The trouble is that even though not all the similarities are valid, there are enough of them to substantially downgrade the claim that Christianity is original, unique and therefore the only true religion. And after that it’s surely a case of spiritual pick-n-mix.
I think that's a more-than-reasonable conclusion for a reader to reach based on the evidence presented. However, if the writer does it, the whole thing becomes a conversation killer, and people who don't think like you become defensive and stop listening to you. Instead, their focus shifts to what they're going to say to counter it.
"For Israelites the day you were born was a piece of information nobody bothered to keep."
Solomon said, "A good name is better than fine perfume, and one’s day of death is better than his day of birth." (Ecclesiastes 7:1) That sums up how the Israelites viewed birthdays. It sucked because you were going to suffer until you died and dying was great because you could finally rest.
Yes, well they were not first becsuse Jesus created DEC 25th & created the devils themselves who would latter invented fake gods & trying to premempt God & comemdere Dec 25th for themselves….. so its kinda expected and moot ……. The Birth of Christ can be shown to closely correspond to Dec 25th.
December 25th celebrates the return of the sun to its apparent northward progression. The days start getting longer. Notice that a human born on December 25 was probably conceived the preceding March, about the time of the Vernal Equinox. We call it Vernal to associate it with Venus, the goddess of pregnant women and babies. Of course equinox means the day and night are equal in length. 2000 years ago the sun was in the constellation of Virgo in September, so Virgo couldn't be seen at night. Virgo reappeared in the night sky in December. Virgo is the virgin. So the Zodiac, which was described by the Babylonians, has the story of a virgin who gives birth to a human who is a God. And it's not a coincidence that that God is worshipped on Sunday.
The Jews, of course, observe their Sabbath on Saturday, either because God brought them out of Egypt (Deuteronomy), or because God rested after creating the heavens and earth (Genesis). Since Christianity was originally a sect of Judaism, the earliest Christians kept the Sabbath. This changed after 135 CE, when the church in Jerusalem was dispersed by the Roman Army. The church in Rome assumed leadership of the Christian churches, and Jewish Christians who didn't believe Jesus was God (Ebionites) were declared to be heretics. By 150 CE Justin Martyr wrote that Christians worshipped on Sunday, and in 321 CE Emperor Constantine made Sunday a day of rest, that is, the Sabbath.
To have a productive debate, the parties have to agree first on what counts as evidence. If one side treats doctrine or a claim scripture never makes as evidence against biblical criticism, the disagreement isn't about the evidence anymore but what evidence is. What's left is an exchange of information, which has its own value.
Diabolical mimicry appears nowhere in Scripture. No verse says demons anticipated Christian rites and planted counterfeits in advance. Justin Martyr came up with it when he encountered Mithraic ritual and saw the Eucharist staring back at him. He needed an explanation and the text didn't have one.
Once you accept that move, you've established that scripture can be defended by claims scripture never makes. The defense outranks the text. And whatever gets built that way can be built again, by anyone, for any doctrine, with no verse required and no way to check it. It's worth noticing that most Christians reject exactly this move when a Muslim apologist makes it, explaining away a problem with a mechanism the Quran never mentions.
Which puts the believer in an odd spot. The argument was supposed to protect the uniqueness of Christian revelation. It ends up demonstrating that the revelation needs help from outside itself to survive contact with the historical record.
Mind you, I'm not making any personal claims here. Jesus may just as well have been born on December 25; diabolical mimicry might have occurred. But suppose neither is true. What would the evidence look like? What observation would actually change?
Taking a 💩 is not in the scriptures either but all the prophets & saints did…… The mesiah was prophesied in the garden, the devil himself was present… they all seemed to know who Jesus was even before the people did & some were inchsrge if the Gentiles nations who's religions had many similarities wiyh each other as well as wrt Christ - Christanity itself ..…….The devils were all in heaven closer to the source & information then humans or scripture……
….... its not brain surgery, its the logical imparitives external or any evidence that nesesitates or demands the contrary.
