Monday, December 24, 2007
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Monday, December 25, 2006
Merry Christmas Part Two: Exposing more bullshit
Peter Ackroyd
Christ’s birth was not virgin, didn’t take place in a stable and no star shone. Peter Ackroyd seeks the Gospel truth in Geza Vermes’s The Nativity
THE NATIVITY: HISTORY AND LEGEND
by Geza Vermes
Penguin, £7.99; 192pp
The divine begets the human. The human becomes divine. For some, it is the simple truth. For others, it is a great and powerful myth. For others, again, it is all pious fraud and delusion. Yet the principal features of the Christmas narrative have become part of the collective consciousness of the West — the birth in a manger, the three kings or wise men, the shepherds with their flocks, the star, all now reside in the human imagination. In his new book The Nativity: History and Legend, Geza Vermes places them in exactly that context, as imagined rather than real.
There is, first of all, a slight uncertainty over the date of the miraculous events. Vermes reminds us that the date of Christmas was not settled until AD334, when December 25 was chosen to supplant the pagan festival of the Unvanquished Sun. The Eastern church celebrates the birth of Jesus on January 6. Vermes then submits the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke to scholarly scrutiny; if they were onions, he could be said to peel them.
It is significant, in any case, that only two of the Gospels bear any reference to the birth of Christ. The two extant accounts also differ in essential matters. In Matthew’s narrative, for example, Jesus is born in a house rather than a stable. It is one of the many “complications, discrepancies and contradictions”, as Vermes puts it, that bedevil any understanding of the scriptures. There is, for example, the discrepancy between the genealogical trees with which Matthew and Luke assert Christ’s pedigree. It was not enough, apparently, to be the Son of God. Over 40 generations, the two chroniclers agree on only three names. In the Hebrew and Aramaic versions of Matthew, too, it is plainly stated that Joseph “begot” Jesus. There is no inkling of a virgin birth.
The notion of virginal conception itself, however, is not so extraordinary. Vermes here recites the early emergence of miraculous or divine births. In the Old Testament there are stories of angels consorting with human females. Many of the most significant figures in pre-Christian history, from Plato to Alexander the Great, have been credited with divine origins. One deity of Palestine, Dusares, was named “the alone begotten of the Lord” and his mother was called “the Virgin”. So there are parallels, all alluding to the possibility that human and divine may be intimately connected.
According to the marital customs of the period, Mary would have been approximately 12 years old at the time Jesus was born. The Hebrew narrative calls the Mother of God “a young woman”, but the Greek translator of this source misinterpreted the word as “virgin”. According to Vermes this is the principal or only reason that Matthew fashioned the narrative of the virgin birth. It was part of a “Hellenistic Gentile-Christian” tradition, to which Matthew wished to appeal. The evidence suggests that “the idea of virginal conception must be seen as a late accretion to the infancy narratives”. There is no reference to virgin birth in Luke.
In fact it seems possible that the entire cult of the Virgin Mary is based upon a fiction or misunderstanding, since Matthew also expressly states that Joseph and Mary had marital intercourse after the birth of Christ.
There is also overwhelming evidence that Christ was born in BC — that is, before Himself. The presumed date of AD1 is based upon a miscalculation. Herod, indisputably king at the time of the birth, actually died in 4BC. Neither is it possible to date the time of the birth by means of the census or “enrolment” recorded by Luke, for the simple reason that no such census took place. In addition Herod’s murder plot, as adumbrated by Matthew, is not historically verifiable.
What of Luke’s shepherds, watching their flocks at night? In that region the shepherd kept their flocks in the fields only between March and November, leading Clement of Alexandria to fix the date of the birth as April 20 or May 20. And what of the three wise men led by a star? Leaving aside the dubious status of these potentates from the East, the star itself is a problem. Some have believed it to be Halley’s comet, or a supernova, or a rare conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. But the real source of the star is to be found in literature rather than the cosmos. In ancient texts “star” is used as a synonym for ruler or messiah. There was in any case a long- established tradition that a star appeared on the occasion of a significant or unusual birth. .
