Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
Speaker 2: name is no they call me Ben.
Speaker 3: We're joined as always with our super producer Andrew Treyforce Howard.
Speaker 3: Most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. We're recording on December sixteenth.
Speaker 3: There are just fifteen days to the new year. As
Speaker 3: the Gregorian calendar, which is kind of an up and
Speaker 3: coming trend, reckons the passage of time. Guys, can you
Speaker 3: believe it? There's always been a time or reflection. But
Speaker 3: like looking back on this gear, I think we've had
Speaker 3: some ups and downs, but hopefully we've had more ups
Speaker 3: than downs.
Speaker 4: As a people, as a as a country, as individuals,
Speaker 4: all three, perhaps all the above. Ben, I gotta say
Speaker 4: that you're bearing the lead a little bit. You typically
Speaker 4: put a lovely quote at the top of these outlines,
Speaker 4: and you got a banger of one up top today.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna have to insist that you read. I'm gonna
Speaker 5: have to insist that you read it.
Speaker 3: That's too kind. All right, Well, with your permission, fellow
Speaker 3: conspiracy realist, you won't be one of those bastards who
Speaker 3: says Christmas is what's year and it's a fraud. It's not.
Speaker 3: It can happen every day. You've just gotta want that feeling.
Speaker 3: And if you like it and you want it, you'll
Speaker 3: get greedy for it. You'll want it every day of
Speaker 3: your life, and it can happen to you. I believe
Speaker 3: in it now. I believe it's gonna happen to me.
Speaker 3: Now I'm ready for it.
Speaker 5: Turkey's for everyone.
Speaker 4: This is, of course, from the Seminole holiday classic film Scrooged.
Speaker 4: I watched this for the first time in many years
Speaker 4: last Christmas, and I also gave you my heart, and
Speaker 4: I gotta say, guys, I think it's a bit of
Speaker 4: a metaphor for late stage capitalism being great.
Speaker 6: Even this quote that you just read, it's like, let's
Speaker 6: be greedy for Christmas and love and joy and good.
Speaker 5: It just is all about how you frame it.
Speaker 3: I pulled the one part of the monologue that speaks
Speaker 3: coherently because I feel a lot of it was improvised
Speaker 3: by our buddy Murray. Uh, and a lot of it
Speaker 3: is him sounding like a Wall Street capitalist mid No.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and even what you put in here, it's got
Speaker 5: that feeling for sure.
Speaker 4: But did you guys get that vibe about the film that,
Speaker 4: like the thesis at the end, is very much giving.
Speaker 6: A pass to the stage capitalist. Remember I say what
Speaker 6: no way, I mean, I just wanted to be explicit
Speaker 6: about it. It's just, yeah, have you seen that scrooged
Speaker 6: of late?
Speaker 3: I have.
Speaker 2: I it's it's well of late. Yes, it's been a minute,
Speaker 2: but I.
Speaker 5: Have seen screw.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying it's not a banger of a fun movie,
Speaker 4: but Fodcat gold Tway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a better I don't know
Speaker 2: that whole like, let's be greedy for Christmas to me
Speaker 2: is better than you know, delay and I defend too whatever.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying.
Speaker 5: The true Father Christmas, I'm just saying I'm down.
Speaker 2: I'm more down, I think with let's just give everything
Speaker 2: away rather than let's take take take tic take.
Speaker 3: We're also going to find too. One of the one
Speaker 3: of the things that Frank Cross gets to and Scrooge
Speaker 3: towards the very end is this idea that perhaps the
Speaker 3: specific date of Christmas doesn't matter as much as merchandising
Speaker 3: would like you to believe.
Speaker 5: The way merchandising makes you feel, not the feeling so
Speaker 5: you can be a.
Speaker 3: Good person on a Tuesday.
Speaker 4: I am so sorry, guys. Last thing on Scrooge does
Speaker 4: in the world of Scrooge? Does a Christmas Carol by
Speaker 4: Charles Dickens exist? Do they discuss it as a piece
Speaker 4: of intellectual property existing in the world of that film?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you know, the whole thing is a show
Speaker 3: within a show.
Speaker 4: Right, of course they do the show and they're doing
Speaker 4: a Christmas Carol, but of course everything aligns to the
Speaker 4: actual ghosts that visit Ebenezer Scrooge, just.
Speaker 3: Staple the antlers on. Would you call that, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean?
Speaker 5: Would you call that religious syncretism?
Speaker 4: Ben?
Speaker 3: I would. But I'm maybe not the best example, Noel,
Speaker 3: because I have long argued that capitalism and our current
Speaker 3: concept of economy is indeed a religion, and I've lost
Speaker 3: the probably the most popular one in the world currently.
Speaker 3: And look, you know, we're we're checking back right in
Speaker 3: this historical time of introspection. What has passed? What is passing?
