7 PAGAN FESTIVALS WE STILL CELEBRATE TODAY ~ under the guise of Christian celebrations and names.

[Rella ~ I am a woman]

Cassandra suggested a thread on this so I am starting one.

Sounds like a new thread to me, if you are so inclined.
of course the feasts were types. I agree with what you wrote here though.
If you have time (I couldn't figure out the May 1 Labor Day--it is international Labour day) Had to look it up.

7 Pagan Festivals We Still Celebrate Today - Through Eternity Tours

This article explains the origins of a lot of modern festivals. Learn more with Through Eternity Team!

www.througheternity.com

It is important to look at the link but I suggest we take one festival at a time and lets try to figure out
why they chose a tie in with a Pagan festival.

Preview in the link says:

Holidays with pagan origins:​

1. Christmas
2. New Year’s Day
3. Easter
4. The Roman version of Halloween
5. May 1st - Labor Day
6. Epiphany or Three Kings Day
7. Saint John’s Eve

When we hear or read about pagan religions and traditions, we automatically think that they’re long gone, things that have absolutely nothing to do with our modern lives.

But if we are curious enough to just scratch the surface of our “modern” traditions, we might be very surprised to discover that there is actually nothing new in most of the holidays we celebrate every year. When it comes to festivities, rituals and traditions, we literally didn’t invent anything. We keep doing the same things the ancient Romans used to do 2,000 years ago – we simply call them by different names.

If somebody wholeheartedly wished you a “very merry Dies Natalis Solis Invicti” what would you reply? Or what if somebody were to ask you insistently about your plans for the Kalendae Ianuariae? It wouldn’t ring a bell, would it? The Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and the Kalendae Ianuariae, aka Christmas and New Year’s day, are just two of the many holidays we still happily celebrate that actually go all the way back to ancient Rome.

But how come so many holidays survived, albeit in “rebranded” forms? When Emperor Theodosius issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD, paganism was outlawed and the Christian religion became the one and only official religion of the Roman Empire. But for the many Romans who remained faithfully devoted to Jupiter and his mythological crew, the transition to the new monotheistic religion was anything but easy.

And so the Church decided to replace the most important pagan festivities with new Christian holidays on the same dates – as the calendar remained pretty much the same as before, it was much easier for the one-time pagan populace to adjust to this new faith.

In exactly this way the date of Christmas was established on December 25th in order to replace the old Festival of the Sun God, and the same happened with many other holidays. This strategy worked out so well that with the passing of the centuries, even the memory of the original pagan celebrations faded away and was almost completely forgotten.

But this fascinating history is still everywhere apparent in Italy if you know where to look, and on our expert-led guided tours of Rome we love to help you uncover these hidden histories. So let’s put aside for a moment our holidays as we have always known them and rediscover these ancient traditions – we have a lot more in common with them than you might think!

#1 Christmas

We already know how we celebrate on December 25th, but how would ancient Romans have celebrated their pagan version of Christmas?

For an ancient Roman, December 25th was the time to celebrate Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun. The Sun God was venerated under different names all over the enormous territory of the Roman Empire and became the most important god during the 3rd century AD. The emperor Aurelianus built a big temple for the Sun God in Rome and inaugurated it right on December 25th, 274 AD. It is no wonder that the biggest celebration of the Sun God fell on this date at the beginning of winter time: on December 21st in fact, with the winter solstice, the sun “wins” his battle against the darkness and the daylight hours slowly increase. That’s why such a peculiar date, marked by the victory of the light, was busy with the birthdays of many gods: Dionysos, Hercules, Adonis, Mithras and even Tammuz, the ancient Mesopotamian god of fertility.

But December 25th was only the last day of more than a week of celebrations in Rome, known as Saturnalia, leading up to the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the birthday of the Sun. Starting on December 17th, the Saturnalia involved a lot of banquets and all sorts of parties with family and friends. During this time, all social rules were reversed, just like in the Carnival, but the most significant aspect of the Saturnalia was the traditional exchange of gifts (just like we do nowadays). The most popular gifts for this occasion were little figurines of gods made out of clay, that used to be put on display on an altar at home: this might be at the origin of the Italian tradition of the Nativity.