In sum, it becomes evident, from Vermes’s account, that Matthew and Luke manipulated quotations from earlier texts, invented episodes and elaborated upon earlier myths to provide compelling narratives of Christ’s birth. Few people will be surprised or offended by his conclusions.
The “facts”, as we may call them, are not new. German biblical scholarship of the 19th century effectively dismissed the scriptures as documents of unimpeachable accuracy. But they are the next best thing. They are works of genius. They have enshrined the mystery, and the majesty, of Incarnation. There may not have been a star, or a flock, or gold, or frankincense, or myrrh. But they constitute the power of a compelling narrative that remains, for many millions of people, the source of inspiration and of comfort. That, in itself, is perhaps worth celebrating in this period of the year.
Extract from The Nativity: History and Legend by Geza Vermes
On the essential topics of the Nativity tale both Matthew and Luke concur. God’s Holy Spirit is said to have played an essential, though ill-defined, part in Mary’s pregnancy and brought about what is termed in traditional Christian parlance a virginal conception. This doctrine of the virginal conception and birth of Jesus forms an essential part of the teaching of the Church and on a more popular level of the Christmas story: Mary became pregnant and gave birth to a son without ceasing to be a virgin and without the participation of a man . . . This dogma is exclusively based on a few verses of the Infancy Gospels; no other section of the New Testament inside or outside the Gospels makes any reference to it . . .
Though such a virginal conception is unparalleled in the Hebrew Bible or in post-biblical Jewish literature in antiquity, stories implying some kind of miraculous birth circulated in abundance in the various corners of the ancient world, both among Jews and among pagans. It is necessary, therefore, to form an idea of the cultural background . . . of the writers and the readership of the New Testament before tackling the Gospel accounts themselves.
To grasp the import of the imagery associated with miraculous births, we must bear in mind that in the age and in the civilisation of Jesus the knowledge of physiology was fairly rudimentary and the mystery of fertility was steeped in religious awe. In pagan antiquity fruitfulness was thought to depend on special gods or goddesses and in biblical Judaism on the one God of Israel. According to the colourful language of the Hebrew Bible, this God had the power to close the womb or to open it. If he closed it, the woman remained sterile. If he opened the womb, she became fertile. In short, in some sense every pregnancy was seen as mediated by God, as a divine gift, but some more so than others. However, in the Jewish view, even a miraculous, ie, heavenly assisted, conception presupposed prior sexual intercourse. The spouses were expected to play their part . . .
Original article posted here.
Merry Christmas?: FuckChristmas.org
Seriously – are you kidding me with this “There’s a war on Christmas” bullshit? FOX News wasn’t raking in enough cash already from all the Christmas commercials for Kill ‘em All Barbie and Girls Gone Wild Brand Toddler Gear? They had to start publishing books about some bogus attack on Christianity? And who did they pick to lead this particular charge?
John fucking Gibson. This guy has wiener written all over him.
Bill O’Reilly gets all the credit as the biggest nutcase in FOXville, but Gibson really deserves his own special wing in the happy house. This motherfucker’s embedded assignment reads “Up Karl Rove’s ass.”
What makes him such a dick? I mean, besides making a fortune by screaming hysterically about how oppressed Christians are by the other twenty percent? How about advocating bombing countries that don’t vote the way we want in their own elections? Way to encourage democracy, fuckhead. And maybe he was kidding when he wished, on air, that the French had gotten the 2012 Olympics instead of the Brits so the terrorists would “blow up Paris,” but it might have been just a touch over the top to call for it again on the day of the London train bombings. Classy move, asshole.
