BAS - Asherah and the Asherim: Goddess or Cult Symbol?

A modern depiction of "Lady Asherah of the Sea"

Stele of Qadesh | upper frame2

Asherah and the Asherim: Goddess or Cult Symbol?
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-israel/asherah-and-the-asherim-goddess-or-cult-symbol/

by Ellen White

November 4, 2014

Exploring the Biblical and archaeological evidence

This four-tiered cult stand found at Tanaach is thought to represent Yahweh and Asherah, with each deity being depicted on alternating tiers. Note that on tier two, which is dedicated to Asherah, is the image of a living tree, often thought to be how the asherim as a cult symbol was expressed. Photo: © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem/Israel Antiquities Authority (photograph by Avraham Hay).

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Who is Asherah? Or perhaps, what is asherah?1 The Hebrew means “happy” or “upright” and some suggest “(sacred) place.” The term appears 40 times in the Hebrew Bible, usually in conjunction with the definite article “the.” The definite article in Hebrew is similar to English in that personal names do not take an article. For example, I am Ellen, not the Ellen. Thus it is clear that when the definite article is present that it is not a personal name, but this does not eliminate the possibility of it being a category of being (i.e., a type of goddess). There are only eight cases where the term appears without an article or a suffix—suffixes in Hebrew can be used to express possession, e.g., “his,” “their,” etc. Interestingly, the plural of the term, asherim, occurs in both masculine and feminine forms.

This diversity of grammar leads to the two questions at the beginning of this article: Who is Asherah? What is asherah? The reference may be to a particular goddess, a class of goddess or a cult symbol used to represent the goddess. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish what meaning is intended (cf. Judges 3:7).

This goddess is known from several other Ancient Near Eastern cultures.2 Sometimes she is known as “Lady Asherah of the Sea” but could be taken as “She who walks on the sea.” As Athirat, a cognate name for Asherah, she is mother of 70 children (this relates to the Jewish idea of the 70 guardian angels of the nations). Arguments have been made that Asherah is a figure in Egyptian, Hittite, Philistine and Arabic texts. Egyptian representations of “Qudshu” (potentially the Egyptian name for Asherah) show her naked with snakes and flowers, sometimes standing on a lion. Whether this should be interpreted as Asherah is contested and thus should be viewed with caution. Another suggestion is Asherah is also the Hittite goddess Asertu, who is married to Elkunirsa, the storm god (she is often viewed in connection with the regional storm god).

As Athirat in Arabian inscriptions there is a possibility that she is seen as a sun goddess (this is perhaps a connection in Ugaritic literature as well). In Phoenician, she is the mother goddess, which is different from Astarte, the fertility goddess; there is some debate regarding a confusion of the two relating to 1 Kings 18:19. In Akkadian, she might be Asratum, the consort of Amurru (chief deity of early Babylon). The connection is made because the Akkadian kingship (early 14th century B.C.E.) takes the title “servant of Asherah.”

The Ugaritic texts provide the most insight into the goddess. Ras Shamra (located on the Syrian coast) texts, discovered in 1929, portray her as Athirat, the wife of El. Their sexual encounter produces dusk (Shalim) and dawn (Shahar), among others. Her relationship with Baal is complicated, and it is suggested that Baal has killed large numbers of her children.3 In these texts, she intercedes with El to get Baal a palace, after Anat’s (his “sister” and her “daughter”) request is refused. She supplies a son to reign after Baal descends into the netherworld. The relationship is further complicated by debates as to whether she is the mother of Baal or his consort or both. The idea of her being a consort comes from later Phoenician sources, where scholars have associated Asherah with Tinnit. Yet, the connections are tentative, and many scholars question the association. A hypothesis also suggests that Baal usurped El’s position and also took his consort, Asherah, which would make the relationship very oedipal.

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This inscription found on a pithos at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (similar to an inscription found at Khirbet el-Qom) refers to “Yahweh and his Asherah.” This has led some scholars to believe that in popular religion Asherah was understood to be the wife of Yahweh, much the same as she under her cognate Athirat was considered to be the wife of El. Photo: Courtesy Dr. Ze’ev Meshel and Avraham Hai/Tel Aviv University Institute of Archaeology. Asherah or asherim refer to more than just the person of the deity. These terms are often, especially in the Biblical texts, used for consecrated poles. These poles represent living trees, with which the goddess is associated. Some scholars believe that asherim were not poles, but living trees (like the one depicted on the Tanaach Cult Stand). The poles were either carved to look like trees or to resemble the goddess (this could also be reflected in the numerous pillar figurines found throughout Israel). Remains of these poles are determined by postholes and rotted timber, which resulted in differently hued soil. There is great debate as to whether the cult symbol lost its ties to Asherah (and became a religious symbol on its own without the worshippers knowing anything about the goddess who originated it) or is seen as a representation of Asherah herself (similar to the way the cross is a representation of Jesus to Christians).

