'Twas
Irwell
What is the last one?
Emery
----------
In article <3df15f9...@news.CIS.DFN.DE>, tay...@softhome.net
(Irwell) wrote:
>'Twas the first Noel, that the angels did sing.
No, no.
'Twas the night before Christmas.
When all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even
a louse.
The first Noel, the angel did *say*. No singing, none of "that",
and certainly no "'twas".
>What is the last one?
This> one <here. But not for long, I'm sure.
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
> 'Twas the first Noel, that the angels did sing.
> What is the last one?
The one before you kick the bucket, of course.
--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/
R H Draney
news:3df15f9...@news.CIS.DFN.DE:
> 'Twas the first Noel, that the angels did sing.
> What is the last one?
Among those I'm aware of, the son of cartoon voicist Mel Blanc (yes,
this Jewish kid was actually given a name meaning "White
Christmas")....r
Martin Ambuhl
> 'Twas the first Noel, that the angels did sing.
> What is the last one?
The first record of the words and music to "The First Noel" being used
together is in "Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern", by William Sandys
(London: Richard Beckley, 1833). Note that your ", that" are spurious:
The first Noel the angel did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
In fields where they lay tending their sheep,
On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.
N.Mitchum
-----
> 'Twas the first Noel, that the angels did sing.
> What is the last one?
25 December 2001. Didn't you notice?
----NM
Simon R. Hughes
Ah! The first Noėl in the new millennium.
--
Simon R. Hughes
<!-- -->
Stefano MacGregor
> Ah! The first Noël in the new millennium.
No: the first in the =third= millennium (2001-3000). It's the second
in the =new= millennium (2000-2999).
I thought we had the distinction cleared up earlier this millennium.
Raymond S. Wise
news:6b9b63b5.02120...@posting.google.com...
But the "third millennium" *is* the "new millennium"--and it began January
1, 2001.
I read discussions about this in English, French, and Esperanto newsgroups,
and I put in my two cents' worth as well. I doubt anyone was ever persuaded
to abandon his or her position on the matter.
In any case, last Christmas, December 25, 2001, was undoubtedly the
two-thousandth anniversary of the traditional date of Jesus Christ's birth,
December 25, 1 BC.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Mark Browne
<illinoi...@mninter.net> wrote:
>In any case, last Christmas, December 25, 2001, was undoubtedly the
>two-thousandth anniversary of the traditional date of Jesus Christ's birth,
>December 25, 1 BC.
I'm with you as to when the new millenium started, but surely the
traditional birthdate is 25th December 1 A.D.?
--
Mark Browne
Mark Brader
>> In any case, last Christmas, December 25, 2001, was undoubtedly the
>> two-thousandth anniversary of the traditional date of Jesus Christ's
>> birth, December 25, 1 BC.
Er, would you believe definitely the 2001st anniversary?
Mark Browne:
> I'm with you as to when the new millenium started, but surely the
> traditional birthdate is 25th December 1 A.D.?
No, 1 BC is correct. I only learned this a few years ago myself.
Apparently the idea was that 1 AD was meant to be the first year when
Christ was alive *for the whole year*. (And 1 BC, of course, is the
term later adopted for year before 1 AD.)
--
Mark Brader "How diabolically clever: a straightforward message!
Toronto Only a genius could have thought of that."
m...@vex.net -- Maxwell Smart (Agent 86)
Mark Raymond
@earthlink.net:
[snip]
> In fields where they lay tending their sheep,
>
We always sang this as "keeping", not "tending" their sheep
Simon R. Hughes
> "Stefano MacGregor" <esper...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:6b9b63b5.02120...@posting.google.com...
> > Simon R. Hughes <shu...@tromso.online.no> wrote in message
> news:<MPG.185bf387f...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>...
> >
> > > Ah! The first Noël in the new millennium.
> >
> > No: the first in the =third= millennium (2001-3000). It's the second
> > in the =new= millennium (2000-2999).
> >
> > I thought we had the distinction cleared up earlier this millennium.
> >
> > --
> > Stefano
> > http://www.steve-and-pattie.com/esperantujo
>
>
> But the "third millennium" *is* the "new millennium"--and it began January
> 1, 2001.
Says us, yes. But the numbers didn't change, did they? We like to
watch all the numbers change. I'm looking forward to the next one.
> I read discussions about this in English, French, and Esperanto newsgroups,
> and I put in my two cents' worth as well. I doubt anyone was ever persuaded
> to abandon his or her position on the matter.
>
> In any case, last Christmas, December 25, 2001, was undoubtedly the
> two-thousandth anniversary of the traditional date of Jesus Christ's birth,
> December 25, 1 BC.
Except Jesus would have to have been born in October (Feast of
Tabernacles) if he was to fulfil the OT. Oh, and he was born five
years before his first birthday.
Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus, and new year is a Roman
holiday.
