What if Christmas isn't what you think it is?

Have you ever questioned the origin of Christmas or do you just assume that since the birth of Jesus, everyone has celebrated Christmas on December 25^th? Sometimes, it’s good to stop and ask a question…..”where did this come from?”

Jesus was born a Hebrew. And if you know anything about Judaism, you know that they do not celebrate Christmas. So of course, He did not celebrate it. And keep in mind that the “New Testament” had not yet been written. Jesus would have read from a Torah, from a hand-written “Old Testament” which at that time was known as “the law”.

The Romans ruled the Middle East at the time Jesus was here, and they celebrated the holiday of Saturnalia from December 17-25. It was a week long period of lawlessness. human sacrifice, widespread intoxication, going from house to house singing naked, rape, eating human-shaped biscuits, gift-giving and more. This festival, introduced over 200 years before the birth of Jesus, was held in honour of Saturn, the youngest of the Titans, father of the major gods of the Greeks and Romans and son of Uranus and Gaia. It was also a time to worship the sun god.

Obviously a pagan holiday.

It wasn’t until the year 440 AD that the December 25^th became the official date of Christmas. The first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated on December 25^th was in 336 AD when Constantine was the Roman Emperor. The first Council of Nicaea was held in AD 325 (Constantine was Emperor). This was the first effort to make a universal doctrine of Christian beliefs. Remember, this was a Roman Empire still at this time. This Council removed Easter from Passover and set it to a Sunday.

The History of Western Europe by James Harvey Robinson states:

The new religion, as it spread from Palestine among the Gentiles, was much modified by the religious ides of those who accepted it. A group of Christian philosophers, who are known as the early fathers, strove to show that the Gospel was in accord with the aspirations of the best of the pagans. In certain ceremonies the former modes of worship were accepted by the new religion. From simple beginnings the church developed a distinct priesthood and an elaborate service. In this way Christianity and the higher forms of paganism tended to come nearer and nearer to each other as time went on.

In other words, the early church merged pagan rituals and traditions into the Gospel – most likely in order to get more people to join the church. After all, if they didn’t have to change what they celebrated, the church could then (later) force them to join.

In AD 324, Constantine issued an edict exhorting all his subjects to follow his example by becoming Christians. But….the office of Pontifex Maximus which he held required him to offer sacrifices to the heathen gods of Rome. Can you see how he was instrumental in bringing pagan practices into the church?

So who celebrated Christmas from the time of Jesus until 440 AD? And when did they celebrate it if they did?

And what about all the “traditions” that go with Christmas. Where/when did they originate?

The Christmas Tree: Pagans had long worshipped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes and decorated them. Putting evergreen boughs over doors and windows would keep out witches, ghosts, evil spirits and illness. Germany is credited with the Christmas tree as we know it – starting in the 16^th century. They were not present in America until the 1830s. Until the late 1840s, they were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans!

Amazing how far the tree has come in just 170 years!

Mistletoe: Kissing under the mistletoe was first found associated with the festival of Saturnalia. Another pagan tradition.

Christmas Presents: From Saturnalia (see above)

Santa Claus: A Roman Catholic Bishop named St Nicholas who attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Saint Nicholas was “revived by Washington Irving in 1809 in his book “Knickerbocker History of New York”. So no “Santa Claus” before the 1800s.

Or is he the god Odin, from pre Christian times in Germanic people?

Needless to say, Santa is a fairly “new” addition and has nothing to do with Jesus.

Did you ever notice how Santa has been given the attributes of Jehovah?

1. He is omnipresent – can visit millions of homes in a single night

2. He is all seeing, all knowing. He can deliver each present correctly to each child.

3. He is all-good, all-just. He judges behavior.

4. He is eternal

one god replacing Jehovah God? But I say simply add an “n” to the end of the word “Santa” and you are probably on the right track!

Gift Giving: was banned by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages due to its suspected pagan origins. Its origins were in the Feast of Saturnalia (see above).

You can search every other Christmas tradition and quickly find that it’s origin was based in pagan practices. And we now can prove that Jesus was not born on or around December 25^th.

