10. Kenosis. Nimrod was one of Noah’s great grandsons. His mother and wife (God’s will be Gods) was known by the name of Semiramis, but was also called Ishtar by some and Isis by others. Nimrod also had an alternate name. In Egypt he was known as Osiris and was definitely a God.
He founded Babel, which later became known as Babylon (as related in Genesis). This may seem a little confusing to those who have only read the Bible (or the Torah), but that is just a single source, and we don’t usually designate those named in that source as Gods. But archaeologists do when they refer to other ancient sources such as the “Epic of Gilgamesh” and records found in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
But what has this to do with Christmas?
After Nimrod’s death, Semiramis put around the story that Nimrod was a god, claiming that she saw a full-grown evergreen tree spring out of the roots of a dead tree stump. Does that sound familiar? If not read about St Boniface in #5 Pohutukawa. Semiramis maintained that the evergreen symbolized the rebirth of Nimrod. She said that on the anniversary of his birth, Nimrod would visit the evergreen and leave gifts beneath it. And Nimrod’s birthday was, of course, the Winter Solstice. (There’s no suggestion that Nimrod was a fat guy in a red suit, btw.)
But even more coincidentally (or not) was that Semiramis bore a son, Horus (also known as Gilgamesh.) She said she had been visited by Nimrod’s spirit, which left her pregnant, and that Horus was Nimrod reincarnated. Consequently, Semiramis and Horus became the original (the first recorded) “Madonna and child.”
And that brings us to kenosis, a word that rarely arises in casual conversation. It means, specifically, the act of Jesus relinquishing the form and attributes of God in order to become a mortal man. If you are a Christian, then at Christmas you’re celebrating the incarnation of God as man – which turns out to be very similar to the incarnation of Nimrod as Horus.
And right there, you have the fundamental departure of Christianity from its parent religion (Judaism) and its cousin (Islam). These three religions are pretty much identical at the level of Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham and Moses, but they part company thereafter. Judaism has nothing much to say about Christ, refusing to acknowledge him as the Messiah predicted in the scriptures. Similarly, Christianity has little to say about Judaism beyond some severe criticism of the Sanhedrin (Jewish priests) for rejecting Christ.
11. Psilanthropy
There’s no bad scriptural blood between Christianity and Islam. Christianity has nothing to say of Islam, because it preceded it. Islam only recognizes Christ as a prophet and hence an inspired mortal not a descendant God. And that makes the Mohammedans and the Jews psilanthropists – another obscure word.
It’s not a typo. Psilanthropist are not philanthropists. A psilanthropist is someone who believes that Jesus was a mere mortal and therefore doesn’t accept that Mary was indevirginate. Believing that Jesus was a mere mortal does not invalidate Christianity and neither does it contradict the idea of a resurrection, but it does blow a hole in the Christmas myth. And it’s likely to get you in trouble with church authorities.
The following are links to all the Xmas words: #1 Hwoelor-tid, #2 Brumalia, #3 Protomartyr, #4 Dulocracy, #5 Pohutukawa, #6 Hagiolatry, #7 Sinterklaas, #8 Prolicide, #9 Apophoret,#10 Kenosis,#11 Psilanthropy,#12 Parepochism
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~ Thomas Jefferson