Speaker 3: What has yet to come. Human society is always celebrated
Speaker 3: around this time, partially because a lot of people died
Speaker 3: when they ran out of food and it was like
Speaker 3: really really cold. Yes, yeah, and through a great game
Speaker 3: of telephone. Right now around this time of years, the
Speaker 3: Gregorian calendar measures it. Christmas is one of the most
Speaker 3: popular holidays on the planet. It's so popular that whether
Speaker 3: or not you celebrate, whether or not you consider yourself Christian,
Speaker 3: unless you live on North Sentinel Island, you have probably
Speaker 3: heard of Christmas. It commemorates one of the most famous
Speaker 3: birthdays in all of history, a guy named Jesus of Nazareth, who,
Speaker 3: according to adherents of Christianity, is believed to be the Messiah.
Speaker 3: But our question here is what if we don't know
Speaker 3: the full story? When was Jesus Christ actually born.
Speaker 2: Let's dive in to this historical mystery after we get
Speaker 2: our Q four numbers in order we'll be repick.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts, all right, This is doubtlessly familiar
Speaker 3: to many of us in the audience tonight, unless you're
Speaker 3: part of the growing demographic of folks on North Sentinel
Speaker 3: Islands who love stuff They don't want you to know
Speaker 3: seven by my current counts, I'm manifesting it, you guys.
Speaker 3: So they're like, I think we all have on this show.
Speaker 3: We've encountered Christianity in some capacity, whether or not we
Speaker 3: consider ourselves specifically Christian. You know, many of us listening
Speaker 3: along tonight do in one capacity to one degree or another.
Speaker 3: So it's no secret that varying denominations or sex of
Speaker 3: Christianity agree on the large points of the story of
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ right, especially the death and in the beginning.
Speaker 3: But they disagree on doctrine, and they disagree on some
Speaker 3: of the specifics surrounding the narrative of Jesus Christ's birthday
Speaker 3: or the first one, the Nativity. So maybe we stick
Speaker 3: with the high level basic stuff for now. We don't
Speaker 3: want to stir the pot too much. This is what
Speaker 3: all Christianity largely agrees upon, and he comes from only
Speaker 3: two sources, the Gospels of Matthew, not our matt a
Speaker 3: different one and Luke.
Speaker 2: Yes, that is correct. And you have heard this story.
Speaker 2: You've likely seen it in a manger scene driving by
Speaker 2: a church. It is depicted symbolically there like very literally
Speaker 2: symbolically in those major scenes. By the way, guys. As
Speaker 2: a young and I've said this before on the show,
Speaker 2: as a little tiny baby, I did play baby Jesus
Speaker 2: in a manger. Christian parents, you are such a Snookham's Yeah,
Speaker 2: But the story that we know is that Jesus Christ
Speaker 2: was born in a manger on and it is often
Speaker 2: said and celebrated on the twenty fifth.
Speaker 3: Of December in the Gregorian calendar exactly. So that's the
Speaker 3: other thing, right, Yeah, Jesus is born in a manger.
Speaker 3: For any etymology fans, a lot of people might assume
Speaker 3: a manger is a barn. The manger is the troth
Speaker 3: where animals feed, which is by the barn where you
Speaker 3: keep the livestock. And this manger, this barn situation is
Speaker 3: in a town called Bethlehem. The child is born to
Speaker 3: two parents, an itinerant carpenter named Joseph and his wife Mary.
Speaker 3: Joseph is somehow descended from King David. There are a
Speaker 3: couple of unique factors involved in this birth. It's not
Speaker 3: the first barn birth and history by any means, but
Speaker 3: Joseph is Jesus's earthly father figure. Jesus himself is the
Speaker 3: result of what's called immaculate conception, meaning that Mary was
Speaker 3: essentially impregnated by divine forces usually called the Holy Spirit
Speaker 3: and a lot of translations, making him the literal son
Speaker 3: of God. And you can see this in stuff like
Speaker 3: Matthew one eighteen Luke one thirty five. That's one of
Speaker 3: the points they agree on. You should be familiar with
Speaker 3: the Nativity scenes. I remember having to act in several
Speaker 3: of those. It's always fun, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Because often churches will have a bunch of the kids
Speaker 3: or the youth group do the Nativity play, and I
Speaker 3: still like watching them, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 3: don't think it'd be fair for me to be in
Speaker 3: one now because I'd be taking a role from a child,
Speaker 3: But but I do think it's always a good show.
Speaker 4: I think I was a shepherd of some stripe at
Speaker 4: some point, wearing a big fake beard as a child,
Speaker 4: which is always delightful to behold.
Speaker 3: I've played, this is true everyone at some Nativity play.
Speaker 3: I've played everyone except for Mary Ah.
Speaker 2: That is so awesome. Still time then we three Kings
Speaker 2: of Oriental, so I did that when I had again
Speaker 2: when I was based. I love it, guys. Let's just
Speaker 2: point out the tradition here of God's impregnating mortals.
Speaker 3: It's a very It's not in originals.
Speaker 5: Oh no, it's all over Greek mythology.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially Zeus.
Speaker 5: Zeus really and the Swan and all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but Zeus was stealthy chicks left and right.
Speaker 2: Much, I know. But it is just an interesting concept here, right,
Speaker 2: I mean this, this first idea that we encounter is
Speaker 2: it is magical in a lot of different ways. Right,
Speaker 2: some force impregnated a woman that had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with the ways that we are aware humans can conceive.
Speaker 3: In an important distinction. And I love this because this
Speaker 3: feels like an allusion to the work of Joseph Campbell
Speaker 3: or Fraser's The Golden beow This, which are great reads
Speaker 3: if you're into folklore seminal works. What I would say
Speaker 3: differentiates this origin story from other stories of what would
Speaker 3: be called demi gods outside of Christianity is that it
Speaker 3: is heavily implied. This is consensual. That is not the
Speaker 3: case in a lot of other stories, which by the way,
Speaker 3: are one to one beat for beat story wise, what
Speaker 3: you would call alien abductions today.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I reference the Leah and the Swan story.
Speaker 5: I had to google to make sure I wasn't just
Speaker 5: making that up, but it was.
Speaker 4: Well, let's gree when Zeus came down from Olympus and
Speaker 4: seduced and impregnated Lead a Spartan queen.
Speaker 5: In the form of a swan. I want to know
Speaker 5: how they worked.
Speaker 3: Seduced is doing a lot of heavy lifting in translation
Speaker 3: there there might be an R word involved, not sound well, there's.
Speaker 2: A lot of wing flapping.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I can imagine swan.
Speaker 5: Dudes don't have one.
Speaker 4: Swans don't have penises, though they have like a don't
Speaker 4: they have like a kloaca situation or like it's they
Speaker 4: don't have penis. Yeah, so how could you impregnate a
Speaker 4: human woman in the form of a swan. There's a
Speaker 4: lot of I'm sorry, I'm like getting hung up on
Speaker 4: the magical pallas, which.
Speaker 3: Is their equivalent of a penis that goes into the kloake.
Speaker 2: I see, but they're not all corkscrewy like the ducks,
Speaker 2: right or they because.
Speaker 5: Ducks are, or at least Zeus swans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, ducks very much are this So going back
Speaker 3: to this guy Jesus, he was or is if you like,
Speaker 3: depending on your your personal beliefs Galilean from Nazareth, and
Speaker 3: Nazareth is this valley, which is near one of the
Speaker 3: two big cities in Galilee. Sophorists during this time, during
Speaker 3: the time that Joseph and Mary are figuring this stuff
Speaker 3: out and expecting this kid, there's a real pos, a
Speaker 3: real pill, an absolute heel named King Herod, who controls
Speaker 3: the area, controls Judea, and the Gospel of Luke tells
Speaker 3: us that God sent an angel, a pretty famous angel Gabriel,
Speaker 3: to Earth, and according to Luke, the angel goes to
Speaker 3: Mary and says, look, you're gonna advocate e'xci me. Awesome.
Speaker 3: It's a son of God. You're gonna name him Jesus.
Speaker 3: Are we good? Because I have a three fifteen? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Ben, you bring up a really interesting point.
Speaker 4: I don't think I ever really clocked the implication of consents.
Speaker 4: So you're saying that it is depicted as the angel
Speaker 4: Gabriel basically saying is this all right? Or was it
Speaker 4: more of just I'm just giving you, doing you a
Speaker 4: solid and giving you a heads up that this is
Speaker 4: coming your way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's implied as a great gift, show great favor. Therefore,
Speaker 3: implying that there's implying but not explicitly stating that, unlike
Speaker 3: a Zeus situation, there was consent. It's weird. We'll get
Speaker 3: into Mythris and other contemporary messiahs as well. But here's
Speaker 3: the pickle of it. If you go to the Gospel
Speaker 3: of Matthew, Gabriel shows up to Joseph and says, bro
Speaker 3: I gotta lay some awesome news on you, and he
Speaker 3: says the same thing. Unfortunately, though, however the events transpire,
Speaker 3: these heavenly gifts do not automatically equate to earthly comfort.
Speaker 3: Joseph and Mary are not one percent there by no
Speaker 3: means wealthy or wealth to do, despite Joseph being descended
Speaker 3: from King David.
Speaker 4: I mean, the implication there always seemed to me is
Speaker 4: that's sort of like was the intention of of the
Speaker 4: Son of God to come from the most humble beginnings
Speaker 4: and grow up and live not as some sort of
Speaker 4: god among men or worshiped exactly and the way you
Speaker 4: might think of other messiah stories, but you know, living
Speaker 4: a humble life, you know, among the people.
Speaker 3: And we're obviously we're talking about this from a academic
Speaker 3: folkloric perspective. We're we're giving you the stories as they exist,
Speaker 3: with then diagrams and differences.
Speaker 2: Yeah, guys, I'm looking back at Luke with just the
Speaker 2: what's written in here about this whole conception thing, and
Speaker 2: it is really interesting. It's interesting in Luke because the
Speaker 2: only answer that Mary gives as the as the angels
Speaker 2: like laying all this pretty heavy, stuffy her is I
Speaker 2: am the Lord's servant, like you fill right right, whatever
Speaker 2: I can do to help? Well, yeah, exactly, But at
Speaker 2: the same time it's I don't.