The birth of the Messiah is not known for certain, but we can know the approximate time of year when he was born! In the book of Luke we read that the father of John the Baptist was Zacharias, and he was a priest who served at the temple in Jerusalem. He was "of the course of Abia" (Luke 1:5). While serving at the temple, he was informed by an angel that his wife was to have a son, who was to be named "John." After this, Zacharias finished "the days of his ministration," and "departed to his own house" (v.23). "And after those days, his wife Elizabeth conceived..." (v. 24).

The names of the different courses of priests that served at the Temple are given in I Chronicles 24:1-19. "Abia" or "Abijah" was the EIGHTH course. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, each one of these courses served at the Temple for one week, the first course serving the first week of Nisan, in the spring (compare I Chron. 27:1-2), and then each course in its own order. All the priests served during the annual festivals (Passover in spring, Pentecost, and then Tabernacles in the fall). After six months, the order would be repeated, thus each "course" would serve two weeks during a year.

The course of Abijah, then, would have served the eighth week in the rotation. The eighth week from Nisan 1, leaving out the week of Passover, when all the priests served, would have been Iyar 27 TO Sivan 5, the day just before Pentecost, which generally fell on Sivan 6. After serving a week in the Temple, Zacharias would have remained another week in Jerusalem, because of the Feast of Shavuot or Pentecost that week. Therefore, he returned home shortly after this, and his wife then conceived. This would have been about the middle of June. If we add nine months to this date, the normal time for the gestation of a human baby in the womb, John the Baptist would have been born about the middle of March, in the spring, shortly before the Passover.

Yeshua was conceived about six months after John (Luke 1:24-31, esp. verse 26). This would suggest that Yeshua the Messiah was conceived about the middle of December. This would place his birth nine months, or 270 days, later -- or the month of September!

This would mean that Jesus was conceived at Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights (He is the Light of the World”) and born at Sukkot, the Feast of Ingathering (He is the Bread of Life).

I contend that if we follow a Hebrew calendar backwards and put in the rotation of service, we can know the date of Jesus birth!

And I have shown that the magi were rabbis, not “kings” or “wise men”.

What if Christmas isn’t what you think it is? What if it is a pagan holiday, filled with pagan customs, giving worship to pagan gods and is not even remotely associated with the birth of Jesus?

I Cor 10:21 ASV “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of demons; ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord, and of the table of demons.”

In other words, IF you believe in Jesus, you cannot celebrate Christmas.

If you celebrate Christmas, then you worship pagan gods and do not follow Jesus.

You cannot take something that is pagan in origin and turn it into something that is worthy of God.

It’s about as simple as that!

If Satan said "I will be like the most high", then is he?

I remember asking a college professor at Bob Jones University this question, "If Satan said he is going to be like God, then how do we know who he (Satan) is?" And the professor said that it was just a "threat" and that God would never let Satan be like Him.

So I was 18 years old then. And of course, I totally believed what the professor said. I have gone through my life believing that Satan could not be like Jehovah. That God would never allow that to happen. What I did not know at the age of 18 is that college professors do not have the answers. The truly sad thing is that I thought they did.

Amazing how what a teacher, professor, preacher says that we buy into. We believe it because "they" said it. We don't take the time to do our own study or research. We believe them because we assume that they have studied and researched and that they know what they are talking about. But most of them do not. They simply form their ideas from what they were taught. Very few individuals actually research and when they do....they certainly don't try to find a different idea, they simply try to confirm what they already believe.

From the title of this blog, I think it's obvious that I was born a questioner. I started my career with Social Security where I interviewed people applying for retirement and disability benefits. So I spent my 8 hours in the office questioning people. I'm sure I upset numerous people with all my questions. I didn't limit it to just the questions on the application in front of me! I tended to go "outside the box" and ask questions based upon previous answers given to me.