Jar A drawing. Kuntillet 'Ajrud, Israel. Early 8th century BCE
S. Beaulieu, after Keel and Uelinger 1998: 213, figure 220. | source link here

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The relationship between Asherah and Israel is a complicated one.4 Does the text refer to the goddess or her symbol?5 Jeroboam and Rehoboam fostered Asherah worship (1 Kings 14:15, 23). Worship of Asherah was highly encouraged by Jezebel, with the presence of 400 prophets who held a place in the court of her husband King Ahab (1 Kings 18:19). Worship of Asherah is given as a reason for deportation (2 Kings 17:10,16). Attempts to eradicate the worship were made by Asa, Josiah, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Gideon (Exodus 34:13-14; Deuteronomy 7:5; Judges 6:25-30; 1 Kings 15:13/2 Chronicles 15:16; 2 Kings 23:4,7/2 Chronicles 34:3,7; 2 Kings 21:7/2 Chronicles 33:3,19; 2 Chronicles 19:3; 2 Kings 18:4). However, devotion to the cult symbol remained (Isaiah 27:9; Jeremiah 17:1; Micah 5:14). It is particularly interesting that objections to Asherah are found mostly in Deuteronomistic literature, rather than in the prophets. In both cases, the authors are much more concerned about the worship of Baal rather than Asherah.

This apparent lack of concern might be due to a popular connection between Yahweh and his Asherah. Inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (on a pithos; see image above) and Khirbet el-Qom (on walls) contain the phrase “Yahweh and his Asherah.”6 Some take this to mean it was believed that she was seen as the wife of Yahweh and represents the goddess herself. Yet, the presence of the suffix could suggest that it is not a personal name. This has led others to believe it is a reference to the cult symbol. A more obscure opinion claims it means a cella or chapel; this meaning is found in other Semitic languages, but not Hebrew. Because of the similarities between El and Yahweh, it is understandable that Asherah could have been linked to Yahweh. While some readers might find the idea that Yahweh had a wife disturbing, it was common in the ancient world to believe that gods married and even bore children. This popular connection between Yahweh and Asherah, and the eventual purging of Asherah from the Israelite cult, is likely a reflection of the emergence of monotheism from the Israelites’ previous polytheistic worldview.

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Ellen White, Ph.D. (Hebrew Bible, University of St. Michael’s College), is the senior editor at the Biblical Archaeology Society. She has taught at five universities across the U.S. and Canada and spent research leaves in Germany and Romania. She has also been actively involved in digs at various sites in Israel.

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Notes:

1. One of the most influential studies on Asherah is Saul M. Olyan, Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel, Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). Olyan’s study provides background for this piece.

2. For a detailed study of Asherah outside of the Biblical texts, see Walter A. Maier, Asherah: Extrabiblical Evidence, Harvard Semitic Monographs (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986).

3. Olyan, Asherah, pp. 38–61.

4. For one of the best treatment of Asherah and Israel, see Judith M. Hadley, The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess, University of Cambridge Oriental Publications (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

5. For a really good analysis of the Biblical passages involving Asherah, see C. Frevel, Aschera und der Ausschliesslichkeitsanspruch YHWHs, Bonner biblische Beitrage (Weinheim: Belz Athenaum Verlag, 1995).

6. For more details, see William Dever, Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 176–251.

Visit the BAS Library for more on Asherah:

As the point where three of the world’s major religions converge, Israel’s history is one of the richest and most complex in the world. Sift through the archaeology and history of this ancient land in the free eBook Israel: An Archaeological Journey, and get a view of these significant Biblical sites through an archaeologist’s lens.

Shmuel Ahituv, “Did God Have a Wife?” Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 2006.

Ephraim Stern, “Pagan Yahwism: The Folk Religion of Ancient Israel,” Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2001.

William G. Dever, “Folk Religion in Early Israel: Did Yahweh Have a Consort?” in Hershel Shanks and Jack Meinhardt, eds., Aspects of Monotheism (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1996), pp. 27–56, 127–129.

J. Glen Taylor, “Was Yahweh Worshiped as the Sun?” Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1994.

Ruth Hestrin, “Understanding Asherah—Exploring Semitic Iconography,” Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1991.

André Lemaire, “Who or What Was Yahweh’s Asherah?” Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1984.

Ze’ev Meshel, “Did Yahweh Have a Consort?” Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1979.

Why Jesus Wouldn't Cut It as a Pastor in Today's Evangelical Megachurches

Why Jesus Wouldn't Cut It as a Pastor in Today's Evangelical Megachurches

http://www.alternet.org/belief/why-jesus-wouldnt-cut-it-pastor-todays-evangelical-megachurches

by Frank Schaeffer

October 29, 2014

Jesus promoted empathy for everyone, while the actions

of today's religious establishment undermine it.

Jesus never could have been the pastor of a contemporary evangelical church nor a conservative Roman Catholic bishop. Evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics thrive on drawing distinctions between their "truth" and other people's failings. Jesus by contrast, set off an empathy time bomb that obliterates difference.

