5 ms·

A Christmas Tautology (2020)

43 points by nickdrozd 4y ago

quickthrower2 4y ago
Was Christmas day invented on the very same day Jesus was born then?
kthejoker2 4y ago
That Christmas is the day of Christ's birth itself was a sore subject after the Gregorian leap. From Hervey's Book of Christmas ( https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/42622/pg42622-images.html https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/42622/pg42622-images.ht... ): > In various parts of England, bees are popularly said to express their veneration for the Nativity by "singing," as it is called, in their hives at midnight, upon Christmas Eve: and in some places, particularly in Derbyshire, it is asserted that the watcher may hear the ringing of subterranean bells.... > We must not omit to mention that these supposed natural testimonies to the triumph of the time have been in some places used as means of divination on a very curious question. The change of style introduced into our calendars nearly a century ago, and by which Christmas Day was displaced from its ancient position therein, gave great dissatisfaction on many accounts, and on none more than that of its interference with this ancient festival. The fifth and sixth of January continued long to be observed as the true anniversary of the Nativity and its vigil; and the kneeling of the cattle, the humming of the bees, and the ringing of subterranean bells, were anxiously watched for authentications on this subject.
sanghi_mama 4y ago
Well, this banning thing is true for only parts of the Protestant Christian world. Catholic and Orthodox Christians make up the majority of Christianity by numbers.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Well, this banning thing is true for only parts of the Protestant Christian world Unsurprisingly, the same part where the carol in question was invented.
isitmadeofglass 4y ago
> These lyrics always bothered me for their apparent vacuousness. Christ was born on Christmas Day – well, yeah. Christmas just is the day that Christ was born, right? Isn’t the reason that the church makes such a big deal of repeating this whole “Christmas day is when Jesus was born” and “Jesus was born on Christmas Day” due to exactly the point that it wasn’t the day he was born. The church moved the celebration to better match the pagan celebrations, so they needed to push this lie a lot to get people on board with the fact that they moved the birthday to make the sales pitch for Christianity better match the pagan traditions. You would have though that the god of all existence could have timed the birth of his divine child a bit better, but I guess we all know that it’s easy to sometimes miss deadlines and be off by a month or so. Also the biology of virgin pregnancies, though unexplored scientifically likely followed the biology of regular pregnancies, so there might be a bit of uncertainty on the exact time of arrival even if god did impregnate Mary with the intention that she’d give birth around what is today Christmas Day.
- bazoom42 4y ago
  The church didn’t move the celebration as such, since nobody knew when Jesus was born in the first place. The bible does not give any date (not even a year). We dont really know how the church came up with december 25. The theory it was selected to coincide with a pagan holiday is just speculation. Probably not a coincidence it is so close to winter solstice, but there is no evidence.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis suggests virgin pregnancies have been explored scientifically (but a quick skim shows no indication of any noted difference in gestation) Anyone who has ever wondered what the 'H.' stands for should consider: Haploid.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    Even if virgin pregnancies we're possible, where would Jesus' Y chromosome come from?
kuhewa 4y ago
Can someone help me with how the words are pronounced for DEER and CHOIR to rhyme
- shaftoe 4y ago
  Both rhymed with the modern word TIER. Choir would have sounded similar to queer. Remember this is from middle English before the vowel shift.
fsckboy 4y ago
He's just parsing the whole thing wrong. It's a pretty standard rhetorical device in everyday speech. Consider Passover, "why is this night different?" The answer is not "because it's Passover". Your attention is being directed to why the night is different, why is it remembered, what does it commemorate, or why is it commemorated? The birth of Jesus, death, and resurrection are meaningful events at the core of Christianity, that's why they get holidays. Let me direct your attention to what happened on Christmas and why we celebrate it, Jesus was born. It's just not a strange construction in English or any language. Even if it was called Jesus's Birthday, what happened on that day? The Son of God was born. What happend on your birthday? Well, N years ago, you came out of mommy's tummy. I'm sure virtually every parent has said that to their child at some point. Only the autistic kids said "that's a tautology" (I can say that, I'm autistic)