Except lambs aren't born in December and all of the Jewish festivals that point to Jesus are in the Fall, so... And yes, lambs can be born in the Fall. If the mother goes into season in the late winter because it's her first or if she bears in late Winter and goes back into season, it can happen. By the way, if you know anything about Judaism (and Jesus was a Jew), you know why Jesus didn't die on Friday and he wasn't resurrected on Sunday. If YOUR Jesus died in Friday and was raised up on Sunday, he lied. He himself said, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matthew 12:40. Math it out. Use your fingers. If he died on Friday, that's one night. Saturday makes it one day and two nights. He was resurrected before the sun rose on Sunday (I didn't write the book), so there you have it: one day and two nights. But that's because people are basing it on the weekly sabbath. He died on Passover - and that wasn't Friday OR Saturday. It was Wednesday. He wasn't resurrected Sunday morning at sunrise; it was Saturday as the sun was setting. If you want to argue, what day of the week is Christmas? Oh, right - it's a DATE , not a DAY. Well, Passover is a DATE, not a DAY. But you have to know about Judaism to know that, not the gospel according to church tradition.
Indeed, the shepherds watching flocks by night doesn't fit December in Judea, and most scholars agree the December date came from Roman solar festivals, not any actual birth calculation.
The Wednesday crucifixion argument is interesting, but there's a simpler problem with the math. Ancient Israelites didn't have a concept of zero, so they always started counting at one. Friday is day one, Saturday is day two, Sunday is day three. This is a tradition not completely dead. There are cultures to this day that consider the baby one year old at birth, hence in their calculation people are always one year older.
That said, the sequence of events from Jesus's arrest to his crucifixion is improbable, and the gospels don't always agree with each other. If nothing else, the story paints a passive Pontius Pilate with some sense of justice. This is a man who was recalled to Rome by the Syrian legate Vitellius in 36/37 CE after massacring Samaritans on Mount Gerizim. Everything we know about him from Josephus and Philo paints a brutal administrator who was completely indifferent to Jewish sensitivities.
Have you ever been to Israel in December……You might look at what I demonstrate there is not much if any room for objections logicaly nor scipturaly …… You should avoid trying to use vagaries, “inferences” & assumptions to superceed hard facts and logical imparitives …
I'm not offering any personal opinion, but passing on what mainstream scholars say. What I personally believe when Jesus was or wasn't born has no practical value in the matter.
Is it doctrinally or sentimentally important for you that Jesus was really born on December 25?
It is neither Doctrine nor Sentiment… its simply the facts avilable wrt this issue. Its not an option its within a narrow window within the information.provided. why would anyone be antagonistic toward December 25th? Is it some doctrine or sentiment that would prevent relitivly simple & strait forward facts from being evaluated & understood?
Thanks. Tanner. In this case, the lack of a concept of zero wouldn't apply. Jesus specifically said "Three days and three nights". Counting to three isn't a challenge. Passover wouldn't have counted based on your comments, which still leaves us with three days of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, not Sunday. The women went to the tomb "on the first day of the week while it was still dark". So, Sunday morning before sunrise, Jesus had left the building. Three days and three nights aren't in question. maybe how those work out are, but it damn sure isn't Friday to Sunday. Since Jews call sunset the beginning of the new day, Friday wouldn't have counted.
You're correct about Pontius Pilate; he was called back to Rome for being too brutal. How bad was he that he was labeled "too brutal" by one of the most brutal empires in history? I believe it's possible that the authors watered it down out of fear or perhaps it was a later edit when Christianity became the official religion of Rome. Pilate didn't crucify Jesus to satisfy the Sanhedrin; he did it because that's what was done to people guilty of sedition. The crime written on the sign was sedition. Pilate had nothing but contempt for the Jews and would have been happy to kill them all and let God sort them out.
Have you ever been to Israel in December……You might look at what I demonstrate there is not much if any room for objections logicaly nor scipturaly …… You should avoid trying to use vagaries, “inferences” & assumptions to superceed hard facts and logical imparitives …
Have you? No, I haven't - I just have friends in Israel who are actually Israelis. The kind born there, who have spent their entire lives there. After they retired from the military, they became shepherds, so I may not have first hand knowledge, but I have very reliable second hand knowledge. Imagine that...
