Pope admits Dec. 25 was not Christ's birthday

A brother posted a photo of a newspaper saying "Pope Benedict: Jesus wasnt born of Dec. 25" it surprised me so i search it in the internet and then i found out that it is true.

The present Pope released his newest book that also debunks Christmas myths.

FINALLY, after hundred of years on deceiving its members by following a false tradition, the Pope admits DEC. 25 was not the birth date of Christ, he also said that Christ born several years before 1 A.D, meaning to say, the creator of the Christian calendar that we use today committed a big mistake, as he claim.
Here are some news articles about it (for more, you can search it in your favorite search engine):

Pope Benedict XVI has a new book coming out this week in which he offers a closer look at the early life of Jesus, including his birth. The book shines a light on many Christmas myths Christians believe to be true, but in fact are not historically accurate.

Biblical fact vs. tradition
While some people may consider the Pope's book controversial as it steps on traditional Christmas toes, most of the information he shares is not new. In fact, if you take the time to do a Bible study on the birth of Jesus, the answers are there.

For instance, the Pope points out that evidence in the Gospels does not support the picture of animals and cattle around the baby Jesus in his manger; nor does it support angels singing about the birth of Christ. Luke 2:7 confirms Jesus was placed in a manger or feeding trough when he was born. Because it was a feeding trough people have assumed animals were there. And in verse 8 we are told that the shepherds in that region saw an angel, who announced to them not to be afraid and offers directions as to where to find the baby. The announcement was not sung.

"But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: Today a Savior, who is Messiah the Lord, was born for you in the city of David. This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in cloth and lying in a feeding trough.

Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: 'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people He favors!'" (Luke 2:8-14 HCSB).

Is the Pope the next Grinch?
The Pope's purpose in writing this book is not so much to debunk Christmas, but:

"The pope was not so much aiming to debunk myths as trying to show that the Jesus depicted in the Gospels is a real historical figure, who walked on earth and talked to people like anyone else." -- Alessandro Speciale: Vatican correspondent for Religion News

December 25
A Bible study on the early church does not mention celebration of the birth of Christ. The date December 25 stirs up a bit of controversy as well as it is tied to a pagan Roman holiday that honored their god Saturn. No one knows what day Jesus was born, but the Western Church in Rome decided on December 25, while the Eastern Church picked January 6. Eventually the time frame between the two dates became known as the "12 Days of Christmas."

Back to the Bible
To know whether or not your Christmas traditions are biblical, go back to the Bible. You may be surprised by what you learn if you take time to study Christ's birth. Just take a look at the visit from the wise men. They found Mary and the child in a house...not a stable.

source: examiner.com

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The 'mistake' was made by a sixth century monk known as Dionysius Exiguus or in English Dennis the Small, the 85-year-old pontiff claims in the book 'Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives', published on Wednesday.

"The calculation of the beginning of our calendar – based on the birth of Jesus – was made by Dionysius Exiguus, who made a mistake in his calculations by several years," the Pope writes in the book, which went on sale around the world with an initial print run of a million copies.

"The actual date of Jesus's birth was several years before."

The assertion that the Christian calendar is based on a false premise is not new – many historians believe that Christ was born sometime between 7BC and 2BC.

But the fact that doubts over one of the keystones of Christian tradition have been raised by the leader of the world's one billion Catholics is striking.

Dennis the Small, who was born in Eastern Europe, is credited with being the "inventor" of the modern calendar and the concept of the Anno Domini era.

He drew up the new system in part to distance it from the calendar in use at the time, which was based on the years since the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian.

The emperor had persecuted Christians, so there was good reason to expunge him from the new dating system in favour of one inspired by the birth of Christ.

The monk's calendar became widely accepted in Europe after it was adopted by the Venerable Bede, the historian-monk, to date the events that he recounted in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which he completed in AD 731.

But exactly how Dennis calculated the year of Christ's birth is not clear and the Pope's claim that he made a mistake is a view shared by many scholars.

