I get all this stuff confused
Is the winter Solstice on Christmas?
by wha happened? 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Leolaia
No, and AFAIK it never was. The actual date of the winter solstice in the Julian calendar was December 22 or 23 (or December 21 or 22 by the fourth century AD), but it was sometimes observed halfway between Saturnalia (December 17) and the Kalendae of January, i.e. on December 24-25, at least in the Natalis Invicti cult.
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fokyc
It was celebrated at Stonhenge by The Druids (pagans) on 22nd December this year (2009), although many came on the 21st and stayed overnight, it is very often on the 21st,
fokyc
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WTWizard
The winter solstice is never on Christmas Day (and if it is, the calendar needs to be fixed). Christmas Day is the day when the days begin to get measurably longer.
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freydo
It's the birthday of Tammuz
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Leolaia
It's the birthday of Tammuz
There is no evidence that it is. The idea springs from a conflation of Adonis and Tammuz/Dumuzi found in 19th century comparative religion, particularly Frazer's The Golden Bough. It was Adonis who according to Pseudo-Apollodorus (Bibliotheca, 3.14.4) was born in the "tenth month", which some have interpreted as meaning December, but in context it is the tenth month after his mother became pregnant. Adonis was a vegetation god whose death (gored by the tusks of a wild boar) was mourned in mid-summer, similar to that of Dumuzi whose month of mourning still bears the name of the god (the Hebrew month of Tammuz, July/August), whose myth is related in the Descent of Dumuzi and Inanna. The mourning of both gods probably had in view the seasonal changes from spring to summer, but despite the surface similarities the two deities (who arose and developed in different ANE cultures) were quite different and one cannot attribute traits of one to another (unless this represents a phase of actual syncretism). I know of no birth myth for Dumuzi/Tammuz. It is possible that the winter solstice is about the time that Inanna takes Dumuzi's place in the underworld, but this is not a "birthday" proper, and the evidence for this is somewhat unclear.
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freydo
"The idea springs from a conflation of Adonis and Tammuz/Dumuzi found in 19th century comparative religion, particularly Frazer's The Golden Bough. It was Adonis who according toPseudo-Apollodorus (Bibliotheca, 3.14.4) was born in the "tenth month", which some have interpreted as meaning December, but in context it is the tenth month after his mother became pregnant."
Well that may be , but according to what I've read Tammuz springs from a union of Semaramis(the branch bearer)
and the resurrected(into the sun - hence SUNday) NIMROD who impregnated her via his rays of the sun.
Sound familiar? Isaiah 11:1 - [ The Branch From Jesse ]
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Leolaia
Well that may be , but according to what I've read Tammuz springs from a union of Semaramis (the branch bearer) and the resurrected(into the sun - hence SUNday) NIMROD who impregnated her via his rays of the sun.
What you have read is Alexander Hislop or those dependent on him, and what he says is nonsense -- his portrayal of Babylonian mythology bears only very faint resemblence to actual ancient beliefs. The deity Tammuz is based on the Sumerian tradition of the antedilivian king of Badtibira, "the shepherd", who ruled prior to En-sipad-zid-ana of Larsa, according to the Sumerian King List (the early postdiluvian kings of Sumer correspond to historical kings from the early third millennium BC). Tammuz or Dumuzi were not solar deities (nor was Baal). Semiramis, on the other hand, is a Hellenistic reflection of the historical Shammuramat, queen of Assyria, who reigned around the same time that Jehoash was king of Judah (in the late nineth century BC); she was legendary in a similar way as Sesostris of Egypt but was not worshipped as a goddess as Hislop claimed. Hislop's attempt to explain the name as meaning "branch bearer" is a specious etymology that does not reflect knowledge of Hebrew; the name actually means "exalted name" and occurs in Hebrew in plural form in the OT as Shemiramoth (cf. 1 Chronicles 15:20-21). The Hebrew legendary figure Nimrod, meanwhile, has no connection with either. It was Hislop who postulated such a relationship; the whole Nimrod-Tammuz-Semiramis thing sprang from his imagination, and the Watchtower Society reproduced Hislop's ideas as if they were fact.
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peacefulpete
If the question was meant more casually, simply, was Christmas timed to generally coincide with solstice festivals, then yes. There have been various dates for Christmas day depending upon which calender and which sect of Christianity. Hanukah the festival of lights was originally deliberately timed so.
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Leolaia
Festivals of light and merriment on the darkest days of the year were, and are, effective defense mechanisms against seasonal affective disorder. They are motivated at a more basic level by human psychology than by whatever religious dress they happen to have. The kind of "pagan" festivals that the Society condemns make good psychological sense.