Your inability to acknowledge any room for disagreement with you says more about you than the actual evidence. Astronomers have theorized (based on their knowledge of the workings of the universe and ancient astrological beliefs) that Jesus was born between 4 to 6 B.C. Historians working backward from the time Jesus began his ministry, using clues from texts in the rule of Herod, the census, and the temple construction point to some time as late as 1 BC and as early as 5 BC. If you want to learn something other than your current, undeniably (in your estimation) correct stance on when Jesus was born, I'm giving you a couple of articles. I left out the ones that included historians who study ancient astrology to try to pinpoint dates for historical events because I'm sure that information would be dismissed as the work of demons. For the record, the astrology gives more clues. The major debate is on whether the Star of Bethlehem was a comet (doubted by many because comets move) or a major conjunction. The conjunction is usually the accepted theory because of the infrequency, the brightness that results, and the position in a particular astrological sign which spoke to the destiny of the individual. The "star" was something that pointed to the birth of a king. By the way, the murder of the innocents hasn't been proven by archaeology or from examining period texts. That's not to say that it didn't happen, just that it wasn't a large-scale massacre of babies. I saw a documentary that put the number at possibly 120, but more likely lower based on the size of the village at the time.
If you can't accept anything outside of the Bible, including history, astronomy, archaeology, ancient Jewish texts (not including the Talmud because Jews were seeking to discredit anything associated with Jesus), and other ancient Middle Eastern texts (including the Koran), you aren't interested in truth; you are interested in maintaining your beliefs and forcing those beliefs on others. Anyone who disagrees is clearly stupid in your estimation.
I would suggest there is a big difference between "indications" particularly when only avilable through modern lenses as well as weak "inference" as opposed to hard scriptural & material facts and logical imparitives that reduce uncertainty to a very small "exclusive" window ...
The "birthing" of animals issue tells us nothing about the actual animals & or young & or just in preparations for expecting livestock that created the naritive conditions described in scriptures surrounding christ birth..
Assumptions do not carry the Weight of harder facts & logical impariyives. However, the real issue is not so much do much this issue itself as it is the propensity of so many to use abstractions, assumptions and vagaries to "draw inference" & overturn basic facts & specific information. This is a ongoing pariah in all of christodom and most people seem to by oblivious to this as well as to when they are infsct using the weaker & more obscure to invert the more specific and concrete ... not everyone can see these things even among the people who are " just honestly looking"
My concern is not really about what you belive wrt this issue.....But I very offten highlight this particular issue as an oportunity to make a more significant point using this as a example.
The reason I use this is because I know I am right BUT its NOT a heresy either way so yes we can disagree with relitive "safety" and still be "forceful in conviction" that hopefully will spill over into other much more importaint things. .....
Everything in Judaism pointed to Jesus according to... Jesus. "If you had believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me." (John 4:56) Everything in the Temple (and before the Temple, the Tabernacle) and the holy days from Moses pointed to Jesus. The Feast of First Fruits? Jesus "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." (1 Corinthians 5:20) Atonement? That's such an easy one, but I'll throw that one out there as well. "He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:2, but there are SO many others). The Passover? "Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed." (1 Corinthians 5:7) Four holy days, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah, land in the Fall. Passover is the only one in the Spring. Hannukah and Purim are not holy days from Moses; they are a memorial to miracles. Shavuot carries a dual meaning. It was the day Moses was given the Ten Commandments and is recognized by Christians as the day of Pentecost.
That raises the question: Am I using " abstractions, assumptions and vagaries to "draw inference" & overturn basic facts & specific information" or am I looking at the source document so many people worship as the Truth handed down from God and concluding that maybe people who throw out Judaism completely are missing something?
The trouble is that even though not all the similarities are valid, there are enough of them to substantially downgrade the claim that Christianity is original, unique and therefore the only true religion. And after that it’s surely a case of spiritual pick-n-mix.
