Even in the last 50 years the onset of winter has changed a little. This is partly due to processionary wobble partly due to how many days in a real year (it's not exactly 365.25) and there are two other reasons I cant remember (it's decades since I studied this).
That applies to North America too - the land mass cools quickly - and the snows cut in from mid Dec onwards (normally- some variation as the jetstream wobbles). the sea cools more slowly, and with the colder european land mass we get the precipitation on the land as more snow or rain. The sun is still not at an angle to heat the land that much, nor put heat into the still cooling sea , so Jan/Feb not much warmer and its only the lengthening of daylight that switches on most plants into growth.
@@louiewood7689 I have a sudden, inexplicable wish to hear one of Terry Pratchett's Igors thay thith ... Mithras-mass Special should be wonderful - but take an umbrella!
Frankly its not going well for the 'traditionalist Christians' Not only did Mythras corner so much of the market, he didn't ______ about turning the other cheek - You kicked off with him you got an Axe in your head. He was a war God very popular with the Roman legions (who mostly carried mobile Mithraist shrines with them). And this is before we get into the Holly & the Ivy and the Misletoe ....... All Celtic & Pagan and fair hint of Druidism. . Small wonder the clergy keep shuffling the cards with the date of Easter.
December 25th is apparently the first day that an unaided observer stood in the northern hemisphere and viewing the sunrise can confidently say that the solstice has passed. The ancients therefor were able to celebrate the rebirth of the sun.
I agree with @RobDeManc on this. Although the solstice is on ~21st Dec, people in the past are unlikely to have been able to see day length increase, or the point at which sunrise occurs on the horizon move for a few days afterwards. Day length on 24th Dec is only 3 minutes longer than on 21st. I'm not too sure what the 13th and 1st relevance is, or the earliest sunrise and latest sunset are, @Hugh-nr5sx
Mithras is always described as born from solid rock. No ancient source depicts the Magi attending the birth of Mithras but sometimes this depicted attended by Cautes and Cautopates. No ancient source records that Mithras died, still less that he did so on a cross. Mithras is depicted surrounded by the zodiac on a couple of reliefs, not 12 disciplines. No source indicates that the cult of Mithras held any views as to being born again by eating Mithras' (depicted as a bull) flesh and drinking its blood. ....the list goes on and on!
Sounds like someone is offended by this lol. Those superficial elements are not dealbreakers about this, and the various other stories which long predate Christianity that are simply too similar.
Where in time could the Mithras Idea have come from - ptcked up by Roman soliders from the Middle East, The Bull is associated with Egyptian God and possibly into the (Golden) Bull made by the Israelites in the desert. Jesus of course titles Simon as Peter (out of this rock have I formed this Church). The layout of mithratic worship spaces tend to be in caves, with an alter at the end of a rectangular space- which is a bit different from roman 'temples' that were more square with a deity in the centre and processioned around), There was a litergy led by a leader, its possible that some of the Mithras ways of worship just fitted the roman population that Paul preached to - as for the Jews the temple had gone, and the synagogue had come in which also had the leader at one end and readings (the word) from the scriptures (OT). Fry misses out that early Christian worship was in homes, often with Women involved, and they would still attend synagogue or the temple , often daily, and it was the split with the Jewish Leaders (mostly after Stephen) , that switched meeting to early morning on a Sunday before work commenced , but really a constant worship was still encouraged around ones daily life (the CofE of course contining this daily prayer for the political leaders and for the daily forgiveness of the unintentional sins of people).
@@samiam619 That's not the point. The point is that the two are vastly different and a lot of the "coincidentally" identical bits of lore are not identical at all. I'm a convicted atheist myself but that doesn't mean I feel the need to rubbish Christianity all the time and accuse it of being just a pound shop copy of other stuff. There are bits that have been inherited and/or adapted from other religions or local folklore but not all of it.
@@decodolly1535Also a rather late reply (although not so late a reply to your reply), but if you have a similar interest in unusual crooks and nannies let me know. I’ll hook you up.
The year of Jesus’ birth is broadly accepted as 4 BC, primarily from erroneous conclusions derived from Josephus’ recording of an eclipse, assumed to be on March 13, 4 BC, “shortly before Herod died.” There are a number of problems with this in addition to the fact that it was more likely the eclipse occurred on December 29, 1 B.C. Considerable time elapsed between Jesus’ birth and Herod’s death since the family fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s edict and they didn’t return until after Herod’s death. Furthermore, Herod died on January 14, 1 BC. Tertullian (born about 160 AD) stated that Augustus began to rule 41 years before the birth of Jesus and died 15 years after that event. Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD, placing Jesus’ birth at 2 BC. Tertullian also notes that Jesus was born 28 years after the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC, which is consistent with a date of 2 BC. Irenaeus, born about a century after Jesus, also notes that the Lord was born in the 41st year of the reign of Augustus. Since Augustus began his reign in the autumn of 43 BC, this also appears to substantiate the birth in 2 BC. Eusebius (264-340 AD), the “Father of Church History,” ascribes it to the 42nd year of the reign of Augustus and the 28th from the subjection of Egypt on the death of Anthony and Cleopatra. The 42nd year of Augustus ran from the autumn of 2 BC to the autumn of 1 BC. The subjugation of Egypt into the Roman Empire occurred in the autumn of 30 BC. The 28th year extended from the autumn of 3 BC to the autumn of 2 BC. The only date that would meet both of these constraints would be the autumn of 2 BC. Another approach in determining the date of Jesus’ birth is from information about John the Baptist. Elisabeth, John’s mother, was a cousin of Mary and the wife of a priest named Zacharias who was of the “course” of Abijah (Priests were divided into 24 courses and each course officiated in the Temple for one week, from Sabbath to Sabbath). When the Temple was destroyed by Titus on August 5, 70 AD, the first course of priests had just taken office. Since the course of Abijah was the eighth course, we can track backwards and determine that Zacharias would have ended his duties on July 13, 3 BC. If the birth of John took place 280 days later, it would have been on April 19-20, 2 BC (precisely on Passover of that year). John began his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar. The minimum age for the ministry was 30. As Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD, that was the accession year for Tiberius. If John was born on April 19-20, 2 BC, his 30th birthday would have been April 19-20, 29 AD, or the 15th year of Tiberius. This seems to confirm the 2 BC date and, since John was five months older, this also confirms the autumn birth date for Jesus. Elisabeth hid herself for five months and then the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary both Elisabeth’s condition and that Mary also would bear a son who would be called Jesus. Mary went “with haste” to visit Elisabeth, who was then in the first week of her sixth month, or the fourth week of December, 3 BC. If Jesus was born 280 days later it would place the date of his birth on September 29, 2 BC. If Jesus was born on September 29, 2 BC, it is interesting to note that it was also the First of Tishri, the day of the Feast of Trumpets.
The dates and paths of eclipses can be easily calculated by astronomers. There was no solar eclipse on December 29, 1 BC. The nearest to that date would have been December 14, 1 BC, but that would only have been visible off the coast of Antarctica, so unknown to anyone in Palestine at the time. The only eclipse near the time that would have been visible in the Middle East was in June, 10 BC. Any dates claimed by Tertullian or Eusebius would be guesses, or passing on of legends. They had no direct knowledge of the event.
Interesting point is that IF the celebration of jesus' birth was meant to be....it wouldn't be so difficult to decipher. His death is very clearly the full moon of the Passover ....that when Jesus himself asked us to remember him.
@@marksieving7925 Tertullian had access to the Roman records it seems. He mentions Pliny the younger letter to the emperor (a record we do have) and he mentions Jesus family being in the census records. Eusebius probably used Tertullian’s account.
@@annipetratos9401 lots of people historically have not had their birth dates recorded for various reasons. I doubt it means they actually didn't want their birthdays celebrated!
"Actually Mithras was born from a rock not 'of a virgin', he had 2 companions not '12 disciples,' and the mithsraic meal was one he shared with the sun god where they feasted not on his own flesh, but on the flesh of a bull." But Christians had these beliefs before encountering mithric cults anyway. It's really astounding how abysmal the research on this segment was, when even a cursory examination of the facts dispels these obvious falsehoods. The real answer is that in antiquity, it was held that the crucifixion of Christ occurred on March 25th, and as there was a belief that a holy man died the same day he was conceived, they assumed that Christ was conceived on March 25th, and thus the feast of the Annunciation was established first. To get December 25th, you simply add 9 months. There is no evidence that December 25th was chosen first and that Annunciation was derived from it by counting 9 months back, which would have to be the case if December 25th was chosen for some other reason. Another startling incorrect detail on a show that is generally such a stickler for details is saying that there was a feast for "surviving the shortest day of the year" or something like that, which is assumed to be December 21st, completely ignoring that this was long before the Gregorian calendar and that the date of the solstice was shifting about every 100 years, falling on the 25th in the 1st century bc (when Julius Caesar made the calendar). You'd think they'd know the 21st date derives from the year that the date of Pascha (Easter) was set to the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the spring equinox, which at the time the council was held was falling around March 21st. It shifted after that, but the Pope much later wanted to fix it back to that time, so he invented the Gregorian calendar. Apparently this show is willing to disregard facts when there's an agenda that needs to be pushed.
Imagine being so regarded that you try to fact check made up fairytales. ☝️🤓 “Well achshually! Christianity is all a metaphor and you shouldn’t take any of it seriously other than as _guidelines_ of how one _ought_ to live a ‘proper’ life 2 millennia ago.” None of its real, bozo 🤡
Most of the claimed connections between Christ and Mythras have no evidence to back them up. See this video by a non-Christian scholar who debunks these claims: th-cam.com/video/xlF0gVedODE/w-d-xo.html
As was mentioned here it was the Roman Saturnalia & also Mithras's birthday. What it was not was Christ's day of birth which was accompanied by shepherds tending their flocks. That would be unlikely in the cold of December. It's more likely Jesus was born in the autumn. It was the likes of Constantine who compromised by mixing up pagan events with Christianity to attract more people to the latter. The above would've been viewed as apostasy by the 1st century Christians, who incidentally never celebrated birthdays either!
@@prodigalpaul1227 absolute bollocks ! of course there are no records of the pagans, as there was no paper records at that time and i can imagine the christian indoctrination included erasing any 'evidence' of original celbrations and kept the myth going with people like yourself who continue to be deluded.
@@amoral_minority i didn't say the Romans you eeeediot. I said the pagans, aka across Europe. The ones who celebrated things like the winter solstice well before Christians converted their holiday under the lie it was big J's birthday.
@@amoral_minority All of Europe wasn't Roman, and even parts under Roman rule wouldn't have been able to even understand or write down all the local traditions, that's assuming there was a willingness which of course there wasn't, it was more fun to forcibly convert and erase all history. What's known about the Slavic religions? Not much because Christians destroyed all the symbolism, statues and records.