Speaker 4: Know, is that consent though, or is that just like
Speaker 4: I will take one for the team because I don't
Speaker 4: feel like I have a choice.
Speaker 5: I don't know it. It's sort of pointless to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a human resource department in pretty much any company
Speaker 3: would take this opportunity to talk about how discrepancy and
Speaker 3: power and position.
Speaker 5: It's a little angel telling you this is the best
Speaker 5: thing that's ever happened. You're like, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: It sounds ritings like that on a slightly smaller level,
Speaker 3: slightly lower stakes. So all right, Joseph and Mary, despite
Speaker 3: being favored by God, are having a tough time down
Speaker 3: in the dirt and the mud with all the other
Speaker 3: Plebeian humans. As the birth of Jesus Christ draws near,
Speaker 3: his parents have to travel to Bethlehem. They don't live
Speaker 3: in Bethlehem. Hey, Bethlehem is the ancient city of King David.
Speaker 3: And according to Luke, there's this census going on, which
Speaker 3: means Joseph has to travel back to Bethlehem for this
Speaker 3: Roman decreed census. They don't have the best socioeconomic status.
Speaker 3: We can only imagine a lot of other people had
Speaker 3: to come back to town. So town is crowded, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. It's a dragon con super Bowl situation.
Speaker 3: There's not a lot of places to stay. They're very expensive.
Speaker 3: So this aspiring couple has to lay their infant in
Speaker 3: a manger. And when they do, the just important side note,
Speaker 3: the angels don't show up to any innkeeper and say
Speaker 3: you gotta let these folks sleep inside. The angels show
Speaker 3: up after they get to the barn, and after Mary
Speaker 3: gives birth to Jesus in this troth, and then they
Speaker 3: announce his birth to a group of shepherds. And I
Speaker 3: have to wonder, gentlemen, did any of the shepherds or
Speaker 3: the wise men experience something like a third man factor?
Speaker 3: That's an interesting you know what I mean, guided by angels.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's the thing about all of this, these
Speaker 4: kind of stories and the providence of them is like,
Speaker 4: you know, is there.
Speaker 5: Divine intervention?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: Is this word of mouth? Is there some sort of
Speaker 5: psychosis involved? Like, I just it's a lot of questions.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we just.
Speaker 2: It's a tough thing to say because it is about belief.
Speaker 2: But this is a story. It was written down, right
Speaker 2: by several accounts, but it was written down and it's
Speaker 2: lasted a long time, but it has certainly survived a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of scrutiny, Yeah, scrutiny, but also iterations, translations.
Speaker 5: So it's just, you know, it's still prime I p
Speaker 5: after all these years.
Speaker 3: Yes, and copyright free.
Speaker 5: That doesn't help, doesn't it?
Speaker 3: It does help a bit. Look, as we said, these
Speaker 3: are the bones of the story that informs the Nativity
Speaker 3: scenes you see in countless plays, reenactments at your local church,
Speaker 3: or dioramas, perhaps in someone's household. But different groups, again
Speaker 3: might not always agree on the specifics, and it might
Speaker 3: surprise some of us in the audience tonight to learn
Speaker 3: the disagreements started early on, pretty much from the jump
Speaker 3: the two sources, the two sources that Christianity considers actual
Speaker 3: sources on this, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. They
Speaker 3: agree on the large strokes, the brushstrokes of the story,
Speaker 3: but they disagree on a ton of other details. And this,
Speaker 3: I would argue, is the sand that creates the pearl here.
Speaker 3: This is the thing that further distorts as time goes
Speaker 3: on the fact that these two works from the jump
Speaker 3: disagreed on some things, like Joseph is more in the
Speaker 3: spotlight in the Gospel of Matthew, and Mary takes a
Speaker 3: lot of the spotlight in the Gospel of Luke in Matthew.
Speaker 3: As we said, Angel speaks to Joseph Luke, Angel speaks
Speaker 3: to Mary. I think it would have made a little
Speaker 3: more sense for the Angel to set them both down.
Speaker 3: But I wasn't in the writer's room for this one. Well,
Speaker 3: it is a writer's room type question.
Speaker 4: I was wondering, like to Matthew and Luke, like have
Speaker 4: a falling out or something like did they skiz him
Speaker 4: and have some sort of like public disagreement.
Speaker 5: And I can find a thing about that.
Speaker 4: But there are other discrepancies between their gospels in terms
Speaker 4: of like genealogy and lineage and various things pertaining to
Speaker 4: other major players in these kinds of biblical tales.
Speaker 2: Well, so, just really quickly, let's talk about the difference
Speaker 2: in those two scenarios. Man and woman in a relationship.
Speaker 2: They have not consummated this marriage. I suppose as Mary
Speaker 2: is a virgin at least according to both books, and
Speaker 2: an angel comes to the man and says, hey, your wife,
Speaker 2: who is a virgin is going to give birth to
Speaker 2: the Son of God. What is that conversation like then
Speaker 2: with Mary? Hey, Mary, guess what got some news for you?
Speaker 2: Or and in the opposite direction, Mary says, hey, God
Speaker 2: to me. So having a baby, just the human aspect
Speaker 2: of it is very interesting to me. In the concept
Speaker 2: of how they handled that, I would say, probably very
Speaker 2: strange situation. If nothing else right.
Speaker 3: That's been extremely diplomatic. Yeah, because you know we we
Speaker 3: hear it all the time. What would you do if
Speaker 3: you were in a relationship and your partner came to
Speaker 3: you and said, hey, I know we haven't slept together,
Speaker 3: but there is as a kid on the way, and
Speaker 3: I just need you to believe me it's a good thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I did not shoot on you yeah, yeah, at all.
Speaker 2: It's just that guy there, like that old.
Speaker 3: Meme from a little while back. It's above me, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm just relaying what the uppers are saying. These differences
Speaker 3: in genealogy, these differences in timeline and itinerary, vague as
Speaker 3: they may be, they seem very small differences at the beginning,
Speaker 3: But as will witness, these differences create further differences in
Speaker 3: the great game of telephone. And for thousands of years,
Speaker 3: despite the immediate discrepancies, people tended to triangulate what they
Speaker 3: saw as the true story. They would look at Matthew
Speaker 3: and Luke. They would do a Venn diagram. Where do
Speaker 3: these guys agree, And let's take the sum of the
Speaker 3: stuff these gospels do agree on, and we'll call that
Speaker 3: the truth.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, yeah, I mean, And it's interesting too when
Speaker 2: you switch between like new International version of the Bible
Speaker 2: and King James and some of the other newer, even
Speaker 2: newer versions of the Bible. Yeah, and just how those
Speaker 2: small language changes in both of those sections of the
Speaker 2: Bible really do, at least in my mind, alter the
Speaker 2: meaning just enough. And that thing you're saying like almost
Speaker 2: almost like the lens in front of it just tilts
Speaker 2: slightly as you read through it.
Speaker 3: It's weird.
Speaker 4: One thing that I also found is that Mark apparently
Speaker 4: came first of Matthew, Mark and Luke. And it's kind
Speaker 4: of understood that that's the case because a lot of
Speaker 4: biblical scholars have analyzed all three of them and found
Speaker 4: that Luke and Matthew actually take stuff from Mark and
Speaker 4: kind of make edits and sort of decide things to
Speaker 4: include and remove some of the maybe more out there
Speaker 4: bits from Mark and kind of give it their own spin.
Speaker 3: It was a wild mixtape back in the day Fellas
Speaker 3: pre Nicea and so on. But the important part for
Speaker 3: our purpose is Mark will come in later. Right now,
Speaker 3: the only biblical basis for the Nativity are the Gospels
Speaker 3: of Matthew and Luke. Mark is not talking about this stuff.
Speaker 3: And today, most Christians will celebrate the Birth of Jesus
Speaker 3: Christ on December twenty fifth in the Gregorian calendar here
Speaker 3: in the United States. A lot of people who don't
Speaker 3: consider themselves Christians will still celebrate aspects of Christmas because, frankly,
Speaker 3: it's just a fun time. You like parties, you like
Speaker 3: cool decorations, you like giving and getting gifts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you like pointy red hats with white trim.
Speaker 3: Let's go right. You heard about eggnog my guy, So
Speaker 3: and there's not necessarily I mean, if you're not hurting anybody,
Speaker 3: do as thou wilt. In centuries past, though this was
Speaker 3: much more serious. It was considered downright sacrilegious, heretical to
Speaker 3: raise too many concerns about these possible discrepancies, or were
Speaker 3: certain details of the origin story. How did a person
Speaker 3: get from point A to point set right? What was
Speaker 3: the cycle of the moon, etcetera, etcetera dangerous questions. In
Speaker 3: more recent times, fellow conspiracy realist scholars, historians, theologians, other
Speaker 3: experts have been wrestling with this conversation. Anew a lot
Speaker 3: of forensic science is going into this. They're asking themselves,
Speaker 3: when was Jesus Christ actually born? We can try to
Speaker 3: answer it after a word from our sponsors. Here's where
Speaker 3: it gets crazy. The first thing we can do to
Speaker 3: answer this question is assure you, weirdly enough, it was
Speaker 3: almost certainly not December twenty fifth. It was like ninety
Speaker 3: nine point eight percent not December twenty fifth.
Speaker 2: Well, it's it certainly seems like a weird time, or
Speaker 2: maybe a poor choice of a time to be traveling
Speaker 2: around pretty long distances because of the temperature, because of
Speaker 2: the temperature, the weather, the time of year, Like, it's
Speaker 2: just the nights are extremely long around this time, the
Speaker 2: longest of the entire year.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, and I mean, and it kind of just
Speaker 4: reinforces this whole idea that maybe this isn't really based
Speaker 4: on actual calendar reality or historical accuracy, and much more
Speaker 4: the product of, like, let's figure out a smart place
Speaker 4: to slot this holiday and for other purposes that might
Speaker 4: benefit the new people in charge.
