Sheep Outside in December

[Ridgerunner]

Well, we are under La NIna as well and just loving it.

If you click here - Australian Bureau of Meterology, you can read all about it. On the left of that page, you will see a link called ‘Rainfall Outlook’. Take a peek there and you’ll see why we are just loving El Nina!

El Nino just about devastated this country only a few years back. The last few years of the '90s and up to 2007 it was a declared National Drought. Since 2007 the seasons have been gradually improving and returning to normal again. This past winter/spring has been one of the wettest ever and the spring growth has been incredibly prolific.

Of course we don’t get snow. The mountains get their fair share, bu all the lower down farming lands virtually never see it. It just gets wet! Where I am, in south eastern Victoria, we have an average rainfall of around 40".

What Fescues do you use? Demeter, or Tall? Many have swung back to the Cocksfoots, because of better persistence.

Do you think anyone else is following this conversation?

Now, what was the species of straw/grass in Jesus’ crib?

Tall Fescue is what we raise. Lots of sub-varieites of it, the most common is Kentucky-31. Cocksfoot seems to be the same thing as what we call orchardgrass. Very good stuff, but it is not as drought resistant as tall fescue, at least not here. Fescue’s big merit is that it goes dormant in hot weather and will recover from almost any drought, however fierce. Orchardgrass doesn’t. It keeps wanting water and doesn’t get it in droughty conditions, and dies out too readily. So, it’s not as commonly grown as it once was.

And you’re probably right in supposing that nobody else is reading this thread anymore.

One thing certainly has to be said in the favor of snow and cold weather. In very dry areas, like in Western Kansas as an example, wheat could not be grown without it. It’s planted in the fall and absorbs what little moisture the meager snow brings. Because it’s cold, it doesn’t just evaporate, and the wheat can absorb it. Then, in the spring and early summer, the wheat will grow and bear, almost no matter what, because of that winter moisture. But for that, the whole western part of the great plains would be a desert.

I don’t know whether, being more temperate, that explains why most of Australia is a desert or near-desert, but one has to wonder what it would be like there if it snowed some in the winter.

 

[Darran]

well, what we DO know is that mary was visited in the 6th month of the jewish Calendar…which which have been March or April. Anne Catherine Emmerich’s private revelations actually say it would have been around November that he was born…

I say its very possible they had the sheep out. He wasn’t born in Alaska or another place that would have been bitterly cold.

Yep. 25th of Chislev is what is noted by some other private revelations. Chislev makes up Nov/Dec I’m told, although the 25th day is still the 25th of our month of December. Quite intresting really! Valtorta places it on the feast of lights, fitting that the light of the world should be born on that day!

 

[patrick457]

Yep. 25th of Chislev is what is noted by some other private revelations. Chislev makes up Nov/Dec I’m told, although the 25th day is still the 25th of our month of December. Quite intresting really! Valtorta places it on the feast of lights, fitting that the light of the world should be born on that day!

Kislev is indeed November–December, although at just what day it begins vary each year. For example, this year the 25th of Kislev (which marks the beginning of Hannukah) is December 20th, while in 2012 it would be during December 8th: in fact, it could fall somewhere in between late November to late December, again depending on the year.

 

[John21652]

One thing certainly has to be said in the favor of snow and cold weather. In very dry areas, like in Western Kansas as an example, wheat could not be grown without it. It’s planted in the fall and absorbs what little moisture the meager snow brings. Because it’s cold, it doesn’t just evaporate, and the wheat can absorb it. Then, in the spring and early summer, the wheat will grow and bear, almost no matter what, because of that winter moisture. But for that, the whole western part of the great plains would be a desert.

I don’t know whether, being more temperate, that explains why most of Australia is a desert or near-desert, but one has to wonder what it would be like there if it snowed some in the winter.

If it snowed some in the winter, I reckon it’d be cold!

The Australian Alps get plenty of snow, but nowhere else. The reason the interior does not get the snow that the American Great Plains recieves is altitude. Your Great Plains are almost as high as our highest mountains. In fact, the very western part of them might even be higher. Our interior is very low and around Lake Eyre in northern South Australia, it is below sea level. So, no snow! Hot days and cold nights. The south western ocean is too cold to deliver much rain very far into the interior, so the interior stays dry. The far north west generates cyclones during the northern wet season, but they don’t penetrate far enough inland either.