Actually it stems from a Christian monk who calculated it based on an ancient Jewish tradition that said that any truly holy or pure man would die exactly so many days from his date of birth.
@@Silly.Old.Sisyphus that's a common misconception for instance neither Saturnalia nor the winter solstice nor any other known holiday at the time was on the 25th of December. The solstice is CLOSE, but almost all recorded solstice celebrations lasted 1 day and were held ON THE SOLSTICE.
Yeah, some of these are a bit overstretched. Mithraism has similarities with Christianity, but mostly through the use of similar symbols and the likelihood of the sacrament originating among Roman worshippers of Mithra because it was Rome that formalized Christianity as we know it today (and I say all this as a pagan with an axe to grind against Christianity). Comparative mythology can do a lot of heavy lifting if you allow it to, but do it properly.
We have no extant writings on the beliefs of the Mithraists at all. It's entirely conjecture based on the symbolism in some excavated worship sites. The statements here aren't just "a bit overstretched"
@@denysbeecher5629 We find every element of the Jesus story in different cults. It stands to reason that the last cult will have all the elements of those that proceeded it.
the reason Christiandom has so many similarities with pagan religions / Cults is because the catholics ( who had long since diverged from the path Jesus set before them) adopted their customs so that they could get more worshippers.
Actually no because the sacrament in Christianity traces it's roots all the way back to Passover which is at least 1500 years before the Roman Empire even started to form.
Apparently Mo Sizlack in the Simpsons is based on him. A friend once asked me to guess who Mo was based on. I remembered that he was described in one episode as an ugly hate filled little man and Rich Hall sprung to mind. My friend was put out that I guessed straight away, but cheered up when I said how I guessed.
I know this was filmed long ago, (the presence of Stephen tipped me off,) but all this stuff about Mithras is likely wrong. There are no actual writings from the cult of Mithras, and all that is known was gleaned from sculptures and the like. We (humanity collectively) know almost nothing about Mithras. All that Stephen rattled off is stuff people made up later. To the larger point, Christmas is not on 12/25 because of Jesus. A combination of Saturnalia and pagan gods, along with the winter solstice (which is tied to those others too) led to the adoption of that date for the alleged birth of the alleged Jesus.
December 25 is exactly nine months after the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25. It wrecks the whole narrative but Christmas wasn't as big a deal in the early days, but the Annunciation was.
never heard of the feast of the annunciation, but i have heard of the spring equinox, the Easter eggs feast of the goddess of fertility Innana/Ishtar/Isis/Aestre/Venus/Aphrodite/... (the antecedent of NT Mary) who was both wife and mother of the Sun, fertilised 9 months before the winter solstice when the son of the Sun is reborn as the resurrection of his dead father. th-cam.com/video/GB_Ef1HxoDc/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=djhbrown
Tolkien, who denied and claimed to deplore allegory, conveniently began The Fourth Age of Middle-Earth on 25 March, which is the Feast Day of The Annunciation. We will also remember that Tolkien was a devout Catholic and the LOTR is full of Catholic themes and theology, thinly disguised, but NOT allegory.....
Shit no, I’ll take it thanks. Nationalise everything, sell it all off, buy three super yachts, a couple of airliner size private jets, private mansions in my top five favourite holiday destinations, pieds a terre in NY, London, Paris, SF and Sydney. And still have a few hundred billion for anything I forgot. Nah! I’d be happy to confiscate every penny of the ill-gotten, “laundry” sloshing around in Guernsey but I’d use it for climate mitigation efforts in the poor places that are going to be most affected. The countries that can least afford it are those most at risk and if the richdicks who flew in to COP26 won’t cough up The last thing we need is more super yachts and private jets.
Mithras was born from a rock, not from a virgin. He had two companions, not twelve disciples. The sacred meal was not of bread and wine but of a bull's flesh. There is no recorded association with December 25th.
The idea that we can accurately portray a religion that died over 2000 years ago is pretty absurd. I'm sure much like how we are now that there were splits in the religion with one group believing one thing and another something else much like Christianity or Islam is now... It's also ancient history, we may find a tablet tomorrow that throws everything we think we know now in complete array
A lot of "facts" on QI are presented, and deliberately and openly so, as the opinion, research or theory of others. They are not intended to be taken as gospel, if you'll pardon the pun. It's why the show is called "Quite Interesting" not "Completely True" In this instance, Stephen alluded to this when he said that a lot of scholars questioned the veracity of the version put forward by the authors of this particular Mithras myth. The point of it, though, was to illustrate how the Christian notion of the 25th of December, and much of the more...shall we call them "difficult to verify..?" aspects of Jesus's origins and life, were in fact quite common factors in many early religions. The Virgin Birth being the classic example. It was practically written into the job description if you wanted to be a prophet or in any way special. You could barely move for all the virgin births happening at the time.
@@edmis90 The cult of Mithras that was practiced in the Greco-Roman world was influenced by the Iranian god, but quite distinct from it. In general, the Mediterranean basin in Late Antiquity, and to a lesser extent, classical Antiquity, was a hot pot of various religious traditions, which extensively borrowed and copied each others' practices, imaginary and ideas. We tend to think of Late Antique pagans to worship Zeus and Saturn and Olympian gods in a way we see it in myths and ancient plays, but especially by this point most people participated in a range of cults and practices, many of which weren't dissimilar to Christianity - and in fact, Christianity borrowed a lot of ideas from Greco-Roman practices, especially from Neo-Platonism and other religious currents that existed at that time (this part wasn't strictly a response to your question, but some clarification as I think most people would think of pagans in a very wrong way, not understanding that personal religions, like Christianity, were already on a rise for the past few centuries before it was adapted as the state religion)
The Romans deliberately appropriated a lot of their religion - famously from the Greeks, but they would even do things like pray to the gods of a people before fighting them in the hopes that said gods would help the Romans instead.
And the Hebrews appropriated from the Persians/Zoroastrians and Sumerians... Christianity being a-bastard mix of those and some Hellenistic influences.
the Sun resides in the vicinity of the Southern Cross, or Crux, constellation. And after this time on December 25th, the Sun moves 1 degree, this time north, foreshadowing longer days, warmth, and Spring. And thus it was said: the Sun died on the cross, was dead for 3 days, only to be resurrected or born again. This is why Jesus and numerous other Sun Gods share the crucifixion, 3-day death, and resurrection concept.
@@dementare the epic of Gilgamesh has some similarities to themes in Genesis, from what I understand the meaning/moral of those stories are quite different though. According to wikipedia it dates from around 2000BC from what I can gather. Moses was around about 1500BC and is traditionally assumed to be the author of Genesis, possibly drawing on older sources for the historical portions that came before him, although many critical scholars now date Genesis much later. From what I understand there is unlikely to have been a direct copying but they may have been drawing on similar cultural themes. It all gets a bit guess worky and complex with incomplete information. Our earliest partial copy of Genesis I believe is from the dead sea scrolls which are dates from around the time of Christ, so we are reliant on matching the content and style of writing to other historical records and archeological evidence to confirm the age of the original text. Not easy and plenty of room for interpretation dependent on your bias. As a Christian I do believe it probably dates back to Moses, but that is based on my trust in the Bible because of the trust I have in God. I also haven't seen any convincing arguments to the contrary and have seen some interesting bits of archeological evidence. If your interested in more inspiring philosophy youtube channel has done a lot on these topics.
@@BobofMIB Look, if you want to have an honest real discussion about this, I'm all for it, you've been kind and honest thus far, so that gives me hope. However, Moses, wasn't a real person, nor is the old testament an _accurate_ version of the origin of Judaism/Christianity. From what I've read/devised on the history of societies... Religions, specifically the 3 Abrahamic ones among others, seem to be built upon the foundation of older religions with newer concepts sprinkled in. Like newly updated scripts, or expansion packs for a game. They add new relevant content for the current time, and recon the old content to support the new content. In this case, the Epic of Gilgamesh, appears to be one of the *original* stories that has been copied from. Of course, there are some things that are going seem similar, but in some cases direct copying can be seen. In other cases Astronomical explanations do a great job of describing why different cultures had similar concepts. Like for example: "The son died for the 3 days, and on the 3rd day he rose".... is actually referring to the *actual* "Sun". That's what the word: "Solstice" means "Sol"=Sun "Stice"=Stop. So on the summer and winter solstice The sun/"son" stops moving for 3 days (each day when the sun rises, the sun seems to move about a degree either north or south.). It just stays at the location, then on the 3rd day, it "Rises again" (begins moving north again). For another example. The Southern Cross (A constellation) was an important symbol for the Egyptians, as it represented the place where Horus, the Sun-god, was crucified, marking the passage of winter. So for them, quite *_LITERALLY_* "The Sun/Son died on the cross, and laid motionless for 3 days, and was then resurrected". All of this predating Christianity. 1 of my biggest problems with the "literalist" take on the bible, is merely the simple facts of history. Like the whole "Global Flood myth"...my answer: China. China has been around... since the beginning of societies, pretty much. They are not the oldest.. but pretty damn close... but the important part... they are *_Still_* around.... and no global flood, no animals disappearing to go on a boat ride either, etc. But I digress and could discuss this for hours. long story short, end of the day, that's why we celebrate on Dec 25th, cause the *SUN* rises again after being still for 3 days.
@@dementare You give some interesting examples. Is there a linguistic or other connection between sun and son prior to english? I wasn't able to find a linguistic connection through a few quick searches. Although if this was true and the date of birth of Christ had been lost, the symbolism, would preach well and I could see why it would be chosen for Christian reasons. Have a historical reference for horus being crucified, from what I read this was stated by Bill Maher but there doesn't appear to be any evidence for this claim. Do you know if the constellation we know as the southern cross was actually known as a cross in Egypt at the time. From brief searches I've done it seemed to be regarded as part of a larger constellation, although I didn't find anything particular to Egypt. Many Christians don't take the flood as a literal global flood. Some do this based on textual evidence in the bible that it may have just been referring to a catrostphic but local flood. I don't think the account could be taken as completely figurative. I'm unsure myself whether it was global or more localised myself, we would certainly need to rewrite a few history books if it was global. Although interestingly China also has a legend of a great flood from around 2000BC (around the same time as Noah's flood) At the start of Chinas first dynasty. Trying to piece together history from that long a go gets difficult, very few written texts, a loss of context and culture, how much is legend and how much is actual history. Its certainly area I want to spend more time trying to better understand (I have a few of those...).
Not a religious person myself but if evidence of Mithra's worship is older than the birth of Christ but the traditions they have in common, only have evidence dating back 1700 years, I feel it's disingenuous to say, without doubt, which story copied the other.