Jesus' empathy bomb explodes every time a former evangelical puts love ahead of what the "Bible says." It goes off every time Pope Francis puts inclusion ahead of dogma. It goes off every time a gay couple are welcomed into a church. Jesus' time bomb explodes whenever atheists follow Jesus better than most Christians.

Put it this way: Godless non-church-going Denmark mandates four weeks of maternity leave before childbirth and fourteen weeks afterward for mothers. Parents of newborn children are assisted with well-baby nurse-practitioner visits in their homes.

In the “pro-life” and allegedly “family friendly” American Bible belt, conservative political leaders slash programs designed to help women and children while creating a justifying mythology about handouts versus empowerment.

In "God-fearing America" the poor are now the “takers,” no longer the “least of these,” and many conservative evangelicals side with today’s Pharisees, attacking the poor in the name of following the Bible.

So who is following Jesus?

Confronted by the Bible cult called evangelicalism we have a choice: follow Jesus or follow a book cult. If Jesus is God as evangelicals and Roman Catholics claim he is, then the choice is clear. We have to read the book--including the New Testament--as he did, and Jesus didn't like the "Bible" of his day.

Confronted by bishops protecting dogma and tradition against Pope Francis' embrace of empathy for the "other" we have a choice: follow Jesus or protect the institution.

Every time Jesus mentioned the equivalent of a church tradition, the Torah, he qualified it with something like this: “The scriptures say thus and so, but I say…” Jesus undermined the scriptures and religious tradition in favor of empathy. Every time Jesus undermined the scriptures (Jewish "church tradition") it was to err on the side of co-suffering love. Every time a former evangelical becomes an "atheist" in favor of empathy she draws closer to Jesus. Every time Pope Francis sides with those the Church casts out he is closer to Jesus. Every time conservative Roman Catholics try to stop the Pope from bringing change to the Church they are on the side to those who killed Jesus.

A leper came to Jesus and said, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” If Jesus had been a good religious Jew, he would have said, “Be healed,” and just walked away. Instead, he stretched out his hand and touched the leper, saying, “I do choose. Be made clean,” even though he was breaking the specific rules of Leviticus (two chapters teach that anyone touching a person with leprosy is contaminated!).

In evangelical and Roman Catholic fundamentalist terms, Jesus was a rule-breaking humanist who wasn't “saved.” A conservative bishop would have refused Jesus the sacraments. Christianity Today magazine would have editorialized against him, called for his firing, banning and branded him a traitor to the cause of Christianity.

The Evolution of Empathy

The message of Jesus’ life is an intervention in - and an acceleration of - the evolution of empathy. Consider this story from the book of Matthew: “A woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, ‘If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.’ Jesus turned and saw her. ‘Take heart, daughter,’ he said, ‘your faith has healed you.’ And the woman was healed at that moment.”

Jesus recognized a bleeding woman touching him as a sign of faith. By complimenting rather than rebuking her, Jesus ignored another of his scripture’s rules:

“If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time her [period], or if she has a discharge beyond the time, all the days of her discharge she shall continue in uncleanness... Every bed on which she lies during all the days of her discharge shall be treated as [unclean]… Everything on which she sits shall be unclean … Whoever touches these things shall be unclean” (Leviticus 15:25).

Jesus’ un-first-century antics went beyond coddling lepers and welcoming the touch of a bleeding woman. Jesus’ embrace of a woman from an enemy tribe in a culture where tribal belonging was paramount distressed both his followers and enemies. His attitude to the “other” was as incomprehensible as if he’d blurted “ E=mc2 is the equation of mass–energy equivalence.” Even the Samaritan woman at the well knew that his actions were shocking. When Jesus stopped to talk to her, she said, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans” (John 4:9).

Jesus responded by attacking the preeminence of religion, tradition, dogma and group identity, offering an entirely new way of looking at spirituality by emphasizing basic human dignity above nation, state, gender or religion:

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:19–24).

True Worship

"Worship in the Spirit and in truth," is not about a book, let alone "salvation" through correct ideas or tradition. For people who call Jesus "the Son of God" you'd think they would also reject the veneration of the book he's trapped in and church dogma that has crucified him again each time a gay man or divorced couple are refused the sacraments.

Evangelicals struggle to conform Jesus to a book, not the other way around. And the conservative bishops have aligned themselves with the American neoconservative wing of their church against not just the Pope Francis but against the emancipating logic of Jesus' empathy time bomb. If Jesus isn't the "lens" evangelicals and Roman Catholics read the Bible and their traditions through then whatever they say to the contrary they do not really believe Jesus is the son of God.

This article is largely excerpted from WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace

How December 25 Became Christmas

BAS has presented a timely article for the Christmas season. As such, I intend to make several

observations throughout its structure as a help to its excellent content. - r.e. slater

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, "The Numeration (Census) of the People of Bethlehem" (1566)

A blanket of snow covers the little town of Bethlehem, in Pieter Bruegel’s oil painting from 1566. Although Jesus’ birth is celebrated every year on December 25, Luke and the other gospel writers offer no hint about the specific time of year he was born. Scala/Art Resource, NYOn December 25, Christians around the world will gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Joyful carols, special liturgies, brightly wrapped gifts, festive foods—these all characterize the feast today, at least in the northern hemisphere. But just how did the Christmas festival originate? How did December 25 come to be associated with Jesus’ birthday?