I think that's a more-than-reasonable conclusion for a reader to reach based on the evidence presented. However, if the writer does it, the whole thing becomes a conversation killer, and people who don't think like you become defensive and stop listening to you. Instead, their focus shifts to what they're going to say to counter it.
"For Israelites the day you were born was a piece of information nobody bothered to keep."
Solomon said, "A good name is better than fine perfume, and one’s day of death is better than his day of birth." (Ecclesiastes 7:1) That sums up how the Israelites viewed birthdays. It sucked because you were going to suffer until you died and dying was great because you could finally rest.
Good addition. Thanks.
Yes, well they were not first becsuse Jesus created DEC 25th & created the devils themselves who would latter invented fake gods & trying to premempt God & comemdere Dec 25th for themselves….. so its kinda expected and moot ……. The Birth of Christ can be shown to closely correspond to Dec 25th.
https://allendaves.substack.com/p/palm-sunday-easter-and-resurection-3d9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1xhldx
December 25th celebrates the return of the sun to its apparent northward progression. The days start getting longer. Notice that a human born on December 25 was probably conceived the preceding March, about the time of the Vernal Equinox. We call it Vernal to associate it with Venus, the goddess of pregnant women and babies. Of course equinox means the day and night are equal in length. 2000 years ago the sun was in the constellation of Virgo in September, so Virgo couldn't be seen at night. Virgo reappeared in the night sky in December. Virgo is the virgin. So the Zodiac, which was described by the Babylonians, has the story of a virgin who gives birth to a human who is a God. And it's not a coincidence that that God is worshipped on Sunday.
The Jews, of course, observe their Sabbath on Saturday, either because God brought them out of Egypt (Deuteronomy), or because God rested after creating the heavens and earth (Genesis). Since Christianity was originally a sect of Judaism, the earliest Christians kept the Sabbath. This changed after 135 CE, when the church in Jerusalem was dispersed by the Roman Army. The church in Rome assumed leadership of the Christian churches, and Jewish Christians who didn't believe Jesus was God (Ebionites) were declared to be heretics. By 150 CE Justin Martyr wrote that Christians worshipped on Sunday, and in 321 CE Emperor Constantine made Sunday a day of rest, that is, the Sabbath.
To have a productive debate, the parties have to agree first on what counts as evidence. If one side treats doctrine or a claim scripture never makes as evidence against biblical criticism, the disagreement isn't about the evidence anymore but what evidence is. What's left is an exchange of information, which has its own value.
Diabolical mimicry appears nowhere in Scripture. No verse says demons anticipated Christian rites and planted counterfeits in advance. Justin Martyr came up with it when he encountered Mithraic ritual and saw the Eucharist staring back at him. He needed an explanation and the text didn't have one.
Once you accept that move, you've established that scripture can be defended by claims scripture never makes. The defense outranks the text. And whatever gets built that way can be built again, by anyone, for any doctrine, with no verse required and no way to check it. It's worth noticing that most Christians reject exactly this move when a Muslim apologist makes it, explaining away a problem with a mechanism the Quran never mentions.
Which puts the believer in an odd spot. The argument was supposed to protect the uniqueness of Christian revelation. It ends up demonstrating that the revelation needs help from outside itself to survive contact with the historical record.
Mind you, I'm not making any personal claims here. Jesus may just as well have been born on December 25; diabolical mimicry might have occurred. But suppose neither is true. What would the evidence look like? What observation would actually change?
Taking a 💩 is not in the scriptures either but all the prophets & saints did…… The mesiah was prophesied in the garden, the devil himself was present… they all seemed to know who Jesus was even before the people did & some were inchsrge if the Gentiles nations who's religions had many similarities wiyh each other as well as wrt Christ - Christanity itself ..…….The devils were all in heaven closer to the source & information then humans or scripture……
….... its not brain surgery, its the logical imparitives external or any evidence that nesesitates or demands the contrary.
