By Greg Blinn
Al Duncan, head shaking at best. Before Jesus, Egyptians brought green date palm leaves into their homes during winter solstice to symbolize the trinity”s, Osiris, Isis, and Horus, triumph over death. Egyptians were just one of a long line of cultures, before Jesus, that celebrated the winter solstice and life”s renewal with dying and rising gods. These pagan trinities were generally father, mother and child. Christianity eliminated the necessity of a mother and replaced it with the Holy Ghost, whatever this pneumatology is.
As anyone who has a passport has seen, there is another world beyond American borders where billions of people do not believe in Jesus” divinity and even question whether He existed, the Bible is not seen as an infallible story, and Jesus is not used as any condemnation or curse word ? they simply don”t care.
Contrary to Al”s egocentric view of the world, about 40 calendars are used in the world today in addition to the 1572 Pope Gregory XIII calendar. Because of this calendar”s obvious connotations to Christianity, non-Christians and even some Christians replace the AD and BC with CE and BCE (Common Era and Before Common Era). This calendar cannot be based on Jesus” birth simply because His birth was several years prior to 1 C.E. (Common Era) making Jesus” actual birth date sometime BCE–Before the Common Era or Before Christ.
As to songs of the season, last week”s paper had a whole song book with lyrics and music, so do we need Al”s redundancy?
A little research shows Joy to the World was written 1719, not as a seasonal song but based on the end of time described in Psalm 98, a little gruesome for a happy holiday song.
The First Noel was first published in 1833 but many scholars see the Gospel Nativity stories as creations to establish the Messianic status of Jesus; the Star of Bethlehem being a pious fiction with only Matthew mentioning the Star of Bethlehem or the magi; and Jesus described as being from Nazareth and not Bethlehem.
Finally, the repetition in the Hallelujah song is just mind stunning; making me think of other songs which are mind bogglingly simple, one of those songs was written by Barry Mann:
“Who put the bomp
In the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?
Who put the ram
In the rama lama ding dong?
Who put the bop
In the bop shoo bop shoo bop?…”
Greg Blinn
Kelseyville