How December 25 Became Christmas

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/how-december-25-became-christmas/

Andrew McGowan
August 12, 2014

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published in

December 2012. It has been updated.—Ed.

The Bible First. Then Tradition.

The Bible offers few clues: Celebrations of Jesus’ Nativity are not mentioned in the Gospels or Acts; the date is not given, not even the time of year. The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) might suggest the spring lambing season; in the cold month of December, on the other hand, sheep might well have been corralled. Yet most scholars would urge caution about extracting such a precise but incidental detail from a narrative whose focus is theological rather than calendrical.

The extrabiblical evidence from the first and second century is equally spare: There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200) or Tertullian (c. 160–225). Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as “pagan” practices—a strong indication that Jesus’ birth was not marked with similar festivities at that place and time.1 As far as we can tell, Christmas was not celebrated at all at this point.

This stands in sharp contrast to the very early traditions surrounding Jesus’ last days. Each of the Four Gospels provides detailed information about the time of Jesus’ death. According to John, Jesus is crucified just as the Passover lambs are being sacrificed. This would have occurred on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nisan, just before the Jewish holiday began at sundown (considered the beginning of the 15th day because in the Hebrew calendar, days begin at sundown). In Matthew, Mark and Luke, however, the Last Supper is held after sundown, on the beginning of the 15th. Jesus is crucified the next morning—still, the 15th.a

Easter, a much earlier development than Christmas, was simply the gradual Christian reinterpretation of Passover in terms of Jesus’ Passion. Its observance could even be implied in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 5:7–8: “Our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the festival…”); it was certainly a distinctively Christian feast by the mid-second century C.E., when the apocryphal text known as the Epistle to the Apostles has Jesus instruct his disciples to “make commemoration of [his] death, that is, the Passover.”

Jesus’ ministry, miracles, Passion and Resurrection were often of most interest to first- and early-second-century C.E. Christian writers. But over time, Jesus’ origins would become of increasing concern. We can begin to see this shift already in the New Testament. The earliest writings—Paul and Mark—make no mention of Jesus’ birth. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke provide well-known but quite different accounts of the event—although neither specifies a date. In the second century C.E., further details of Jesus’ birth and childhood are related in apocryphal writings such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Proto-Gospel of James.b These texts provide everything from the names of Jesus’ grandparents to the details of his education—but not the date of his birth.

Finally, in about 200 C.E., a Christian teacher in Egypt makes reference to the date Jesus was born. According to Clement of Alexandria, several different days had been proposed by various Christian groups. Surprising as it may seem, Clement doesn’t mention December 25 at all. Clement writes: “There are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord’s birth, but also the day; and they say that it took place in the 28th year of Augustus, and in the 25th day of [the Egyptian month] Pachon [May 20 in our calendar] … And treating of His Passion, with very great accuracy, some say that it took place in the 16th year of Tiberius, on the 25th of Phamenoth [March 21]; and others on the 25th of Pharmuthi [April 21] and others say that on the 19th of Pharmuthi [April 15] the Savior suffered. Further, others say that He was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi [April 20 or 21].”2

*Of note, these very early claims are all spring dates - r.e. slater

Clearly there was great uncertainty, but also a considerable amount of interest, in dating Jesus’ birth in the late second century. By the fourth century, however, we find references to two dates that were widely recognized—and now also celebrated—as Jesus’ birthday: December 25 in the western Roman Empire and January 6 in the East (especially in Egypt and Asia Minor). The modern Armenian church continues to celebrate Christmas on January 6; for most Christians, however, December 25 would prevail, while January 6 eventually came to be known as the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem. The period between became the holiday season later known as the 12 days of Christmas.

* December 25 (Western | Roman tradition) through to January 6 (Eastern | Ottoman tradition) = "the 12 days of Christmas" - r.e. slater

The earliest mention of December 25 as Jesus’ birthday comes from a mid-fourth-century Roman almanac that lists the death dates of various Christian bishops and martyrs. The first date listed, December 25, is marked: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae: “Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea.”3 In about 400 C.E., Augustine of Hippo mentions a local dissident Christian group, the Donatists, who apparently kept Christmas festivals on December 25, but refused to celebrate the Epiphany on January 6, regarding it as an innovation. Since the Donatist group only emerged during the persecution under Diocletian in 312 C.E. and then remained stubbornly attached to the practices of that moment in time, they seem to represent an older North African Christian tradition.

In the East, January 6 was at first not associated with the magi alone, but with the Christmas story as a whole.

Why December 25 and January 6?

So, almost 300 years after Jesus was born, we finally find people observing his birth in mid-winter. But how had they settled on the dates December 25 and January 6?

There are two theories today: one extremely popular, the other less often heard outside scholarly circles (though far more ancient).4

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated.

Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. It is not found in any ancient Christian writings, for one thing. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth: The church father Ambrose (c. 339–397), for example, described Christ as the true sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order. But early Christian writers never hint at any recent calendrical engineering; they clearly don’t think the date was chosen by the church. Rather they see the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods.

It’s not until the 12th century that we find the first suggestion that Jesus’ birth celebration was deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts. A marginal note on a manuscript of the writings of the Syriac biblical commentator Dionysius bar-Salibi states that in ancient times the Christmas holiday was actually shifted from January 6 to December 25 so that it fell on the same date as the pagan Sol Invictus holiday.5 In the 18th and 19th centuries, Bible scholars spurred on by the new study of comparative religions latched on to this idea.6 They claimed that because the early Christians didn’t know when Jesus was born, they simply assimilated the pagan solstice festival for their own purposes, claiming it as the time of the Messiah’s birth and celebrating it accordingly.

More recent studies have shown that many of the holiday’s modern trappings do reflect pagan customs borrowed much later, as Christianity expanded into northern and western Europe. The Christmas tree, for example, has been linked with late medieval druidic practices. This has only encouraged modern audiences to assume that the date, too, must be pagan.

There are problems with this popular theory, however, as many scholars recognize. Most significantly, the first mention of a date for Christmas (c. 200) and the earliest celebrations that we know about (c. 250–300) come in a period when Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character.

Granted, Christian belief and practice were not formed in isolation. Many early elements of Christian worship—including eucharistic meals, meals honoring martyrs and much early Christian funerary art—would have been quite comprehensible to pagan observers. Yet, in the first few centuries C.E., the persecuted Christian minority was greatly concerned with distancing itself from the larger, public pagan religious observances, such as sacrifices, games and holidays. This was still true as late as the violent persecutions of the Christians conducted by the Roman emperor Diocletian between 303 and 312 C.E.

*An observation if I may. The Christian message must always be accessible, recognizable, and relevant. Christian traditions have built upon this idea of communicating itself to the pagan world in as many ways as possible without diluting either its message or its holy character. To deem one date more sacred than another is splitting theological hairs. The main idea is communicating Christ and His salvation to a pagan world met with disbelief, superstitious practices, and humanism. - r.e. slater

This would change only after Constantine converted to Christianity. From the mid-fourth century on, we do find Christians deliberately adapting and Christianizing pagan festivals. A famous proponent of this practice was Pope Gregory the Great, who, in a letter written in 601 C.E. to a Christian missionary in Britain, recommended that local pagan temples not be destroyed but be converted into churches, and that pagan festivals be celebrated as feasts of Christian martyrs. At this late point, Christmas may well have acquired some pagan trappings. But we don’t have evidence of Christians adopting pagan festivals in the third century, at which point dates for Christmas were established. Thus, it seems unlikely that the date was simply selected to correspond with pagan solar festivals.

The December 25 feast seems to have existed before 312—before Constantine and his conversion, at least. As we have seen, the Donatist Christians in North Africa seem to have known it from before that time. Furthermore, in the mid- to late fourth century, church leaders in the eastern Empire concerned themselves not with introducing a celebration of Jesus’ birthday, but with the addition of the December date to their traditional celebration on January 6.7

There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. This view was first suggested to the modern world by French scholar Louis Duchesne in the early 20th century and fully developed by American Thomas Talley in more recent years.8 But they were certainly not the first to note a connection between the traditional date of Jesus’ death and his birth.

Master Bertram’s 14th-century Annunciation

Master Bertram’s 14th-century Annunciation

The baby Jesus flies down from heaven on the back of a cross, in this detail from Master Bertram’s 14th-century Annunciation scene. Jesus’ conception carried with it the promise of salvation through his death. It may be no coincidence, then, that the early church celebrated Jesus’ conception and death on the same calendar day: March 25, exactly nine months before December 25. Kunsthalle, Hamburg/Bridgeman Art Library, NY

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Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus diedc was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.9 March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.10 Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.d

*Thus, Jesus' conception is linked to his death as the Passover Lamb of God (the Jewish 14th day of Nissan which is March 25). And then a forwards dating of his birth is therefore correlated to the date of December 25th exactly nine months later. - r.e. slater

This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states:

“Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the

month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of

his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.”11

Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice [sic, the shortest day of the year - r.e. slater].

[The Church Father] Augustine, too, was familiar with this association. In On the Trinity (c. 399–419) he writes: “For he [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”12

The Olympiad Dial

The Ancient Greek Macedonian Calendar. Note the month of April = Nisan
to correlate with "aremisios", the moon of April.

In the East, too, the dates of Jesus’ conception and death were linked. But instead of working from the 14th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, the easterners used the 14th of the first spring month (Artemisios) in their local Greek calendar—April 6 to us. April 6 is, of course, exactly nine months before January 6—the eastern date for Christmas. In the East, too, we have evidence that April was associated with Jesus’ conception and crucifixion. Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis writes that on April 6, “The lamb was shut up in the spotless womb of the holy virgin, he who took away and takes away in perpetual sacrifice the sins of the world.”13Even today, the Armenian Church celebrates the Annunciation in early April (on the 7th, not the 6th) and Christmas on January 6.e

Thus, we have Christians in two parts of the world calculating Jesus’ birth on the basis that his death and conception took place on the same day (March 25 or April 6) and coming up with two close but different results (December 25 and January 6).

