Y'know, I should be very cautious here, because somewhere in the notes I have the justification for the Mar 25 that frames the Dec 25, and there may be enough leeway there to say it wasn't directly the equinox/solstice link. The problem is that Jesus didn't say to celebrate his conception and birth and the Bible is generally against birthdays anyway. He said celebrate his death (because it's Passover, an established date), and he celebrated both the Levitical feasts and the added feast of Hanukkah. And Sabbath. When the Gentiles lost the original OT context of the feast calendar they started making their own (naturally inventing a date for Christ's birth), and Augustine put forward all kinds of the new feasts as if properly supplanting the old ones, with Sunday supplanting the Sabbath. But these are all by God's permission and by magisterial authority, and not by Biblical command (not even Sunday) or by actual commemoration of any Biblical event. So I'll back out the claim that Dec 25 is always syncretist, because I wasn't remembering all the details; but there is so much larded over onto the Biblical data that when I discovered it (Lev. 23) and realized that it covered the whole Bible period I wondered at how far we've strayed from its didactic symbolism.
But I learned to enjoy both Sabbath and Lord's Day, and to celebrate Christ's birth both at Tabernacles and with underinformed Christians at Christmas.
I hadn't heard of Hippolytus using the Abijah calendar to get that date. Here, among other things, are three readings that put John's conception in midsummer based on Abijah. John Parsons is a reliable source and lays out all the evidence he can find on both sides, and doesn't find Hippolytus using the Abijah calculation, jibing with my memory that he only had the solar calendar and the concept of putting the conception on the same date as the crucifixion (which wasn't necessarily indicated and ultimately cuts against Josephus). So I'm not convinced the early church fathers used Abijah; Chrysostom instead argued that Zechariah served for Day of Atonement, which is an understandable assumption but not in the text and not consonant with the Abijah evidence.
I understand if my quibbling attempt to put a little braking on a rampant charge might not sound like the most supportive. Yes, the Protestants lost the original Nicholas and let his character be heavily reworked; and we suffer for this, and are trying to work our way out of the hole. I guess my concern is that if we're both against the consumerist idol then we shouldn't regard blame for each other's camps as any more than a friendly tease, instead of using words that make it more belligerent. I'll seek to work on that myself.
Y'know, I should be very cautious here, because somewhere in the notes I have the justification for the Mar 25 that frames the Dec 25, and there may be enough leeway there to say it wasn't directly the equinox/solstice link. The problem is that Jesus didn't say to celebrate his conception and birth and the Bible is generally against birthdays anyway. He said celebrate his death (because it's Passover, an established date), and he celebrated both the Levitical feasts and the added feast of Hanukkah. And Sabbath. When the Gentiles lost the original OT context of the feast calendar they started making their own (naturally inventing a date for Christ's birth), and Augustine put forward all kinds of the new feasts as if properly supplanting the old ones, with Sunday supplanting the Sabbath. But these are all by God's permission and by magisterial authority, and not by Biblical command (not even Sunday) or by actual commemoration of any Biblical event. So I'll back out the claim that Dec 25 is always syncretist, because I wasn't remembering all the details; but there is so much larded over onto the Biblical data that when I discovered it (Lev. 23) and realized that it covered the whole Bible period I wondered at how far we've strayed from its didactic symbolism.
But I learned to enjoy both Sabbath and Lord's Day, and to celebrate Christ's birth both at Tabernacles and with underinformed Christians at Christmas.
I hadn't heard of Hippolytus using the Abijah calendar to get that date. Here, among other things, are three readings that put John's conception in midsummer based on Abijah. John Parsons is a reliable source and lays out all the evidence he can find on both sides, and doesn't find Hippolytus using the Abijah calculation, jibing with my memory that he only had the solar calendar and the concept of putting the conception on the same date as the crucifixion (which wasn't necessarily indicated and ultimately cuts against Josephus). So I'm not convinced the early church fathers used Abijah; Chrysostom instead argued that Zechariah served for Day of Atonement, which is an understandable assumption but not in the text and not consonant with the Abijah evidence.
I understand if my quibbling attempt to put a little braking on a rampant charge might not sound like the most supportive. Yes, the Protestants lost the original Nicholas and let his character be heavily reworked; and we suffer for this, and are trying to work our way out of the hole. I guess my concern is that if we're both against the consumerist idol then we shouldn't regard blame for each other's camps as any more than a friendly tease, instead of using words that make it more belligerent. I'll seek to work on that myself.