OT: An Easter Question
Submitted by jim on Mon, 03/28/2005 - 10:49
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Last year we did our Easter egg hunt outside, but this year it was so early there was too much snow (eggs on the surface? Too easy. Eggs buried? Too hard). The earliness of Easter made me wonder: why is it that Christmas is a known fixed date, but Easter floats around?
Christmas in january or february? Why not? Btw, did you know that the 25th of decembre is actually the wrong date to celebrate the birthday of Jesus (if he ever existed, that means)? Scientists have proved that (if, than) he was born somewhere during spring!
P.S.: Do you still have snow?
Yup, still have snow, although hopefully not for much longer.
Do you have a source for these scientists? I can't really go coast through cocktail parties saying this has been "proved" without at least a glance at the material you're talking about. :-)
Jim you actually attend cocktail parties?
How adult of you.....
Ha! No. But it was the best I could do in describing the sort of casual social situation where I might be tempted to dole out that little bit of trivia, had it played out as valid.
He says, as Frank Sinatra sings and Jim spills his martini...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
You've found me out! The many joys of telecommuting (and time travel).
Personal trivia: my great-uncle was a maitre d' at a popular club in NYC, and occasionally got called up to share the stage with Sinatra.
I hereby declare today official Cool in the Third Degree Day at Listology. Everybody is encouraged to tell of a distant (not direct) link to somebody famous. I've already pitched mine, there's Jim's (which is much cooler than mine was), who's next?
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bang
All is well with the family. Wife is good and child is thriving....We are thinking of adding on to the family.
I will even add to your game a day late.
I actually have a lot of these but I will give you the two I think fit the closest to what I think you intended.
My Great grandmother was first or second cousin to Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Makes me like the sixth cousin to the Kennedy family. I am still awaiting my invitation to the complex in Hyannis.
My wife's uncle married Eric Bogosian's mother later in life. She came to our wedding. Still doesn't change my opinion that's he is overrated.
Excellent! I'm thrilled to hear the family is doing so well. I think about you sometimes and wonder how the crew is doing.
You also are cool in the third degree, but of course, I remember your Dar Williams story, so I know you are really cool in the first in disguise... :)
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
PS - Did your Kennedy connections ever get you into Grey Gardens? :)
PPS - Sorry, Jim, for hijacking your thread! I am so insensitive at times.
Hey, any hijacking that gets us a post from jgandcag is okay with me!
(and JG, I heartily second L's sentiments)
certainly, in this case, the ends justified the means.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs (already working on how to get jgandcag out of hiding next month...)
One of my sister's best friends from high school is the twin brother of the bass player (Trevor Forbes) of The Heavy Blinkers. (She was actually friends with Trevor as well but was a lot closer with his brother and I needed the third degree).
That's pretty cool, and thus, so are you!
Another one!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
My great-grandfather found one of the extremely few intact Viking ships in existence, one that was surely sailed by Leif Ericson himself. :-)
That's all I got. Damn, I'm so uncool.
No! You are cool, but like me, you are simply cool by three degress.
I actually find that connection quite groovy. My great-grandfather... well, I've no clue what he did.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Well the mom of Patricia Velasquez, top model/actress she was in the Mummy movies, lives in my building.
Also one of my best friends from college, is a friend of Robert Rodriguez's wife.
Oh, and a cousin of my mom, is a boxing comissioner in the WBC, he showed me his photo album, with pictures of Ali, Don King, Bob Arum, and a shitload of latin fighters.
Excellent! The second one seems most in flavor with the list; you know someone who knows someone who knows someone.
Congrats! You are cool in the third degree!
That's four...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
My boss's uncle is Dominic Chianese. That's as good as it gets for me -- I'm not actually related to any famous people.
Junior! That counts!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Hey you sold wine to Stanley Tucci.
I did do that. Also to William Fichtner!
Oooh, I would be careful dealing alcohol with Richard Cross...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I'm a little late for this, but this still feels like Monday to me. Let's see, what have I got. One of my best friends from high school used to know William H. Macy, before he became famous. Another good friend's father is the dentist for most of the Baltimore Orioles. Or... my uncle's friend met Adam Duritz, lead singer of the Counting Crows, at a party once. Other than that, I got nothin'.
Oh, I have another one. A guy from my management group first semester went to middle school with Lindsay Lohan, and she said he was her first crush when asked the question on TRL. Now that's cool.
Alright, AJ, if I only get to be cool once a lifetime, you must settle for once a day.
We'll save it for tomorrow!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Agreed with L. Bangs, you lucky bastard! :D
Those connections are pretty cool, in my book. Congrats, you are cool (by three degrees)!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
My friend's father's cousin is Adam Clayton of U2. And my History teacher used to teach Formula 1 driver Jenson Button (he was born in my hometown). That do? :)
Another winner!
One of my college friends dated somebody who babysat The Edge's kids; I'm not sure, but I think that means we're related by 12 degrees...
Or something...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Hey! How are you? I hope life is treating you and your family well; you've been missed!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I'm afraid I dunno who these scientists are and when they found out.
I found this: Then we can also mention, that Jesus was not born in December; Baal maybe was born then. Jesus was born in spring. There is historic evidence also confirming this. Then we see in the Bible Jesus being the Lamb of God. And lambs are being born in spring and in April in Israel. In December in Israel there can be even snow on the ground, and shepherds are not then in the fields, and we see in the Bible, that shepherds were in the field, when Jesus was born (Luke 2:8). We have been betrayed also in these things all these years and even hundreds of years., from here, although not scientific.