- vlunkr 4y ago
  Yeah maybe the point of the post is to be snarky and pedantic, but it seems like it’s deliberately missing the point.
tragomaskhalos 4y ago
I'm charmed by the suggestion that these lyricists of yore would have rejected any words that were trite and obvious; after all, these are hardly constraints on their fellows today, as listening to much modern music for five minutes will confirm.
andypitech 4y ago
It's far from tautologous that Christ was born on Christmas day (25th December) for a number of reasons: 1. There are no historical references to the date in the Gospels. We can have a good guess at the year, since Luke the evangelist writes that the taxation survey bringing Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem was instigated by Caesar Augustus whilst Quirinius was governed of Syria. We could make some guesses of the season due to the shepherds looking after sheep in the open country. There is nothing in the New Testament to suggest a specific cause to celebrate the birth of Christ, unlike his death commemoration in Luke chapter 22 for example, for which we have a much better idea of the time of year, since it was at the time of Passover, a Jewish festival which had a regular occasion based on the lunar cycle. 2. There are some suggestions that the Christmas festival was instigated by replacing Roman pagan festivals around that time, after the Roman Empire accepted Christianity as the state religion. 3. In modern times there are millions of people around the world who know very little about the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, or his significance. You'll find many places filled with pictures of Santa, reindeer, elves and other winter festival stuff... So many people could be forgiven for thinking Christmas is about Santa, not Jesus Christ. As to the OP question 9, there is ample historical evidence for the existence and birth of Jesus Christ, for his death by crucifixion, and even for his resurrection from the dead (unless of course you take a priori leap of faith to believe that the material world is all that exists). The significance of the birth of Jesus Christ is far more important than the date: 'but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!' Luke 2:10‭-‬11 NLT https://bible.com/bible/116/luk.2.10-11.NLT https://bible.com/bible/116/luk.2.10-11.NLT Merry Christmas HN!
- yeellow 4y ago
  Can you give some examples of this "ample historical evidence"? I saw quite convincing video recently where a guy goes through all, known to him, sources and debunks them (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WI72JNz0IC8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WI72JNz0IC8 - warning: might be offensive for a diehard believer).
  - mannykannot 4y ago
alfl 4y ago
Christmas is celebrated as Christ’s birthday because 8 days later is New Year’s. This was set so that each year starts with a spiritual circumcision to consecrate it in Jewish law, and to “embrace and extend” existing pagan festivals. Source: Butler’s Lives of Saints, summarizing the commentaries of the Church Fathers. This is not a tautology.
- yucky 4y ago
  And the reason for this is because Vitamin K (a major clotting agent) is at its highest levels in humans around the 8th day of their life. Ancient societies didn't know what Vitamin K was, but through trial and error they no doubt discovered that the best day to circumcise a child was therefore on the 8th day of their life. Since circumcision represents "a new beginning, a new covenant" it made sense for this to begin the New Year. Or conversely, counting back from January 1st it would make sense to have Jesus being born on December 25th.
denton-scratch 4y ago
The criticism of the rhymes sounds off to me. I don't particularly like perfect rhymes. Author suggests that these rhymes might have been "perfect" in Middle English; I have no idea. But I like rhymes that are a bit wonky, because they reflect ancient pronunciations or local dialects or whatever. Wonky rhymes feel more "real" to me.
iamthepieman 4y ago
I assumed that anuone who knows more about Christmas than the tune to "jingle bells" knew christ was not born on Christmas day. It's not even a 1/365 chance either since there's some evidence it was during the fall months. The census decree by Caesar that Jesus parents traveled to their city of birth for was probably not issued when it would have been difficult to travel in Winter. Shepherd keep their sheep out in open fields in that region from early spring to late fall. Pretty light evidence but should still shifts your priors a bit.
darkwater 4y ago
Blood and good rhymed at some point! Holy shit, maybe English pronunciation wasn't always so broken, then!