Except lambs aren't born in December and all of the Jewish festivals that point to Jesus are in the Fall, so... And yes, lambs can be born in the Fall. If the mother goes into season in the late winter because it's her first or if she bears in late Winter and goes back into season, it can happen. By the way, if you know anything about Judaism (and Jesus was a Jew), you know why Jesus didn't die on Friday and he wasn't resurrected on Sunday. If YOUR Jesus died in Friday and was raised up on Sunday, he lied. He himself said, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matthew 12:40. Math it out. Use your fingers. If he died on Friday, that's one night. Saturday makes it one day and two nights. He was resurrected before the sun rose on Sunday (I didn't write the book), so there you have it: one day and two nights. But that's because people are basing it on the weekly sabbath. He died on Passover - and that wasn't Friday OR Saturday. It was Wednesday. He wasn't resurrected Sunday morning at sunrise; it was Saturday as the sun was setting. If you want to argue, what day of the week is Christmas? Oh, right - it's a DATE , not a DAY. Well, Passover is a DATE, not a DAY. But you have to know about Judaism to know that, not the gospel according to church tradition.
Indeed, the shepherds watching flocks by night doesn't fit December in Judea, and most scholars agree the December date came from Roman solar festivals, not any actual birth calculation.
The Wednesday crucifixion argument is interesting, but there's a simpler problem with the math. Ancient Israelites didn't have a concept of zero, so they always started counting at one. Friday is day one, Saturday is day two, Sunday is day three. This is a tradition not completely dead. There are cultures to this day that consider the baby one year old at birth, hence in their calculation people are always one year older.
That said, the sequence of events from Jesus's arrest to his crucifixion is improbable, and the gospels don't always agree with each other. If nothing else, the story paints a passive Pontius Pilate with some sense of justice. This is a man who was recalled to Rome by the Syrian legate Vitellius in 36/37 CE after massacring Samaritans on Mount Gerizim. Everything we know about him from Josephus and Philo paints a brutal administrator who was completely indifferent to Jewish sensitivities.
Have you ever been to Israel in December……You might look at what I demonstrate there is not much if any room for objections logicaly nor scipturaly …… You should avoid trying to use vagaries, “inferences” & assumptions to superceed hard facts and logical imparitives …
Hi Allen,
I'm not offering any personal opinion, but passing on what mainstream scholars say. What I personally believe when Jesus was or wasn't born has no practical value in the matter.
Is it doctrinally or sentimentally important for you that Jesus was really born on December 25?
It is neither Doctrine nor Sentiment… its simply the facts avilable wrt this issue. Its not an option its within a narrow window within the information.provided. why would anyone be antagonistic toward December 25th? Is it some doctrine or sentiment that would prevent relitivly simple & strait forward facts from being evaluated & understood?
Thanks. Tanner. In this case, the lack of a concept of zero wouldn't apply. Jesus specifically said "Three days and three nights". Counting to three isn't a challenge. Passover wouldn't have counted based on your comments, which still leaves us with three days of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, not Sunday. The women went to the tomb "on the first day of the week while it was still dark". So, Sunday morning before sunrise, Jesus had left the building. Three days and three nights aren't in question. maybe how those work out are, but it damn sure isn't Friday to Sunday. Since Jews call sunset the beginning of the new day, Friday wouldn't have counted.
You're correct about Pontius Pilate; he was called back to Rome for being too brutal. How bad was he that he was labeled "too brutal" by one of the most brutal empires in history? I believe it's possible that the authors watered it down out of fear or perhaps it was a later edit when Christianity became the official religion of Rome. Pilate didn't crucify Jesus to satisfy the Sanhedrin; he did it because that's what was done to people guilty of sedition. The crime written on the sign was sedition. Pilate had nothing but contempt for the Jews and would have been happy to kill them all and let God sort them out.
Have you ever been to Israel in December……You might look at what I demonstrate there is not much if any room for objections logicaly nor scipturaly …… You should avoid trying to use vagaries, “inferences” & assumptions to superceed hard facts and logical imparitives …
Have you? No, I haven't - I just have friends in Israel who are actually Israelis. The kind born there, who have spent their entire lives there. After they retired from the military, they became shepherds, so I may not have first hand knowledge, but I have very reliable second hand knowledge. Imagine that...