Here's an example: women will spend their entire lives making themselves younger than they actually are in order to impress a man or someone else. Sometimes as much as 10 years younger. But when it comes to retirement age, they want to make themselves older in order to get benefits sooner. In the 1970s, many of these women did not have birth certificates, so they would give me a school record, a marriage certificate, their children's birth certificates and each piece of evidence had a different age/date of birth on it. And I had to evaluate this evidence, determine to the best of my ability what their actual date of birth was, and either approve or deny their eligibility to receive retirement benefits. Almost always, I used the oldest evidence available. The age on a person's grade school report card is much more accurate than the age on their child's birth certificate because their report card was probably issued 15 to 20 years earlier than their son or daughter's birth. However, their parent could have lied in order to get them into school at a very young age, or simply might not have remembered the real date of birth....but still, based on all the evidence, I most often took the oldest evidence as the most reliable.

But that's my point. How many of us take the evidence that is presented to us, analyze it, ask questions about it, verify the authenticity of it.....before we make a decision about it? Simple little things. How many of us go back to the earliest evidence and question the changes made to it since then?

My original birth certificate was lost years ago, but I have a copy of the one recorded in the state of Indiana. "Jennifer Lynn Moore." My baptismal certificate, of which I have the original, shows my name as Jennifer Lynne Moore. One letter off. Does it matter? Which is the oldest piece of information? What did my parents really desire as my name? Did the pastor who wrote out the baptismal certificate make a mistake by adding the "e" in my middle name? Did the hospital official make a mistake by leaving it off? I asked mom and she simply doesn't remember. And no, it doesn't really matter to me.....but does it matter when it comes to Jehovah Jesus Messiah, scripture translations.....and to Satan? Certainly!!!

Is 14:14. If Satan said that he would make himself to be like the most high. How has he done that? What name is he using that you and I might recognize him as the "most high"? Has he changed his name by one letter.....by a full word? Is he an imposter that we do not fully recognize?

If you were going to make yourself be like someone else.....how would you do it? Dress like them? Act like them? Talk like them? There are a lot of famous people in Hollywood that other people try to act just like. Doubles. Imposters. People who make themselves look just like them. How do we tell them apart? Sometimes - it's pretty hard to do. I once saw a Barbra Streisand impersonator and truly could not tell the difference in her looks, or her voice....until the impersonator took off the wig and showed that "she" was a man!

So, if Satan was going to make himself like Jesus....could we tell them apart? Could we do it without a whole lot of study, research, investigation, questioning?

And what if you accept Jesus as your personal savior....and you are really accepting Satan because he is the great imposter?

WOW!!!

Because Satan said that he would make himself to be like Jehovah G*d, I started putting together a table to compare the two systems. Keep in mind that when Jesus Messiah was here on earth, there was no written "New Testament", that He was a Jewish man, and that He would have practiced the Torah - Old Testament law. It is only over time that a "new" system was created by merging into it pagan practices. You truly need to study the evolution of religion since 70AD to fully understand this. I now see 2 distinct systems - here is my comparison:

God’s stage/players	Satan’s stage/players
Jehovah Jesus Messiah	Lord Jesus Christ
The Most High	make myself like the most high
Jews, Messianic	mostly Gentiles
Hebrew/Greek	King James and other translations
Passover – biblical	Easter - pagan
Sukkot – biblical	Christmas - pagan
Magen (shield of) David	Cross
Synagogue/Temple	Church
Meet, greet and escort to Israel	Pre-trib Rapture
The one true God	god
Lunar Hebrew calendar	Solar secular calendar
Days of the week are numbered	Days of the week are named
Months revolve around the moon	Months revolve around the sun
New day starts at sunset	New day starts at sunrise
Sabbath is day seven	Sunday is day one
Passover – once a year	Communion – monthly or weekly
Messiah born at Sukkot	Christ born at Christmas
Gifts to Israel	Tithe to church
Israel is the Bride	The church is the bride
Rosh Hashanah	New Year’s Day
Rabbi	Magi/Wise Men
Cherish	Love
Teacher/shepherd	Preacher/Pastor
Tribulation started in 70AD	tribulation in the future
Holocaust = Jacob’s trouble	Jacob’s trouble is future
Mazzaroth	Zodiac
Jerusalem	Tel Aviv
Jews are the chosen people	Anti-Semitic
Israel is the kingdom	Heaven
Preparing a tabernacle	Mansions and streets of gold
Grave	Hell
7th world power Roman Catholism	1st church was Roman Catholics
8th world power – Islam	Islam removed Israel from maps

Now, don't get me wrong. Jews do not believe that the Messiah was born at Sukkot. These are simply the differences that I see between the 2 systems when you use the original Greek and Hebrew texts.

