Answering Tovia Singer on December 25

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Answering Tovia Singer on December 25 · Sharing on December 25, Kurt Simmons · Attacks on the Christmas Feast from a Protestant, Answered · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Two Challenges Against Christmas, Answered

Why did the Church use December 25 to celebrate Christmas? Rabbi Tovia Singer reveals shocking truth
Tovia Singer | 6 Febr. 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjLQBA3i45w

I have from two Catholic sources that early Christians considered Zacharias had been in the Holy of Holies (there seems to be some different options on where the Altar of Incense is, and the Holy of Holies is one of the three I find on a quick search), meaning St. John Ben Zechariah Cohen the Baptist was conceived just after Yom Kippur. Jesus was born 15 pregnancy months after this, so count dates 3 calendar months after when Yom Kippur can occur ...

"It occurs annually on the 10th of Tishrei,[5] corresponding to a date in late September or early October."

Meaning, Jesus was born late December or early January.

1:40 St. Hippolytus of Rome mentioned December 25 in a comment on the book of Daniel.

He was martyred under Valerian. Whose rule ended in 260.

Valerian, Gallienus, Claudius Gothicus, Quintillus, Aurelian, whose rule began 270.

Sol Invictus could well have been the personal invention of the latter, and invented to draw Christians back to their Pagan roots, a procedure you might be familiar with ....

8:02 The problem for you is, what the pagans did was not a Christmas tree.

It would be pointless to point out that the axe was the work of a workman. No, what was made of the cut down tree was, here is the Catholic translation:

for the works of the hand of the workman hath cut a tree out of the forest with an axe.

In other words, between the cutting down and the worshipping, there is some workmanship being done. The tree is not just cut down, but fashioned. It does not retain branches and leaves or pine needles, it's a statue of wood he talks about.

8:49 The Puritans you mentioned are a sect which is not historic Christianity.

Jesus did not found the Puritans, just like Moses did not found Samaritans and Mohammed did not found the Druz.

Moreover, the Puritans were allied with some Jews who were very bitter against Christianity, partly perhaps because Sepharads in Amsterdam had been expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella.

10:16 Jesus is prophecied in Malachy.

But unto you that fear my name, the Sun of justice shall arise, and health in his wings: and you shall go forth, and shall leap like calves of the herd.
[Malachias (Malachi) 4:2]

See also the pun on birthdays if St. John was born late June and Our Lord late December:

He must increase, but I must decrease.
[John 3:30]

Celebrating this is a very different thing from being worried when the days get shorter, and what pagans arguably were worried about in Jeremiah's day were eclipses, comets, alignments.

And St. John the Baptist was Shemesh to him, like the Temple in stone actually celebrated in Hanuccah also.

11:42 Thank you for mentioning Justin Martyr's valorisation of Pagan mythology ... and now note, none of the Biblical OT condemnations of Paganism ever mentions their mythology, as far as I recall, just the idols, as Jeremiah just quoted or the idolised phenomena in Exodus 20, the demons behind the idols and idolisation, Psalms 95:5 (94 or 96 in your Bible), butu never the stories the Pagans tell.

Only St. Paul mentions myths, and he probably is referring to things like Theogony or to Gnostic Eons and Emanations that reminded him of the Theogony, not the historicity of Hercules or Ulysses.

Here are the seven hits on "fables" which is the Latin translation in at least one of the places of "muthoi":

Psalms 118:85, Baruch 3:23, 1 Timothy 1:4, 1 Timothy 4:7, 2 Timothy 4:4, Titus 1:14, 2 Peter 1:16

Here is the Haydock comment. Only Calmet seems clearly to agree that "fables" in Psalm 118:85 (119:85) means mythology:

Ver. 85. Fables. Idle tales, not agreeable to God's law. (Worthington) --- Such were the theology and histories of the pagans. (Calmet) --- Such are still the false maxims of the world, and many books designed to corrupt the morals of the age. (Haydock) --- The Jews confined themselves to their own divine books. Hebrew, Chaldean, &c., "The proud have dug pits for me, which is not conformable to thy law," (Calmet) but forbidden expressly. (Haydock) --- The Septuagint seem to have followed a better reading. (Calmet) --- Houbigant rejects the word pits, and in effect, we may understand the Hebrew in the sense of the Vulgate, "They have prepared (or told me) vain discourses." (Berthier)

Such were the theology and histories of the pagans. (Calmet)

I'd agree with theology, as I just said about Theogony, but I'd disagree about histories.

Obviously, the Baal cycle would definitely be among wicked things by pagans in the form of fables.

NEVERTHELESS, sometimes evil bears the image of the good, in a perverted sense, and this means, Justin Martyr can have approved the lesson once Christianity is giving it the right way, while telling the pagans only "this is what you approve, you are inconsistent" ...

12:09 In your reference of Justin, you just spoke of "mythology" where does "practises" come in?

I checked, actually doesn't come in, as per his text, you are giving a bogus resumé of what he said.

The First Apology (St. Justin Martyr)
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm