I think I’ll take the day off. To fill in for me, here is an 8 hour Christmas music mix that you can turn on and listen to. I have two choices for you:
A wintry Christmas scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unIrMo5S8Qs
or…
A fireplace:
Click either one on the paly button to hear it, click on the icon lower right to make it full screen.
Merry Christmas to you and yours, wherever you are. I’m thankful for you, the readers, and to all the contributors and volunteers that make WUWT special.
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Merry Christmas ALL!
I literally wish you all a merry Christmas, too (: lol
–Although He was probably born in March.
The date is immaterial. He is the only one who can balance our crazy simultaneous equations we get into! (:
Zeke,
Or September.
http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/questions/when-was-jesus-born
In any case, December would be a strange time for a census, if there even were one at the time of His birth. Even during the Roman Warm Period, WX could be bitter in the Levantine winter.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_of_Quirinius
Most likely, the census story was just a device to connect Jesus with David.
Most likely the winter solstice was chosen to observe the birth since pagans already celebrated a major holiday then, the Saturnalia in the Roman case and Yule for Germanic pagans, from whom we get the eponymous log and Christmas tree, ie Tannenbaum (fir tree).
How the 6th century Bulgarian monk Dionysius Exiduus (the Humble) came up with the date of AD/BC, no one seems to know. But Jesus was almost certainly born some years before or after that date.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!
And Merry Christmas to you good sir! A toast to our fine resident historians.
“Most likely the winter solstice was chosen to observe the birth since pagans already celebrated a major holiday then, the Saturnalia in the Roman case” ~Chimp
Don’t look at me, am I a Roman C? 😀 🙂
It is an old Roman Empire method of dealing with conquered people. Declare a Roman holiday to be celebrated instead of the local festivals. And of course, build temples or villas over their temples, deport the natives, wipe out their language, and destroy all of their books and history.
Just one little provincial history book escaped that Roman policy…
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Meditations/Yeled/isa9-6a-translit.gif
Yes, Zeke. And never in his wildest dreams would Caesar Augustus have dreamed that in that “God-forsaken” corner of his empire, Judea, his decree that a census should be taken would fulfill the first part of one of the numerous prophecies in that “little provincial history book,” one uttered about 700 years before by Micah:
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel
whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.
Micah 5:2
EXACTLY the year predicted by Daniel over 500 years before.
(See Daniel 9:25, 26: using the decree issued by the King of Persia to Nehemiah (See Neh. 2) c. 445 B.C. for the starting date, plus “62 sevens,” then, factoring in Jesus’ age at his crucifixion, 33 years, to get the year of his birth, the exact year of the Roman census (the first taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria, per another painstakingly detailed historian and former tax collector, Dr. Luke).)
Whenever a little doubt arises in my mind
about whether God is in control of every detail,
recalling this,
Caesar Augustus issued a decree… (Luke 2:1)
makes me smile and my faith is renewed.
God — is — in — control.
Hallelu — Yah.
**********************************************************
**********************************************************
Re: the date of the observance of Jesus’ birth
I think it is perfect to have it in the northern hemisphere’s darkest time, for,
with the tiny sound of that newborn baby’s cry,
the foundations of Hell began to crumble;
the people walking darkness have seen a great light … .
(Isaiah 9:2-6)
“… ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’
Merry Christmas!
#(:))
Yes ma’am, it is not an easy task to share the verse from Daniel to show that He arrived in a precise timeline, but you managed it!
Here is the verse:
http://images.slideplayer.com/23/6909871/slides/slide_76.jpg
And here is the timeline. This shows when the Persians/Zarathustrians allowed the Jews to come back and re-build Jerusalem:
http://www.truthnet.org/Endtimes/4/70thweekgraph.jpg
…to the time when He was “cut off,” ie crucified.
But Chimp still gets massive historical credits, because it was probably about 6 BC when Y’shua was born, not 0AD (; That was fun!
Thank you so much for the wishes. Most of all thank you for the beautiful verses.
One more Christmas present for Chimp:
This object is how King Cyrus of Persia decreed that the Jews (among others) could return to their homeland. (2 Chronicles 36:22-23, Isaiah 44:28, Ezra 1:7-11).
http://jerryandgod.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/518-a1.jpg
Chimp,
“In any case, December would be a strange time for a census…”
No doubt, but I suspect it’s not the birth of the child which very early Christians might have been treating as the moment of His great gift . . rather, one nine months before that (recorded in Luke 1).
And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost
That was the morning after the moment . . for Elisabeth, Mary’s cousin, was at that moment six months pregnant with John the Baptist according to the Book. Her husband was a Temple priest, and they worked in shifts of two weeks …
And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest’s office before God in the order of his course,
According to the custom of the priest’s office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.
And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense.
And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.
….
And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house.
And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying,
Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.
And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.
If Jesus was born in the fall, that moment must have been in the winter . .
The best I know is September 11 3 BC.
But his birth is celebrated on this day. (And, yes, due to a lot of pagan influence that crept into it and the “religious” part of all Christianity today.)
That God would send “the seed of the woman” to offer salvation to those who have, and continue, to slap Him in the face.
God’s plan was old by the time he was born. His birth was the beginning of its actual implementation.
The final fruits of Jesus’s, the Messiah’s, the Christ’s love, faithfulness and obedience will be seen at some time in the future.
The beginning of it is something to celebrate even if the date is wrong.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
It is not without reason that good Father Dionysius Exiguus, despite his mysterious calculations having been accepted by the Church for dating, never made it to sainthood.
Close enough for government work, I guess. His BC/AD divide at least falls in the range of dates modern scholars have found. They’re bracketed around his date, plus or minus six years or so. Itinerant rural Galilean Essene preacher, Joshua, son of Joseph, might have enjoyed closer to 40 years on earth than the canonical 30.
He didn’t show his work.
Happy Holidays from Florida!
Florida woman plans merry Christmas after winning right to keep alligator
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-rambo-gator-wins-20161222-story.html
I knew I could count on you Lat! :?)
Wow. another year, and still here.. the bucket list is complete. Merry Christmas, all.
Thx for the great destination and fireplace, Anthony
-the old man
Mr. Watts, I want to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you so very much for continuing to fight the good fight against all of this totally illogical, uneducated “climate change” nonsense.
All the best in 2017!
Regards from Canada,
Darrell Demick
Merry Christmas.
And God bless us, everyone.
In 2017 let’s all hope that those who predict the cold are wrong. Regardless of the annoying lack of scientific rigour behind the warmists.
Merry Christmas to you, too, Matt, to you and your bride. And please, well, tomorrow morning, now, most likely, wish your dad a warm “Merry Christmas” from me.
Here’s to our next 365.25 day journey around the Sun!
Lots of good, very good, things lie ahead! 🙂
Janice
Thanks, Anthony! The last couple of months have made this the best Christmas ever!! I just put another log on the fire!
But this is not over by a long shot. I am not a man of letters or of a poet’s heart but this line came to mind
“And miles to go before I sleep” by Robert Frost.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of the easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
http://beforeitsnews.com/mediadrop/uploads/2015/52/e9511f9b64159bb24d5c795e1bc4a3ff5fc29770.png
Thank you, Arild (I realize you were addressing Anthony, but I’m grateful to you for posting that). Beautiful.
Merry Christmas.
Janice
Oh, and Arild? The reason that there is no sleigh or cart in that painting is because Frost was on his way to drop it off at his mother’s house when the poem came to him. After he unhitched his horse, leaving the sleigh in the barn, he quickly sat down at her kitchen table and scribbled down the gist of it before stuffing it into his pocket and hurrying back outside to canter up the snowy path through the woods, back the way he came. The artist was just passing by when Frost paused a second time…. 🙂 Amazingly, the artist and Frost never met, but, one day, searching for illustrations for a comment on a blog, a woman discovered the painting in a small, local, art dealer’s back room and, well….. 🙂
How did she know the artist actually saw Frost? Because the artist wrote a detailed description of the inspiration for the painting, location, time, everything, and it was pasted to the back of the canvas.
Any more details you are wondering about?
Answer: it was just so.
#(;))
Ah yes Arild, one of my favorite poems, having lived it in the 1950’s in Northern New Brunswick when we had the horses and sleds out around Christmas, with the feather soft flakes falling all around. Thx for the reminder.
-the old man
Robert Frost reading “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIcrR47FxfY&w=640&h=360%5D
Ok that did not work sorry, Did not clear something.
Merry Christmas everyone. From Southern alberta
Thanks Anthony and merry Christmas to all and good night Hillary.
Merry Christmas, Anthony and a hearty THANK YOU , from the heart of Wisconsin.
And for the life long journey,
And for ALL that make WUWT possible.
(I realize you were addressing Anthony, but I wanted to tell you)
Thank you, Carla, for what was for me a very timely reminder of those wise words. I’d forgotten about them.
Merry Christmas.