What does keep the inland (outback) going is the fact that the headwaters of the rivers are way up in western Queensland and they cop a drenching during the wet season. If enough rain falls, the water will eventually find its way all the way down to Lake Eyre, after a jouirney of around six months! If not enough rain falls on the headwaters, the rivers just peter out before they travel far inland. There’s no doubt that with water, anything will grow there, because when rain does fall in the interior, it just blooms. There have been great schemes dreamt up about diverting some of the northern tropical rivers inland, but they have never eventuated. Anyway, its not all true desert and massive cattle stations are to be found out there. There are plenty of feral animals living out there, in the Never-Never, such as Brumbies (wild horses), Kangaroos, Emus, Dingos, Donkeys and even Camels.

 

[melt7355]

I’m with all of the above who say that the date of Christ’s birth is irrevelant. The fact that Jesus was born is what we celebrate.

 

[You]

An old standby for fundamentalists and others who object to observing Christmas on December 25 is that shepherds would never have flocks out at night in Bethlehem in December. So Christ was certainly not born in December, they say, because it contradicts scripture. And then they talk about paganism blah, blah, blah. “Never” is the word usually used in order to just shut down any debate whatsoever…basically implying you’re stupid to suggest otherwise.

However, I’ve read quite a bit online about keeping sheep outside year round, and it appears to me that it can be done, and that it is occasionally (or perhaps often) done, especially in moderate climates. Sheep are pretty insulated, it seems, and can withstand cold temperatures pretty well. I don’t think Bethlehem is exceedingly cold in late December (it may be slightly colder than the Sacramento Valley, where I live, which is mild) and even if you had a little lean-to or three sided shelter for storms, that’s still outside where shepherds, back in the day, would have to keep watch.

Am I correct about this? Its certainly false to say shepherds would **never **have been outside at night keeping watch…right? I would appreciate any (name removed by moderator)ut.

Sheep out all year here on mountains -17 degrees centigrade in lowland areas. Sheep usually, if at all, only housed in spring for a short while during lambing.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If it snowed some in the winter, I reckon it’d be cold!

The Australian Alps get plenty of snow, but nowhere else. The reason the interior does not get the snow that the American Great Plains recieves is altitude. Your Great Plains are almost as high as our highest mountains. In fact, the very western part of them might even be higher. Our interior is very low and around Lake Eyre in northern South Australia, it is below sea level. So, no snow! Hot days and cold nights. The south western ocean is too cold to deliver much rain very far into the interior, so the interior stays dry. The far north west generates cyclones during the northern wet season, but they don’t penetrate far enough inland either.

QUOTE]

Perhaps the altitude of the Great Plains has something to do with it, but the main influences on weather in the center of the U.S. are the “continental influence” plus the existence of the semi-tropical Gulf of Mexico. Cold air from Canada is unimpeded in its flow down into the U.S. It there meets warm moist air coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. When they meet, the warmer air can no longer hold the moisture and it rains or snows. Without even one of them, the Great Plains would be a desert. Remember, plenty of warm moist air flows into the Namib, but it doesn’t rain there because there is no cold air to meet it. Where I live, near the Great Plains but not in them, it would probably be a Mediterranean climate; warmer in the winter, but much drier all year. I’m not too fond of cold weather, but it does have its positive aspects.

 

[Darran]

Kislev is indeed November–December, although at just what day it begins vary each year. For example, this year the 25th of Kislev (which marks the beginning of Hannukah) is December 20th, while in 2012 it would be during December 8th: in fact, it could fall somewhere in between late November to late December, again depending on the year.

Ah I see. So their months are lunar also, or just the festivity?

 

[patrick457]

Ah I see. So their months are lunar also, or just the festivity?

From Wikipedia:

The Hebrew calendar (הלוח העברי ha’luach ha’ivri), or Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits (dates to commemorate the death of a relative), and daily Psalm reading, among many ceremonial uses. In Israel, it is an official calendar for civil purposes and provides a time frame for agriculture.

Originally the Hebrew calendar was used by Jews for all daily purposes, but following the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BCE (see also Iudaea province), Jews began additionally following the imperial civil calendar, which was decreed in 45 BCE, for civic matters such as the payment of taxes and dealings with government officials.

…] Because of the roughly eleven-day difference between twelve lunar months and one solar year, the length of the Hebrew calendar year varies in the repeating 19-year Metonic cycle of 235 lunar months, with the intercalary month added according to defined rules every two or three years, for a total of 7 times per 19 years. Seasonal references in the Hebrew calendar reflect its development in the region east of the Mediterranean and the times and climate of the Northern Hemisphere. The Hebrew calendar year is longer by about 6 minutes and 25+25/57 seconds than the present-day mean solar year, so that every 224 years, the Hebrew calendar will fall a full day behind the modern solar year, and about every 231 years it will fall a full day behind the Gregorian calendar year.