43 points by nickdrozd 4y ago

Was Christmas day invented on the very same day Jesus was born then?

That Christmas is the day of Christ's birth itself was a sore subject after the Gregorian leap. From Hervey's Book of Christmas ( https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/42622/pg42622-images.html https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/42622/pg42622-images.ht... ): > In various parts of England, bees are popularly said to express their veneration for the Nativity by "singing," as it is called, in their hives at midnight, upon Christmas Eve: and in some places, particularly in Derbyshire, it is asserted that the watcher may hear the ringing of subterranean bells.... > We must not omit to mention that these supposed natural testimonies to the triumph of the time have been in some places used as means of divination on a very curious question. The change of style introduced into our calendars nearly a century ago, and by which Christmas Day was displaced from its ancient position therein, gave great dissatisfaction on many accounts, and on none more than that of its interference with this ancient festival. The fifth and sixth of January continued long to be observed as the true anniversary of the Nativity and its vigil; and the kneeling of the cattle, the humming of the bees, and the ringing of subterranean bells, were anxiously watched for authentications on this subject.

sanghi_mama 4y ago

Well, this banning thing is true for only parts of the Protestant Christian world. Catholic and Orthodox Christians make up the majority of Christianity by numbers.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> Well, this banning thing is true for only parts of the Protestant Christian world Unsurprisingly, the same part where the carol in question was invented.

isitmadeofglass 4y ago

> These lyrics always bothered me for their apparent vacuousness. Christ was born on Christmas Day – well, yeah. Christmas just is the day that Christ was born, right? Isn’t the reason that the church makes such a big deal of repeating this whole “Christmas day is when Jesus was born” and “Jesus was born on Christmas Day” due to exactly the point that it wasn’t the day he was born. The church moved the celebration to better match the pagan celebrations, so they needed to push this lie a lot to get people on board with the fact that they moved the birthday to make the sales pitch for Christianity better match the pagan traditions. You would have though that the god of all existence could have timed the birth of his divine child a bit better, but I guess we all know that it’s easy to sometimes miss deadlines and be off by a month or so. Also the biology of virgin pregnancies, though unexplored scientifically likely followed the biology of regular pregnancies, so there might be a bit of uncertainty on the exact time of arrival even if god did impregnate Mary with the intention that she’d give birth around what is today Christmas Day.

bazoom42 4y ago
The church didn’t move the celebration as such, since nobody knew when Jesus was born in the first place. The bible does not give any date (not even a year). We dont really know how the church came up with december 25. The theory it was selected to coincide with a pagan holiday is just speculation. Probably not a coincidence it is so close to winter solstice, but there is no evidence.
082349872349872 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis suggests virgin pregnancies have been explored scientifically (but a quick skim shows no indication of any noted difference in gestation) Anyone who has ever wondered what the 'H.' stands for should consider: Haploid.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Even if virgin pregnancies we're possible, where would Jesus' Y chromosome come from?

kuhewa 4y ago

Can someone help me with how the words are pronounced for DEER and CHOIR to rhyme

shaftoe 4y ago
Both rhymed with the modern word TIER. Choir would have sounded similar to queer. Remember this is from middle English before the vowel shift.

fsckboy 4y ago

He's just parsing the whole thing wrong. It's a pretty standard rhetorical device in everyday speech. Consider Passover, "why is this night different?" The answer is not "because it's Passover". Your attention is being directed to why the night is different, why is it remembered, what does it commemorate, or why is it commemorated? The birth of Jesus, death, and resurrection are meaningful events at the core of Christianity, that's why they get holidays. Let me direct your attention to what happened on Christmas and why we celebrate it, Jesus was born. It's just not a strange construction in English or any language. Even if it was called Jesus's Birthday, what happened on that day? The Son of God was born. What happend on your birthday? Well, N years ago, you came out of mommy's tummy. I'm sure virtually every parent has said that to their child at some point. Only the autistic kids said "that's a tautology" (I can say that, I'm autistic)

vlunkr 4y ago
Yeah maybe the point of the post is to be snarky and pedantic, but it seems like it’s deliberately missing the point.

