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In an effort to retain power and hide her misdeeds, Semiramis made a bold declaration. She publicly claimed that following Nimrod's death, he reincarnated as an evergreen tree that had supposedly emerged from a dead stem, then resurrected as the sun god and used his sunrays to miraculously inseminate her. She gave birth to a son who she said was Nimrod reincarnated. She gave birth to a son who according to her was Nimrod reincarnated. Her (illegitimate) son was born on December 25; she named him Tammuz and he was worshipped as a god. Because of this reincarnation, Nimrod and Thammuz refer to the same person.

• Ezekiel 8:14 "Then He brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD, and I saw women sitting there, weeping for Tammuz.."

 

Seven years after Nimrod's death, she was torn apart by wild pigs in the desert. To this day, we have the saying, 'In the desert, the night bitch is there trying to find her resting place'. She became known as Lilith.

• Isaiah 34:14 "And there shall the beasts of the desert meet with the jackals, and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; the lilith** also shall settle there, and find for herself a place of rest.

**In some versions the name Lilith has been replaced with night monster, night demon, night creature, the screech owl, the lamia lain.

 

At the death of Semiramis, the priests of Nimrod proclaimed that "the queen of heaven" had returned to earth, landed in the Euphrates River and turned a bird into a breeding rabbit to prove her divinity.  The 41st day of Semiramis' death was then called "Easter". Through her politics and the use of her son's name, Semiramis became the queen of Babylon, the home of the Chaldean mysteries. She was also known as "the queen of heaven" and "the mother of the divine son". 

• Jeremiah 44:18-19 "But from the time we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been perishing by sword and famine. Moreover,” said the women, “when we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands’ knowledge that we made sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?”

 

Nimrod also known as Baal and Semiramis (his mother) became the main Egyptian gods and were worshipped as Isis and Osiris, whose son Horus (Tammuz or Nimrod reincarnated) was born on December 25. When Tammuz was killed by a boar on his 40th birthday, the "40 days of weeping" were established, and the consumption of pork was introduced on the 41st day of Tammuz' death.  

 

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Rome - Saturnalia

Early Romans marked the winter solstice with a festival called Saturnalia, held in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. During this period, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen branches. Here it should be mentioned that Saturnalia was the most important festival of the Romans. According to many eye witnesses, the excesses and debauchery practiced during this festival were legendary. During this week of lawlessness, which ran from December 17 to 25, no one could be convicted of doing what was generally forbidden by law, i.e., they could inflict injury, commit murder, rape or theft with impunity. Although many people took advantage of the lawlessness during Saturnalia, many Romans celebrated the holiday by exchanging gifts.

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• William Shepard Walsh, a renowned author, wrote: "The Saturnalia, held in honor of Saturn, the god of time, began on December 17th and continued for seven days. These also often ended in riot and disorder. Hence the words Bacchanalia and Saturnalia acquired an evil reputation in later times." |The Story of Santa Klaus p. 65| 

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Greece - Bacchanalia

The celebration of Christmas is also closely associated with Bacchanalia, which was grounded in the Greeks' worship of their god Dionysus (also called Bacchus), and most likely arrived in Rome around 200 B.C. through the Greek colonies in southern Italy and Etruria, Rome's northern neighbor.

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Bacchanalia was the Roman festival of Bacchus, the Greco-Roman god of wine, freedom, drunkenness and ecstasy. According to Greek and Roman literature, the earliest version of Bacchanalia was exclusive to women and was held three days every year, in daylight. While in Etruria, north of Rome, a Greek from a peasant family, adept of sacrifices and divination, had established another night version of Bacchanalia, adding wine and feasting. This nocturnal version gained an enthusiastic public of women and men of all social classes, and of all ages. These new celebrations included initiations that were characterized by wine-fueled aggression and violent sexual promiscuity, where the cries of the victims were overpowered by the pounding of drums and cymbals. Those who opposed or betrayed the cult were executed. Under the cover of religion, priests and their henchmen broke civil, moral and religious laws with impunity.