I am sure there are more comparisons and as I come to think of them I will go back and edit this list. But I think you can start to see how similar the 2 "systems" are. Amazing, isn't it? That after 2000 years, the adversary has made himself to seem like god. And while I know that most everyone who attends a "christian" church today will completely deny the remote possibility that their preacher is a false minister, scripture does warn us of this.

What if this is how it really is? No doubt, there are those among my family and friends who will deny that they are on the adversary's stage. I'm simply asking, "what if?" What if there are two stages. What if this "war" has been going on for the last 2000 years between Jehovah and the adversary? What if Satan truly is working this very day to make himself seem like the most high? If there are only 2 stages with no other options, then which stage are you on? At the very least, I hope you will think about it and not be like me - trusting that a college professor had the answer. And my prayer is that my children will come to know the true Jehovah, not the false christ.

Sukkot - the birthday of the Messiah

Imagine living in the year 4 CE. It is October 4, or 15 Tishri 3758 on the Hebrew Calendar. At sunset, tonight, it is the dawn of Sukkot, (starts at sunset on October 2, 2009) the first day of a High Holy Day, a Pilgrimage Sabbath. Everyone who is Hebrew is required to travel to Jerusalem to attend this 8 day festival. In addition, the Roman Empire has ordered that a census be taken…..and you have to travel to the town of your ancestors to be counted as part of that family’s descendants. There are thousands and thousands of people in Jerusalem for the High Holy Day which starts tonight. Each family is required to build a sukk’ah, a temporary dwelling, a booth, a temporary tabernacle, and dwell in it for the 7 days of this feast of tabernacles, or sometimes called the feast of Ingathering.

These booths are erected to house families with some bare comforts and food for the seven days. (It would be like us going camping for a whole week these days.) Food is placed in an animal-fodder crib for storage in these temporary tabernacles (sukk’ah or booth). The King James Bible has translated the word for food crib as “manger”. After the 7 day long feast, there is an additional Sabbath Day on the 8th day called the Shemini Atzeret Sabbath “The Last Great Day” because it is the final annual Holy Day that was God-established. The next Holy day is the next Passover.

It is the fall of the year as the harvests are being brought in (gathered). Shepherds are in their fields watching over their flocks. Jerusalem is flooded with people as everyone is required to go there for this Festival. Everything is full. And there are sukk’ahs everywhere. Perhaps thousands of them! Overwhelmingly massive crowds of Hebrew Pilgrims attending this High Holy day, this first day of the Feast. Crowds have previously arrived (to build their temporary tabernacles to stay in) and crowds are still continuously arriving, to lodge through the entire region. By sunset, Jerusalem and all of the surrounding villages are completely full. Even the nearby city of Bethlehem. Not a place to be had anywhere.

Two young Hebrews, Joseph and Mary, need to do 2 things. They need to go to Jerusalem and they need to go to Bethlehem because that’s where Joseph must go to register for the census. It is literally just 4 miles from Jerusalem. A "stop on the way". Mary is pregnant. They get to Bethlehem. She goes into labor. No place to stay. She is offered a sukk’ah (not a stable) as a place to deliver her baby, and she then placed her baby in the food crib.