Skitt
> Thus Spake Raymond S. Wise:
>> In any case, last Christmas, December 25, 2001, was undoubtedly the
>> two-thousandth anniversary of the traditional date of Jesus Christ's
>> birth, December 25, 1 BC.
>
> Except Jesus would have to have been born in October (Feast of
> Tabernacles) if he was to fulfil the OT. Oh, and he was born five
> years before his first birthday.
Poor kid! Look at all the presents he missed out on.
> Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus, and new year is a Roman
> holiday.
Was. It is mine now, too.
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel (Fawlty Towers)
George Partlow
> Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus, and new year is a Roman
> holiday.
Nu, kion oni povas diri pri tio?
On the one hand we have the secular festival of Christmas, which
combines feature of the ancient Festival of Yule, druidism (e.g.
mistletoe) and Germanic tree worship with a sentimental attachment to
the New Testment birth narratives and to legends like that of Nicholas
Bishop of Smyrna (who via the Sinter Klaas of the Dutch colonists in
New Amsterdam becomes the Santa Claus cebrated as far afield as
Japan). This holiday, or at least its "season" apparently begins
around the end of November (right after U.S., not Canadian,
Thanksgiving Day), or even earlier, immediately after Hallowe'en (the
ancient Briton's festival of Samain), when the U.S. merchants begin to
put up "Xmas decorations". Then on the other hand we have the
Christian season of Christmas, from the Feast of the Nativity of Our
Lord Jesus Christ to the Feast of Epiphany (the "12 days of
Christmas"). Now the date of the Feast of the Nativity probably has
to do with the desire of the early bishops to have a Christian feast
day that competed with the pagan festival of Saturnalia with its
traditional orgiastic behavior... and it probably didn't hurt, when
Christianity came to the Celtic and German lands, that it coincided
with the pagan Winter Solstice festivals of the Sun's Return. Its
date certainly has nothing to do with the actual date of Jesus's
birth; that's obvious just from the Lucan birth narratives alone,
where the Evangelist has the shepherds "out in the fields tending
their flocks" when the angel appears announcing Jesus's birth*...
since shepherds have the flocks out in the fiedls in _summer_, not
_winter_ (this point is doubtless now lost on the mostly urbanized
population of the West).
So if you mean that the _date_ has nothing to do with Jesus, that's
almost certainly true... but to say that either the Christian
Christmas or the modern secular "Xmas" have nothing to do with Jesus
is more problematic. They do and they don't. I will grant you that
the overwhelming thrust of the secular Xmas, perhaps best summed up by
the lyric "Angels we have heard on high... telling us 'Go out and
BUY!'", has nothing to do with Christ, but OTOH this vast commerical
enterprise is happy to use "cute little baby Jesus" to sell stuff:
ANYTHING can be grist for its mill!
Sincerajn salutojn okaze de la Sezono de Alveno sendas al vi el
pluvplena sudorienta alasko
George Partlow
*Positing the historicity of the birth narratives... but what else do
we have to go on?
Raymond S. Wise
news:66kJ9.72$_9.76...@news.nnrp.ca...
> Raymond Wise:
> >> In any case, last Christmas, December 25, 2001, was undoubtedly the
> >> two-thousandth anniversary of the traditional date of Jesus Christ's
> >> birth, December 25, 1 BC.
>
> Er, would you believe definitely the 2001st anniversary?
>
Ouch! Yes, you are correct.
> Mark Browne:
> > I'm with you as to when the new millenium started, but surely the
> > traditional birthdate is 25th December 1 A.D.?
>
> No, 1 BC is correct. I only learned this a few years ago myself.
> Apparently the idea was that 1 AD was meant to be the first year when
> Christ was alive *for the whole year*. (And 1 BC, of course, is the
> term later adopted for year before 1 AD.)
In fact, the man responsible for placing Jesus' birth on December 25, 1 BC,
Dionysius Exiguus, considered that the Christian Era began March 25, 1 BC,
which he considered New Year's Day of Year 1 "_anno ab Incarnatione_ ( =
"the year of the Incarnation" ). For details see *Marking Time: The Epic
Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar* by the astronomer Duncan Steel. This
system of dating was equivalent to the system which was later called "_stilo
Annunciatis_ of the variety _stilo Pisanus,_" because it was used in the
city-state of Pisa. Thus Jesus was born on December 25, Year 1 _anno ab
Incarnatione._ Fiddling with the calendar gave us the system we have now,
where Jesus was born in the period "before Christ." Another system of
dating, in which the first day of the Christian Era was March 25, 1 AD, was
adopted in the city-state of Florence, and is known to later chronologists
as "_stilo Annunciatis_ of the variety _stilo Florentinus,_" This was the
dating system in force in Britain and its colonies when George Washington
was born.