Your inability to acknowledge any room for disagreement with you says more about you than the actual evidence. Astronomers have theorized (based on their knowledge of the workings of the universe and ancient astrological beliefs) that Jesus was born between 4 to 6 B.C. Historians working backward from the time Jesus began his ministry, using clues from texts in the rule of Herod, the census, and the temple construction point to some time as late as 1 BC and as early as 5 BC. If you want to learn something other than your current, undeniably (in your estimation) correct stance on when Jesus was born, I'm giving you a couple of articles. I left out the ones that included historians who study ancient astrology to try to pinpoint dates for historical events because I'm sure that information would be dismissed as the work of demons. For the record, the astrology gives more clues. The major debate is on whether the Star of Bethlehem was a comet (doubted by many because comets move) or a major conjunction. The conjunction is usually the accepted theory because of the infrequency, the brightness that results, and the position in a particular astrological sign which spoke to the destiny of the individual. The "star" was something that pointed to the birth of a king. By the way, the murder of the innocents hasn't been proven by archaeology or from examining period texts. That's not to say that it didn't happen, just that it wasn't a large-scale massacre of babies. I saw a documentary that put the number at possibly 120, but more likely lower based on the size of the village at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_of_the_birth_of_Jesus
https://astronodome.org/2025/07/24/the-star-of-bethlehem-the-birth-of-jesus-and-ancient-sky-map/
If you can't accept anything outside of the Bible, including history, astronomy, archaeology, ancient Jewish texts (not including the Talmud because Jews were seeking to discredit anything associated with Jesus), and other ancient Middle Eastern texts (including the Koran), you aren't interested in truth; you are interested in maintaining your beliefs and forcing those beliefs on others. Anyone who disagrees is clearly stupid in your estimation.
I would suggest there is a big difference between "indications" particularly when only avilable through modern lenses as well as weak "inference" as opposed to hard scriptural & material facts and logical imparitives that reduce uncertainty to a very small "exclusive" window ...
The "birthing" of animals issue tells us nothing about the actual animals & or young & or just in preparations for expecting livestock that created the naritive conditions described in scriptures surrounding christ birth..
Assumptions do not carry the Weight of harder facts & logical impariyives. However, the real issue is not so much do much this issue itself as it is the propensity of so many to use abstractions, assumptions and vagaries to "draw inference" & overturn basic facts & specific information. This is a ongoing pariah in all of christodom and most people seem to by oblivious to this as well as to when they are infsct using the weaker & more obscure to invert the more specific and concrete ... not everyone can see these things even among the people who are " just honestly looking"
My concern is not really about what you belive wrt this issue.....But I very offten highlight this particular issue as an oportunity to make a more significant point using this as a example.
The reason I use this is because I know I am right BUT its NOT a heresy either way so yes we can disagree with relitive "safety" and still be "forceful in conviction" that hopefully will spill over into other much more importaint things. .....
Everything in Judaism pointed to Jesus according to... Jesus. "If you had believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me." (John 4:56) Everything in the Temple (and before the Temple, the Tabernacle) and the holy days from Moses pointed to Jesus. The Feast of First Fruits? Jesus "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." (1 Corinthians 5:20) Atonement? That's such an easy one, but I'll throw that one out there as well. "He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:2, but there are SO many others). The Passover? "Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed." (1 Corinthians 5:7) Four holy days, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah, land in the Fall. Passover is the only one in the Spring. Hannukah and Purim are not holy days from Moses; they are a memorial to miracles. Shavuot carries a dual meaning. It was the day Moses was given the Ten Commandments and is recognized by Christians as the day of Pentecost.
That raises the question: Am I using " abstractions, assumptions and vagaries to "draw inference" & overturn basic facts & specific information" or am I looking at the source document so many people worship as the Truth handed down from God and concluding that maybe people who throw out Judaism completely are missing something?
The Passover always took place in the month of July this is an unasailable fact as far as a fact can be…
The birth of Chirst is related but uses other specific references & metrics that leave no room for what your suggesting …