Recap

Hidden History of Christmas

Author Glenn Kimball (website) shared his research into the mysteries of Christmas, as the main guest on Thursday. "We have inherited the Christmas we celebrate from an amalgam of sources," he said, noting that some traditions associated with the holiday date back to 2300 BC, and that the date of December 25th was first celebrated in honor of the ancient King Nimrod's birthday.

Christ was actually born in 6 BC in early April, Kimball said, and the Star of Bethlehem seen in the sky at that time was a "merger of Jupiter and Saturn," that was so bright it could still be observed at noon. Interestingly, he noted that Christ was married and had children with Mary Magdalene, and later he resurfaced around the time of 530 AD, at King Arthur's Court.

Kimball, who said he is working on a new book called "Words of Jesus," refuted the idea of recent C2C guest James Arthur who contended that Christ was actually a metaphor for magic mushrooms. Beyond the Bible, there are "tens of thousands of documents," that refer to Jesus and his life, making it impossible that he was a made-up figure, Kimball argued.

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Pre-Christian Origins

In this 13th century painting (click on to view larger), the crescent moon at Mary's foot is lifted from ancient Egyptian symbology, where it was an attribute of the goddess Isis, the Queen of Heaven, writes David Fontana in The Secret Language of Symbols.

He notes that holidays such as Christmas and Easter coincide with pagan festivals and that many of the objects typically associated with Christmas, "such as the yule log, mistletoe, and the Christmas tree itself, were all borrowed from pre-Christian traditions."