@@ribbonsofnight let's face it .. people who work for the BBC or in Hollywood have no problem poking holes in Christian religions but stay far far away from mocking Islam either from fear of direct reprisal or from cancellation by leftist mobs
@@annother3350 Do we have any actual evidence of celebrations on 25th December. As far as i can tell, the only other religious festival that was ever on that date was Yule, which was moved to that date centuries after the pagans who celebrated it had encountered Christianity.
@@stephengray1344 I'm not actually sure now you mention it. I need to look into it but it's always made sense with that being the day the sun starts to rise again, giving hope of another successfiul year of crops
I am told that there was an MP at the time of Disraeli by the name of Thomas Massey who was so anti-Catholic that he introduced a private member's bill to have the word "Christmas" changed to "Christ Tide" since it contained the horrible Catholic word "mass". Disraeli asked him if he was going to have to change his name to Thomtide Tidey.
Well, there's an actual science of religious studies, like from an anthropological or historical field, and there are some sceptical claims being made by the lovely Stephen with a minimal disclaimer.
I think to pour a bit of WATER on the FIRE. ... Stephen says " there are amazing things CLAIMED about Mithras..." I think we can all stand down and breathe. Almost had a little insurrection there among some of us.
ReligionForBreakfast has a video on these topics with much more in depth analysis. Unfortunately this is a case of QI sharing historically tenuous information, especially regarding Mithras. There is no widespread consensus about the facts that Stephen presented. For example: Mithras was born from a rock, not a virgin. Sol Invictus was celebrated on 25 December and not specific to Mithras at all. The “salvation” from “blood” most likely refers to Mithras killing a bull. But also, Mithraic salvation was metaphysically different from Christian salvation. Christian salvation being individual, Mithraic salvation being similar to Zoroastrianism as a dualist battle of cosmic good and evil. Mithras followers were “marked on their heads” but sources never mention it being a cross. Mithras also was not crucified. It’s really quite tenuous to link the two religions and is largely a result of “Christ-myth” theorists, a position which is rejected by the majority of historians.
@@nuck- How nice for you to be able to ignore this information. However, given the impact of religion on human behavior and history, I find some value in this information. But your attitude does illustrate one aspect of a frequent, yet inappropriate accusation, namely that Christianity suppressed some writings, especially Aristotle. It's far more likely that they spent their effort preserving the writings important to them, like Plato. That other information wasn't needed, as you put it. (In case you didn't know, Neo-Platonism and Christianity went hand-in-hand as Christianity gained acceptance in Rome. If you were a Neo-Platonist, you were a Christian and vice versa. It was Thomas Aquinas who dragged Aristotle, kicking and screaming, into the church.)
@@ldbarthel Anything anti-science such as Christianity can be completely ignored now. We're in the information era. We're well past this as a species, we're just leaving you behind.
@@nuck- well, it really depends on the philosophical framing your worldview takes. Even if one takes materialism or physicalism as the framework, one still cannot prove a negative (for example, the non-existence of God). The best one can do is make arguments towards the reduction of the necessity or probability of such a being. An absurdist may not care for the existence or non-existence of something in a traditional sense. Edit: Just by way of reply, to claim Christianity, as a whole, is anti-science is also quite reductive. Christianity, like all religions, is a set of beliefs and understandings which are practiced in different ways. You cannot isolate the belief from the practice and claim to be attacking the religion, because religion is a sum of parts. As such, it’s disingenuous to broadly claim that “Christianity is anti-science”.
My question: was the nativity recorded in the first versions of Matthew and...the other book that I can't recall? Or are there records of its insertion over the many versions? I had heard the name Mithras, but had never heard any of that about em.
The gospel of Matthew was written 52 years after Jesus' crucifixion. Luke, written 68 years after the crucifixion, also contains a nativity story, but it differs from Matthew's account.
There was no nativity in the gospels. According to the gospels, The wise men(aka astrologers) from the east arrived when Jesus was a toddler, not a newborn in a manger. And it doesn't say 3 wise men, just names the 3 different types of gift.
An excellent question. Bart Erhman, a New Testament scholar, has excellent presentations on why the 4 Gospels were written at different times and how they differ…or, in fact, is lifted word-for-word from earlier books. Personally, I think there COULD have been a Jesus, but the miracles are nonsense until proven to be probable. These are out of our ability to investigate in a scientific manner. They are just stories and mythology. Hello from Utah.
luke and the nativity has nothing to do with what the Bible actually says about Jesus birth / early life.... Nativity is a mish-mash of bits and peices from the 2 accounts built into a story, that, like Stephen said, is not original, yet did help the Catholics to get pagans to join them, huh?
Looking at astro-theology, we notice that not only mithras but a lot of other deities seem to have the exact same "life" and attributes with the exact same "dates" . So It's more than probably adoration of the astres that was translated over thousands of years.
Pretty much everything Stephen Fry says about Mithras here was entirely made up by the "research" he cites. It utterly shocks me that QI's researchers think that "born from a mountain" (which is what the ancient sources actually say) is the same thing as "born from a virgin", to note the most talked about example.
Yeah, for QI this is surprisingly lazy and easily debunkable but Fry is an aethiest pushing an argument he thinks can debunk religion. Almost none of what he said in that list was true and a lot of it is the opposite of what Mithraism taught. How for instance could there have been shepherds and wise men when Mithras's birth story is set long before humans. What you *do* have is the roman state appropriating parts of the Jesus story to retain control and merge various state religions.
@@CalvinsWorldNews there is nothing about what he said that tries to debunk religion? Fry is smart enough to know it’s futile to try and debunk unfalsifiable claims.
Lots of comments rightly pointing out that these sorts of claims have been debunked for a long time. While Dec 25th has been the date of various pagan festivals, the reason Christians seem to have got hold of it was because there was apparently a Jewish superstition that said that particularly righteous men and prophets died on the same day they were conceived. If you count Jesus' conception date as the same day he died, according to certain calendars and calculations, the birth date apparently comes out to December 25th.
Yes and for example his work on this is debunked by several other doctors. All you need to do is read "The Gospels as Eye Witness Testimony" by Richard Baukham who is head of one of the Theology faculties at Cambridge University. Or alternatively read "The Case for Christ" written by someone with a Harvard Masters in Law (Lee Strobel) who was an atheist who came to the conclusion that the evidence would be strong enough to convince a court.
@@gordonlawrence1448 "Gospels as eye-witness testimony".. LoL..gospels are not eyewitness testimony, they are non-contemporary accounts by unknown authors.
@@r0ky_M The authors names are in the title of every complete manuscript, and a number of fragments. We have about a dozen different attestations of their names in the second century (the earliest by a man called Papias who remembered the time when the last eyewitnesses to Jesus were still alive). And there is no evidence of any dispute over the authorship in any early Christian writers, even though you would expect just that if the names had been added later. Even among sceptical scholars, the majority opinion is that Mark's gospel was written by Mark and that Peter was his main source. Luke's gospel was written by a travelling companion of Paul (as evidenced by the shift to "we" in some passages of Acts), who explicitly claimed to have interviewed eyewitnesses. John ends his gospel with a claim to be an eyewitness. And the gospels contain numerous incidental details that suggest eyewitness sources (their sources knew the geography, culture, and climate of the setting very well, and the gospels taken together even get the distribution of names exactly right). If the stories were later inventions or garbled myth you would expect those details to be wrong or simply missing, as in the case of all of the non-canonical gospels - none of which date from earlier than the 2nd century. So yes, there is good reason to believe that the gospel authors were who the titles say they were, and that they were very much based on the memories of eyewitnesses. I would say that the burden of proof is on those who want to assert the opposite.
This is too easy. Stephen Fry is known for being a smart atheist, but I think he can do better than this. If you barely tip your toes in what the Mithras cult was about, you quickly find that it’s similarities with Christianity, are in fact quite few. This clip wants to say that Christianity is nonsense, but at the root of its claims are pseudo historians from the late 1800s. Mithras had no virgin birth, wasn’t born in a manger, didn’t have 12 disciples, wasn’t crucified, didn’t die for any one’s sins.. it’s all rumours that have been debunked several times by serious scholars.
I love Stephen, and I love QI, but this is not at all correct, despite how quippy and clever it all sounds (and how the panelists riffed brilliantly off all of it). I should also note that I am not a Christian, and the veracity of the Christmas story (about which there is A LOT to be skeptical) holds nothing special or sacred for me...but I can say for absolute certain that close to everything Stephen read there about Mithras is absolute nonsense. This has been written about by classical scholars on many occasions over the past fifty years, and despite the popularity of things like the film Zeitgeist and Bill Maher's quoting of these ideas in Religulous, it's just not factually accurate.. The actual date of December 25th does not enter the Roman festival calendar until the mid-3rd century, during the principate of Aurelian, when the cult of Sol Invictus began. This is actually later than the earliest evidence for the celebration of Christmas (found in Tertullian's writings which note that the Annunciation/conception of Jesus took place on March 25th, i.e. nine months exactly before December 25th).
Pretty sure Jesus’s is correct. You have the possessive for more than one Jesus. If there were twins both called Jesus then the 25th would be both Jesus’ birthday. Willing to be corrected on this though!
Christmas was originally 6th January but when we reformed the calendar we "lost "11 days The Greek and Russian Orthodox still stick yontye Julian calendar date if 6th January and this date used to be called Old Christmas Day The biblical story used the word "midwinter " and not any specific date .
You're doing the calendar conversion backwards. Jan 6 is Twelfth Night, or Epiphany. Currently, Dec 25 on the Julian calendar aligns with Jan 7 on the Gregorian calendar (although some Orthodox countries still celebrate on Jan 6 Gregorian). So no, Christmas was never January 6th. The Gregorian conversion (which occurred at different times in different countries) dropped the extra leap days from the Julian calendar to realign the equinoxes and solstices. [The Julian leap year rule is add 1 day every 4 years. But over 400 years, you wind up with 3 extra days. The Gregorian correction is to not add a leap day in century years unless divisible by 400. So 1900 was a leap year in the Julian calendar, but not in the Gregorian. 2000 was a leap year in both.) Fun fact: early spreadsheets incorrectly included Feb 29, 1900. For compatibility this error is now part of the standard....
@@ldbarthel Well I know the Greeks , Russian , Romanian and Syrian Orthodox churches have Christmas on 6th January I have friends who live in Greece who have Christmas in the UK and again in January back in Greece .And the Bible simply says mid winter-not any specific date so it's all speculative whatever date you pick .