Speaker 3: Right right, Yeah, it's a terrible time to travel, and
Speaker 3: there are some intervening variables. We would say, in Catholic
Speaker 3: and Protestant traditions, Christmas is December twenty fifth. However, in
Speaker 3: other equally Christian traditions, the birthday is totally different. In
Speaker 3: Orthodox Christianity, you know, shout out to Russia, Greece, Egypt,
Speaker 3: et cetera, Jesus's birth is celebrated on January sixth or
Speaker 3: January seventh. But this all did not happen until centuries
Speaker 3: and centuries after the fact. Please check out our companion
Speaker 3: episode on Ridiculous History. Jesus christ birthday was the latest
Speaker 3: birthday ever or something like that. I can't remember what
Speaker 3: what do we call it? Latest birthday party? Just sort
Speaker 3: of latest birthday party? Yeah, that was it. To check
Speaker 3: it out, we know, the first mention of a date
Speaker 3: for Christmas is like two hundred CE. If that the
Speaker 3: earliest celebrate rations were two fifty the three hundred CE.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: People still don't even agree on when those dates became
Speaker 3: common in Christian tradition. And that is because of this.
Speaker 3: Neither of these gospels, Matthew nor Luke believe it or not.
Speaker 3: Neither of them at any point specifically name a day,
Speaker 3: a month, or even a year for the birth. That's weird, eh,
Speaker 3: That's like say, hey, I'll always remember, you know, when
Speaker 3: my kid was born, and let me tell you a
Speaker 3: story about how tough it was to get to the hospital.
Speaker 3: And then they say, oh yeah, round, when did that happen?
Speaker 2: And you go out of time, no idea.
Speaker 3: Quid, oh wow, okay, get him out of here, get
Speaker 3: him out. I'm calling conscious you guys. So they don't
Speaker 3: do it. Yeah something years yeah, yeah, thirty three they
Speaker 3: see so again, the Gospel of Luke is the most specific,
Speaker 3: it's the most in depth. That has these references to
Speaker 3: historical rulers from the Roman Empire. Luca is the guy
Speaker 3: who mentions the census, but they still fail to name specifics.
Speaker 3: When the wake of this, people collectively Christians and some
Speaker 3: of their enemies have to improvise. They guesstimate, and then
Speaker 3: they start arguing what makes the most sense to them.
Speaker 3: December twenty fifth, no January sixth, let's split up right.
Speaker 4: The vast majority of Biblical historians usually agree that while
Speaker 4: it's fine to celebrate on the twenty fifth of December,
Speaker 4: pretty much is a consensus that this was not Jesus's
Speaker 4: actual birthday. I also, I don't know, guys, did you
Speaker 4: grow up. I mean, maybe when you're younger it's different.
Speaker 4: But I've never really fully thought that this was meant
Speaker 4: to be Jesus's actual I don't even think they pushed
Speaker 4: that narrative in my Methodist church.
Speaker 2: No, that Methodist church here too. It wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 2: It was this is this is the time that we
Speaker 2: celebrate from the story that the you know, the birth
Speaker 2: of the Son of God, and we just.
Speaker 3: Do it now. Yeah, Methodist is Methodism is a very
Speaker 3: moderate denomination. When you look at the vast span or
Speaker 3: Christian thought. Right, there are doubtlessly many other denominations or
Speaker 3: sex that feel the date is incredibly important. I will
Speaker 3: never forget. Many many years ago, I was in an
Speaker 3: argument outside of a church with someone saying that the
Speaker 3: King James Bible is the only authoritative Christian work because
Speaker 3: it's written in English.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it seems to be a little bit of an oversimplification, perhaps, Yeah,
Speaker 5: a little codd bias.
Speaker 3: It was a weird time. It was far before the
Speaker 3: internet and the telephone, those things. So this brings us
Speaker 3: to another weird callindrical. I don't want to call it
Speaker 3: a conspiracy just yet, but the year one thing in
Speaker 3: the Gregorian calendar, it's supposed to be based on the
Speaker 3: year that Jesus Christ is born. That is also almost
Speaker 3: certainly wrong. And we have to thank a guy we've
Speaker 3: been shouting out a lot recently, awesome name bad at
Speaker 3: math Dionysus Exegus's a sixth century monk. He's the first
Speaker 3: guy to calculate the year of Jesus's birth, and a
Speaker 3: lot of people in the modern era, including folks like
Speaker 3: Pope Benedict, who's somewhat in an authority on the matter,
Speaker 3: that would be Pope Benedict sixteen. I want to say, yeah,
Speaker 3: he even agrees that Dionysus, for one reason or another
Speaker 3: miscounted when he was doing his ear forensics, and Jesus
Speaker 3: Christ was likely born between what we would call seven
Speaker 3: BCE and two CE, but definitely not year one that
Speaker 3: was that was Dionysus.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Of course, errors like that kind of replicate and compound
Speaker 4: over time.