…] The Jewish calendar is a lunisolar calendar, or fixed lunar year, based on twelve lunar months of twenty-nine or thirty days, with an intercalary lunar month added seven times every nineteen years (once every two to three years) to synchronize the twelve lunar cycles with the slightly longer solar year. Each Jewish lunar month starts with the new moon. Although originally the new lunar crescent had to be observed and certified by witnesses, the moment of the new moon is now approximated arithmetically.

Concurrently there is a weekly cycle of seven days, mirroring the seven-day period of the Book of Genesis in which the world is created. The names for the days of the week, like those in the Creation story, are simply the day number within the week, with Shabbat being the seventh day. The Jewish day always runs from sunset to the next sunset; the formal adjustments used to specify a standard time and time zones are not relevant to the Jewish calendar.

The twelve regular months are: Nisan (30 days), Iyar (29 days), Sivan (30 days), Tammuz (29 days), Av (30 days), Elul (29 days), Tishrei (30 days), Marcheshvan (29 or 30 days), Kislev (29 or 30 days), Tevet (29 days), Shevat (30 days), and Adar (29 days). In the leap years (such as 5771) an additional month, Adar I (30 days) is added after Shevat, and the regular Adar is referred to as “Adar II”.

 

[Darran]

From Wikipedia:

The Hebrew calendar (הלוח העברי ha’luach ha’ivri), or Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits (dates to commemorate the death of a relative), and daily Psalm reading, among many ceremonial uses. In Israel, it is an official calendar for civil purposes and provides a time frame for agriculture.
​

Ahhh, great. Thanks for the info! ​

 

[jcrichton]

Nothing aimed at you in particular, but at the attitude that belief by itself, piously and uncritically accepted, is so frequently taken as unassailable FACT by so many in so many areas of life!

…I was once told by a non-Catholic (perhaps not even a Christian) that we do not know what happened back then and that there’s no proof… should I ignore 2000 years of Church History and accept a negative belief over the Church’s Doctrine?

True, there are many things that we have no actual textual proof on which to base our belief… but does that means that we have to blindly accept general modernist views?

Has it escaped you that the printing press did not exist during the first few hundred years AD?

Are you aware that much of the then known world existed in rivalry where the mighty razed whole nations to the ground and the practice of destroying a civilization included religious and social infrastructures?

Sacred Tradition (as much of the knowledge passed down throughout the ages) survived only through great efforts of the Church–you seem to imply that the world we have inherited today existed unchanged throughout millennia and that all one needs to do is google “x” to find the original text where “x” was imprinted and preserved for future generations…

May the Holy Spirit guide you!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[Arizona_Mike]

There is a scriptural tradition (with some corroboration from a Dead Sea Scroll) that would put Jesus’ birth near the end of December:

fisheaters.com/customschristmasnotes.html

 

[onlyvoice]

From the Online Catholic Encyclopedia entitled “Christmas”:

"Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church (not part of “the faith which was once delivered” - Jude 1:3). Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts.

“Origen, glancing perhaps at the discreditable imperial Natalitia, asserts that in the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday.”

“Concerning the date of Christ’s birth the Gospels give no help; upon their data contradictory arguments (Bible contradictory?) are based… Authorities moreover differ as to whether shepherds could or would keep flocks exposed during the nights of the rainy season.”

“The well-known solar feast, however, of Natalis Invicti, celebrated on 25 December, has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date…”

In conclusion, the article says that,

“The present writer is inclined to think that, be the origin of the feast in East or West, and although the abundance of analogous midwinter festivals may indefinitely have helped the choice of the December date, the same instinct which set Natalis Invicti at the winter solstice will have sufficed, apart from deliberate adaptation or curious calculation, to set the Christian feast there too.”

 

[jilly4ski]

“Concerning the date of Christ’s birth the Gospels give no help; upon their data contradictory arguments (Bible contradictory?) are based… Authorities moreover differ as to whether shepherds could or would keep flocks exposed during the nights of the rainy season.”

I am still waiting for someone to tell me where they 'housed" the flocks if not outdoors? And I don’t mean people just keeping a few sheep. I mean the large flocks of sheep needed for passover and other feasts. Wood was relatively scarce in the area if my historic and geographical knowledge is correct. The wood they did have (olive, fig, almond) was better used in food production than building production. And cedar was expensive to say the least.

Thus it would have been very cost prohibitive to build barns large enough to hold entire flocks of sheep. (And there is no archeological evidence to suggest any such buildings were ever built). The continued practice of people in much colder climates (and much rainier) keeping their wool sheep outdoors all year seem to point to the fact that the shepherds would have done the cheap thing and housed the sheep outdoors.