Although there are some similarities, there are good criticisms of this. Some similarities are only vaguely similar. Some people would point to a timeline that would suggest that pagans got ideas from Christianity in this and other things. But the Christian basis without a pagan source does exist. The origin of John the Baptist is stated clearly enough that with current historical records, they were able to identify the time of the year in which his father would have served in the Temple, which then helps identify the time John would have been conceived, and thus also the time of John's birth. John was conceived in a certain week in fall/autumn. Thus, he would be born in late June. The account of the Visitation, where Mary visited Elizabeth makes it clear that there's 6 months between the two, thus putting the birth of Jesus in late December. There are other justifications, but that's a significant one in scripture itself. Additionally, some early Church fathers identified December 25 as the date of the birth of Jesus. Some other people suggested other dates, though. But from very early on, December 25 was one of the main candidates for the date of the birth of Jesus. As for the year, someone wasn't as accurate as needed to get that correct, so that appears to be off by a small number of years. Making the day of the year seem like it was merely chosen based on pagan celebrations with no religious or scriptural basis undercuts the credibility of the QI researchers. The main thing helping them was the attempt with the disclaimer that sought to acknowledge some criticisms of the claims, but at least in this clip, it doesn't seem like that went very far to explain just how bad of a cause and effect from paganism to Christianity there was.
I thought it was being nine months after Lady Day (March 25th) when the Angel Gabriel visited the Virgin Mary. (Lady Day was also the first day of the year in the Old Style calendar.)
Would there be enough material to make compilation of every time Alan has answered "Jesus"? Or maybe with similar silly short answers like "Dave", not sure if anybody even knows what I mean :D
I'm an atheist, and Stephen is basically 100% wrong in everything he said. There's very little information about Mithras at all, let alone so much definitive correlations. At best, these are possible interpretations of the meaning of statues and sculptures, and at worst this is nonsense made out of whole cloth.
There's a radio show that David Mitchell hosts called "The Unbelievable Truth" and quite often answers in it are preceded with "Contrary to what was stated on QI...." I've heard other programmes mention that QI has got something wrong.
I started searching out of curiosity about "mitras" and was confused as I couldn't find any such figure with that background. I found "mitras" from roman culture with COMPLETELY different background and story, and a couple different figures with same name from Iranian and Indic cultures. I then realised (after reading the comments section) that Stephen Fry was just bullsh*tt*ng and making stuff up. How disgraceful. I mean if you are gonna wreak and "destroy" something like "Christianity" on Christmas, then at least do it with "facts" and "logic". No need to make something up and set your viewers who won't or don't bother to do their own research to look like fools and idiots. And I see a lot of "fools" and "idiots" and "fanboys" who are still defending him. You don't need to make something up to destroy the narrative of ANY religion. But if you are just content with making stuff up instead of doing research and coming up with proper counter arguments, then you are just being Lazy and Scummy IMO. What a waste of time. And it makes me question other stuff that I might have just "accepted" as facts and added to my "GK" without considering that Stephen Fry was just speaking out of his @$$.
Just because two dates line up does not disprove either's origion. My birthday is a public holiday in my country. I did not plan it or steal their day.
Yes, but that doesn’t really count for the fact that some of your friends claim you were born on that day, while others claim you were born in the middle of the year, nor does the fact that you were born say anything about whether you were the son of God, capable of miracles, or that you could be executed and then alive a day and a half later and send bodily into heaven only to have gone missing for 2000 years
@@conors4430 Perhaps study the history and evidence before getting all hoity toity. You will be amazed at how it aligns astrologically, in extra biblical sources and of course less reliably traditionally.
I'm neither a Christian nor a Roman, so frankly I don't have a horse in this race and am asking out of genuine academic interest, but doesn't Christianity predate Mithraism? Because if so, then that would mean that it was less that Christianity borrowed or plagiarized concepts from Mithraism, and more that two separate religions copied each others' homework.
Christmas is in the summer in Australia. I told some Americans that and they were gobsmacked. I send an American friend Christmas cards with scenes like Santa at the beach. She sends me snow scenes.
We know almost nothing about the cult of mithras, and of the little we do know, none of it was in the facts presented here. I'm afraid the supposed connections to Jesus are an old urban myth that always does the rounds on the Internet but just isn't verifiable in any sense. For much more accurate info, I'd recommend the video by the channel "Religionforbreakfast" on the Cult of Mithras, right here on TH-cam. It's a fairly objective, secular, look at the subject from an actual scholar of religion
@@lupus9801 Very strong argument you put forward there. Would love to see your sources Maybe you've just misunderstood me. I'm not a Christian, and neither is the scholar that I pointed people in the direction of. Not trying to sell you on Jesus, I'm not interested in that sales pitch myself either
Oh no! Are you suggesting there might be some false 'information' to be found on the internet?! But surely the great god google doesn't lie or mislead us (into temptation). MicroSoft forfend!
We can. Although Christians in the West love to pretend they're constantly being persecuted, the only reason why we all focus on Christianity is because it's the dominant religion that's constantly shoved down our throats. Few people even know when and what the other Holy days are, so making jokes about it is going to be pretty difficult...
@@callum9999 I think you’ll find issues such as Intersectionality, the bias of “protected status” as laid out in the correctly named Discrimination Act and the last few census reports paint a different picture to what you claim.
From my experience with European Winters, surviving the solstice on the 21st of December and then celebrating seems like going a bit early.
It's because that's the day (the solstice) that the days start to lengthen again. So the dark of winter is over.
Even in the last 50 years the onset of winter has changed a little. This is partly due to processionary wobble partly due to how many days in a real year (it's not exactly 365.25) and there are two other reasons I cant remember (it's decades since I studied this).
That applies to North America too - the land mass cools quickly - and the snows cut in from mid Dec onwards (normally- some variation as the jetstream wobbles). the sea cools more slowly, and with the colder european land mass we get the precipitation on the land as more snow or rain. The sun is still not at an angle to heat the land that much, nor put heat into the still cooling sea , so Jan/Feb not much warmer and its only the lengthening of daylight that switches on most plants into growth.
March in Bulgaria snow to the doorknob yeah December is for optimists lol
@@tamielizabethallaway2413 "[...cut, cut...] approximately 8 hours of sun up, and 16 hours of sun down [...cut, cut...] I wish... 😂
Let's all donate all our wrapping paper and actually gift wrap Guernsey!
I'm up for that. We could take over from the artists who used to wrap up buildings.
@@decodolly1535 Go on then I;m easily led
@@elephantsmemory3142 From your user name, presumably by the trunk? 😊
Once we've gone to all that trouble, I hope the reaction on unwrapping it isn't "That's nice, but we've already got one."
Somebody would be in for a terrible surprise when they open it, though.
I think you mean "this is an interesting direction to start your Mithras-mass special with", Dara.
Mithmass?
@@louiewood7689 I have a sudden, inexplicable wish to hear one of Terry Pratchett's Igors thay thith ... Mithras-mass Special should be wonderful - but take an umbrella!
When Stephen Fry begins a sentence with "Frankly"...you know it's not going well for you
Frankly its not going well for the 'traditionalist Christians'
Not only did Mythras corner so much of the market, he didn't ______ about turning the other cheek - You kicked off with him you got an Axe in your head. He was a war God very popular with the Roman legions (who mostly carried mobile Mithraist shrines with them).
And this is before we get into the Holly & the Ivy and the Misletoe ....... All Celtic & Pagan and fair hint of Druidism.
.
Small wonder the clergy keep shuffling the cards with the date of Easter.
December 25th is apparently the first day that an unaided observer stood in the northern hemisphere and viewing the sunrise can confidently say that the solstice has passed. The ancients therefor were able to celebrate the rebirth of the sun.
Um no. More likely to do with past earliest sunset for that is around the 13th at our latitude and latest sunrise not until around the 1st..
I agree with @RobDeManc on this. Although the solstice is on ~21st Dec, people in the past are unlikely to have been able to see day length increase, or the point at which sunrise occurs on the horizon move for a few days afterwards. Day length on 24th Dec is only 3 minutes longer than on 21st.
I'm not too sure what the 13th and 1st relevance is, or the earliest sunrise and latest sunset are, @Hugh-nr5sx
@@Neilhuny I suppose as well much depended on the accuracy of time keeping if doing purely by observation.? Sunset on balance is perhaps easier.?
Dara's line at the end 🤣👏
Yeah Dara wins
Mithras is always described as born from solid rock.
No ancient source depicts the Magi attending the birth of Mithras but sometimes this depicted attended by Cautes and Cautopates.
No ancient source records that Mithras died, still less that he did so on a cross.
Mithras is depicted surrounded by the zodiac on a couple of reliefs, not 12 disciplines.
No source indicates that the cult of Mithras held any views as to being born again by eating Mithras' (depicted as a bull) flesh and drinking its blood.
....the list goes on and on!
Oh, so no Mithras jerky?
Sounds like someone is offended by this lol. Those superficial elements are not dealbreakers about this, and the various other stories which long predate Christianity that are simply too similar.
So, Tom. The way you view Mithras as a “myth” is how some of us view the whole Jesus thing as “myth”?
Where in time could the Mithras Idea have come from - ptcked up by Roman soliders from the Middle East, The Bull is associated with Egyptian God and possibly into the (Golden) Bull made by the Israelites in the desert. Jesus of course titles Simon as Peter (out of this rock have I formed this Church). The layout of mithratic worship spaces tend to be in caves, with an alter at the end of a rectangular space- which is a bit different from roman 'temples' that were more square with a deity in the centre and processioned around), There was a litergy led by a leader, its possible that some of the Mithras ways of worship just fitted the roman population that Paul preached to - as for the Jews the temple had gone, and the synagogue had come in which also had the leader at one end and readings (the word) from the scriptures (OT). Fry misses out that early Christian worship was in homes, often with Women involved, and they would still attend synagogue or the temple , often daily, and it was the split with the Jewish Leaders (mostly after Stephen) , that switched meeting to early morning on a Sunday before work commenced , but really a constant worship was still encouraged around ones daily life (the CofE of course contining this daily prayer for the political leaders and for the daily forgiveness of the unintentional sins of people).
@@samiam619 That's not the point. The point is that the two are vastly different and a lot of the "coincidentally" identical bits of lore are not identical at all.
I'm a convicted atheist myself but that doesn't mean I feel the need to rubbish Christianity all the time and accuse it of being just a pound shop copy of other stuff. There are bits that have been inherited and/or adapted from other religions or local folklore but not all of it.
The born in a manger thing was just mistake, when told there were no rooms Joseph asked to see the manager!
Mycroft -actually it was a mistake -Mary and Joseph were hungry and were told a former stable was now a Pret a Manger! !!
The typo that keeps in giving.
Except the bible doesn't say he was born in a manger? Are you suggesting Mary had one leg either side and Jesus dropped into the manger
One of the three kings askes " Who's the father " Mary replies " Will it affect me PIP "?
There was no room at the Inn because it was Christmas - alf garnetts' wife in 'til death us do part...
Because Christmas Eve is on the 24th.
You can visit the Temple of Mythras in London underneath the Bloomberg building at Walbrook Square. It's free but you have to book.
Very late reply but thanks for this information. I like to find unusual nooks & crannies in London - this is going on the list.
@@decodolly1535Also a rather late reply (although not so late a reply to your reply), but if you have a similar interest in unusual crooks and nannies let me know. I’ll hook you up.
The year of Jesus’ birth is broadly accepted as 4 BC, primarily from erroneous conclusions derived from Josephus’ recording of an
eclipse, assumed to be on March 13, 4 BC, “shortly before Herod died.” There are a number of problems with this in addition to the fact
that it was more likely the eclipse occurred on December 29, 1 B.C. Considerable time elapsed between Jesus’ birth and Herod’s death
since the family fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s edict and they didn’t return until after Herod’s death. Furthermore, Herod died on January 14, 1 BC. Tertullian (born about 160 AD) stated that Augustus began to rule 41 years before the birth of Jesus and died 15
years after that event. Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD, placing Jesus’ birth at 2 BC. Tertullian also notes that Jesus was born 28 years after the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC, which is consistent with a date of 2 BC. Irenaeus, born about a century after Jesus, also notes that the Lord was born in the 41st year of the reign of Augustus. Since Augustus began his reign in the autumn of 43 BC, this also appears to substantiate the birth in 2 BC. Eusebius (264-340 AD), the “Father of Church History,” ascribes it to the 42nd year of
the reign of Augustus and the 28th from the subjection of Egypt on the death of Anthony and Cleopatra. The 42nd year of Augustus ran from the autumn of 2 BC to the autumn of 1 BC. The subjugation of Egypt into the Roman Empire occurred in the autumn of 30 BC.
The 28th year extended from the autumn of 3 BC to the autumn of 2 BC. The only date that would meet both of these constraints would be the autumn of 2 BC.
Another approach in determining the date of Jesus’ birth is from information about John the Baptist. Elisabeth, John’s mother, was a cousin of Mary and the wife of a priest named Zacharias who was of the “course” of Abijah (Priests were divided into 24 courses and each course officiated in the Temple for one week, from Sabbath to Sabbath). When the Temple was destroyed by Titus on August 5,
70 AD, the first course of priests had just taken office. Since the course of Abijah was the eighth course, we can track backwards and determine that Zacharias would have ended his duties on July 13, 3 BC. If the birth of John took place 280 days later, it would have been on April 19-20, 2 BC (precisely on Passover of that year). John began his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar. The minimum age for the ministry was 30. As Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD, that was the accession year for Tiberius. If John was born on April 19-20, 2 BC, his 30th birthday would have been April 19-20, 29 AD, or the 15th year of Tiberius. This seems to confirm
the 2 BC date and, since John was five months older, this also confirms the autumn birth date for Jesus.
Elisabeth hid herself for five months and then the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary both Elisabeth’s condition and that Mary also
would bear a son who would be called Jesus. Mary went “with haste” to visit Elisabeth, who was then in the first week of her sixth month, or the fourth week of December, 3 BC. If Jesus was born 280 days later it would place the date of his birth on September 29, 2
BC. If Jesus was born on September 29, 2 BC, it is interesting to note that it was also the First of Tishri, the day of the Feast of Trumpets.
The dates and paths of eclipses can be easily calculated by astronomers. There was no solar eclipse on December 29, 1 BC. The nearest to that date would have been December 14, 1 BC, but that would only have been visible off the coast of Antarctica, so unknown to anyone in Palestine at the time. The only eclipse near the time that would have been visible in the Middle East was in June, 10 BC.
Any dates claimed by Tertullian or Eusebius would be guesses, or passing on of legends. They had no direct knowledge of the event.
Interesting point is that IF the celebration of jesus' birth was meant to be....it wouldn't be so difficult to decipher. His death is very clearly the full moon of the Passover ....that when Jesus himself asked us to remember him.
@@marksieving7925 Tertullian had access to the Roman records it seems. He mentions Pliny the younger letter to the emperor (a record we do have) and he mentions Jesus family being in the census records.
Eusebius probably used Tertullian’s account.
@@annipetratos9401 Yes that’s right.
His death was the more important event. Actually that date is the 3rd of April 33 A.D
@@annipetratos9401 lots of people historically have not had their birth dates recorded for various reasons. I doubt it means they actually didn't want their birthdays celebrated!
"Actually Mithras was born from a rock not 'of a virgin', he had 2 companions not '12 disciples,' and the mithsraic meal was one he shared with the sun god where they feasted not on his own flesh, but on the flesh of a bull." But Christians had these beliefs before encountering mithric cults anyway.
It's really astounding how abysmal the research on this segment was, when even a cursory examination of the facts dispels these obvious falsehoods.
The real answer is that in antiquity, it was held that the crucifixion of Christ occurred on March 25th, and as there was a belief that a holy man died the same day he was conceived, they assumed that Christ was conceived on March 25th, and thus the feast of the Annunciation was established first. To get December 25th, you simply add 9 months. There is no evidence that December 25th was chosen first and that Annunciation was derived from it by counting 9 months back, which would have to be the case if December 25th was chosen for some other reason.
Another startling incorrect detail on a show that is generally such a stickler for details is saying that there was a feast for "surviving the shortest day of the year" or something like that, which is assumed to be December 21st, completely ignoring that this was long before the Gregorian calendar and that the date of the solstice was shifting about every 100 years, falling on the 25th in the 1st century bc (when Julius Caesar made the calendar). You'd think they'd know the 21st date derives from the year that the date of Pascha (Easter) was set to the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the spring equinox, which at the time the council was held was falling around March 21st. It shifted after that, but the Pope much later wanted to fix it back to that time, so he invented the Gregorian calendar.
Apparently this show is willing to disregard facts when there's an agenda that needs to be pushed.
You doing okay there mate?
@@arnoldioio actually he's on to something
What agenda?
@@AUSSIETAIPANI’m thinking he’s having us on
Imagine being so regarded that you try to fact check made up fairytales.
☝️🤓 “Well achshually! Christianity is all a metaphor and you shouldn’t take any of it seriously other than as _guidelines_ of how one _ought_ to live a ‘proper’ life 2 millennia ago.”
None of its real, bozo 🤡
So- The debunkers of Mythras- Are they the MythrasBusters?
Funny!
Yep.
Well then, merry Mithras everyone! :-D
2:24 that's my New Years resolution sorted
I want a "too much information" compilation featuring at least Lou Sanders and Bridget Christie.
And Alan's poo story.
I find Lou Sanders so attractive.
@@luisfrau9810 who?
@@Alice-oq8pk He literally told you her name.
Most of the claimed connections between Christ and Mythras have no evidence to back them up. See this video by a non-Christian scholar who debunks these claims: th-cam.com/video/xlF0gVedODE/w-d-xo.html
Lol
As was mentioned here it was the Roman Saturnalia & also Mithras's birthday. What it was not was Christ's day of birth which was accompanied by shepherds tending their flocks. That would be unlikely in the cold of December. It's more likely Jesus was born in the autumn. It was the likes of Constantine who compromised by mixing up pagan events with Christianity to attract more people to the latter. The above would've been viewed as apostasy by the 1st century Christians, who incidentally never celebrated birthdays either!
@@prodigalpaul1227 absolute bollocks ! of course there are no records of the pagans, as there was no paper records at that time and i can imagine the christian indoctrination included erasing any 'evidence' of original celbrations and kept the myth going with people like yourself who continue to be deluded.
Ah , an individual who knows the “ truth “?
Good day to you 😉
@@jubeman I'm sorry, the *Romans* had no paper records? Are you mad?
@@amoral_minority i didn't say the Romans you eeeediot. I said the pagans, aka across Europe. The ones who celebrated things like the winter solstice well before Christians converted their holiday under the lie it was big J's birthday.
@@amoral_minority All of Europe wasn't Roman, and even parts under Roman rule wouldn't have been able to even understand or write down all the local traditions, that's assuming there was a willingness which of course there wasn't, it was more fun to forcibly convert and erase all history. What's known about the Slavic religions? Not much because Christians destroyed all the symbolism, statues and records.
We have our answer, 4th quarter accounting boost for annual fiscal solvency.
Literally why Black Friday is called Black Friday. Businesses getting back in the black.
Actually it stems from a Christian monk who calculated it based on an ancient Jewish tradition that said that any truly holy or pure man would die exactly so many days from his date of birth.
no it doesn't. it stems from mediaeval churchmen stealing the Yuletide midwinter festival and relabelling it as their own
@@Silly.Old.Sisyphus that's a common misconception for instance neither Saturnalia nor the winter solstice nor any other known holiday at the time was on the 25th of December. The solstice is CLOSE, but almost all recorded solstice celebrations lasted 1 day and were held ON THE SOLSTICE.
… from date of conception, not birth but that’s neither here nor there tbh
Yes it sounds like it was from the Jewish tradition.
@@Adam-ox6zy you are 100% correct I had gotten that mixed up
Yeah, some of these are a bit overstretched. Mithraism has similarities with Christianity, but mostly through the use of similar symbols and the likelihood of the sacrament originating among Roman worshippers of Mithra because it was Rome that formalized Christianity as we know it today (and I say all this as a pagan with an axe to grind against Christianity). Comparative mythology can do a lot of heavy lifting if you allow it to, but do it properly.
We have no extant writings on the beliefs of the Mithraists at all. It's entirely conjecture based on the symbolism in some excavated worship sites. The statements here aren't just "a bit overstretched"
@@denysbeecher5629 We find every element of the Jesus story in different cults. It stands to reason that the last cult will have all the elements of those that proceeded it.
the reason Christiandom has so many similarities with pagan religions / Cults is because the catholics ( who had long since diverged from the path Jesus set before them) adopted their customs so that they could get more worshippers.
Actually no because the sacrament in Christianity traces it's roots all the way back to Passover which is at least 1500 years before the Roman Empire even started to form.
@@merakfirgun1071
And prior to that Paul diverged from Torah compliant Christianity of James and Peter, to allow the gentiles.
OMG! Rich Hall. I can take him off my "I thought he was dead" list.
Apparently Mo Sizlack in the Simpsons is based on him.
A friend once asked me to guess who Mo was based on. I remembered that he was described in one episode as an ugly hate filled little man and Rich Hall sprung to mind. My friend was put out that I guessed straight away, but cheered up when I said how I guessed.
I know this was filmed long ago, (the presence of Stephen tipped me off,) but all this stuff about Mithras is likely wrong. There are no actual writings from the cult of Mithras, and all that is known was gleaned from sculptures and the like. We (humanity collectively) know almost nothing about Mithras. All that Stephen rattled off is stuff people made up later.