January 1, 1 AD, was the (traditional) date of Jesus' circumcision,
according to Steel, and a feast day which acknowledged that fact was once
recognized by the Church. Steel believes that this fact was obscured in
later eras due to anti-Semitism, but originally, at the time January 1 was
adopted by the Church as the official beginning of the year--primarily
because it was the beginning of the civil year--this offered a religious
justification for moving the beginning of the year from March 25.
I suppose, although I have not verified it, that the people who used the
system "_stilo Annunciatis_ of the variety _stilo Florentinus_" believed
the Annunciation to have occurred on March 25th of what we call 1 AD, so
that Jesus was thought by them to have been born on what we call December
25, 1 AD, although both of these are contrary to what Dionysius Exiguus had
determined. Someone, somewhere, made a mistake, something similar to the
mistake that people make when they believe that the third millennium of the
Christan Era began on January 1, 2000. But in the case of the dating system,
the mistake had consequences, putting one system of dating a full year apart
in numbering from another system of dating. (Dionysius made an error also,
but his mistake did not lead to two separate systems of dating: His
traditional date for Jesus' birth is the basis for all the systems of dating
here mentioned, even if the people using the Florentine system appear to
have gotten it wrong.)
I knew all this before I made my previous post, and have posted about it
before, which makes my mistake about the 2000th anniversary of Jesus' birth
particularly embarrassing.
Raymond S. Wise
news:hhfbvuk3ls8i33a6j...@4ax.com...
No, 1 BC. I gave details in another post in this thread.
And I goofed about the 2000th anniversary of Jesus' birth, as another poster
pointed out. The 2000th anniversary of Jesus birth was December 25, 2000 AD.
Emery
----------
In article <e5dfe6d0.02121...@posting.google.com>,
pricer...@hotmail.com (George Partlow) wrote:
>Simon R. Hughes <shu...@tromso.online.no> wrote in message
>news:<MPG.18600b40b...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>...
>
>> Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus, and new year is a Roman
>> holiday.
>Now the date of the Feast of the Nativity probably has
>to do with the desire of the early bishops to have a Christian feast
>day that competed with the pagan festival of Saturnalia with its
>traditional orgiastic behavior...
More likely, to compete with the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun
(Natalis Solis Invicti), which fell on December 25, the
traditional Roman date of the Solstice. This was made an
official state holiday by the emperor Aurelian around AD 275,
about 50 years before the first record of observing Jesus' birth
on the same day. Saturnalia was December 17 to 23, but I think
the orgies were pretty much out of favor even among the pagans by
the time of Aurelian and thereafter. More martial pastimes like
gladiatorial combats were the rage. (See, everybody thinks that
the Roman Empire fell because it was all orgiastic and such; but
that was mostly early on, in the first century AD, with Tiberius,
Caligula and Nero. Well, true, there were a few imperial lushes
again in the early third century, but by the later third century
the empire was very militaristic, and by the time it fell in the
fifth century it had become otherworldly, spiritual and most of
all, devoutly Christian.)
<http://www.religioustolerance.org/xmas_sel.htm> lists a few
other savior-gods with Dec. 25 birthdays.
>*Positing the historicity of the birth narratives... but what else do
>we have to go on?
"Narrative". Only Luke makes a fuss about the actual birth of
Jesus, Mark and John don't mention it at all, their gospels start
with Jesus as a grown man; Matthew goes into great detail about
Jesus' genealogy, mentions that his mother was still a virgin
when he was born, and that some Wise Guys from Brooklyn visited
him after following a star, which made Herod jealous. Oh, no, it
just says "from the east".
Anyway, just about any savior-god of the time was born of a
virgin in a cave or barn, or was his own father, or whatever; and
anybody with any claim to power and/or fame had his birth
announced by angels and such. Retroactively, of course.
Peter Moylan
> date certainly has nothing to do with the actual date of Jesus's
> birth; that's obvious just from the Lucan birth narratives alone,
> where the Evangelist has the shepherds "out in the fields tending
> their flocks" when the angel appears announcing Jesus's birth*...
> since shepherds have the flocks out in the fiedls in _summer_, not
> _winter_ (this point is doubtless now lost on the mostly urbanized
> population of the West).
I agree with most of the rest of what you said, but this particular
argument could be made only by someone who lives a long way from
the equator. Some of the Christmas card makers have a similar
vision, leading them to produce scenes of snow falling on the
pine trees around Bethlehem.
There are some parts of the world where winter is the only
time the sheep can get a decent supply of good green grass.
On the other hand, the 'manger' part of the story does tend to
suggest mid-summer, when animals have to be fed on hay and
straw because the natural forage is unavailable.
On the gripping hand, the part about shepherds washing their
socks points again to winter. In summer, in that part of the
world, people would have worn sandals without socks.