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Connecting Jesus’ conception and death in this way will certainly seem odd to modern readers, but it reflects ancient and medieval understandings of the whole of salvation being bound up together. One of the most poignant expressions of this belief is found in Christian art. In numerous paintings of the angel’s Annunciation to Mary—the moment of Jesus’ conception—the baby Jesus is shown gliding down from heaven on or with a small cross (see photo above of detail from Master Bertram’s Annunciation scene); a visual reminder that the conception brings the promise of salvation through Jesus’ death.

The notion that creation and redemption should occur at the same time of year is also reflected in ancient Jewish tradition, recorded in the Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud preserves a dispute between two early-second-century C.E. rabbis who share this view, but disagree on the date: Rabbi Eliezer states: “In Nisan the world was created; in Nisan the Patriarchs were born; on Passover Isaac was born … and in Nisan they [our ancestors] will be redeemed in time to come.” (The other rabbi, Joshua, dates these same events to the following month, Tishri.)14 Thus, the dates of Christmas and Epiphany may well have resulted from Christian theological reflection on such chronologies: Jesus would have been conceived on the same date he died, and born nine months later.15

In the end we are left with a question: How did December 25 become Christmas? We cannot be entirely sure. Elements of the festival that developed from the fourth century until modern times may well derive from pagan traditions. Yet the actual date might really derive more from Judaism—from Jesus’ death at Passover, and from the rabbinic notion that great things might be expected, again and again, at the same time of the year—than from paganism. Then again, in this notion of cycles and the return of God’s redemption, we may perhaps also be touching upon something that the pagan Romans who celebrated Sol Invictus, and many other peoples since, would have understood and claimed for their own, too.16

*In essence, God is reflected in His world both through Christian observation and pagan ceremony. His presence is both a mystery and reality that we struggle to more clearly see as we can through our cultures and historical beliefs - however pagan or however Christian. The paradox of God's "eternal consciousness" imbues this very world we inhabit and strive to recognize in our humanity. For those pagans who had no words of Christ, still He was there. And for the church, Christ is there more intimately by His prophets and apostles and very divine self. - r.e. slater

“How December 25 Became Christmas” by Andrew McGowan originally appeared in Bible Review, December 2002.

Notes

1. Origen, Homily on Leviticus 8.

2. Clement, Stromateis 1.21.145. In addition, Christians in Clement’s native Egypt seem to have known a commemoration of Jesus’ baptism—sometimes understood as the moment of his divine choice, and hence as an alternate “incarnation” story—on the same date (Stromateis 1.21.146). See further on this point Thomas J. Talley, Origins of the Liturgical Year, 2nd ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 118–120, drawing on Roland H. Bainton, “Basilidian Chronology and New Testament Interpretation,”Journal of Biblical Literature 42 (1923), pp. 81–134; and now especially Gabriele Winkler, “The Appearance of the Light at the Baptism of Jesus and the Origins of the Feast of the Epiphany,” in Maxwell Johnson, ed., Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 291–347.

3. The Philocalian Calendar.

4. Scholars of liturgical history in the English-speaking world are particularly skeptical of the “solstice” connection; see Susan K. Roll, “The Origins of Christmas: The State of the Question,” in Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 273–290, especially pp. 289–290.

5. A gloss on a manuscript of Dionysius Bar Salibi, d. 1171; see Talley, Origins, pp. 101–102.

6. Prominent among these was Paul Ernst Jablonski; on the history of scholarship, see especially Roll, “The Origins of Christmas,” pp. 277–283.

7. For example, Gregory of Nazianzen, Oratio 38; John Chrysostom, In Diem Natalem.

8. Louis Duchesne, Origines du culte Chrétien, 5th ed. (Paris: Thorin et Fontemoing, 1925), pp. 275–279; and Talley, Origins.

9. Tertullian, Adversus Iudaeos 8.

10. There are other relevant texts for this element of argument, including Hippolytus and the (pseudo-Cyprianic) De pascha computus; see Talley, Origins, pp. 86, 90–91.

11. De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis domini nostri iesu christi et iohannis baptistae.

12. Augustine, Sermon 202.

13. Epiphanius is quoted in Talley, Origins, p. 98.

14. b. Rosh Hashanah 10b–11a.

