By Walid Shoebat

How many even realize that the war on Christmas is a Muslim war where Muslims use all sorts of forces to declare war on Christmas? Today in America many forces are working towards the state atheism as it was in the Soviet Union where Christmas was banned and Muslims are no different. Even stranger are the ones who claim to be Christians also declared a war on Christmas. Puritans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, certain reformed and fundamentalist churches, some Independent Baptist, Holiness, Apostolic Pentecostal and the Messianic Movement amongst others, all agree with Islam’s version of Christmas.

Many of these cults argue that Jesus was born during September, not December 25th insisting that the latter date is the birth of the sun-god initiated by Constantine not knowing that they agree with Islam’s assessment as to when Jesus was born. According to Muslim scholars, Jesus was born on “late September to early October”.

And then you have anti-Christmas trees and all sorts of crazy ideas linking many of these Christian practices to paganism by citing verses from Jeremiah 10 where they worshipped idols. All this while the  passage simply speaks against the carving and decoration of wooden idols to be worshipped. I have never heard of a Christian worshipping a tree. For someone who claims to be Christian and to prohibit the celebration of Christmas on December 25th or because we like Christmas trees is like a Muslim who prohibits tomato because its center looks like a Byzantine Cross.

Caption says: “The forbidding to eat tomatoes because tomatoes are Christian praising the Cross instead of Allah and declares that God is a Trinity, Allah forbid. I urge you to spread this around because a sister in Palestine saw a vision of the prophet crying warning his nation from eating it [the tomatoe]. If you do not spread this, then know this, that the devil is with you”.

Ancient Byzantine Cross chiseled on stone.

So on what basis is it said, that Jesus was not born during December? Is there any proof for a September birth? And should we listen to some loon who says that there are no scriptural verses in the Bible that supports celebrating Christ’s birth or that there were no census during December since it was too dang cold?

For someone to insist that we should not celebrate Christ’s birth must answer why in Luke 2:13-14, 20, 2 Tim 2:8, God has the heavens, the shepherds, the wise men celebrating it including Paul who said “to remember” and celebrate Jesus’ birth.

Are these biblical testimonies less credible than some loons who get their instructions from devils acting as if they are gods?

These Christmas deniers are lazy servants and nothing more. One usually finds them in Messianic cults that deny the Trinity which constitutes 80% of that movement who are heretical. These hate Christ and serve an antichrist doctrine. This is true regardless if they use “Yeshua” or “Yahweh” as the name for God  since the Israelites too who worshipped a calf also called it Yahweh.

No one can discount December 25th just because it was too cold. I grew up throughout my youth in Bethlehem where shepherds was a daily observance. In Bethlehem during December the weather is closer to Texas (but with low humidity) and to north North Dakota. As I write this article, the weather in Bethlehem (and its close to midnight there) is 50 F and you think that shepherds in Bethlehem do not graze their sheep right now as I write?

Well, I got news for all these Christmas deniers and all these unholy warriors.

If one insists on a professional view, according to The World Book Encyclopedia (copyright 1974, volume 10, page 390), December is not the coldest month in Israel, January is: “In January, the coolest month, temperatures average 45º F … 60º F ( 16º C ) in the Rift Valley”. It is only cold in the north and it gets hotter in the south in Bethlehem. Anyone can check and see, December 25th, 2014 the weather in Jerusalem was 60 F and the lows was 43 F. Bethlehem is 5 miles south and it is hotter then Jerusalem and if it was not freezing for the sheep why would it be too cold for the shepherds? These shepherds are not your typical lazy commenter sitting behind a computer screen.

Every year during my youth, I, even as a Muslim, took advantage of Christmas to go up to Bethlehem from the very Shepherds Fields, were I lived and where the Christmas shepherds were flocking their sheep, to listen to the Christmas carols on December 25th. And in 1977 I myself wanted to mess up Christmas, I  planted a bomb on Manger Square during Christmas season (click for copy of United Nations records A:33:356 of 13 November 1978 and search for “Manger Square”)

After being a Christmas noid myself, now I live in America, were everything is questioned and doubted where controversies sprout on daily basis by so many loons. Here, I can even provide plenty of photo evidence to silence all these lazy naysayers. Here are several photos of Christmas in Bethlehem, all taken on December 25th, dating as far back as 1890. This should shut up anyone who wants to try to mess up Christmas:

Christmas, December 25th, 1890

Christmas, December 25th, 1900

Shepherd in the Shepherds Fields in Bethlehem. Photo taken on December 25th

Shepherd in the Shepherds Fields in Bethlehem. Photo taken on December 25th

For over a hundred years, does anyone see someone who looks like they are even dressed up for winter season in Christmas?

Folks should stop listening to Christmas deniers, Trinity denier, or some brain-frozen Messianic idiot from New York who know nothing about sheep much less shepherding a human flock.

The bottom line is that America is filled with all sorts of controversy makers. I have ran into so many so-called  Christians who say that they are ‘prayer-warriors’ when all they do is declare wars on Christmas, Constantine, Icons … believing anything they swallow up from conspiracy theorists to atheists with the sole agenda of destroying Christianity. So many I find that claim the faith when all their works are against the very fabric and the history that made America great.