IF that is in fact what happened, consider these possibilities:

the Messiah was born on the first day of Sukkot – The Festival of Tabernacles, the Feast of Ingathering, a High Holy Day. This day is a Sabbath.
He was born in a temporary tabernacle, a sukk’ah, (not a stable) because he came to tabernacle with us.
He was placed in a food storage crib because He is the “bread of life”.
As tradition, He would have been named and circumcised on the 8th day which would have been a Sabbath,
9 months prior to Sukkot is Hanukkah, the Festival of lights. The dedication of the Temple celebration. He would have been conceived during this holiday because He is the light of the world.
Zechariah 14:16-17 says that one day in the future all nations will be required to honor this feast.
For me, this is all I need to know. I LOVE this story. My Messiah was born in the fall of the year, when it was warm, in a temporary tabernacle, on a Sabbath that was a High Holy day, on the first day of the Feast of Ingathering, and was placed in a food storage crib because He is the bread of life. He was conceived during the Festival of Lights because He is the light of the world.

I will start this day to keep this feast – in my heart – as I truly believe this is how He was born. No "Merry Christmas" from me as that date is simply a pagan holiday. But this night, this eve of Sukkot, may you be blessed, may your heart be softened, may you come to know that your questions can be answered - all one must do is study the Word.

Jn 1:14 "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."

May this week be a true celebration of joy for you.

For more, click here.

If you know that Jesus died on Passover....

and that he rose at sunset on Saturday, why do you celebrate Easter Sunday morning services?????

If we can prove without a shadow of a doubt (well, if you really believe the Bible) that Jesus was conceived during Hanukkah and was born at Sukkot (early Fall), why do you celebrate Christmas as His birth?

If you never knew before and only followed the teachings of your "church" - that's one thing. But if you KNOW now.....and you STILL celebrate Christmas and Easter.....why?

Here's another one of those childhood questions I always had. "If you know something is wrong....and you do it anyway...can G-d forgive you? And if you keep doing it over and over and over.....while you KNOW it is wrong....will He keep forgiving you over and over and over?

I seriously doubt it!

So, the question today.....if you know Jehovah Jesus Messiah was born in the fall and you celebrate Christmas, and you know that He died at Passover and you celebrate Easter, are you STILL a sinner?

And if you are STILL a sinner, how can you claim that you are saved? How can you claim to be a "Christian"?

But an even greater question perhaps.....if you are celebrating holidays that are based on paganism, that are filled with pagan rituals, that have literally nothing to do with the birth, death or resurrection of Jesus....aren't you a pagan? How can you be a "Christian" if you are a pagan? And if you are a "Christian", how can you continue to follow paganism?

Trust me - it is more than difficult to leave behind a pagan ritual when it's all you have ever known your entire life. When it's what made you happiest as a child, as a mom. When it's what brings back some of the most joyous memories in your life.

On the other hand - giving up these things that are tied to paganism has brought a different, greater joy to my soul than I could ever imagine!

It did not happen overnight. It took nearly 5 years in transition. I used to decorate 3 Christmas trees with 1500 Hallmark ornaments and host huge parties every year. I sang in the Living Christmas Tree in San Diego for 3 years. Most of my friends cannot understand why or how I could give it all up.

The problem became that once I knew and understood and could prove to myself that Christmas has zero ties to Jesus and is 100% pagan - I simply walked away from it.

The next question to ponder....how did we ever get "religion" so messed up? Why do Christians celebrate so many pagan holidays? Who makes these decisions? Who leads the "church" down this path? I just don't think that Jehovan G-d is out there directing this "path" the church has taken.

Just a few things to think about for the moment:

Rev 12:9....the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who decieves the whole world......

Isaiah 14:12-15, satan said:

I will ascend to heaven
I will raise my throne above the stars of G-d
I will sit entrhoned on the mount of assembly on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds
I WILL MAKE MYSELF LIKE THE MOST HIGH

So the question becomes.....HOW is (or did) Satan make himself to be like G-d?

Maybe think of it as a constant war that's been going on for about 6000 years now. G-d on one side, Satan on the other side trying to make himself appear to be like G-d. If he is doing that....then how do we know who the real G-d is?

And what if Satan is using the church with all of it's pagan holidays and pagan rituals throughout the world to make himself "like the most high".

If you are like me, at first thought - that's impossible.

On the other hand.....if you know that Easter is a pagan holiday and Jesus did not rise from the grave on Easter Sunday morning -

and you know that Christmas is a pagan holiday and Jesus was born in the fall of the year during Sukkot -

could it be that the "church" really is Satan's playground? And that this is how he has made himself look "like the most high"?

