Perhaps Justin’s finest work, I say, although I thoroughly enjoy his Bible knowledge:
That’s still playing live and you can choose to watch it or not for this discussion.
The parallels are simply stunning; for the purposes of this OP I’ll allow a “historical Jesus” although I’m not convinced:
- Both start with a historical character (The Historical Jesus and Saint Nicholas, of course)
- Both have mythology developed after their death (The Ascended Jesus, Santa Claus)
- Both promise to return (one of them has lived up to their promise every year whilst the other promised to return within a lifetime and hasn’t shown up yet)
- Both are said to know whether you’ve been naughty or nice
- Both are used to encourage good behaviour and discourage bad behaviour
- Both offer gifts of varying kind
- If you’re bad Santa will bring you coal, but Jesus will turn you into coal over the period of longer than trees take to make coal
- The Empty Plate [that plenty of people have found] testifies to Santa as does “The Empty Tomb”[that nobody has found] to the risen Jesus
Can you think of a reason to believe in the Ascended Jesus that one can’t find as good a parallel reason (perhaps tongue in cheek) to believe in Santa Claus?