The Bible does not specify a date for the birth of Christ. The monk instead appears to have based his calculations on vague references to Jesus's age at the start of his ministry and the fact that he was baptised in the reign of the emperor Tiberius.
Christ's birth date is not the only controversy raised by the Pope in his new book – he also said that contrary to the traditional Nativity scene, there were no oxen, donkeys or other animals at Jesus's birth.

He also weighs in on the debate over Christ's birthplace, rejecting arguments by some scholars that he was born in Nazareth rather than Bethlehem.

John Barton, Professor of the Interpretation of the Holy Scripture at Oriel College, Oxford University, said most academics agreed with the Pope that the Christian calendar was wrong and that Jesus was born several years earlier than commonly thought, probably between 6BC and 4BC.

"There is no reference to when he was born in the Bible - all we know is that he was born in the reign of Herod the Great, who died before 1AD," he told The Daily Telegraph. "It's been surmised for a very long time that Jesus was born before 1AD - no one knows for sure."

The idea that Christ was born on Dec 25 also has no basis in historical fact. "We don't even know which season he was born in. The whole idea of celebrating his birth during the darkest part of the year is probably linked to pagan traditions and the winter solstice."

source: telegraph.co.uk

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Pope Benedict XVI has opened the way to an historic opportunity that might benefit much of humankind and save the rest of us from enduring another eight weeks of seasonal disorder syndrome, an affliction that starts with the first October Christmas carol and which I believe is more widespread than people want to admit.

The Pope has published the third in a trilogy of works dealing with the life of Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives completes a project the 85-year-old Pope took up after being elected pontiff in 2005. The first two books were big sellers in Italy (and presumably among Catholics elsewhere as well). The latest volume reportedly has an initial printing of one milllion, and hit bookshelves around the world on Wednesday.

The headline issue is the Pope’s acknowledgement that Jesus wasn’t born in the year everyone thinks he was.  I’m not sure this is really news; as a certified non-pious Canadian who gets sleepy just thinking about entering a church, I thought it was generally known that historians had long ago sorted out that the dates were off by a few years. Nonetheless, it’s viewed as significant that the Pope would actually say so in print. According to the book, a monk known as Dionysius Exiguus (which translates as Dennis the Small) got the dates wrong when he set out to invent a new calendar about 1500 years ago.

“The calculation of the beginning of our calendar – based on the birth of Jesus – was made by Dionysius Exiguus, who made a mistake in his calculations by several years,” the Pope says. “The actual date of Jesus’s birth was several years before.”

The Pope maintains Jesus was born in a stable, as commonly assumed, though there might not have been donkeys, camels, oxen or other critters present. “There is no mention of animals in the Gospels,” he writes. And he insists Mary was a virgin. But it wasn’t on Dec. 25, a date that was adopted later, perhaps linked to some rituals related to the winter solstice.

Apart from whatever religious significance this may involve, it offers the Church an opportunity to isolate its annual celebration of Jesus’ birth from the overdone commercial orgy that’s known as Christmas. Pick another date — one the Vatican thinks might be more historically accurate, or at least no less inaccurate — and move the religious celebration accordingly, while leaving Dec. 25 to the crass materialists.

Not that the orgy would stop, but it would no longer inspire the tedious annual eruptions of complaint from underoccupied cranks, atheists and misguided zealots upset that trees should appear in schools, mangers should turn up on lawns and other insults to strict secularism should be induced on the unwilling. People could give one another gifts without someone complaining about it.

The prayers that are an offence to the ears of determined non-prayers could be moved to another day of the year, when they could be delivered by consenting adults outside the hearing of the temporally fixated. Dec. 25 would be just another holiday that no one could beef about (unless they just don’t like holidays), while Christmas in March (or whenever) would simply be a religious symbol marked by those who choose to, without bothering those who don’t, and free of the annoyance and excess of the annual two-month build-up.

And who knows, once it was just another long weekend, maybe some of the excess would diminish. Which I suspect would be a welcome change to a lot of people. 

source: fullcomment.nationalpost.com

Do you NOW BELIEVE WHAT THE INC SAYS ABOUT CHRISTMAS?

NOTE: This post does not made to hurt the feelings of our Catholic friends and to other Christmas celebrators, this is made as an EYE OPENER to those people who really wanted the TRUTH.

sumber