And really? That’s just scratching the fucking surface. Anyone remember who was responsible for the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City? John does: Iraq. And speaking of Iraq, Gibson thinks Rove deserves a fucking medal for outing that CIA agent. And, like any good reporter, he wanted to burn the Florida ballots after his buddy Bush got “elected” rather than, I don’t know, count them? “Is this a case where knowing the facts actually would be worse than not knowing?” That right there is why sometimes it’s useful for journalists to go to, what do you call that fucking place? Oh yeah, journalism school.
And now he’s all worked up about Christmas being stolen. What is this, the fucking Fairytale Network? It’s a national fucking holiday and we’re spending gobs of our hard-earned tax dollars on wreaths and lights for your special Santa day. But these bastards are all “But they call them Holiday trees!” Here’s a clue: no, they fucking don’t. Ok, maybe in a couple places, like on FOXNews.com and at the White House, but if Christmas is under attack, I’m Kris fucking Kringle.
And guess who’s stealing Christmas, according to Gibson. Go on — guess. “A cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wracked Christians — not just Jewish people.” (Emphasis mine. Pure, unadulterated anti-semitism, his.) A cabal? Are you fucking kidding me? Could we try to be a little more fucking original with our Jew-hating?
Speaking of Jew-hating, Pat Buchanan has joined the hype-a-thon of the supposed Attack on Christmas, too. Or, as he put it, “What we’re witnessing here are hate crimes against Christianity.” Sorry? We’re not so hot on paying for an inflatable camel for your goddamn nativity scene and suddenly we’re Slobodan fucking Milosevic? Fuck you. Get some goddamn perspective, you little prick. When they start hunting Christians in the streets, it’ll be time to start yelling “Hate crime.” And no, it won’t count when they start chasing you with the torches. That’ll be called “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
And Bill O’Reilly, Gibson’s cellmate in the silly shack, is doing his part to save Christmas, too. He’s been going after New York’s Mayor Bloomberg (that Commie) because he says the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center has been renamed a “Holiday Tree,” and “No Christian Christmas symbols are allowed in the public schools.” The only problem? Neither of those things is even remotely fucking true.
It takes some super-sized balls for O’Reilly to get all lathered up about sinners and their fictional anti-Christian crusade. Every fucking person on the planet has hard and fast evidence that Bill is a world-class pervert, but still he feels totally justified lecturing the rest of us on our moral inferiority.
How fucked up is Bill O’Reilly? Pretty fucked up. Everyone got so crazyfaced about him confusing a sponge and a Middle Eastern snackcake (pretty fucking funny, mind you), that they missed the scary bit: what he meant to say. Old Bill wanted to get all funky on his intern like this: (you’ll excuse my foul language, I’m quoting an award-winning newscaster here) “I’d take the other hand with the [loofah] thing and put it on your pussy.”
loofah (lū’fə) noun. A natural exfoliating sponge.
exfoliate (ĕks-fō’lē-āt’) verb. To remove (a layer of bark or skin, for example) in flakes or scales; peel.
That’s right. Bill O’Reilly, fount of morals, is super familiar with the female anatomy. So much so, that he knows how good it feels to have one’s pussy exfoliated. We’re talking h – o – t, Hot. That’s exactly who I’m going to for my life lessons.
Sorry, where were we? Oh yeah, fuck Christmas.
Can we back up just a couple steps here? At what point did a basic understanding of the separation of church and state become a fucking war on religion? And how did we get to the point where you can call an organization set up to defend our civil liberties “Terrorists” on national television and no one fires your ass? Enough. Fuck all of you lying little shitheads who wish the world was out to get you so you could play the poor oppressed victims. Wake up assholes — you’re the cowboys, not the fucking Indians.
“But we want to display our Christmas tree on city property!” You can, go right ahead. “They’re stopping us from praying in school!” They’re not, so fuck off. “We’re not allowed to say ‘Merry Christmas’ anymore!” Are you fucking kidding me? Knock yourself out. Say it at work, scream it in your high school lunch room, hell, tattoo it on your fucking forehead for all we care. Guess who’s gonna be there defending your right to do every one of those things? The fucking ACLU. One of these days you bastards are going to drive those fuckers out of business, and then you’ll see some actual attacks on your religious liberties. I thought conservatives were supposed to be all proud and independent? When did they turn into a bunch of fucking crybabies?
