This article is no longer available at the original source. But a Google cache version is accessible (even though the link probably eats up about half my 2500 character limit!):
How December 25 Became Christmas by Andrew McGowan Bible Review Dec 2002
McGowan in a professor of early Christian history at the Episcopal Divinity School in Massachusetts. In this article, he takes a look at the traditional assumption about the origins of December 25 as the date to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Now, there's always more than one element at work in these things. AOL Journaler Marcia Ellen is running an imaginative and literary series of posts on ancient winter-solstice festivals, which is definitely worth checking out. The winter-solstice festival tradition certainly had its influences on the Christian Christmas.
McGowan looks specifically at the December 25 date and why that was selected for Christmas. He believes that it had to do with the strong association early Christian theology made between Jesus' birth and his death at the Jewish Passover time, his death taking on the meaning of a substitute sacrifice for the sins of humanity.
(Cont. in Part 2)
1 comment:
Since the seminal event in Christianity is the death and resurrection of Christ, early Christians did not really even think about celebrating his birth until the third or fourth century.
Interesting info about the death and conception dates being the same. I would guess that they picked the pagan celebration date in order to force its elimination.
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