Wednesday, December 19, 2007

When Was Jesus Born?

Christians traditionally celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25th, but it is more likely that He was born in the month of September.
Bryan T. Huie calculates the times by looking at some remarkably simple verses in the Biblical text that present the most plausible evidence that Christ was born on the 1st day of the Feast of Tabernacles which occurred in that year in September. Using the Jewish calendar of the time, he examines the Zacharias, a priest of the division of Abijah and the time of Zacharias’ temple service, the timing of Christ’s birth can definitely be extrapolated. In his research he also determined that there two total lunar eclipses that year, one on that particular night, September 15, 5 BC, and one six months earlier that would correspond to the birth of John the Baptist.
But does it really matter when we celebrate the Holy birth?
There is no record that early Christians, from Pentecost to the early 300’s BC even celebrated the birth of Jesus. From the beginning ‘Christians’ were just another sect of Jews that mainstream Jews simply referred to as people “of this way.” They were first called Christians in Antioch.

Up until that time, first century Messianic Jews, or the first Christians celebrated Jewish holy days, and the resurrection of the Messiah. When Christianity spread throughout the Roman empire, many pagans were converted to Christ. Now here is where there is controversy, because some say the Romans practiced the pagan celebrations connected with the winter solstice. From that perspective, the Roman Christians converted the pagan holidays into Christian holidays. The website Cadre Comments strongly disputes this belief (that Christians adopted the Pagan holidays for their own) but says it was the pagans who adopted the Christian holiday.

Christmas was later outlawed by the Puritans in parts of early America.
I personally don’t worry much about the exact date that the Birth of Christ occurred. I celebrate the Holy Birth, December 25th. There is scientific research that shows the Magi's visit to Jesus (who was a toddler by that time) was on December 25th, 2 BC. Religion and faith are deeply personal and I currently find nothing wrong with celebrating my Saviors birth on December 25th, nor do I have any problem with those who don’t. Who He is and why He came are far more important to me.


Merry Christmas to All!

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

315 Miraculous Old Testament Prophecies Jesus Fulfilled


No other book in the history of the world has so many prophecies within it's pages. The Bible is totally unique in it's visions of the future. Listed in this article are 315 Old Testament prophecies that Jesus fullfilled. This is a fraction of the many overall prophecies contained in the Book. Some of the prophecies are "types" or "shadows" and therefore some skeptics have maintained that they are not valid; however included in my post I've placed the prophecies, types and forshadows side by side with their New Testament fulfillments, which for most Christian's validates those types and shadows.

These two men,
PETER W. STONER, M.S. [Chairman of the Departments of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City College (1953); Chairman of the science division, Westmont College, 1953-57; Professor Emeritus of Science, Westmont College; Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Astronomy, Pasadena City College.]

ROBERT C. NEWMAN, S.T.M., Ph.D.Ph.D. in Astrophysics, Cornell University, 1967; S.T.M., Biblical School of Theology, 1972; [Associate Professor of Physics and Mathematics, Shelton College, 19689-71; Associate professor of New Testament, Biblical School of Theology, 1971-]

Wrote the book entitled "Science Speaks, Scientific Proof of the Accuracy of Prophecy and the Bible."


In it they took only eight of the more than 300 prophecies fulfilled by Christ and determined the odds of one person fulfilling just those eight. The results were astounding! They calculated the odds at 1 in 10 to the 17th power or 1 in 100, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000. Dr. Stoner calculated that if you spread out that many silver dollars, it would cover the entire state of Texas, two feet deep!

Now what do you think the odds are if say, one of those silver dollars was painted red, the likelyhood for a blind folded person to walk out on that pile of silver dollars and pick up the red one - on the first try? Certainly if one did that, it would be by definition, a miracle! The Bible is more than that.