Let’s back up even fucking further, shall we? Can anyone tell me how old Christmas is? Anyone? Two thousand years, give or take, right? Gee, who’s been reading their No Child Left Behind History Textbooks? Try fucking four thousand years. Huh. Twice as fucking long as your little baby king has been around. How could that possibly be, unless. . . waitaminute. . .
Christmas isn’t fucking Christian. Ok, now we’re talking.
That’s right, that Yuletide cheer you’re spreading? What exactly do you think Yule is? It's the fucking Pagan celebration of solstice. And those “Christmas” traditions? They’re not just like Pagan rituals, they fucking are Pagan rituals. Way before your Jesus got all magical with the bread and fishes, the Romans were celebrating the birth of Mithra on . . . guess? Go on – guess. December fucking twenty fifth. What a weird coincidence. Practically the whole thing is ripped off from the fucking Druids and the Romans. Twelve days? Check. Exchanging gifts? Check. Mistletoe? Check. And you’d better fucking believe that those decorated trees that Gibson and Co. are so bent out of shape over are as Pagan as the Rune and Crystal Shack at Pentagramfest 2005. You might as well be building miniature fucking Stonehenges in your den.
And don’t you read your own goddamn Bibles? Jesus was born when? In the middle of winter? Lot of Shepherds out watching their flocks around that time of year in Bethlehem? No, because they’d be freezing their fucking asses off. Tell you what – y’all go figure out which one of the different Bible stories about the birth of Baby Jesus® you want to believe, and then we’ll argue about whether it fucking happened like that or not.
Christians just stole a bunch of traditions from other cultures, slapped them together, stuck a fucking tinfoil star on top and called it the Most Important Holiday of the Year. Modern American Christmas makes Michael Jackson look positively organic.
But you boys at FOX still freak out every year about how everyone's out to get your special trees. This is really the most important thing you have to talk about? Whether Target says Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas? Here’s a brainstorm: there’s a fucking war on. Our soldiers are out there dying while you guys do your 14th live feed of the day from WalMart to show us what good little consumers we are. What Would Jesus Do? He’d jump over that newsdesk and kick your ass for that shit. Are you sure you want to hang your journalism credentials on a story about what some guy calls a tree?
Well we’ve fucking had it. You want to play bullshit games and scream about how God’s fucking judgment is gonna come raining down on us if we don't start watching our vocabulary? Go right the fuck ahead. But let me clue you in on something: fire and brimstone ain’t no deterrent for us. We’re not going to hell, assholes, we’re fucking in hell. We live with you.
And fuck Easter too, you fertility–rite–celebrating, whiny, self-righteous, don’t–know–the– history–of–your–own–religion assholes. Fuck off.
Original article at fuckchristmas.org
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Not so Christian Christmas
Yule
Yule is the winter solstice celebration of the Scandinavian Norse mythology and Germanic pagans. In Neopaganism, this celebration is largely reconstructed to various extents by various groups. In Wicca, a form of the holiday is observed as one of the eight solar holidays, or sabbats, where Yule is celebrated on the winter solstice: in the northern hemisphere, circa December 21, and in the southern hemisphere, circa June 21.
"Yule" and "Yuletide" (also see Yalda) refer to the period extending from Dec. 24 to Jan. 6 and is often used to refer to Christmas. People unfamiliar with ancient Norse mythology's pagan traditions usually do not distinguish between Yule (Joul) and Christmas, as it is used in many Christmas songs. In Denmark, Norway and Sweden the term "jul" is still the most common way to express Christmas, as well as "joulu" in Finland and "jõulud" in Estonia.
