I am sure there are many reasons why the birthdate as celebrated is set on Dec 25. At least one reason actually has a relationship to an actual data processing problem.
Dec 25 + 8 days is Jan 1. Circumcision day. also sometimes called the feast of the name. I think the day is a holiday (but also moved) by some christran sects. The issue came up from time to time in the preperation for y2k. Calandars are further complicated by the insistance that some holidays be celebrated of specific days of the week. For example the christian holiday Epiphany should be on the 5 day following circumsion or Jan 6 by many varients celebrate on the 2nd Sunday of January. Sunday for peoples conveience. 2nd Sunday because if there happens to be a Sunday between circumncision and Epiphany then that is a special feast day as well. I should point out that I am not a christran, just happend to be introduce to this confusion as part of Y2K activities. So I think the holiday was made Dec 25 not so much because of the start of winter and the rare pagan practices that go along with that but because of solar newyear and the common pagan practices (even today) that are associated with it. Avram Friedman On Thu, 23 Dec 2010 14:10:43 -0500, Gerhard Postpischil <[email protected]> wrote: >On 12/23/2010 1:42 PM, Eric Bielefeld wrote: >> To all: Have a wonderful and Merry Christmas, and remember the >> reason for the season! I suspect Jesus gets lost in the shuffle >> and hubub of Christmas way too often. > >I appreciate, and would like to reciprocate, the sentiment, but >Jesus was born in Spring, and we're celebrating now only because >church elders co-opted a "pagan" celebration of the solstice. > >Gerhard Postpischil >Bradford, VT > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO >Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