--
Peter Moylan pe...@ee.newcastle.edu.au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au
George Partlow
> I agree with most of the rest of what you said, but this particular
> argument could be made only by someone who lives a long way from
> the equator. Some of the Christmas card makers have a similar
> vision, leading them to produce scenes of snow falling on the
> pine trees around Bethlehem.
Although it is true that Alaska is indeed "a long way from the
equator" (I'm writing this at approx. 58N 135W), I have travelled a
bit (e.g. Cuzco, Quito, Tbilisi), and lived other places (e.g. 3 years
in Jamaica).
On the other hand I opt to concede on matters concerning sheep to
_anyone_ from Oz, even if they're from Sydney or Melbourne... ;-) ;)
>
> There are some parts of the world where winter is the only
> time the sheep can get a decent supply of good green grass.
Which may indeed be true about the desert East of Jerusalem... though
whether it was true two millenia ago, before the deforestation and
other damage (caused, among other things, precisely by sheep!), I'm
not sure of.
(snip)
> On the gripping hand, the part about shepherds washing their
> socks points again to winter. In summer, in that part of the
> world, people would have worn sandals without socks.
ROTFL! Thank you, that made my day! ;) ;-)
George
George Partlow
(snip)
> ... but by the later third century
> the empire was very militaristic, and by the time it fell in the
> fifth century it had become otherworldly, spiritual and most of
> all, devoutly Christian.)
Which is Gibbon's main point, as I understand him.
>
> <http://www.religioustolerance.org/xmas_sel.htm> lists a few
> other savior-gods with Dec. 25 birthdays.
>
> >*Positing the historicity of the birth narratives... but what else do
> >we have to go on?
>
> "Narrative". Only Luke makes a fuss about the actual birth of
> Jesus, Mark and John don't mention it at all, their gospels start
> with Jesus as a grown man; Matthew goes into great detail about
> Jesus' genealogy, mentions that his mother was still a virgin
> when he was born, and that some Wise Guys from Brooklyn visited
> him after following a star, which made Herod jealous. Oh, no, it
> just says "from the east".
No, I really DID mean plural. One of my teachers, Paul Minear, wrote
quite a bit about this (I haven't read much about it, in his or
others' work, for more than 30 years, so I'm a bit rusty). But it
posits a notion of oral traditions (plural, again!) BEHIND the
synoptic gospels. SOP among scholars, even some Evangelical ones,
though AFAIK not among the Robertson/Falwell etc crowd, but I didn't
really mean to get into that.
> Anyway, just about any savior-god of the time was born of a
> virgin in a cave or barn, or was his own father, or whatever; and
> anybody with any claim to power and/or fame had his birth
> announced by angels and such. Retroactively, of course.
In particular, I suppose, Mithras, whose cult was probably rather more
popular than Christianity, especially in the army. But now we ARE
getting rather far afield.
Anyway, you're certainly correct that I should have said more about
the Circus than about "orgies". ;-) ;-)
Best wishes,
George
Martin
<shu...@tromso.online.no> writes
>Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus, and new year is a Roman
>holiday.
Hey, don't forget Yule!
--
Martin @ Strawberry Hill
Robert Lieblich
>
> In article <MPG.18600b40b...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>, Simon R. Hughes
> <shu...@tromso.online.no> writes
> >Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus, and new year is a Roman
> >holiday.
>
> Hey, don't forget Yule!
Nickey Rooney? What does he have to do with this?
--
Bob Lieblich
Terminally confused
Peter Moylan
> Peter Moylan <pe...@PJM2.newcastle.edu.au> wrote in message news:<at8efq$hvr$1...@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au>...
>> time the sheep can get a decent supply of good green grass.
>
> Which may indeed be true about the desert East of Jerusalem... though
> whether it was true two millenia ago, before the deforestation and
> other damage (caused, among other things, precisely by sheep!), I'm
> not sure of.
My understanding of the matter is that goats are the real culprits.
Sheep eat the grass down to almost ground level -- indeed, I've seen
them used as lawn mower substitutes -- but after they've moved on
the grass grows again. Goats, on the other hand, eat the roots.
It takes very few goats to turn fertile grasslands into desert.
They might have also had a hand in the deforestation. Goats will
eat young trees, but sheep won't touch anything except the grass.
Of course, humans can be even more destructive. In Australia,
huge tracts of forest were cleared to make way for crops like
wheat. (And this was official policy. Farmers could lose
their land if they failed to clear it of trees.) This had
a big effect on the subsurface water. Once you remove the
trees, the salt works its way to the surface, and after a while
the land becomes useless for agriculture. This is a trend
that's difficult to reverse; you can't plant new trees, because
the salt kills them off.
A century ago, this country could probably have supported a
population of 30 to 50 million. As the result of ignorant
land husbandry, the present long-term carrying capacity is more
like 15 million. Since the present population is already
greater than that, our grandchildren are going to be heavily
reliant on imported water.