I sort of think it starts to explain why no one in Sunday School could ever answer any of my childhood questions!

And now you can start to see why I don't attend church, or celebrate Christmas or Easter.

If we changed the calendar, are our dates all wrong???

Have you ever wondered about our calendar? Do you ever wonder why the Hebrew calendar starts with day 1 and continues to the present, but "our" calendar had a break between AD & BC and one counts forward while the other counts backwards? I know, I was told that you count forward from the time Jesus was born and count back before his birth. But WHY?????

And if the first day of the week is Sunday and G-d said to keep the 7th day holy, why do we have church of any kind on Sunday?

And if Easter is the resurrection "anniversary" - why does the date change every year? Shouldn't it be on the same day every year regardless of what day of the week that is? I mean, seriously, I don't celebrate September 29th, my birthday, on Sunday every year.....I honor it on the actual day of the week that it falls on!

And if we KNOW the day that Elisabeth got pregnant with John the Baptist and we KNOW that Jesus was conceived 6 months later.....HOW could he possibly have been born on December 25?

Finally, remember the Christmas carols? Shepherds watching over their flock by night??? Ummmm...it's a tad cold in December is Bethlehem with snow and frost. I seriously doubt anyone is out watching the sheep at night!!!

Yep, I was a problem in Sunday School years ago and I've not been too good with religious discussions ever since. So, today is the day....if it takes me the next 48 hours to get this down in writing - I am going to get it done!!!

I'm going to use a Hebrew calendar and you need to stick with me because I think this is one of the most amazing things ever...and you just won't find it in church, but you WILL find it in your Bible and I will show you how!!!

But most of all, I always wondered about Christmas.

I'm going to start with a look at the Hebrew calendar:

1. Nisan is the 1st month. Has 30 days. Equates to our Mar/Apr. Passover is the 15th of Nisan
2. Lyar is the 2nd month. It has 29 days, Equates to our Apr/May
3. Sivan is the 3rd month. Has 30 days, equal to our May/June. the 6th of Sivan is Pentecost, aka Shauvot
4. Tammuz is the 4th month. Has 29 days, equal to our Jun/Jul
5. Av is the 5th month, has 30 days, occurs in our Jul/Aug
6. Elul is the 6th month, has 29 days, happens in our Aug/Sep
7. Tishri is the 7th month, has 30 days, happens in our Sep/Oct. Sukkot occurs around the 15th of Tishri
8. Cheshvan is the 8th month, has 29/30 days, equates to our Oct/Nov
9. Kislev is the 9th month, has 29/30 days, equates to Nov/Dec. Hanukkah occurs this month
10. Tevet is the 10th month, has 29 days, is our Dec/Jan
11. Shevat is the 11th month, has 30 days, equates to Jan/Feb
12. Adar is the 12th month, has 29 days, equals our Feb/Mar

So then take a look at these Hebrew feasts:

14 Nisan  is Passover
15 Nisan   is a 7 Day Feast of Unleavened Bread

add 50 days and that takes you to:

Shavu’ot (Pentecost) (the next day is the 10th Week of routine priestly services)

add 6 months and that takes you to
15 Tishri which is Suk’kot, 7 day feast of Tabernacles (or Ingathering)

27 weeks after Passover is

15 Kislev – which is the 7 day Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah)

Stick with me because I hope to show you that the Bible tells us the following time table:

So now, let's turn to scripture:

Luke 1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife [was] of the daughters of Aaron, and her name [was] Elisabeth.

*Zacharias was ministering in the Hebrew's Jerusalem Temple, during the Aaronic Ministration of the prietly family of Abia (Abijah)

Luke 1:8:And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course,

**this order of priests routinely ministered in the Temple in the 8th familial course, during the 9th week of the Hebrew year

* *the 9th week includes the last few days of the second Hebrew month (Lyar) and the first few days of the 3rd Hebrew month (Sivan) and is the week before Pentecost - the Feast of Shavu'ot

Shavu'ot requires ALL 24 priestly families to be in attendance at the Jerusalem temple on that day.