To the larger point, Christmas is not on 12/25 because of Jesus. A combination of Saturnalia and pagan gods, along with the winter solstice (which is tied to those others too) led to the adoption of that date for the alleged birth of the alleged Jesus.
Or more to the point Yeshua bin Yoseph is the only one out of the lot that bears up to external bibliography testing.
@@ArbysMom As the winners in this theist race, christians have had 2,000 years to polish and refine 'the truth'...
@@tedf1471
And they're still working on it.
Trying to come up with something plausible.
December 25 is exactly nine months after the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25. It wrecks the whole narrative but Christmas wasn't as big a deal in the early days, but the Annunciation was.
No what it does is completely destoy the fairy tale that is Christianity.
The March 25 date was deduced from the Dec 25 date. It’s only a coincidence that it’s three days after spring equinox, around the same time he died.
@@Tara-Maya The Feast of the Annunciation predates the Feast of the Nativity.
never heard of the feast of the annunciation, but i have heard of the spring equinox, the Easter eggs feast of the goddess of fertility Innana/Ishtar/Isis/Aestre/Venus/Aphrodite/... (the antecedent of NT Mary) who was both wife and mother of the Sun, fertilised 9 months before the winter solstice when the son of the Sun is reborn as the resurrection of his dead father.
th-cam.com/video/GB_Ef1HxoDc/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=djhbrown
Tolkien, who denied and claimed to deplore allegory, conveniently began The Fourth Age of Middle-Earth on 25 March, which is the Feast Day of The Annunciation.
We will also remember that Tolkien was a devout Catholic and the LOTR is full of Catholic themes and theology, thinly disguised, but NOT allegory.....
Great! Now all we need to do is figure out how to give Guernsey away.
So Sarky
.....or who would want it.
Well, I suppose if you ask the Germans nicely...
Shit no, I’ll take it thanks. Nationalise everything, sell it all off, buy three super yachts, a couple of airliner size private jets, private mansions in my top five favourite holiday destinations, pieds a terre in NY, London, Paris, SF and Sydney. And still have a few hundred billion for anything I forgot.
Nah! I’d be happy to confiscate every penny of the ill-gotten, “laundry” sloshing around in Guernsey but I’d use it for climate mitigation efforts in the poor places that are going to be most affected. The countries that can least afford it are those most at risk and if the richdicks who flew in to COP26 won’t cough up The last thing we need is more super yachts and private jets.
I'll take it if the fishing's good
No one has thought about the length of sticky tape required. Kilometres, or miles, it's quite a lot.
🤣🤣🤣
Nah, you just do one of those japanese folded wrappings, no tape required.
I spend the 25th of December celebrating Jo Brand
Merry Jo-Brand-mas then
She was never my fave of QI but I loved her in Taskmaster!
@@snazzypazzy It'd be a hard go being the favourite alongside Phil Jupitus, but I just love her dry-as-a-nun's-thing wit!
@@gifgoldblum7940
What's a "nun's thing wit"?
Is that a typo?? 😜
@@trueaussie9230 Nah, I'm saying her wit is as dry as a nun's c-word
I love these guys.
I haven't watched QI in years. How did youtube know to recommend this to me?
Your apparent membership dues in the Mithras Society may have lapsed. They want their money. ;-)
the youtube algorithm is trying to make itself a deity.
Mithras was born from a rock, not from a virgin. He had two companions, not twelve disciples. The sacred meal was not of bread and wine but of a bull's flesh. There is no recorded association with December 25th.
Isn't there?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ⤵️ Aishite.Tokyo/Tatsuhisha 💋
>>>>>Get Excited🔞💋🥰
The idea that we can accurately portray a religion that died over 2000 years ago is pretty absurd. I'm sure much like how we are now that there were splits in the religion with one group believing one thing and another something else much like Christianity or Islam is now... It's also ancient history, we may find a tablet tomorrow that throws everything we think we know now in complete array
Yeah, I really do like this program, but especially as a pagan who likes facts I wish they hadn't gotten this bit from a Twitter meme.
A lot of "facts" on QI are presented, and deliberately and openly so, as the opinion, research or theory of others. They are not intended to be taken as gospel, if you'll pardon the pun. It's why the show is called "Quite Interesting" not "Completely True"
In this instance, Stephen alluded to this when he said that a lot of scholars questioned the veracity of the version put forward by the authors of this particular Mithras myth.
The point of it, though, was to illustrate how the Christian notion of the 25th of December, and much of the more...shall we call them "difficult to verify..?" aspects of Jesus's origins and life, were in fact quite common factors in many early religions. The Virgin Birth being the classic example. It was practically written into the job description if you wanted to be a prophet or in any way special. You could barely move for all the virgin births happening at the time.
I guess being born from rock could be considered a virgin birth. Otherwise someone was really "hard" that day.
Mithras was, famously, born from a rock. The dear little elves seem to have fallen for some modern retelling of Mithras. Naughty elves!
Look who believes elves exist... 😉
Thank you for spelling the name, it enabled googling it possible.
But it says it's an Iranian god. Was Stephen Fry wrong when he called it Greek?
@@edmis90
The cult of Mithras that was practiced in the Greco-Roman world was influenced by the Iranian god, but quite distinct from it.
In general, the Mediterranean basin in Late Antiquity, and to a lesser extent, classical Antiquity, was a hot pot of various religious traditions, which extensively borrowed and copied each others' practices, imaginary and ideas. We tend to think of Late Antique pagans to worship Zeus and Saturn and Olympian gods in a way we see it in myths and ancient plays, but especially by this point most people participated in a range of cults and practices, many of which weren't dissimilar to Christianity - and in fact, Christianity borrowed a lot of ideas from Greco-Roman practices, especially from Neo-Platonism and other religious currents that existed at that time (this part wasn't strictly a response to your question, but some clarification as I think most people would think of pagans in a very wrong way, not understanding that personal religions, like Christianity, were already on a rise for the past few centuries before it was adapted as the state religion)
@@edmis90I think he said roman. It was brought back in some form to Rome from Persia.
oh no, they went for one fictional nonsense story over another one
this is amazing.
And the Romans themselves appropriated Mithras from the Persians.
Well done 👏🏻
The Romans deliberately appropriated a lot of their religion - famously from the Greeks, but they would even do things like pray to the gods of a people before fighting them in the hopes that said gods would help the Romans instead.
And the Hebrews appropriated from the Persians/Zoroastrians and Sumerians... Christianity being a-bastard mix of those and some Hellenistic influences.
the Sun resides
in the vicinity of the Southern Cross, or Crux, constellation.
And after this time on December 25th, the Sun
moves 1 degree, this time north, foreshadowing longer days, warmth, and Spring.
And thus it was said: the Sun died on the cross,
was dead for 3 days, only to be resurrected or born again.
This is why Jesus and numerous other Sun Gods
share the crucifixion, 3-day death, and resurrection concept.
They all look so young!
You might want to mention that Mythras is from about a century after Christ.
Are you aware of the Epic of Gilgamesh? forget a century, the epic is from *AT LEAST* a 1,000 years before christianity.
@@dementare the epic of Gilgamesh has some similarities to themes in Genesis, from what I understand the meaning/moral of those stories are quite different though. According to wikipedia it dates from around 2000BC from what I can gather. Moses was around about 1500BC and is traditionally assumed to be the author of Genesis, possibly drawing on older sources for the historical portions that came before him, although many critical scholars now date Genesis much later. From what I understand there is unlikely to have been a direct copying but they may have been drawing on similar cultural themes. It all gets a bit guess worky and complex with incomplete information. Our earliest partial copy of Genesis I believe is from the dead sea scrolls which are dates from around the time of Christ, so we are reliant on matching the content and style of writing to other historical records and archeological evidence to confirm the age of the original text. Not easy and plenty of room for interpretation dependent on your bias.
As a Christian I do believe it probably dates back to Moses, but that is based on my trust in the Bible because of the trust I have in God. I also haven't seen any convincing arguments to the contrary and have seen some interesting bits of archeological evidence.
If your interested in more inspiring philosophy youtube channel has done a lot on these topics.
@@BobofMIB Look, if you want to have an honest real discussion about this, I'm all for it, you've been kind and honest thus far, so that gives me hope. However, Moses, wasn't a real person, nor is the old testament an _accurate_ version of the origin of Judaism/Christianity. From what I've read/devised on the history of societies... Religions, specifically the 3 Abrahamic ones among others, seem to be built upon the foundation of older religions with newer concepts sprinkled in. Like newly updated scripts, or expansion packs for a game. They add new relevant content for the current time, and recon the old content to support the new content. In this case, the Epic of Gilgamesh, appears to be one of the *original* stories that has been copied from. Of course, there are some things that are going seem similar, but in some cases direct copying can be seen. In other cases Astronomical explanations do a great job of describing why different cultures had similar concepts. Like for example:
"The son died for the 3 days, and on the 3rd day he rose".... is actually referring to the *actual* "Sun". That's what the word: "Solstice" means "Sol"=Sun "Stice"=Stop. So on the summer and winter solstice The sun/"son" stops moving for 3 days (each day when the sun rises, the sun seems to move about a degree either north or south.). It just stays at the location, then on the 3rd day, it "Rises again" (begins moving north again). For another example. The Southern Cross (A constellation) was an important symbol for the Egyptians, as it represented the place where Horus, the Sun-god, was crucified, marking the passage of winter. So for them, quite *_LITERALLY_* "The Sun/Son died on the cross, and laid motionless for 3 days, and was then resurrected". All of this predating Christianity.
1 of my biggest problems with the "literalist" take on the bible, is merely the simple facts of history. Like the whole "Global Flood myth"...my answer: China. China has been around... since the beginning of societies, pretty much. They are not the oldest.. but pretty damn close... but the important part... they are *_Still_* around.... and no global flood, no animals disappearing to go on a boat ride either, etc. But I digress and could discuss this for hours. long story short, end of the day, that's why we celebrate on Dec 25th, cause the *SUN* rises again after being still for 3 days.
@@dementare You give some interesting examples. Is there a linguistic or other connection between sun and son prior to english? I wasn't able to find a linguistic connection through a few quick searches. Although if this was true and the date of birth of Christ had been lost, the symbolism, would preach well and I could see why it would be chosen for Christian reasons.
Have a historical reference for horus being crucified, from what I read this was stated by Bill Maher but there doesn't appear to be any evidence for this claim. Do you know if the constellation we know as the southern cross was actually known as a cross in Egypt at the time. From brief searches I've done it seemed to be regarded as part of a larger constellation, although I didn't find anything particular to Egypt.
