A Threatening Christian Assault!

At the start of 2017 one of my fellow employees placed a calendar in the employee break room. It featured beautiful high definition photographs of nature scenes. Along with each picture was a single praise verse from the Psalms. The overall tone of the calendar to a non-Christian would have been rather generic, along the order of a sweet Helen Steiner Rice poem.

Last week the calendar was taken off the wall.  The explanation from the supervisors was that there had been a complaint.  Someone had found the calendar to be offensive and threatening. Threatening?  REALLY???

Our national tradition in the United States is freedom of religion and a separation of church and state. Some have begun to believe that this means that any mention of religion must be removed from public sight.  Religion must be stifled and repressed.  Utter hypocrisy!

They, in effect, do what they accuse others of doing; they impose their religious view (agnosticism, humanism, or atheism) on others. They deny to others the right to practice or express their religious views.

Liberals and progressives scoff at and ridicule the idea that there is a War on Christianity in all corners of the United States.  In ways large and small, the evidence is ample and glaring that they are wrong or disingenuous.

New Recurrent Topic

I am beginning a new recurrent topic to go along with all the others: Differences Between Protestants and Roman Catholics/Orthodox: We are all Christians but there are some very real differences in attitudes and beliefs between us.  The unity of the Mind of Christ, the ἐκκλησία, unites us even if we may never be united on a human, organizational level.

http://www.allaboutjesuschrist.org/was-jesus-born-on-december-25-faq.htm

A difference between us which is relevant for this time of year is the celebration of Christmas. Protestants and Catholics celebrate Christmas on 25 December while Orthodox observe the holiday on 7 January.  Biblical scholars and historians are almost universally agreed that both of these dates are incorrect.

The biblical and historical evidence points to the birth of Jesus having occurred in March or April of 6-5 BC/BCE.  Calculations by other scholars point to Jesus having been born in September or October.  The birth could not have occurred in 1BC/AD because Herod died in 4BC/BCE

About the 25 December and 7 January dates: Orthodox follow the Roman Julian calendar which was in use at the birth of Jesus while Protestants and Catholics follow the Gregorian calendar (Pope Gregory XIII, 1582) which corrected an error caused in dating because the year is not exactly 365 days in length. 

The 25 December date was first suggested by Sextus Julius Africanus in 221 AD/CE and was celebrated on that date as early as 354, but it was not officially declared as the date until 440.

How Biblical Dates Have Been Determined

How do archeologists and historians know that the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria ran from 705 to 681 BC/BCE since the BC/BCE (Before Christ/Before the Common Era) system dates from the birth of Jesus?  The Assyrians used a totally different dating system, as did the Persians, the Jews, the Romans, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Indians, the Muslims, the Hindus, and the Mayans.  Some of the calendars were based on lunar cycles, some on solar cycles, others on a combination of the two.  Some calendars were based on arithmetic calculations.  How could anyone find a unified, understandable, and universally agreed upon date for an ancient event occurring before the modern dating system?

First, we have to acknowledge that our modern dating system is in error by about 6 years.  It is now recognized that the biblical events surrounding the birth of Jesus (such as the fact that Herod died in 4 BC/BCE) require that Jesus’ birth occurred about 6 BC/BCE.  The calculations by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century were in error, not the Bible.

The dating of biblical and other ancient events has been established in much the same way as modern science has advanced: one little step at a time, putting a piece here and another piece there until finally a recognizable pattern emerges.  Just like a jigsaw puzzle.

One of the first types of information which was used was lists of officials.  Roman consuls served for one year and a list of those men who served from 509 BC/BCE to 541 AD/CE exits.  If only one man can be locked into a specific year, then the entire list is locked.  Obviously then, an event known to have occurred during the reign of one of these men is also locked.  Such lists have been found in the records of numerous ancient cultures.

King lists have been found all over the world.  Events were often reckoned as having happened in the “third year of “ this or that king.  The second century Egyptian, Claudius Ptolmaeus, accurately compiled a list of the kings of Egypt, Persia, and Bablylonia from the eighth century BC/BCE forward.   The third century Egyptian priest Manetho divided Egyptian history into thirty dynasties.

Anchor events of known and provable date can often be tied to individuals and events spoken of in histories and lists.  There were solar eclipses on 6 April 648 BC/BCE and 15 June 763 BC/BCE and a lunar eclipse on 27 August 413 BC/BCE.

One piece of information by itself may be just a piece of information.  Put together with hundreds of other facts, there may suddenly be an “Aha!, there it is!”