Speaker 3: Right M Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Another complication to your point, Noel. The Bible mentions in
Speaker 3: several places that Jesus was born when that that real
Speaker 3: pos Herod the Great was king of Judea. But if
Speaker 3: you go to other scholars, like Flavius Josephus, what a
Speaker 3: great name. It was a great name. I had a
Speaker 3: you know, I had a gerbil named Flavius, and he
Speaker 3: was not as cool as this guy. Uh. Flavius Josephus
Speaker 3: was a Roman Jewish historian who lived in the first
Speaker 3: century CE. H. He is the guy who says, oh,
Speaker 3: King Herod. Yeah, that guy kicked the bucket back in
Speaker 3: four BCE.
Speaker 4: And let's not confuse Flavius Josephus with the incredible rapper
Speaker 4: Flava Flavius Josephus, Oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, find him on band camp.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's big. He's also really good on reality shows.
Speaker 3: And so according to according to this guy, if we're
Speaker 3: putting well, if we're putting faith in Flavius, we have
Speaker 3: to then conclude that Jesus was born at least four
Speaker 3: years earlier, probably even earlier than that. Then the current
Speaker 3: calendar says.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's cool, but yeah, it seems like a stealthy
Speaker 2: yeah until you know.
Speaker 3: Cut cut two thousands of years later, our pals Dave
Speaker 3: Rus and Desiree Bowie point out at our Alma mater
Speaker 3: house stuff works that part of the confusion probably comes
Speaker 3: from different priorities. So people in the modern world figuring
Speaker 3: out the exact date of Jesus' birthday their goals differ
Speaker 3: from the goals of whomever wrote the Gospels. This is
Speaker 3: where we go to an awesome quote by a guy
Speaker 3: named Ian Paul, a theologian, biblical scholar. Actually super impressive, dude.
Speaker 3: He's got a website about the stuff called Sefiso.
Speaker 5: Great name for a website and great quote.
Speaker 4: He writes, we have this modern obsession with dates and
Speaker 4: chronological order, but the gospel writers were much more interested
Speaker 4: in theology than chronology.
Speaker 2: That's a big deal. Right, It's not about when it happened.
Speaker 2: It's not about that at all. It is that this happened,
Speaker 2: and it's important that you know that this happened, dear
Speaker 2: reader or hearer of these words.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's what happened and why it matters more so
Speaker 3: than when.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, that is I mean, you know, that's interesting
Speaker 4: because it does make you think of like, when did
Speaker 4: this kind of pedantic focus on chronology become more the
Speaker 4: order of the day.
Speaker 3: I think it probably happened with the rise of dogma
Speaker 3: in organized religion, and then it got galvanized by the
Speaker 3: fact that if you need a PhD. You have to
Speaker 3: find something very specific to argue about.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and intense agricultural stuff. Right back in the day,
Speaker 2: that was some of the first numbers that were ever
Speaker 2: developed in some of the first language were based directly
Speaker 2: on agriculture. Because now we've got something immediately in our vicinity.
Speaker 2: We got to watch how long it's been in the ground.
Speaker 2: We got to watch how much water has been applied.
Speaker 3: Right, we also have to monitor and ration, yes, the
Speaker 3: food available for the population based on their socioeconomic status,
Speaker 3: which is why you have meatless practices and you eat
Speaker 3: fish on certain yes, And.
Speaker 2: It's why you got to watch out when winter Solstice
Speaker 2: is around the corner and you've got the longest night
Speaker 2: and you can celebrate. Oh, the sun is coming back now.
Speaker 2: The sun can only get higher in the sky from
Speaker 2: this point forward for the rest of this year.
Speaker 4: I always got like kind of seasonal depressive situations around
Speaker 4: this time when it gets dark so much earlier. But
Speaker 4: it's just such a you know, modern problem if you
Speaker 4: think about back in the day, those earlier you know, sunsets.
Speaker 3: Mattered like in a functional way.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Sure, that's why most people have polyphasic sleep before the
Speaker 3: advent of the electric light.
Speaker 2: Yes, sorry, guys, isn't it weird to you? My world
Speaker 2: is so northern hemispheric, yeah, and centric Northern hemisphere or centric.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3: I like the second one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, sorry, But it's just it I don't think
Speaker 2: about on the same day that we celebrate winter Solstice,
Speaker 2: like this year, it's the twenty first of December in
Speaker 2: the Southern Hemisphere, it is the longest day, the shortest night,
Speaker 2: and in the most sun that they're going to be
Speaker 2: getting for a long time.
Speaker 3: And the toilets swirl differently. I mean, it's just nuts
Speaker 3: down there.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, but really it's such an opposite thing. The
Speaker 2: separation is is massive in a lot of ways. You know,
Speaker 2: from I guess where we are in Georgia versus if
Speaker 2: you go you know, to Australia in certain parts down
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 3: But I don't know.