Contents
Etymology
Of the contested origin of Jól, one popular connection is to Old Norse hjól, wheel, to identify the moment when the wheel of the year is at its low point, ready to rise again (compare karachun). Linguists suggest that Jól has been inherited by Germanic languages from a pre-Indo-European substrate language and either borrowed into Old English from Old Norse or directly inherited from Proto-Germanic.
Another origin for the term "Yule" can be traced via the Old English/Anglo-Saxon term "Géol", which is strongly connected with the word for yellow - "geol".[citation needed] One may see the evolution of this word for yellow throughout the Germanic and Scandinavian countries: German "gelb", Norwegian "gul", Danish "gul", Gaelic 'geal', Dutch "geel", Swedish "gul", Frisian "giel", even Italian "giallo", Lithuanian "geltonas" and Romanian "galben". The Old English Géol became the Middle English "Yole" and finally modern Yule, whereas the word geol or geolu evolved to become modern yellow. This same gradual divergence of terms also occurred in the other languages mentioned. All of these terms ultimately stem from the Indo-European root *ghel- meaning "yellow, green". Related are (Latin) helvus "yellow", holus "vegetable", (Greek) khloros "green-yellow". Also related with gold, to glow, gall. Since the Yule festival is native to the northern European lands, where midwinter is a time of short days and little light, it is a strong possibility that the original sense of Yule as a midwinter festival had much to do with "bringing back the sun" and creating bright, shining, gold or yellow sun- and fire-themed decorations and festivities.
A connection could also be to the brightness of the sunlight glaring off the white snow, or simply the bright glare of the sun itself as it rides low on the horizon. Therefore, likely meanings may be "Shining Time", "Bright Time" or "Golden Time".
In the Scandinavian Germanic languages, the term Jul covers both Yule and Christmas, and is also occasionally used to denote other holidays in December, e.g., "jødisk jul" or "judisk jul" (tr. "Jewish Yule") for Hanukkah. The word "jul" has also been borrowed into the neighboring Finnic languages, most notably to Finnish and Estonian (where it has been modified to "joulu" and "jõul", respectively, and denotes Christmas in modern usage), although the Finnic languages have a linguistic origin different from Germanic languages. In Old English, geóla originally referred to the month of December; although the ancient Anglo-Saxon calendar had two "tides" of 60 day periods: "Litha Tide", roughly equivalent to modern June and July, and "Giuli Tide", being essentially December and January (the remaining months of the year were lunar, 29 day periods--the New Year began with the second half of that tide, also known as "Wulfmonath"). There was also a period of time, twelve days, intercalary between the two halves--or "monaths"--the which becoming the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas. The definition later narrowed to mean Christmas day only, with the returning of the Latin-based calendar--via the Normans--over time in Christian Norman and Anglo-Saxon England.
Traditional Yule
What is certain, is that Yule celebrations at the winter solstice predate Christianity[citation needed], and though there are numerous references to Yule in the Icelandic sagas, there are few accounts of how Yule was actually celebrated, beyond the fact that it was a time for feasting. 'Yule-Joy', with dancing, continued through the Middle Ages in Iceland, but was frowned upon when the Reformation arrived. It is, however, known to have included the sacrifice of a pig for the god Freyr, a tradition which survives in the Scandinavian Christmas ham.[citation needed]
The confraternities of artisans of the 9th century, which developed into the medieval guilds, were denounced by Catholic clergy for their "conjurations" when they swore to support one another in coming adversity and in business ventures. The occasions were annual banquets on December 26,
"feast day of the pagan god Jul, when it was possible to couple with the spirits of the dead and with demons that returned to the surface of the earth... Many clerics denounced these conjurations as being not only a threat to public order but also, more serious in their eyes, satanic and immoral. Hincmar, in 858, sought in vain to Christianize them" (Rouche 1987, p. 432).
