man.
The OT is a playbook of CONTROL.