Many Christians don't take the flood as a literal global flood. Some do this based on textual evidence in the bible that it may have just been referring to a catrostphic but local flood. I don't think the account could be taken as completely figurative. I'm unsure myself whether it was global or more localised myself, we would certainly need to rewrite a few history books if it was global. Although interestingly China also has a legend of a great flood from around 2000BC (around the same time as Noah's flood) At the start of Chinas first dynasty. Trying to piece together history from that long a go gets difficult, very few written texts, a loss of context and culture, how much is legend and how much is actual history. Its certainly area I want to spend more time trying to better understand (I have a few of those...).
It's Santa's birthday then!
Happy Solstice, y’heathens!! ☀️❤️
Thankyou Kieren (it was Saturday / Sunday). Belated Happy Christmas if you celebrate 🙂
Not a religious person myself but if evidence of Mithra's worship is older than the birth of Christ but the traditions they have in common, only have evidence dating back 1700 years, I feel it's disingenuous to say, without doubt, which story copied the other.
It's disingenuous to put it on social media. It's stupid to put it on a show that wants to build up a reputation of factual accuracy.
@@ribbonsofnight let's face it .. people who work for the BBC or in Hollywood have no problem poking holes in Christian religions but stay far far away from mocking Islam either from fear of direct reprisal or from cancellation by leftist mobs
But they have celebrated on December 25th for thousands of years. I think we kno christianity wasnt first
@@annother3350 Do we have any actual evidence of celebrations on 25th December. As far as i can tell, the only other religious festival that was ever on that date was Yule, which was moved to that date centuries after the pagans who celebrated it had encountered Christianity.
@@stephengray1344 I'm not actually sure now you mention it. I need to look into it but it's always made sense with that being the day the sun starts to rise again, giving hope of another successfiul year of crops
I am told that there was an MP at the time of Disraeli by the name of Thomas Massey who was so anti-Catholic that he introduced a private member's bill to have the word "Christmas" changed to "Christ Tide" since it contained the horrible Catholic word "mass". Disraeli asked him if he was going to have to change his name to Thomtide Tidey.
It's a fun story, but it appears to be a myth unfortunately
Isn't it nice when both Christians and atheists alike can come together and disagree with Stephen Fry
This is a good comment.
Well, there's an actual science of religious studies, like from an anthropological or historical field, and there are some sceptical claims being made by the lovely Stephen with a minimal disclaimer.
@@snazzypazzyreligious studies is NOT a science. There are no evidences to any one of them.
I think to pour a bit of WATER on the FIRE. ... Stephen says " there are amazing things CLAIMED about Mithras..." I think we can all stand down and breathe. Almost had a little insurrection there among some of us.
Yes, he doesn't call it bollox on QI. But, it very clearly is...
ReligionForBreakfast has a video on these topics with much more in depth analysis. Unfortunately this is a case of QI sharing historically tenuous information, especially regarding Mithras. There is no widespread consensus about the facts that Stephen presented.
For example: Mithras was born from a rock, not a virgin. Sol Invictus was celebrated on 25 December and not specific to Mithras at all.
The “salvation” from “blood” most likely refers to Mithras killing a bull. But also, Mithraic salvation was metaphysically different from Christian salvation. Christian salvation being individual, Mithraic salvation being similar to Zoroastrianism as a dualist battle of cosmic good and evil.
Mithras followers were “marked on their heads” but sources never mention it being a cross. Mithras also was not crucified.
It’s really quite tenuous to link the two religions and is largely a result of “Christ-myth” theorists, a position which is rejected by the majority of historians.
Well luckily it only takes common sense and a basic understanding of science to completely debunk all of religion. This information isnt needed.
@@nuck- How nice for you to be able to ignore this information. However, given the impact of religion on human behavior and history, I find some value in this information.
But your attitude does illustrate one aspect of a frequent, yet inappropriate accusation, namely that Christianity suppressed some writings, especially Aristotle. It's far more likely that they spent their effort preserving the writings important to them, like Plato. That other information wasn't needed, as you put it.
(In case you didn't know, Neo-Platonism and Christianity went hand-in-hand as Christianity gained acceptance in Rome. If you were a Neo-Platonist, you were a Christian and vice versa. It was Thomas Aquinas who dragged Aristotle, kicking and screaming, into the church.)
@@ldbarthel
Anything anti-science such as Christianity can be completely ignored now. We're in the information era. We're well past this as a species, we're just leaving you behind.
@@nuck- Why do you believe Christianity is anti science?
@@nuck- well, it really depends on the philosophical framing your worldview takes.
Even if one takes materialism or physicalism as the framework, one still cannot prove a negative (for example, the non-existence of God). The best one can do is make arguments towards the reduction of the necessity or probability of such a being.
An absurdist may not care for the existence or non-existence of something in a traditional sense.
Edit:
Just by way of reply, to claim Christianity, as a whole, is anti-science is also quite reductive. Christianity, like all religions, is a set of beliefs and understandings which are practiced in different ways. You cannot isolate the belief from the practice and claim to be attacking the religion, because religion is a sum of parts.
As such, it’s disingenuous to broadly claim that “Christianity is anti-science”.
Ohhhh Mithras 😂😂😂😂
Because the 24th is the last shopping day before Christmas.
My question: was the nativity recorded in the first versions of Matthew and...the other book that I can't recall? Or are there records of its insertion over the many versions? I had heard the name Mithras, but had never heard any of that about em.
The gospel of Matthew was written 52 years after Jesus' crucifixion. Luke, written 68 years after the crucifixion, also contains a nativity story, but it differs from Matthew's account.
There was no nativity in the gospels. According to the gospels, The wise men(aka astrologers) from the east arrived when Jesus was a toddler, not a newborn in a manger. And it doesn't say 3 wise men, just names the 3 different types of gift.
An excellent question. Bart Erhman, a New Testament scholar, has excellent presentations on why the 4 Gospels were written at different times and how they differ…or, in fact, is lifted word-for-word from earlier books.
Personally, I think there COULD have been a Jesus, but the miracles are nonsense until proven to be probable. These are out of our ability to investigate in a scientific manner. They are just stories and mythology.
Hello from Utah.
luke and the nativity has nothing to do with what the Bible actually says about Jesus birth / early life.... Nativity is a mish-mash of bits and peices from the 2 accounts built into a story, that, like Stephen said, is not original, yet did help the Catholics to get pagans to join them, huh?
@@jenhofmann Nativity is not part of the Bible it's an unoriginal made up story lol
Its on the 25th because all the shops are shut so its a convenient place to put it
Looking at astro-theology, we notice that not only mithras but a lot of other deities seem to have the exact same "life" and attributes with the exact same "dates" . So It's more than probably adoration of the astres that was translated over thousands of years.
Not really. Truth is we don't really know anything about Mithra.
Pretty much everything Stephen Fry says about Mithras here was entirely made up by the "research" he cites. It utterly shocks me that QI's researchers think that "born from a mountain" (which is what the ancient sources actually say) is the same thing as "born from a virgin", to note the most talked about example.
Yeah, for QI this is surprisingly lazy and easily debunkable but Fry is an aethiest pushing an argument he thinks can debunk religion. Almost none of what he said in that list was true and a lot of it is the opposite of what Mithraism taught. How for instance could there have been shepherds and wise men when Mithras's birth story is set long before humans. What you *do* have is the roman state appropriating parts of the Jesus story to retain control and merge various state religions.
@@CalvinsWorldNews there is nothing about what he said that tries to debunk religion? Fry is smart enough to know it’s futile to try and debunk unfalsifiable claims.
@@CalvinsWorldNews Are you a Christian I wonder ?
Lots of comments rightly pointing out that these sorts of claims have been debunked for a long time. While Dec 25th has been the date of various pagan festivals, the reason Christians seem to have got hold of it was because there was apparently a Jewish superstition that said that particularly righteous men and prophets died on the same day they were conceived. If you count Jesus' conception date as the same day he died, according to certain calendars and calculations, the birth date apparently comes out to December 25th.
0:41 does that apostrophe and s belong there?
Jesus' would have done I reckon.
A few days after solstice... just long enough to check that we've passed midwinter.
Dr Richard Carrier discusses all this in his book “On the historicity of Jesus”!
I know
@@UPTHETOWN I also knew that.
Yes and for example his work on this is debunked by several other doctors. All you need to do is read "The Gospels as Eye Witness Testimony" by Richard Baukham who is head of one of the Theology faculties at Cambridge University. Or alternatively read "The Case for Christ" written by someone with a Harvard Masters in Law (Lee Strobel) who was an atheist who came to the conclusion that the evidence would be strong enough to convince a court.
@@gordonlawrence1448
"Gospels as eye-witness testimony"..
LoL..gospels are not eyewitness testimony,
they are non-contemporary accounts by unknown authors.
@@r0ky_M The authors names are in the title of every complete manuscript, and a number of fragments. We have about a dozen different attestations of their names in the second century (the earliest by a man called Papias who remembered the time when the last eyewitnesses to Jesus were still alive). And there is no evidence of any dispute over the authorship in any early Christian writers, even though you would expect just that if the names had been added later.
Even among sceptical scholars, the majority opinion is that Mark's gospel was written by Mark and that Peter was his main source. Luke's gospel was written by a travelling companion of Paul (as evidenced by the shift to "we" in some passages of Acts), who explicitly claimed to have interviewed eyewitnesses. John ends his gospel with a claim to be an eyewitness.
And the gospels contain numerous incidental details that suggest eyewitness sources (their sources knew the geography, culture, and climate of the setting very well, and the gospels taken together even get the distribution of names exactly right). If the stories were later inventions or garbled myth you would expect those details to be wrong or simply missing, as in the case of all of the non-canonical gospels - none of which date from earlier than the 2nd century.
So yes, there is good reason to believe that the gospel authors were who the titles say they were, and that they were very much based on the memories of eyewitnesses. I would say that the burden of proof is on those who want to assert the opposite.
This is too easy. Stephen Fry is known for being a smart atheist, but I think he can do better than this. If you barely tip your toes in what the Mithras cult was about, you quickly find that it’s similarities with Christianity, are in fact quite few. This clip wants to say that Christianity is nonsense, but at the root of its claims are pseudo historians from the late 1800s. Mithras had no virgin birth, wasn’t born in a manger, didn’t have 12 disciples, wasn’t crucified, didn’t die for any one’s sins.. it’s all rumours that have been debunked several times by serious scholars.
th-cam.com/video/xlF0gVedODE/w-d-xo.html
Well said
Funnily enough even though Christmas Day is 25th even in the Nordics, we celebrate it on the 24th, ie the eve. For... Some reason?
"Hi, my name is Dan McClellan, a scholar of the Bible and religion. Let's take a look at a video..."
What a waste of a life
Daras last comment said it all.. I'll bet there were loads of letters of complaints sent it
So how big does the tree have to be if we put Guernsey under it ?🤔🤔😲😲
Because Americans would have a hard time coming up with 'Christmas' songs about snow and reindeer if it was in August!
