HAPPY WHATEVER ?

Apparntly Merry Christmas versus just about everything else is beginning to heat up again. The story he refers to is in the Biblical Apocrapha which is found in Bibles using translations accepted by the Caholic and Orthodox versions of the Bible.* The books Maccabees 1 and 2 where the roots of Hanukkah can be found. The exchange is a little testy but his "be polite as possible" tank may have run dry.

I've had a very subversive thought. We have this whole crop of fundies with their "if it isn't in the Bible it isn't 'Christian.'"

News flash Christmas isn't in the Bible. Yes, the story of the birth of the future footsore rabbi from Nazareth IS in the Bible. But, if I have my history straight official commemoration of the birth started during the reign of Constantine.

Christmas? Christ's mass. Yep, the December date close to the solstice is part of what became the yearly liturgical cycle starting with what has become Advent and ending with Pentecost. Which is sort of where the twelve days of Christmas carol comes from. So didn't you Protestants just kind of borrow this any and try to squeeze everthing into one mad day.

Christmas season s follows

December 24 Eve of the Nativity That was when our Methodist church did a candle light service. Partly because they knew no one would be there the next day.

December 25 Feast of the Nativity First day of the Octave of Christmas

December 26 Feast of St. Stephen (first official martyr)

December 27 Feast of St. John the Baptist

December 28 Feast of the Holy Innocents (Herod's blood bath)

December 29 Fifth day of the liturgy of Christmas

December 30 Feast of the Holy Family

December 31 Eve of the Feast of the Holy Name

January 1 The Feast of the Holy Name Jesus' circumcision, either one

Jaunuary 6 Epiphany when the three kings arrived with gifts.. And in many countries THAT day is the day gifts are exchanged.

All of these traditions were added years or centuries after the Bible was written. So, the whole argument about what to say is really, well totally weird. We get all hung up on the words while conveniently forgetting that Jesus (if he existed) was a Jewish guy who was crying in the wilderness with the messages of the old Hebrew prophets in the hope that maybe, just maybe people would listen this time around.

Of the few of you who actually know me you will know that my sense of humor is well, sort of off the wall. Out in far left field actually.

God has sent prophets over the years from Amos through Jeremiah to Zechariah with mixed and apparently futile results. This is how it goes in my weird imagination,

"Son we need to have a talk. Remember that conversation we had a three or four eons ago on the other side of the Milky Way."

"Yeah, the one where I end up on earth eventually learning the difference between oak and cedar and end up walking the length and breadth of the Holy Land?"

"That's the one. It's time. I've got a great family chosen for you. Joseph is a carpenter and Mary is willing to take the risk."

"OK dad, Catch you on the flip side. I've got a feeling I'm going to get into more trouble that all the other prophets put together."

"Afraid so, Son."

*Most versions of the Bible accepted by Protestants begin with the Hebrew Bible. Catholicswork from the Septuagint. The Greek translation by seventy Jewish scholars in Alexandria at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphius. Who was probably a pagan but he loved knowlege.