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• Walsh wrote: "...the Christmas festival...is a gradual evolution from times that long antedated the Christian period... It was over laid upon heathen festivals, and many of its observances are only adaptations of pagan to Christian Ceremonies" |The Story of Santa Klaus p. 58|

• Walsh goes on to explain that: "The Greeks paid homage to Bacchus with a celebration bearing his name (Bacchanalia). It was on or about December 21st that the ancient Greeks celebrated what are known to us as the Bacchanalia or festivities in honor of Bacchus, the god of wine. In these festivities the people gave themselves up to songs, dances and other revels which frequently passed the limits of decency and order." |The Story of Santa Klaus p. 58

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Persia 

Mithraism, was a mystical cult of the Roman world whose followers worshipped the Indo-Iranian deity Mithra who is said to have been born on December 25. This cult, which appeared at the end of the first century A.D., like many others, was secret, and spread with extraordinary speed from the Italian peninsula and the border regions to the entire Roman Empire. More than 200 temples of Mithras were discovered, stretching from Syria to Britain, but the discoveries are concentrated in Italy, on the Rhine and the Danube. The adepts worshipped Mithra in temples often built in caves and hidden from the public. However, the secrecy of the cult was tolerated by the authorities, especially by the Roman emperors, because it was favorable to the imperial power.

 

The cult included seven degrees of initiation, ranging from "corax" (crow) to "pater" (father), with each degree of initiation having a different task to perform. Initiates also had to participate in tests of bravery. The paintings of the temple of Mithra in Santa Maria Capua Vetere depict different scenes of this ritual. The initiate, blindfolded and naked, was led to the ceremony by a handler. Then the initiate had to kneel before the "father", who held a torch or a sword over his head. Then, in what looked like a ritual "suicide", he was laid on the ground, as a dead person and then "killed" by a non-lethal ceremonial sword, and then reborn. 
 

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Why the date of December 25?

During the latter part of the 3rd century, the Deus Sol Invictus (Roman sun god) became the official deity of the Roman Empire. During that time, a great temple was built to honor the sun and the sun's birthday was officially set for December 25 because it was considered the accepted date of the winter solstice. That' s because a few days after the astronomical solstice, one may begin to see that sunlight is effectively coming back. Some scholars have suggested that on December 25 the changing solstice is perceptibly reflected, so that even if the precise moment of the astronomical solstice is earlier than the 25th, it becomes perceptible on the 25th.

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• Dr. Werner Keller, author of various non-fiction books, wrote: "December 25 is referred to in documents as Christmas day in A.D. 324 for the first time. Under the Roman emperor Justinian [in the 500's] it was recognized as an official holiday. An old Roman festival played a major part in the choice of this particular day. December 25 in ancient Rome was the ‘Dies Natali Invictus,’ ‘the birthday of the unconquered,’ the day of the winter solstice and at the same time, in Rome, the last day of the Saturnalia, which had long since degenerated into a week of unbridled carnival..." |The Bible as History p. 331|

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In the early 200's, the historian Julius Africanus wrote a book entitled "Narrative Of Events Happening In Persia On The Birth Of Christ", in which he placed the conception of Jesus on March 25. Between the years 202 and 211, Hippolytus of Rome assumed that the conception of YESHUA took place at the spring equinox, and placed the equinox on March 25 adding 9 months to this date to obtain December 25, thus establishing the date of the feasts, and declared: "The first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, took place on December 25, a Wednesday.”

 

Less than 100 years later, Emperor Constantine came to power in Rome. Under his regime, the practice of Christianity was a violation of Roman law. Christians were hated by the state and were subject to great persecution that included torture and even burning at the stake. Despite these great persecutions, the Christians remained committed to their faith. This commitment made a strong impression on Constantine, and in 313 AD he published the 'Edict of Milan' which later on established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. As a result, the persecution of Christians by the state stopped. And towards the end of the third century, during the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine, Pope Julius I officially declared that: “On December 25, Christ was born in Bethlehem, Judea.”