Connection to modern Christmas
Many of the symbols associated with the modern holiday of Christmas such as the burning of the Yule log, the eating of ham, the hanging of boughs, holly, mistletoe, etc. are apparently derived from traditional northern European Yule celebrations. When the first missionaries began converting the Germanic peoples to Christianity, they found it convenient to provide a Christian reinterpretation for popular feasts such as Yule and allow the celebrations themselves to go on largely unchanged, versus trying to confront and suppress them. The Scandinavian tradition of slaughtering a pig at Christmas (see Christmas ham), and not in the autumn, is probably the most salient evidence for this. The tradition derives from the sacrifice to the god Freyr at the Yule celebrations. Halloween and Easter are likewise assimilated from northern
European pagan festivals.
English historian Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ("Ecclesiastic History of the English People") contains a letter from Pope Gregory I to Saint Mellitus, who was then on his way to England to conduct missionary work among the heathen Anglo-Saxons. The Pope suggests that converting heathens is easier if they are allowed to retain the outward forms of their traditional pagan practices and traditions, while recasting those traditions spiritually towards the one true God instead of to their pagan gods (whom the Pope refers to as "devils"), "to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God". [1]
[edit] Neopaganism
As forms of Neopaganism can be quite different and have very different origins, these representations can vary considerably despite the shared name. Some celebrate in a manner as close as possible to how the Ancient Germanic pagans observed the tradition, while others observe the holiday with rituals culled from numerous other unrelated sources, Germanic culture being only one of the sources used.
Germanic neopaganism
In Germanic Neopagan sects, Yule is celebrated with gatherings that often involve a meal and gift giving. Further attempts at reconstruction of surviving accounts of historical celebrations are often made, a hallmark being variations of the traditional blót.
Groups such as the Asatru Folk Assembly in the US recognize the celebration as lasting for 12 days, beginning on the date of the winter solstice. [2]
Wicca & New Age
In particular, within Wiccan-influenced and New Age religions attempts at reconstruction are largely disregarded and the festival is only related to historical accounts by name, as a part the Wheel of the Year.
In some Wiccan sects the holiday is observed in a manner that commemorates the death of the Holly King identified with the wren bird (symbolizing the old year and the shortened sun) at the hands of his son and successor, the robin redbreast Oak King (the new year and the new sun that begins to grow) (Farrar & Farrar [1989] 1998: 35-38).
Secular Yuletide
Christmas happens during extreme summer temperatures in the southern hemisphere, therefore, Australians celebrate Yule at the southern winter solstice in June. A much more popular winter celebration is Christmas in July, not surprisingly celebrated (several times by some) in July, removing the celebration from all religious connections both Pagan and Christian.
Though notionally synonymous with Christmas, both religious and secular, Yule and Yuletide are sometimes used by English speakers as secular names for December 25th and late December in general in much the same way that the Scandinavian "Jul" does not distinguish between the Germanic Pagan feast, Christmas, and (quite possibly) the pre-Indo-European winter solstice celebration.
Scandinavian Humanist Yule Celebrations
This is usually observed around the same time as Christmas or at Winter Solstice, and can include family and friends, food and such, non religious songs and non-religious decorations like lights and decorated indoor or outdoor trees without religious connotations, gifts and even Santas, although it should be noted that Santa has been identified in Scandinavia with the pre Christian mythical Scandinavian creature tomte or nisse (although it should be noted that the figure of Santa Claus has been identified with the pre Christian mythical Scandinavian tomte or nisse in Scandinavia and that the occurence of Santas in this context is thus not necessarily a Christian reference).
References
Rouche, Michel, "Private life conquers state and society," in A History of Private Life vol I, Paul Veyne, editor, Harvard University Press 1987 ISBN 0-674-39974-9
Farrar, Janet and Stewart ([1989] 1998). The Witch's God, "IX Oak King and Holly King". 35-38. Phoenix Publishing, Inc. Blaine, Washington. ISBN 0-919345-47-6