Speaker 2: There's something to just the tilt of the Earth causing
Speaker 2: that much of a difference. Inexperience on the same planet
Speaker 2: is very odd to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because from far enough away that tilt, that little
Speaker 3: wobble might seem like a very small thing. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: it has Again, this is another metaphor, right, it has
Speaker 3: a great consequence to the people on the ground. I also,
Speaker 3: clearly we're not denigrating the southern hemisphere at all, but
Speaker 3: we are going to tell you something true. The people
Speaker 3: who are writing this had no idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, they may have debatily knew a little more about
Speaker 3: astronomy and a little more about the shape of the Earth,
Speaker 3: and they're given credit for now, but they did not
Speaker 3: know a lot of stuff that was out there. They
Speaker 3: were if you said South America, they would be like America,
Speaker 3: who is that? I haven't read any of his stuff
Speaker 3: and they like because of that. It's sort of like
Speaker 3: in the game Civilization, where your map gradually grows larger
Speaker 3: as people travel. Unfortunately, now, at this time, the vast
Speaker 3: majority of people were living and dying within what we
Speaker 3: would call about thirty miles of where they were born.
Speaker 3: It was not a lot of people were hopping on
Speaker 3: Delta one, you know what I mean? I think maybe
Speaker 3: I need to read a different translation.
Speaker 2: But they did have Griffins that they could ride around on,
Speaker 2: didn't they Wait, no, they did? That was that was
Speaker 2: ryanair mixing mix?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's the story. That's the you know, classic
Speaker 3: human mix up the story. Treat it like Chipotle, pick
Speaker 3: out the bits you want from the buffet. Right. This
Speaker 3: might be disappointing to the excellent quote you shared there
Speaker 3: and nol. This might be disappointing to think, oh, these
Speaker 3: guys are more centered on the rough idea, the theology
Speaker 3: than the chronology. But it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: Because Matthew and Luke were written a long long time ago.
Speaker 3: It is theoretically possible that had they tried to nail
Speaker 3: down a specific year and date, it would sound confusing
Speaker 3: or nonsensical. To modern readers today. You know what I mean,
Speaker 3: if they were like on the night of the one
Speaker 3: past the third, beneath the atom, whatever that means, you know,
Speaker 3: like you would be baffled. You would say, just give
Speaker 3: me some easy you know, give me a month, I know,
Speaker 3: give me a day, I know. And that that's why
Speaker 3: investigators have tried for so long, emphasis untried. They have
Speaker 3: tried to figure this out. They've delved into context clues
Speaker 3: and done some calindrical forensics. So mentions of King Herod,
Speaker 3: that's a clue. And then there's John the Baptist. We
Speaker 3: don't know a ton about Jesus Christ as a kid, right,
Speaker 3: we don't. We don't know what kind of dope stuff
Speaker 3: he was up to when he was six years old.
Speaker 2: But we literally don't know why anything, right at least,
Speaker 2: there are no accepted there's no accepted scholarship of after
Speaker 2: Jesus is born until Jesus shows back up much much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's like some apocrypha maybe you would call it,
Speaker 3: but it's it's still sort of hedge folklore and not
Speaker 3: acknowledged by ecclesiastical authorities. So if we go to this
Speaker 3: is where Mark comes back in. Mark tells us a
Speaker 3: little bit of Jesus as a young man, as up
Speaker 3: and comer, you know what I mean. He goes to
Speaker 3: John the Baptist to be surprised baptized, and then he
Speaker 3: becomes after meeting John, he becomes an itinerant, preacher and
Speaker 3: a healer. This is in like Mark one two to
Speaker 3: twenty eight fast.
Speaker 2: Where does carpentry come into it? Because he is a
Speaker 2: carpenter right when he shows back up.
Speaker 4: Well, he would have, I guess picked up his father's trade.
Speaker 4: You know, maybe he grew up as an apprentice in that.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's some of the stuff that happened when he
Speaker 4: and the those sort of undiscussed years, if he was
Speaker 4: spending time with old Joseph.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes sense logically, right, That's that's kind of
Speaker 3: the rule of the day for a skilled crafts person.
Speaker 3: You grow up in the family business, which means you
Speaker 3: get access to expertise, mentorship, and physically you get access
Speaker 3: to tools stuff exactly. Yeah, you get the toys. So
Speaker 3: we know that he had what is described by Britannica
Speaker 3: as a short public career in his mid thirties and
Speaker 3: as we know or not your Christian you probably know
Speaker 3: this part he didn't make it out of his thirties.
Speaker 3: He got a lot of attention during this little less
Speaker 3: than a year when he was rocking the casmo of
Speaker 3: expected socioeconomic order. Sometime between twenty nine and thirty three CE,
Speaker 3: he went to observe passover in Jerusalem. And before we
Speaker 3: get to John and the Baptist, maybe we put on
Speaker 3: our folklore hats again and talk a little bit about,
Speaker 3: you know, the Fraser Campbell stuff of the hero's journey
Speaker 3: and the hero's story and how they bookend naturally.
Speaker 5: My folklore hat has a feather in it. I love that.
Speaker 3: That's very Macaroni. Thank you Macaroni.
Speaker 5: Yeah, say you call me a fancy lad man.
Speaker 3: And hold the phone stop at the manger. There is
Speaker 3: much more to this story. We cannot wait to dive in.
Speaker 3: Please please please check out part two of When was
Speaker 3: Jesus Actually Born? And publishing later this week. In the meantime,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for tuning in, fellow conspiracy realist.
Speaker 3: We can't wait to hear from you. We try to
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