15. Talley, Origins, pp. 81–82.

16. On the two theories as false alternatives, see Roll, “Origins of Christmas.”

a. See Jonathan Klawans, “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?” BR 17:05.

b. See the following BR articles: David R. Cartlidge, “The Christian Apocrypha: Preserved in Art,” BR13:03; Ronald F. Hock, “The Favored One,” BR 17:03; and Charles W. Hedrick, “The 34 Gospels,” BR18:03.

c. For more on dating the year of Jesus’ birth, see Leonara Neville, “Fixing the Millennium,” AO 03:01.

d. The ancients were familiar with the 9-month gestation period based on the observance of women’s menstrual cycles, pregnancies and miscarriages.

e. In the West (and eventually everywhere), the Easter celebration was later shifted from the actual day to the following Sunday. The insistence of the eastern Christians in keeping Easter on the actual 14th day caused a major debate within the church, with the easterners sometimes referred to as the Quartodecimans, or “Fourteenthers.”

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Formerly Warden and President of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and now President and Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School, Andrew McGowan’s work on early Christianity includes God in Early Christian Thought (Brill, 2009) and Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (Oxford, 1999).

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Interested in learning about the birth of Jesus? Learn more about the history of Christmas and the date of Jesus’ birth in the free eBook The First Christmas: The Story of Jesus’ Birth in History and Tradition.

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Learn about the magi in art and literature in “Witnessing the Divine” by Robin M. Jensen, originally published in Bible Review and now available for free in Bible History Daily.

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In the five-part documentary An Archaeological Search for Jesus, Hershel Shanks travels from Galilee to Jerusalem in search of the first century world in which Jesus lived. Visit Nazareth, Sepphoris, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Qumran and other landmarks as Shanks interviews eminent archaeologists and New Testament scholars about the sites associated with Jesus and other gospel figures.

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Was Joseph Jesus’ biological father? If not, who was Jesus’ biological father? Andrew Lincoln examines what early Christians thought about conception and explains how views about this subject have changed over time.

Dispensing the Ghosts in Our Lives

Mazes of the Heart

Have you ever heard the phrase,

"The better something is the worst it is?"

Here is a phrase that promises something wonderful, full of delight, satisfying, but when it comes to whatever that something is it is quite unlike our hopes and expectations.

Why is that?

The doors of our perception always seems open to the search for an inner peace built of the crystal cathedrals to all kinds of things holding promises that would give to us an inner peace and sanctuary.

But these things are not what they at first appear to be. They become something else. Something that might further entrap or disappoint us. Snares that become even more difficult to be freed from. A web of entanglement leading to further strands of lies and deceits we tell ourselves.

These are the ghosts, specters, and ghouls of our lives. The promises of heaven we hope to find which hold anything but heaven within.

There is another saying,

"The more someone believes that something will bring wholeness or completeness

to one's life, the more we flee away from ourselves where only real wholeness

or completeness may occur."

Ultimately, the key to heaven is held within us. Not within something "out there" away from us that we must obtain. Work towards. Pay money for. Or earn by acts of contrition and penitance. But within. Not dissimilar to the movie, The Da Vinci Code, as the actors race from place to place looking for The Holy Grail not realizing the very thing itself was the thing present with them all the time.

The Da Vinci Code - Official Trailer 1 [2006] [720p HD]

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Here's another saying,

"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."

Leading us to ask the question, "What is knowledge? What is truth?"

A simple definition would go like this,

"Knowledge is something that is known.
Truth is something that is true."

But is knowledge truth? Or can the knowledge we hold actually not be true of the truth we have thought was true knowledge?

Or, asked differently, is the truth that we believe is true actually a true truth? Or is it something else that really isn't true but gives to us an appearance to being true?

Psychologically, knowledge of truth usually brings to the surface of our lives what's already there within us. About ourselves that we already know or do not wish to know.

And yet, truth is that something that will act to change us either in healthy ways or unhealthy ways.

The Ghosts of Our Lives.

The symptoms to the problems of our lives which we hold deep within often betrays the "presence of an absence" to the real underlying problem within us that troubles us, moves us, or motivates us towards earthly expressions in character, presence, and action.

The symptom is the something that is there but not there. It is hidden from us. Or, absence from our sense of ourselves which perhaps others may more clearly see than we ourselves.

They are absent items that are present within us behaving as "felt ghosts" or "poltergeists" held deep within the machinery or our lives.

Usually my ghosts are not your ghosts. But both ghosts are the ghosts which hold repressed thoughts and feelings of personal spooks and specters which haunt us everyday of our lives. Which can disrupt us without transforming us. But, if they are allowed to be resurrected in our lives might bring the very transformation that we need.

Not the things we think we need. Nor bring to us the crystal cathedrals that are so shiny and pretty. No, these are the betrayers to the symptoms held deep within us. The personal knowledge of ourselves which we refuse to be resurrected to the truths of our being.

Hiding Ourselves in Plain Sight

We think of these things as reconfiguring structures that hide from us the true knowledge of the truth about us. They don't necessarily say what they mean to us but become expressed in a variety of personal ways that define us as us. And yet, buried deep within is the very thing that truly needs expression which we hold at bay allowing only glimpses of it without becoming fully displayed.

We don't say what we mean by saying what we cannot express. Words and actions become the metaphors of our lives. They are the political and psychological structures within us holding us hostage to its makeup. The stuff which frightens us when too boldly expressed. That we don't know what to do with when we see it. And then push it down again from our vision less it disrupts us.

