Messianic Jews & Jesus birth

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>>>>> "Tyler" == Tyler G Nally <tnally@csci.csc.com> writes:

    Tyler> Hey Saints!  I thought ya'll would like to see this.  It
    Tyler> came from CHRISTIA.

    Tyler> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Tyler> MESSIAHMAS ?  ------------
 
    Tyler> Most Gentile Christians wouldn't bother to speculate about
    Tyler> the time when Y'shua (Jesus) was born. They celebrate it on
    Tyler> December 25th even though they may suspect that there is no
    Tyler> Biblical basis for choosing that date.  However, there are
    Tyler> some Messianic Jews who believe that they know, with a
    Tyler> reasonable degree of certainty, the time of year when
    Tyler> Y'shua was born.  Taking into account certain Jewish
    Tyler> customs and traditions, it's not difficult to calculate it.
 
    Tyler> There is quite a wide consensus of opinion that Y'shua was
    Tyler> born at some time during the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana
    Tyler> (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), or at Succot
    Tyler> (Tabernacles) which follows soon afterwards. These
    Tyler> festivals normally occur in the Autumn, about September or
    Tyler> October, but it varies from year to year because the Jewish
    Tyler> calendar is based on the cycles of the moon and doesn't fit
    Tyler> in with the Gregorian calendar.
 
    [ excellent presentation deleted for brevity -- see original posting! ]

    Tyler> the Christian calendar. This raises the distinct
    Tyler> possibility that Yochanan the Baptist was born at Pesach,
    Tyler> which coincides with the Jewish expectation that Eliyahu
    Tyler> (Elijah) would come at Pesach. The Jews always put an extra
    Tyler> cup of wine on the table at Pesach, in the hope that
    Tyler> Eliyahu will come and drink it.
 
    Tyler> If Yochanan the Baptist was born at Pesach, Yeshua must
    Tyler> have been born during the High Holy Days or at Succot. In
    Tyler> Luke 1:26 and 36 we are told that Y'shua was six months
    Tyler> younger than John.
 
    [ more good stuff deleted ]
 
    Tyler> Starting from Z'chariyahu, the father of Yochanan the
    Tyler> Baptist, and his first period of duty in the Temple, and
    Tyler> doing a few simple calculations, we arrive at a result
    Tyler> which gives a new and profound meaning to many passages of
    Tyler> Scripture, and for that reason, we think Y'shua is very
    Tyler> likely to have been born at Succot.
 
    [ rest of posting deleted ]
 
    Tyler> Compiled from various sources by Uri Marcus, Haifa, Israel
 
    Tyler> submitted by Lambert Dolphin http://www.best.com/~dolphin/
    Tyler> dolphin@best.com
 
My wife asked me just the other day why we celebrate the birth of the
Messiah on December 25.  She is familiar with the pagan reasons to
celebrate the winter solstice.  She commented that the Bible does not
tell us when Jesus was born.

I answered her using a completely different argument, yet arrived at
nearly the same result.  

I started with his death on the cross on the eve of Passover.  I then
subtracted 3 1/2 years for the duration of his ministry, and 30 years
for the length of his life before beginning his ministry.  Since we
are only interested in the time of year, not which year, we take the
result mod 12 months in a year and get that he was born 6 months away
from passover.  This is in agreement with the derivation given above,
and in more detail in the original posting!

We therefore decided that that would put it sometime in October.
This, of course, raised speculation on a possible connection with
Halloween.  Does anyone out there know why Halloween occurs when it
does?  I know that the *REAL* Halloween actually occurs somewhat
earlier than the traditional celebration date of October 31, and that
its exact date is also determined by the moon, but I am not familiar
with the exact details.

Does Halloween occur in any fixed temporal relationship to Succot, and
if so, what is the significance of this, both to pagans and to
Christians? 

-- 
-----------  "...  And the men went up and viewed Ai."  [Jos 7:2]  -----------
Robert Jay Brown III  rj@eli.wariat.org  http://eli.wariat.org  1 708 705-0370
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