LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY cheap_laugh)

Wish them a "Happy Feast of the Circumcision this January 1st. That's right, folks, just count 8 days from Dec 25, and you get Jan 1. In Judaism, the 8th day after birth is the day infant boys are circumcised as a sign of the Covenant between God and Jew (one can also argue it as a form of menstral envy, but I digress...). Send them cards....

for your edification, Feast Days. This article goes on:

The circumcision took place, not in the Temple, though painters sometimes so represent it, but in some private house, where the Holy Family had found a rather late hospitality. The public ceremony in the synagogue, which is now the usage, was introduced later. Christmas was celebrated on 25 December, even in the ertrly centuries, at least by the Western Church, whence the date was soon adopted in the East also. (See CHRISTMAS). Saint Chrysostom credits the West with the tradition, and St. Augustine speaks of it as well and long estabblished. Consequently the Circumcision fell on the first of January. In the ages of paganism, however, the solemnization of the feast was almost impossible, on account of the orgies connected with the Saturnalian festivities, which were celebrated at the same time. Even in our own day the secular features of the opening of the New Year interfere with the religious observance of the Circumcision, and tend to make a mere holiday of that which should have the sacred character of a Holy Day.

Also, by quoting Basiliades (an early Khristian thinker) on the Crucifixion - he states that it was Simon of Cyrene who died on the cross

For since he was an incorporeal power, and the Nous (mind) of the unborn father, he transfigured himself as he pleased, and thus ascended to him who had sent him, deriding them, inasmuch as he could not be laid hold of, and was invisible to all. Those, then, who know these things have been freed from the principalities who formed the world; so that it is not incumbent on us to confess him who was crucified, but him who came in the form of a man, and was thought to be crucified, and was called Jesus, and was sent by the father, that by this dispensation he might destroy the works of the makers of the world. If any one, therefore, he declares, confesses the crucified, that man is still a slave, and under the power of those who formed our bodies; but he who denies him has been freed from these beings, and is acquainted with the dispensation of the unborn father.

What does this imply? that you cannot kill what does not have a body. "Yehuda ben Yosef bar David" was mere energy. not matter. You cannot kill what does not have solid form Jesus was a shapeshifter´

Oh, yeah, "bar Abba is a title that means "Son of the Father"... so, who exactly was released on that day? Bar'Abba. Another curiosity, is that Herod actuall y was a legitimate ruler, being married to the last of the Hasmonean Queens (whom along with his sons, had murdered. could the murder of his own children be the basis for the tale of the Slaughter of the Innocents?)
Note: the Hasmonean Dyansty was founded by Simon Maccabee, 20 years after Judah Macabee Seleucid Army and established Judea as an independant Kingdomw and established the holiday Chanukah.