"Then we see in the Bible Jesus being the Lamb of God. And lambs are being born in spring and in April in Israel." Possibly the dumbest argument I've ever heard (which is not an insult to you, 1922, but to whoever wrote that).
Curious: how did they prove he was born during the spring?
No idea. They surely had a lot of documents to prove it somehow. For some time, one point to prove that he was not born in winter, was that there were sheep. And, during winter, a shepherd does not leave his sheep outdoors, not even in these regions. But maybe it was quite a mild winter that year?
Scientists also proved that (if he existed, then) he was born around 6 BC. Seems paradox, but is so...
Yes, I've heard everything from 4-6 B.C. But 'proving' what season Jesus of Nazareth was born during based on where sheep were kept seems silly. Maybe it was raining really hard that night, nobody knows. You can't 'prove' something, even in the weakest sense, with suppositions like that. I never accept anything anymore based on the statement 'scientists have proved that...' - if I actually care about the subject I must investigate the facts on some level myself.
I don't know anyone, least of all a scientist, who has claimed to be able to prove Jesus was born in the Spring, but I have heard the supposition based on the appearance of the angels to the "shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night". We may suppose that shepherds would not spend the night in the fields with their sheep if the weather were cold, but they could tolerate a great deal more rain than we could.
How is the date of Easter determined? [straightdope.com]
Cool, thanks, although that's not quite what I was looking for. It seems odd to me that we celebrate the birth of Christ on a fixed date, but his resurrection on a floating date. Is one date known, and the other not?
I've heard the traditional explanation, that the Emperor Constantine Christianized all the pagan holidays when he made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. Easter is a pagan Spring fertility festival, and Christmas is a Winter Solstice festival. However, the Bible places no emphasis on remembering Christ's birth, only on remembering his death, burial, and resurrection, so the date of "Christmas" is pure church tradition, whereas "Easter" is actually the celebration of Christ's resurrection, which the Bible says took place during the week of Passover. The Last Supper was actually the disciples' celebration of the Passover feast.
So why don't all Christians calculate Easter from the Jewish Passover? If I were to guess, I'd say that the Catholic church was strenuously trying to avoid using the Jewish calendar -- hence, the complex system.
I thought Easter always fell on Passover. It always has in my church.
Well, I can tell you that Passover isn't for another month, so it certainly doesn't fall on Passover this year.
By the way, OT? How can something be off-topic at Listology?
Well, I filed it under "Listology" because only it, movies, books, music, and TV show up on the home page. I can really only justify filing it there because it is something I, site admin, was wondering about. A gross abuse of power!
I stand corrected.
They both wanted to have Easter always fall on a Sunday and never wanted Easter to land on the first day of Passover (supposedly for anti-Semetic reasons). So in that respect, you are right. They did want some distance from the Jewish calendar.
I believe the Eastern traditions shared neither concern and still do celebrate Easter strictly according to passover, but I am not entirely sure.
Here's a good source. Note, "Although no Canon resulted, a consensus was reached that, a) Easter should be on the Lord’s Day, b) that it should not depend on, or coincide with the Jewish lunar calculation of Passover; but yet have some reminder of the original connection." Thus, the floatiness (connection to lunar calendar).
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
There we go concerning Christmas. I was trying to duck out of the controversy, as some Christians are very upset if you mention it, but all signs seem to point to the Christmas date being selected when it is to co-opt the pagan solstice celebrations that refused to vanish even after banned.
Whether the Israelites or God selected the date of Passover because of a connection with Spring fertility is a ball of thread I'll leave undisturbed...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
The gospels place Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection in the context of the Jewish passover, which was a fixed date on the Jewish lunar calendar. Since that calendar had less days than ours (with, I believe, an extra month inserted every so often to bring the dates back in line with the solar calendar), it floats compared to our calendar.
To avoid controversy, I'll simply state that nobody knows the true date of Jesus' birth, and as such, one was simply chosen on the (I believe) then current Roman calendar, a calendar which was solar as opposed to lunar and thus lines up with other semi-accurate, solar calendars. Our calendar is descended from the Roman, a fact even the names of the months and days reflects.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Cool, thanks! (to you, and lukeprog above)
Actually, the date of Easter is based on the moon -- sort of. The easiest way to explain it is to say that Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox.
But if you want to get technical, you should know that the “full moon” is not the “actual” one calculated by astronomers, but an “ecclesiastical full moon” determined by tables dating from the time of Pope Gregory XIII.
And if you’re Eastern Orthodox, you will celebrate Easter on a different day (usually), which is decided by different tables based on the Julian calendar.
If anyone can explain to me why Easter is the only religious holiday that gets this complex treatment, I'll send you the rest of my Easter candy. I'd like to see it permanently moved to the vernal equinox, March 21st, myself.
Would the moon have anything to do with a lunar calendar? :)
You are right; that is how we calculate Easter. The why is the passover link, which is tied to a lunar calendar and thus the moon.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
PS - As far as no other Christian holidays floating, it depends on your flavor of Christianity, as Pentecost, Ascension Day, and, obviously, Lent are dependent on the floating Easter date.