 

[rolazaraberin]

Its certainly false to say shepherds would **never **have been outside at night keeping watch…right? I would appreciate any (name removed by moderator)ut.

I would agree. Watch this video:

Were Shepherds In The Field Dec. 25th?
youtube.com/watch?v=TzxJzMcOyQM

Here’s another video that’s reasonable, logical, historical, scientific, and biblical in it’s approach in proving that the first Christmas was celebrated on December 25, 2 BC.

The Real Star Of Bethlehem
youtube.com/watch?v=aCLmRB-OpGE

 

[Buck_Crosswhite]

Jesus was born on December 25. Sheep would do well at the South Pole if they had food. Sheep don’t care about the weather report.

 

[buffalo]

December is the rainy season. There is plenty of pasture and the weather is mild.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Anyone who doubts that December 25th really WAS the date of Christ’s birth needs to see this presentation. It will blow your mind, and give you faith that God really does have a plan for the world.

bethlehemstar.net/

I need to post a correction to my statement. I watched the DVD again last night, and what the astronomical information shows is that the Bethlehem star did show up when Jesus was born, and it was an actual astronomical event, and even pointed the way for the magi to find Jesus. But the date of December 25th seems to be the date when the star stopped above the house where Jesus was living at the time. There’s a lot of information in the presentation, and it was a little confusing. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

The events at Jesus’ death were also reflected in the sky…there was a lunar eclipse that day, at 3 p.m. as told in Scripture.

 

[DavidWJackson]

This is some of how Venerable Mary of Agreda tells us of the incarnation and birth of Christ form her book “The Mystical City of God”. As supposively related to her by the Blessed Virgin Mary Queen of Heaven.
First, the incarnation, pages 171 & 172 At the pronouncing of this “fiat,” so sweet to the hearing of God and so fortunate for us, in one instant, four things happened. First, the most holy body of Christ Our Lord was formed from the three drops of blood furnished by the heart of most holy Mary. Secondly, the most holy soul of the same Lord was created, just as the other souls. Thirdly, the soul and the body united in order to compose His perfect humanity. Fourthly, the Devinity united Itself in the Person of the Word with the humanity, which together became one composite being in hypostatical union; and thus was formed Christ true God and Man, our Lord and Redeemer. This happened in springtime on the twenty-fifth of March, at break or dawning of the day, in the same hour, in which our, first father Adam was made and in the year of the creation of the world 5199, which agrees also with the count of the Roman Church in her Martyrology under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. This reckoning is the true and certain one, as was told me, when I inquired at command of my superiors.
Secound, the birth of Christ, pages 228 & 229 The most holy Mary remained in this ecstasy and beatific vision for over an hour immediately preceding her divine delivery. At the moment when she issued from it and regained the use of her senses she felt and saw that the body of the infant God began to move in her virginal womb; how, releasing and freeing Himself from the place which in the course of nature He had occupied for nine months, He now prepared to essue forth from that sacred bridal chamber. This movement not only did not cause any pain or hardship, as happens with the other daughters of Adam and Eve in their childbirths; but filled her with incomparable joy and delight, causing in her soul and in her virginal body such exalted and divine effects that they exceed all thoughts of men. Her body became so spiritualized with the beauty of Heaven that she seemed no more a human and earthly creature. Her countenance emitted rays of light, like a sun incarnadined, and shone in indescribable earnestness and majesty, all inflamed with fervent love. She was kneeling in the manger, her eyes raised to Heaven, her hands joined and folded at her breast, her soul wrapped in the Divinity and she herself was intirely deified. In this position, and at the end of the heavenly rapture, the most exalted Lady gave to the world the Only-begotten of the father and her own, our Saviour Jesus, true God and man, at the hour of midnight, on a Sunday, in the year of the creation of the world five thousand one hundred and ninety-nine (5199), which is the date given in the Roman Church, and which date has been manifested to me as the true and certain one.

Believing any of this or not is up to you. But, this book which narrates the entire life of Blessed Virgin Mary is a wonderful read.

 

[rolazaraberin]

This is some of how Venerable Mary of Agreda tells us of the incarnation and birth of Christ form her book “The Mystical City of God”. As supposively related to her by the Blessed Virgin Mary Queen of Heaven…

…the date given in the Roman Church, and which date has been manifested to me as the true and certain one.

I’ve never heard of Venerable Mary of Agreda. She seems like a seer.

I know that Canonized Saints go from Servant Of God, to Blessed, to finally Saint. How did Mary of Agreda get the “Venerable” title?

Does the Roman Catholic Church endorse her in any way?