Christmas

 I'm sitting here listing to the Barlow Girls Christmas Album as Scherie puts the finishing touches on a meal we're taking to the other side of Michigan to share with her dad.

I've been visiting other blogs to say Merry Christmas.

Modern Revisionism tries to critique our beliefs.
Was there really a Christ?
OK, but what's with this December 25th nonsense? It's just a pagan ritual.
To which I say Bah! Humbug!

One of the arguments is that shepherds would not have been out in December.

Or that such an auspicious day would fall on a Jewish holy day as does Passover and Pentecost etc.

Well. Alfred Edersheim wrote LIFE AND TIMES OF JESUS THE MESSIAH in 1883.

It's a scholarly tome, written by a Jew who took seriously Paul's (yes it was Paul!) admonition to the Hebrews that they should be teaching the gentiles. There is much to learn there.

You will find this there regarding the Birth: (I removed some of the references to make it more readable):

But as we pass from the sacred gloom of the cave out into the night, its sky all aglow with starry brightness, its loneliness is peopled, and its silence made vocal from heaven. There is nothing now to conceal, but much to reveal, though the manner of it would seem strangely incongruous to Jewish thinking. And yet Jewish tradition may here prove both illustrative and helpful.

That the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem,
In the curious story of His birth, related in the Jer. Talmud, He is said to have been born in 'the royal castle of Bethlehem;' while in the parallel narrative in the Midr. on Lament. the somewhat mysterious expression is used. But we must keep in view the Rabbinic statement that, even if a castle falls down, it is still called a castle, was a settled conviction. Equally so was the belief, that He was to be revealed from Migdal Eder, 'the tower of the flock.'  This Migdal Eder was not the watchtower for the ordinary flocks which pastured on the barren sheep ground beyond Bethlehem, but lay close to the town, on the road to Jerusalem. A passage in the Mishnah leads to the conclusion, that the flocks, which pastured there, were destined for Temple-sacrifices.

That passage shows that the flocks were pastured for the Temple and thus maintained yearlong.
And the Shepherds would be tending the sacrificial lambs! The angels had to tell them of the one nearby. 

But it gets better. There was a holy day that fell on Dec 25th! Remember the Feast of Dedication of the Temple takes places this time of year. Is not Jesus the Temple of God?

It was, then, on that 'wintry night' of the 25th of December.
There is no adequate reason for questioning the historical accuracy of this date. The objections generally made rest on grounds, which seem to me historically untenable. The subject has been fully discussed in an article by Cassel in Herzog's Real. Ency. xvii. pp. 588-594. But a curious piece of evidence comes to us from a Jewish source. In the addition to the Megillath Taanith, the 9th Tebheth is marked as a fast day, and it is added, that the reason for this is not stated. Now, Jewish chronologists have fixed on that day as that of Christ's birth, and it is remarkable that, between the years 500 and 816 A.D. the 25th of December fell no less than twelve times on the 9th Tebheth. If the 9th Tebheth, or 25th December, was regarded as the birthday of Christ, we can understand the concealment about it.
That shepherds watched the flocks destined for sacrificial services, in the very place consecrated by tradition as that where the Messiah was to be first revealed. Of a sudden came the long-delayed, unthought of of announcement. Heaven and earth seemed to mingle, as suddenly announcement. 

Whatever the date, the day was one on which all human history pivoted. The promise to Eve was fulfilled. A deliverer had come. Nations and peoples would rise and fall on Him.

And He will return to rule in righteousness. And by the looks of it, soon.

Fall on the Rock lest He fall on you.

Merry Christmas!

There's more at https://youramericanheritage.blogspot.com/2022/12/jesus-and-santa.html