Hi,kids have got a Marks and Spencer advent calendar,each door opened has a passage from the story of baby Jesus behind it,which i was surprised about.Anyway,it turns out that baby Jesus was born on the 10th of December according to this advent calendar?Kids are asking what this is all about,i don,t have the answer,anyone got any ideas,thanks.
no ideaā¦ the only thing I could find on Google linked to ātiktokā so (of course) I didnāt click.
why not ask the person who bought them the Advent Calendars???
We havenāt proven the existence of Jesus (as a single figure as depicted in the Gospels), much less an accurate date of his birth.
Around the end of December was the time of existing celebrations in the Roman world (esp Saturnalia, but itās also close to the solstice), when Rome converted to Christianity they just kept the dates.
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Oh @billybutcher what have you done?ā¦ā¦.
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ā 
ā
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Itās not what heās done, itās what the Romans have doneā¦or not
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Why? What have the Romans ever done for us? 
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Didnāt they build aqueducts?
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Sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public healthā¦ 
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Someone has to do it, might as well be me.
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Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, donāt they?
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An indication, or conjecture, of why this might be is given here.
Didnāt the Christianās hijack the celebration of the birth of the Roman God Mythras, who was born on 25th December which, as we all know, was the festival Natalis Invicti? And so due to a printerās error the God of Sun became the Son of God.
OK, so the pagan festival was around the same time might, or might not, have been the reason.
I guess the next question is ādoes it really matterā whether Jesus was actually born on the day we celebrate?
Mithras was originally a Persian god, but youāre right that he was popular with the Romans, his cult having been taken up by Roman legionaries stationed in the Near East.
The Romans liked to āborrowā gods from other cultures and equate them with Roman gods - e.g. Zeus and Jupiter, Athena and Minerva, Ares and Mars.
M&S should do a Mithras calendar starring Colin the Caterpillar who is the equivalent of the crocodile-headed ancient Egyptian god Sobek. 
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When the Romans, Greeks and earlier ME colonial powers defeated other civilisations the local subaltern culturesā gods were added to the pantheon and over the centuries their names and attributes merged.
As far as Iām concerned, not a jot 
, Iām in it for the day off, the food and the booze. Actually, that sounds a little pagan on the face of it, but I can live with that.
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With Grommit as Anubis ? Yes !
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Obviously nobody has any idea why Marks and Spencer have done this with their advent calendar,very strange indeed,no doubt they have a reason for it
I think the next question should be:
I guess the next question is ādoes it really matterā whether Jesus was actually born at all
The whole religious saga has been turned into a money making machine.
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