I love Stephen, and I love QI, but this is not at all correct, despite how quippy and clever it all sounds (and how the panelists riffed brilliantly off all of it).
I should also note that I am not a Christian, and the veracity of the Christmas story (about which there is A LOT to be skeptical) holds nothing special or sacred for me...but I can say for absolute certain that close to everything Stephen read there about Mithras is absolute nonsense. This has been written about by classical scholars on many occasions over the past fifty years, and despite the popularity of things like the film Zeitgeist and Bill Maher's quoting of these ideas in Religulous, it's just not factually accurate..
The actual date of December 25th does not enter the Roman festival calendar until the mid-3rd century, during the principate of Aurelian, when the cult of Sol Invictus began. This is actually later than the earliest evidence for the celebration of Christmas (found in Tertullian's writings which note that the Annunciation/conception of Jesus took place on March 25th, i.e. nine months exactly before December 25th).
Jesus! I learnt something new.
Next time I come I'm going to shout , " Oh MITHRAS !! "
Hey, Elves!
It's *JESUS'*. There is no extra S after the apostrophe.
Hey! I bet I've started a new war on crissmas. :D
Pretty sure Jesus’s is correct. You have the possessive for more than one Jesus. If there were twins both called Jesus then the 25th would be both Jesus’ birthday. Willing to be corrected on this though!
@@sadsock They didn't have apostrophes in Persia. And there were only 4 apostrophes - Peter and Paul and John and Ringo.
The Catholic Church is keeping a LOT of secrets. What's one more?
I got em all
Almost a little smile from Rich Hall there… almost…
Well said, Dara
"Why Is Christmas On December 25th?"
BECAUSE SOME RELIGIOUS CRAP HAPPENED A WHILE AGO AND SPREAD LIKE A PLAGUE?
Christmas is on the 25th because Christmas Eve is on the 24th
Thank you Jo Brandt! I shall try to remember to call out "OH MISRAF!" next time the opportunity strikes.
Most of the connections between that Mithra and Jesus are just urban myths. Similar to the connections with Horus.
Myths about myths? Kith me under the mytheltoe and tell me it ain't so.
One of the worst things about being an atheist is that you have no one to talk to when you come.
@@madisntit6547 Thanks!
Now I've got to clean coffee off my monitor
Christmas was originally 6th January but when we reformed the calendar we "lost "11 days The Greek and Russian Orthodox still stick yontye Julian calendar date if 6th January and this date used to be called Old Christmas Day The biblical story used the word "midwinter " and not any specific date .
You're doing the calendar conversion backwards.
Jan 6 is Twelfth Night, or Epiphany.
Currently, Dec 25 on the Julian calendar aligns with Jan 7 on the Gregorian calendar (although some Orthodox countries still celebrate on Jan 6 Gregorian). So no, Christmas was never January 6th. The Gregorian conversion (which occurred at different times in different countries) dropped the extra leap days from the Julian calendar to realign the equinoxes and solstices. [The Julian leap year rule is add 1 day every 4 years. But over 400 years, you wind up with 3 extra days. The Gregorian correction is to not add a leap day in century years unless divisible by 400. So 1900 was a leap year in the Julian calendar, but not in the Gregorian. 2000 was a leap year in both.)
Fun fact: early spreadsheets incorrectly included Feb 29, 1900. For compatibility this error is now part of the standard....
@@ldbarthel Well I know the Greeks , Russian , Romanian and Syrian Orthodox churches have Christmas on 6th January I have friends who live in Greece who have Christmas in the UK and again in January back in Greece .And the Bible simply says mid winter-not any specific date so it's all speculative whatever date you pick .
Although there are some similarities, there are good criticisms of this. Some similarities are only vaguely similar. Some people would point to a timeline that would suggest that pagans got ideas from Christianity in this and other things. But the Christian basis without a pagan source does exist.
The origin of John the Baptist is stated clearly enough that with current historical records, they were able to identify the time of the year in which his father would have served in the Temple, which then helps identify the time John would have been conceived, and thus also the time of John's birth. John was conceived in a certain week in fall/autumn. Thus, he would be born in late June. The account of the Visitation, where Mary visited Elizabeth makes it clear that there's 6 months between the two, thus putting the birth of Jesus in late December. There are other justifications, but that's a significant one in scripture itself.
Additionally, some early Church fathers identified December 25 as the date of the birth of Jesus. Some other people suggested other dates, though. But from very early on, December 25 was one of the main candidates for the date of the birth of Jesus. As for the year, someone wasn't as accurate as needed to get that correct, so that appears to be off by a small number of years. Making the day of the year seem like it was merely chosen based on pagan celebrations with no religious or scriptural basis undercuts the credibility of the QI researchers. The main thing helping them was the attempt with the disclaimer that sought to acknowledge some criticisms of the claims, but at least in this clip, it doesn't seem like that went very far to explain just how bad of a cause and effect from paganism to Christianity there was.
QI is often a bit sloppy with their research, to be frank.
Are you aware of the Epic of Gilgamesh?
Christmas Eve is December 24th. Therefore, Christmas has to be on the 25th.
I thought it was being nine months after Lady Day (March 25th) when the Angel Gabriel visited the Virgin Mary. (Lady Day was also the first day of the year in the Old Style calendar.)
But is Guernsey really a gift?🤔
Mithras was Persian, no?
Would there be enough material to make compilation of every time Alan has answered "Jesus"? Or maybe with similar silly short answers like "Dave", not sure if anybody even knows what I mean :D
oh yeah...
The man who's going to argue with God. Good luck with that, Stephen.
God doesn’t exist, so he’ll be fine.
Perfect Quote: "Not Original"
Someone has watched ‘Zeitgeist’.
Watch the opening 15mins if your interested
Mithras - The Elisha Grey of the Religious World.
25th December!
I'm an atheist, and Stephen is basically 100% wrong in everything he said. There's very little information about Mithras at all, let alone so much definitive correlations. At best, these are possible interpretations of the meaning of statues and sculptures, and at worst this is nonsense made out of whole cloth.
Well said.
He did mention that many claim it is nonsense…
Sorry, but did we actually get the answer?
nope.
It’s the birthday of JC - Xmas - that’s why he was born in a stable. All the hotels and inns were fully booked on Xmas day.
Hang on a mo, Christian scholars claiming the Mithras story is nonsense - err hello!!!
And Atheist scholars.
It's 9 months after annunciation on 3/25
Dara there, proving once again that he’s more than just a pretty face.
Luckily.
Never seen QI be wrong before.
There's a radio show that David Mitchell hosts called "The Unbelievable Truth" and quite often answers in it are preceded with "Contrary to what was stated on QI...."
I've heard other programmes mention that QI has got something wrong.
then you haven't watched enough, or been as pedantic as they are. lol. But what did you think they got wrong?
Presumably you've never seen QI before? They regularly correct mistakes they've made in previous episodes.
Did the people is the box really just put up the word "Jesus's" there? 🤔
@@davidcollins9258 What hope salvation through Jesus, when people are even arguing about how to spell His possessive case?
@@davidcollins9258 more like: The Little Golden Book of Superfluous s'
I feel like one year we should just decide not to wrap any presents and use the wrapping paper instead to wrap guernsey
I started searching out of curiosity about "mitras" and was confused as I couldn't find any such figure with that background. I found "mitras" from roman culture with COMPLETELY different background and story, and a couple different figures with same name from Iranian and Indic cultures.
I then realised (after reading the comments section) that Stephen Fry was just bullsh*tt*ng and making stuff up. How disgraceful. I mean if you are gonna wreak and "destroy" something like "Christianity" on Christmas, then at least do it with "facts" and "logic". No need to make something up and set your viewers who won't or don't bother to do their own research to look like fools and idiots.
And I see a lot of "fools" and "idiots" and "fanboys" who are still defending him. You don't need to make something up to destroy the narrative of ANY religion. But if you are just content with making stuff up instead of doing research and coming up with proper counter arguments, then you are just being Lazy and Scummy IMO.
What a waste of time. And it makes me question other stuff that I might have just "accepted" as facts and added to my "GK" without considering that Stephen Fry was just speaking out of his @$$.
Just because two dates line up does not disprove either's origion. My birthday is a public holiday in my country. I did not plan it or steal their day.
Yes, but that doesn’t really count for the fact that some of your friends claim you were born on that day, while others claim you were born in the middle of the year, nor does the fact that you were born say anything about whether you were the son of God, capable of miracles, or that you could be executed and then alive a day and a half later and send bodily into heaven only to have gone missing for 2000 years
@@conors4430 Perhaps study the history and evidence before getting all hoity toity. You will be amazed at how it aligns astrologically, in extra biblical sources and of course less reliably traditionally.
Easy peasy answer, it comes after the 24th and before the 26th
I'm neither a Christian nor a Roman, so frankly I don't have a horse in this race and am asking out of genuine academic interest, but doesn't Christianity predate Mithraism? Because if so, then that would mean that it was less that Christianity borrowed or plagiarized concepts from Mithraism, and more that two separate religions copied each others' homework.
Christmas is in the summer in Australia. I told some Americans that and they were gobsmacked. I send an American friend Christmas cards with scenes like Santa at the beach. She sends me snow scenes.
We know almost nothing about the cult of mithras, and of the little we do know, none of it was in the facts presented here. I'm afraid the supposed connections to Jesus are an old urban myth that always does the rounds on the Internet but just isn't verifiable in any sense.
For much more accurate info, I'd recommend the video by the channel "Religionforbreakfast" on the Cult of Mithras, right here on TH-cam. It's a fairly objective, secular, look at the subject from an actual scholar of religion
Bull and Shit
@@lupus9801 Very strong argument you put forward there. Would love to see your sources
Maybe you've just misunderstood me. I'm not a Christian, and neither is the scholar that I pointed people in the direction of. Not trying to sell you on Jesus, I'm not interested in that sales pitch myself either
Oh no!
Are you suggesting there might be some false 'information' to be found on the internet?!
But surely the great god google doesn't lie or mislead us (into temptation).
MicroSoft forfend!
If only we could discuss the true origins of other religions holy days as openly and comically.
We can. Although Christians in the West love to pretend they're constantly being persecuted, the only reason why we all focus on Christianity is because it's the dominant religion that's constantly shoved down our throats.
Few people even know when and what the other Holy days are, so making jokes about it is going to be pretty difficult...
@@callum9999
I think you’ll find issues such as Intersectionality, the bias of “protected status” as laid out in the correctly named Discrimination Act and the last few census reports paint a different picture to what you claim.
@@Rusty-Hinge I have absolutely no idea what that is meant to mean...
@@callum9999
It means the laws prevent equality of opportunity for indigenous people of the west.
@@Rusty-Hinge Perhaps you can stop talking in riddles and actually say something meaningful?