tragomaskhalos 4y ago

I'm charmed by the suggestion that these lyricists of yore would have rejected any words that were trite and obvious; after all, these are hardly constraints on their fellows today, as listening to much modern music for five minutes will confirm.

andypitech 4y ago

It's far from tautologous that Christ was born on Christmas day (25th December) for a number of reasons: 1. There are no historical references to the date in the Gospels. We can have a good guess at the year, since Luke the evangelist writes that the taxation survey bringing Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem was instigated by Caesar Augustus whilst Quirinius was governed of Syria. We could make some guesses of the season due to the shepherds looking after sheep in the open country. There is nothing in the New Testament to suggest a specific cause to celebrate the birth of Christ, unlike his death commemoration in Luke chapter 22 for example, for which we have a much better idea of the time of year, since it was at the time of Passover, a Jewish festival which had a regular occasion based on the lunar cycle. 2. There are some suggestions that the Christmas festival was instigated by replacing Roman pagan festivals around that time, after the Roman Empire accepted Christianity as the state religion. 3. In modern times there are millions of people around the world who know very little about the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, or his significance. You'll find many places filled with pictures of Santa, reindeer, elves and other winter festival stuff... So many people could be forgiven for thinking Christmas is about Santa, not Jesus Christ. As to the OP question 9, there is ample historical evidence for the existence and birth of Jesus Christ, for his death by crucifixion, and even for his resurrection from the dead (unless of course you take a priori leap of faith to believe that the material world is all that exists). The significance of the birth of Jesus Christ is far more important than the date: 'but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!' Luke 2:10‭-‬11 NLT https://bible.com/bible/116/luk.2.10-11.NLT https://bible.com/bible/116/luk.2.10-11.NLT Merry Christmas HN!

yeellow 4y ago
Can you give some examples of this "ample historical evidence"? I saw quite convincing video recently where a guy goes through all, known to him, sources and debunks them (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WI72JNz0IC8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WI72JNz0IC8 - warning: might be offensive for a diehard believer).
- mannykannot 4y ago

alfl 4y ago

Christmas is celebrated as Christ’s birthday because 8 days later is New Year’s. This was set so that each year starts with a spiritual circumcision to consecrate it in Jewish law, and to “embrace and extend” existing pagan festivals. Source: Butler’s Lives of Saints, summarizing the commentaries of the Church Fathers. This is not a tautology.

yucky 4y ago
And the reason for this is because Vitamin K (a major clotting agent) is at its highest levels in humans around the 8th day of their life. Ancient societies didn't know what Vitamin K was, but through trial and error they no doubt discovered that the best day to circumcise a child was therefore on the 8th day of their life. Since circumcision represents "a new beginning, a new covenant" it made sense for this to begin the New Year. Or conversely, counting back from January 1st it would make sense to have Jesus being born on December 25th.

denton-scratch 4y ago

The criticism of the rhymes sounds off to me. I don't particularly like perfect rhymes. Author suggests that these rhymes might have been "perfect" in Middle English; I have no idea. But I like rhymes that are a bit wonky, because they reflect ancient pronunciations or local dialects or whatever. Wonky rhymes feel more "real" to me.

iamthepieman 4y ago

I assumed that anuone who knows more about Christmas than the tune to "jingle bells" knew christ was not born on Christmas day. It's not even a 1/365 chance either since there's some evidence it was during the fall months. The census decree by Caesar that Jesus parents traveled to their city of birth for was probably not issued when it would have been difficult to travel in Winter. Shepherd keep their sheep out in open fields in that region from early spring to late fall. Pretty light evidence but should still shifts your priors a bit.

darkwater 4y ago

Blood and good rhymed at some point! Holy shit, maybe English pronunciation wasn't always so broken, then!