Serenely with high hopes for a GREAT NEW YEAR 🙂 ,
Janice
Merry Christmas Anthony, and a Great New Year ahead. Thank you, and all your hard-working helpers for the huge effort during the past year on the Super Blog Watts up with That.
Thanks, Adrian and Janice, above, for posting those videos. Here is my current antidote to all the dismal booty shaking that passes for entertainment these days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIcrR47FxfY
I am only going to try this once. If it does not work maybe Janice can do it.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIcrR47FxfY&w=640&h=360%5D
Here — you — go, Arild! 🙂
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” — recited by Robert Frost
(youtube)
(And, in looking at another video along these lines, I found that my backstory above is completely wrong, lol.)
Thanks, again, Arild, for sharing that wonderful imagery with us.
Janice
Ahem. I think….. that Frost (just as Gordon Lightfoot and many writer-singers SHOULD have done) was better off having others read his words…. Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness, and, in another style, Jimmy Stewart come to mind….
And so to tie a bow around this beautiful memory laden sub-topic, I have to confess for the purpose of the elegant Frost Word picture, our Northern New Brunswick horses were not the ‘little horses’ that Bob favored south of the border. Ours could twitch a couple of 40 foot trees back to the yard, miles away… Budweiser would be proud.
You want the whole DAY off? Grumble, grumble, I suppose so. But you be back at work all the the earlier the next morning, Mr. Watts!
(A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours – and to all those here, even the curmudgeons.)
Seems something is not right with the equation but we wont get into that…..
Wishing you all a blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year
On a weather note, here is Brisbane we had the coolest Christmas day temperature ( 24.5C) of any Australian Capitol city, even cooler than Hobart, and the coolest Christmas day day in 40 years, making it a very pleasant day for family, friends, children and grandchildren..
2017 fills us with hope, stay safe good people……
Anthony ==> And the best of the season to you.
“I think I’ll tkae the day off.”
Seems your proof reader beat you to it, Anthony!
Fabulous blog. Best wishes from Oz. Hope you’ll honour us with a visit some time soon.
Oh all right, a one day WWI style Christmas Truce is acceptable to me too. ONE DAY.
. . . Christmas holiday thoughts to everyone . . .
John
May the one born so long ago, continue to birth in you Anthony His peace, health and presence this coming year.
I liked this article by James Dellingpole. A nice summary of the fight against the Green Blob.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/12/23/trump-versus-the-green-blob-the-biggest-science-scam-in-history/
A very belated Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2017 to all WUWT contributors and readers.
I hope Anthony allows me to point his readership to the fate of Erwin Vervaet, a forty-three year old former IT manager from my home country Belgium, who suffers from an extremely rare Multiple Sclerosis variant.
Erwin hails from Mechelen, roughly between Brussels and Antwerp. He got the diagnosis of his disease ten years ago. Until 2010, he could function more or less in an acceptable way. But since that year it’s unstoppably downhill. He’s confined to his wheelchair now, has troubles with bladder and eyes, and cannot bear heat.
His only hope to stop his particular form of MS is in this fairly new therapy, called HSCT, which stands for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. However, since the therapy is still in its infancy, it cannot of course be recognized by RIZIV, the Belgian State Institute for Insurance against Disease and Invalidity, and therefore Erwin would have to cough up the 55,000 EUR needed for the treatment himself.
He’s desperate, since he’s getting worse day after day. He has therefore set himself a goal: collect the money via crowdfunding formula in a mere 60 days.
So, if you want to make a difference this Holiday Season, you can do your little bit HERE.
It will be much appreciated by Erwin and his loved ones.
░M░E░R░R░R░Y░░C░H░R░S░T░M░A░S░!░!░
٩(͡๏̮͡๏)۶ ღ♪*•.¸¸¸.•*¨¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪ღ♪¸.•*¨¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪ღ♪•*♪ღ♪
♪ღ♪*•♪ღ♪*•.¸¸¸.•*¨¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪¸.•*¨¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪ღ♪•*ヅ٩(͡๏̮͡๏)۶
░☺░T░O░░A░L░L░!░░&░░W░I░S░H░I░N░G░
░Y░O░U░░A░░G░R░E░A░T░░░2░0░1░7░!░☺░
Nope. Too late.
(Happy 2017 DStealey (: )
I’m late, too. But if Christmas Day is past, Hanukkah is still underway, and Jesus was a Jew.
And it’s not too early for a ‘Happy New Year’ to all, especially Anthony.
/Mr Lynn