Poetically, we wish to unhide that which is hidden. To bring to the surface what's not being said. To allow the evidence of ourselves to actually reveal what is actually there rather than not there.

But again, here is a place of real disillusionment. There are truths that can reform and allow for transformation. And there are truths that may bring us death when refusing its transformation.

In a sense, we wish to "name what refuses to be named" which brings us next to the idea of "crisis."

A Crisis of Being

A crisis is something that when brought up can rupture us with the result of bringing new life or a deeper death. It may be a crisis of relationship, as it often is. Relationships that are messy and requiring a crisis if they are to find a reformation between ourselves and others.

Here's another saying,

Some relationships need to be buried while others need resurrection.

Transformation cannot begin without some kind of action on our part.

These vulnerable places of transformation may be handled either directly, or indirectly. Sometimes one method of handling transformation is more successful than another method.

That is, we might work at transforming relationships by being "directly indirect" or "indirectly direct." We see this often in music, comedy, and art. They can push at an idea directly or indirectly to get us to acknowledge the something that's there but hidden. Something we do not wish to see.

Too, the idea of time comes up. How hard do we pursue a transformative-something into our lives without losing its objectives of personal insurrection? This is a God thing. At times the backwards look can be helpful. At other times the present and forward look. But pushed too far (or not far enough) holds us back from real transformation.

There is then presence of a Spirit-filled patience. To be content with ourselves and yet always discontent with the presence of non-transformation. To allow crisis within our being and yet to not expect that any one crisis may be enough for complete resurrection. To be patient with both ourselves and with God praying always for divine leading and wisdom.

The Value of Time and Living

Overall, its takes a lifetime of transformative experiences to bring us to the knowledge of the truth  of who we are and what we are seeking. Or perhaps never saw nor understood. Or saw but never wanted it present in our lives till now.

New knowledge can be radical. But it can also be defeating when radically present within us. Carried within ourselves without ever realizing that the key, or answer, to redemption was there all the time.

Not out there in this thing or that. But within. This is the kinds of stuff Jesus spoke to. That renewal began and ended within us through His Father. And that our journey was in all the in between stuff that would aid us in our journeys towards redemption, renewal, and transformation.

Allowing both the Good and the Bad

As such, do we let that foul mix of gruel residing within us remain within like a witch's brew? Hidden, as it were, to become infected and ulcerous?

Or, by the power of the Holy Spirit, let what was once repressed become confessed and healed and transformed?

To abandon the inner decorum of the lies and deceits that dresses up our lives without displaying itself. Remaining hidden on the edges of our lives without ever quite becoming visible to us while-all-the-while we think we are embracing truths about ourselves that are not true truths. But symptoms of truths still lying deeper. More hidden. Ugly, hurtful, death-like.

And yet, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit of God who can remove this stubbornly unyielding goo of our inner lives to death so that God's perilous life of light and healing become truly resurrected to the dead zones of our heart and soul and being.

No Guarantees

Certainly there is no guarantee of results by following the proverbial truths of life,

"Live well. Be wise. Create healing and wholeness

with tact, truth, and forgiveness."

In fact, these truths may actually hide ourselves from ourselves through acts of good works.

Not that they shouldn't be done. But what are the motivators to these good works? What are they hiding to us that we need to see more clearly? How often have you heard of ministers of God failing big time when finally their inner selves become exposed to themselves and their congregations?

Too often.

And why?

Because these good people with good intentions were hiding from themselves the very truths that needed clarity.

The heart can be a deceitful thing and oftentimes it is we ourselves who are the people that need transformation and resurrection. Not the other guy.

Making Choices

So then, by living a "good life" of expectations and good works we might expect three results:

Life still goes bad.

Life becomes better.

Or, we might begin a journey of discussion with ourselves and with others that may be self-revealing. Healing. Transformative.

It is this later that gives us hope.

To no longer repress the poltergeists within but to express the Holy Ghost within.

To become a new man or woman who is redeemed and remade by the Spirit of God within by living life by God's merciful healing and transformative experiences.

However hard. However painful.

But to allow His Spirit to sweep us as clean as He can given the restrictions of our unwilling heart and soul.

Living a truer life based upon a surer knowledge promising a truer something that is better. A something within us we know as the love of God given to us by Christ our Savior who binds up His broken people at all times, stages, and circumstances of their life both within and without.

Here's one last quote,

Learn to love. Both yourself and others.

And love the Lord your God, the Lover of your soul.

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all

your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind';

and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" - Luke 10.27 (NIV)

R.E. Slater

October 31, 2014

based upon a sermon by Peter Rollins

at Mars Hill in Grandville, Michigan on October 19, 2014

Below is the link to Peter's discussion: "The Truth Will Set You Free"

http://marshill.org/teaching/2014/10/19/the-truth-will-set-you-free/





The Da Vinci Code - Chevaliers de Sangreal
[Audio Soundtrack]