 

However, as Christianity became the state religion, the church became a very political institution and its teachings were distorted and seriously compromised. Jesse Hurlbut describes this period in his book The Story of the Christian Church. Furthermore, the early Catholics who chose the date of December 25 did so precisely because it was the winter solstice and was linked to the return of sunlight.

 

In a work attributed to the 4th century Christian church father, John Chrysostom ( archbishop of Constantinople and an important father of the early Catholic Church), linked the birth of Jesus to the birth of Sol Invictus (the invincible Sun) which was celebrated on December 25, as the traditional winter solstice in Rome.

• He wrote: But Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December... the eighth before the calends of January [25 December]..., But they call it the “Birthday of the Unconquered.” Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the sun, He is the Sun of Justice. |Chrysostom, De Solstitia et Aequinoctia Conceptionis et Nativitatis Nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae; “On the conceptions and births of our Jesus Christ and John the Baptist on the solstices and equinoxes.”|

 

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According to the Bible, it is practically impossible for Jesus to be born on December 25

In the book of Luke, it is written that at the birth of the child Jesus, there were shepherds in the countryside who were pasturing in the fields and watching over their flocks by night.

• Luke 2:7-8 "And she gave birth to her firstborn, a Son. She wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were shepherds residing in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks by night."

 

Such an event in Judea, with shepherds in the fields watching over their flocks by night, could never have happened in the month of December. Indeed, shepherds always brought their flocks from the mountains and fields and gathered them into pens no later than October 15, in order to protect them from the cold and rainy season that was to follow. Notice that in the Book of Ezra, the Bible attests that winter was a rainy season which didn't allow the shepherds to stay out in the field overnight.​

• Ezra 10:13 "But there are many people here, and it is the rainy season. We are not able to stay out in the open. Nor is this the work of one or two days, for we have transgressed greatly in this matter."

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• Adam Clarke wrote: "During the time they were out, the shepherds watched them night and day. As.. the first rain began early in the month of Marchesvan, which answers to part of our October and November [begins sometime in October], we find that the sheep were kept out in the open country during the whole summer. And, as these shepherds had not yet brought home their flocks, it is a presumptive argument that October had not yet commenced, and that, consequently, our Lord was not born on the 25th of December, when no flocks were out in the fields; nor could He have been born later than September, as the flocks were still in the fields by night. On this very ground, the nativity in December should be given up. The feeding of the flocks by night in the fields is a chronological fact" |Vol. 5, page 370, édition de New York|.

 

 

The Pagan worship of trees

Tree worship has been present throughout history. Numerous accounts reveal that tree and nature worship was a common practice among pagans in ancient times and has continued to the present day. The followers of this cult believe that trees have feelings and are capable of reasoning.  They often tie treetops together in groves and make them into a shrine to nature. On some occasions, they carve an image such as a phallic symbol into the tree and prostrate themselves before it.

 

It is important to understand that tree and nature worship are practices that ELOHIM characterizes as carved images. He revealed through Jeremiah, that his children must avoid all practices that resemble those adopted by the pagan world. The following verse speaks specifically of the practice of cutting down a tree, giving it its shape, decorating it with gold and silver accessories, and putting a support for it to make it stand. 

• Jeremiah 10:1-4 “Hear the word that the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. This is what the LORD says: “Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by the signs in the heavens, though the nations themselves are terrified by them. For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman. They adorn it with silver and gold and fasten it with hammer and nails, so that it will not totter.”

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ELOHIM calls this vanity and idolatry. Thus, the Christmas tree is an idol and the celebration of Christmas is a holiday that the LORD hates.

• Isaiah 1:12-15 “When you come to appear before Me, who has required this of you—this trampling of My courts? Bring your worthless offerings no more; your incense is detestable to Me—your New Moons, Sabbaths, and convocations. I cannot endure iniquity in a solemn assembly. I hate your New Moons and your appointed feasts. They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.

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If Christmas is a time for you to connect with your families and loved ones, we hope you will take good care of yourself during the holiday season. But we wanted to present you with the biblical truth about these practices.

 

May the Holy Spirit guide you in the understanding of this message.

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