Two Challenges Against Christmas, Answered

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Answering Tovia Singer on December 25 · Sharing on December 25, Kurt Simmons · Attacks on the Christmas Feast from a Protestant, Answered · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Two Challenges Against Christmas, Answered

When Was Jesus REALLY born??
Bruce Avilla | 14 Dec. 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptlsXtTf6n0

1:53 — 2:25

that the lambing season that's the only time that's where they're watching at any time of day any time of night they're watching for any birth that's the only time and when would that happen the Lambs are not like people they're only born at one time I never knew that yeah it must be a dummy honestly Lambs are only born at a certain time of the year not like us they can only be born a certain season Lambs are born in the springtime that's the first thing they're born in the springtime they could start as early as as February but it really would go March April that's the center that's the Hebrew month of Nissan

Ramat Hanadiv does not agree:

Congraaaaatulations!
Published: 30.12.20
https://www.ramat-hanadiv.org.il/en/magazine/congraaaaatulations/

Winter is kidding and lambing season in the goat pen at Ramat Hanadiv, but this doesn’t stop the goats and sheep from working: each day they go out to the field and play an important role in preventing fires, while our staff looks after the kids and lambs that stay behind in the pen.

Winter is the busiest season in the pen – it’s kidding and lambing season. From late November to late March there will be a number of births each day; between 100 and 200 kids and lambs will be born here. The pen will become a particularly lively nursery.

Did you notice the date? 30.12.20 — 30th December 2020.

When Was Jesus Really Born? Exact Date Given! | Dr. Gene Kim | Bible Study
REAL Bible Believers | 1 Jan. 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzwNn6lhnF8

0:00 — 0:57

when was jesus really born now a lot of people think that he was born on december 25th of christmas but the simple answer is no the reason why it's no is because all you have to do is a simple search on december 25th and it's the birthday of something pagan and it's not the lord jesus christ it's uh the devil's crowd if you read the book by alexander hislop the two babylon as well as from david w daniels the babylon religion which i would highly recommend for you to read it's really cool it's all in comic format and he david daniels documents really well so the babylon religion it points out through those works that semoramus and nimrod that's what the christmas day was patterned after the sun god and it was for the birthday of nimrod supposedly reincarnating into tammuz now notice what's that satan's job it's to change the

Great, except for two details:

• Hislop's research is worthless. You can just as well use tea leaves. He pretended to be expert on the Old Babylonian religion, and wrote his Two Babylons right when Assyriology was just starting. Actual assyriologists have not confirmed him. The Roman calendar as we have it did not pre-exist Jesus' birth by very much. The Egyptian calendar Caesar used had 365 days, but no leap years. Over time any given Egyptian month would end up any season. Just a bit slower than the Muslim calendar with actual lunar months. The Old Roman calendars did have the month December, but ...
  1. the one of Romulus had ten lunar months, starting March, and winter, without counting months
  2. later on the winter sometimes had two lunar months, January and February, sometimes three, adding Mercedonius. This started way before Romans had significant known contact with Babylonian or Egyptian like cultures.
• even if one could tie "Nimrod's birthday" to Dec. 25th, which one can't, this is not a theological reason against Jesus being born that day too. Here is Josephus on Nimrod:
  
  

  He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!
  
  

  Source : Antiquities, Book I, Chapter 4, § 2
  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2848/2848-h/2848-h.htm#link2HCH0004

  
  
  So, Nimrod and Jesus both are seen as saviours, and when we compare Josephus' view of Nimrod with most Dispensationalists' view on Calvary, each on top of that, "from the wrath of God" — if Kim can take that much of a parallel with Nimrod, why would shared birthdays, if such, be a problem?

Now, if Dr. Kim wanted to pretend that Josephus is not the Bible, well, neither is the "research" of Hislop!
/HGL

PS, Here is a third:
The Course of Abijah (Abia) & the Birth of Christ
William Struse (shared on Academia)
https://www.academia.edu/41134598/The_Course_of_Abijah_Abia_and_the_Birth_of_Christ

He assumes each course of service is two weeks long. He assumes neither year is a leapyear. He assumes all months are four weeks long, when in fact they are 29 or 30 days.

But, worst of all, he assumes each year starts with Jehoiarib in Nisan. Can the Hebrew calendar have two consecutive non-leap-years? Yes, a lunisolar year 8 year cycle will only have three leapyears, not four. It's not a safe bet, but it is within possibilities. So is the assumption of two weeks consecutive service. It's quite a bit of a stretch to assume the courses around month endings are stretched to accomodate for longer months. But it is totally impossible to assume all years began with the course of Jehoiarib. 1 week times 24 courses of a week means 168 days. His assumption of two week services means 2*168 days, i e 336 days. If you supposed all three major feasts outside this cycle, you'd add 21 and get 357 days. In fact, a Hebrew year is 354 days, or 353 if it's short, 355 of it's long, and 30 more days if it's a leap year. Two consecutive years will not both start on a Sabbath, when the courses changed. If the mention of all courses serving the major feasts doesn't simply mean they fell on different courses each year, even so three consecutive years won't start on the same course, and if it means that, then even two won't. Each year won't start on the course of Jehoiarib, rather the course of Jehoiarib will recur at the beginning of the year in diverse cycles of perhaps 24 years./HGL