Luke 1:23 And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house.

He went home right after Pentecost

Luke 1:24 And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying,

**(Elizabeth got pregnant the day after Pentecost)

Luke 1:26: And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,

Luke 1:31: And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.

It was at the end of the 6th month of Elisabeth's pregnancy that the angel appeared to Mary and told her that Elisabeth was pregnant, and that she, Mary would soon conceive

Luke 1:39: And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda

* Mary immediately traveled to Elisabeth's

Luke 1:43: And whence [is] this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

* this indicates that Mary was already pregnant as Elisabeth called her the mother of my lord

there are 27 weeks between the end of the priestly course of Abijah and the first day of Hannukkah which is celebrated for eight days. There are 14 weeks from the first day of Hanukkah to Passover. That's a total of 41 weeks - a normal pregnancy period.

from the above calendar, we can see that if John was conceived at Penetcost, 6 months later would be Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication. What a perfect time for Jesus to be conceived.

John the Baptist was born at Passover. He was circumcised on the 8th day, which would have been the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Remember, Passover is in Nisan, the first month of the Hebrew year.

Luke 1:17 And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

Jesus birth would have come 6 months after John the Baptist, which would put it in the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar - Tishri. Which is the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot.

I have been studying Sukkot for some time now. Another 7 day feast. The first day is a high holy day and requires the family to make a pilgrimage. Joseph and Mary would have gone to Bethlehem for this feast. There would have been crowds. They build booths during this festival that are temporary, they are called sukkah which means booth or tabernacle and dwell (live) in them during this festival. At the end of the feast, they are torn down.

In these booths, food was placed in a food crib for storage (which the King James has translated "manger".)

So, most likely, Jesus wasn't born in a stable and placed in a manger. He was born in a temporary tabernacle and placed in a food crib (because he was the Bread of Life from heaven?)

I have been to Israel. I have been to Bethlehem. Even to this day, any kind of stable would be unsanitary and I doubt either mother or child would have survived.

Besides, I much prefer the image of my Messiah being born in a temporary tabernacle - it just seems fitting.

The very night after his birth, Joseph and Mary fled with him to the closest part of Egypt. Today's Gaza? Jesus would have been circumsised on the 8th day, a special Sabbath (no matter what day of the week it fell on.)

G-d provided 2 Holy Feasts/Festivals that both lasted 7 days, and they are 6 months apart. While called 7 days, they each have a component that causes them to last for 8 days overall.

The Feast of Unleavend Bread (7 days) is preceeded by Passover.

The Feast of Tabernacles (7 days) is followed by the separate 8th day Sabbath.

Allowing both John the Baptist and Jesus to be born and circumcised within the holiday period.

Going back to a Hebrew calendar, it has been stated that Jesus was born Tishre 15, 3758.   Because the Hebrew calendar is based on the Moon while our calendar is based on the sun, even though His birth is on the same Hebraic calendar each year, it will fluxuate on our calendar and occur on a different day on our calendar.

Our modern "Gregorian" calendar did NOT exist when Jesus was born. So on our calendar, his date of birth is October 4, BC4.

It is written that one day, all nations will honor the Feast of Tabernacles:

Zec 14:16 And it shall come to pass, [that] every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.


Zec 14:17 And it shall be, [that] whoso will not come up of [all] the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.

And now I know why we are to keep this feast - because it is the real birthday of the King of Kings.

CHRISTMAS IS NOT THE BIRTHDAY OF JESUS CHRIST!!!

Christmas is nothing short of a pagan holiday brought about by a mergence of pagan traditions, folklore and myths. Google it!

Why, why, why and how did our current day so called christian religions get so completely and totally turned around???

I hope to have  a post about that in the near future.

In the meantime, think about this. Chart it out. Buy a Hebrew calendar or find one online. Look at the dates. How amazingly beautiful to think that the Messiah was conceived on the Feast of Dedication....and that He was born on Sukkot - the Feast of Tabernacles. In a temporary tabernacle, and placed in a food crib because He is the Bread of Life.