Fact is, even in the coldest nights in the Holy Land, it is not unusual to find shepherds with their flocks grazing in Bethlehem.

And then I find these same so-called prayer warriors declare a war on Christmas insisting on using the Bible by asking silly questions (and yes there are stupid questions) asking for proof where shepherds flocked their sheep in the winter.

Again, keep in mind, ancient Israel is not modern New York. Jacob in Genesis 31: 38-40 served Laban in Haran and grazed the sheep in the coldest times in winter. Haran is a few miles from Altınbaşak and is somewhat colder than Israel:

“I have been with you for twenty years now. Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks. I did not bring you animals torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself. And you demanded payment from me for whatever was stolen by day or night. This was my situation: The heat consumed me in the daytime and the cold at night, and sleep fled from my eyes. It was like this for the twenty years I was in your household. I worked for you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times.

Israel was no land for the lazies. It did not survive because these people ate pizza while they texted on an iPhone or looked up some kook on the internet planting all sorts of confusion in their empty heads. I am, born in Bethlehem myself, converted to Christianity from Islam, to only see lazy Christians who begin to sound like this Muslim apologist and frankly it sickens me:

The same crowds even argue that the ‘nice Roman authorities’ would never impose such a “census taking” for the hated and unpopular “foreign” tax (Luke 2:1). The Romans, they say, would never inconvenience their beloved Jews to travel to their respective “cities” in December.

These think that the Romans where like the U.S. government where Black Lives Matter can bicker and complain about  “police brutality”. I wish I can transport these deniers to live back in time under Saddam Hussein to see what it is like in the Middle East. Try Syria today if not convinced.

While no court of law would accept such flimsy proof, many even use the Bible to argue against December 25th or for it by using simplistic and at times faulty and complex calculations that are meant to woo the simpletons.

As we say, one man throws a rock in the well and it takes ten wise men to get it out.

And for claiming Messianic believers who love Jewish festivities and love to calculate all sorts of feast days, why not pay attention to December 25, 165 B.C. when the Temple was rededicated on 25th of Kislev date in the First Book of Maccabees after the Maccabees defeated their Anti-Messiah Antiochus Epiphanies?

Yet I have never seen a group who love using all sorts of calculations more than the Messianic. They say that since Elizabeth (John’s mother) was in her sixth month of pregnancy when Jesus was conceived (Luke 1:24-36), we can determine the approximate time of year Jesus was born if we know when John was born.

They figure out that when John was born, his father, Zacharias, was a priest serving in the Jerusalem temple during what is called “the course of Abijah” (Luke 1:5).

So far so good until they throw in the leaven saying that “historical calculations” (without showing these calculation of course) indicate this course of service corresponded to June 13-19 when Zacharias learned that he and his wife Elizabeth would have conceived a child (Luke 1:8-13) after he completed his service and traveled home.

And so they start adding nine months which brings us to the end of March (John is born) and adding another six months (the difference in ages between John and Jesus) brings us to the end of September and vuala, there you have it, Jesus was born in September.

All such calculations ignore the textual ambiguity regarding the statement “And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived” (given in Luke 1:24). How much time is meant by this phrase? Is it a day? a week? a month? several months? The text simply says “after those days”.

Such faulty calculations are used by all sorts of cults including Muslims; since it agrees with the Quran’s assessment including the heretical Jehovah’s witnesses and many Messianic anti-Trinitarian cults including oneness Pentecostals; but the problem with such an assessment is that it is impossible to validate beyond doubt.

I have seen Scripture used to calculate dates for and against December 25th.

I have seen more reasonable calculations than the September calculation. They insist that one must study 1 Chronicles 24:1-10 when King David established the courses for priestly service in the temple. These were 24 courses established and numbered by drawing lots (12 courses for sanctuary service and 12 for governing the house of God).

Members of each course would serve during a month starting with the Hebrew month of Nisan. Because of the way the Hebrew calendar fluctuates, the month Nisan can start anytime between early March and early April. The sons of Abia (Abijah) were in the eighth course. Priests of Abia like Zacharias would, therefore, have each ministered for some days during the eighth month which in some years because of the fluctuation in the Hebrew calendar started as early as the fifth day of our month of October. Zacharias would have returned home when his days of service were accomplished and John the Baptist could have been conceived sometime between October 15 and the end of the month.

All that could be true if we assume that Zacharias was gone for a while, came back and couldn’t wait to be with Elizabeth and she conceived that month. After conception the scripture says that Elisabeth hid herself for five months. Then in the sixth month of her pregnancy would have started about March 15 and continued until April 15. The angel announced to the Virgin Mary that the Lord Jesus would  be conceived in her womb by the Holy Ghost. If this took place on or about April 1 a “normal” gestation period of 270 days would have then had Jesus due on or about December 25.

While this might sound reasonable, again, all such calculations ignore the textual ambiguity regarding the statement “And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived” (given in Luke 1:24). How much time is meant by this phrase? Is it a day? a week? a month? several months? The text simply says “after those days”.