Discover the story of Saturnalia in the ruins of the Temple of Saturn on our Roman Forum tour.

NOW~ I have a couple of unexplained questions and this is one of them.... perhap there are some opinions out there.

A. We celebrate the birth of the christ child on December 25 and the date of that never changes from year to year. We also know He was not born on that date nor in the month of December. But world wide
this is an accepted time..... EXCEPT for the Orthodox who celebrate it on Jan. 7 in 19 countries and Jan. 6 in 2 countries.

So why was December 25 picked as there is not one biblical reference that would suggest this.

This link from History.com may shed a light. (It is a very insightful read.)

Why Is Christmas Celebrated on December 25? | HISTORY

Church officials wanted the date to coincide with existing pagan festivals.

www.history.com

But was Jesus really born on December 25 in the first place? Probably not. The Bible doesn’t mention his exact birthday, and the Nativity story contains conflicting clues. For instance, the presence of shepherds and their sheep suggest a spring birth. When church officials settled on December 25 at the end of the third century, they likely wanted the date to coincide with existing pagan festivals honoring Saturn (the Roman god of agriculture) and Mithra (the Persian god of light). That way, it became easier to convince Rome’s pagan subjects to accept Christianity as the empire’s official religion.

What say you?

 

[Pearl]

I am a born again Christian. I honour Jesus' birth, death and resurrection because without them I would still be a sinner unreconciled with God. Now Christians can honour these events at any time of the year but it is lovely to know that at certain times we are all honouring them at the same time together as the Church of Christ - his body.

Obviously we all know that wasn't the actual date of his birth but since nobody knows for certain what that is we have it as his 'official' birthday - a bit like the UK monarchs have real birthdays celebrated by family and personal friends and also official public ones.

People can call it what they want but the reason for these 'celebration' is Jesus and if it's about him then it's not wrong.

Only people who don't understand that would call it pagan.

 

[BlessedPeace]

So called Pagan holidays re Christianized by the church that then campaigned and gave false histories to those whom they slaughtered and oppressed.


Today's Christian holidays are just that.Christian. Pagan tradition actually has no part in them.

 

[Jericho]

Here's an article that refutes that Christmas has its roots as a pagan holiday. I'll probally repost this again around Christmas as this arugment comes up every year:

So, when did Christians begin to celebrate Christmas? The earliest record of its observance comes from Clement of Alexandria around 200 A.D. But the first suggestion that Christmas might be linked to pagan worship didn’t come until the 12th century, about 900 years later.

In other words, as far as historians can tell, none of the Christians from the 3rd through 12th centuries seemed to think they were accidentally worshiping a pagan god.

There is limited evidence that a feast for Sol Invictus was held on December 25 before the middle of the 4th century. And remember, Christians were celebrating the birth of Christ on December 25 about half a century earlier.

We can just as easily say that pagans moved the feast of Sol Invictus to hijack a Christian tradition!

So, given that nobody in the first century thought to write down the actual date of Jesus’ birth, how did the early church arrive at December 25? It’s a little complex, but it illustrates the motives of the church fathers—which, you might have guessed, was not to sneak pagan worship into the faith.

It seems that second-century Latin Christians in Rome and North Africa wanted to determine the exact date of the Lord’s death. For reasons that escape us, they settled on March 25, 29 A.D. (The reasons escape us because March 25 was not a Friday that year, nor was it Passover Eve, nor did Passover Eve fall on a Friday in 29 A.D., or even in the month of March, for that matter. Still, there we are.)

Now, there was a widespread belief in Judaism back then in the “integral age” of great Jewish prophets. It was thought that the prophets of Israel died on the same day they were conceived.

It’s not biblical, but that’s not the point. The early church believed it and that’s what led to their conclusion: When you add nine months to March 25, you arrive at… December 25.

There you have it. No pagan influence, just a desire to know the dates that forever changed the history of the world.

Merry Non-Pagan Christmas – Weapon of Mass Distraction

www.derekpgilbert.com

 

[marks]

But was Jesus really born on December 25 in the first place? Probably not. The Bible doesn’t mention his exact birthday, and the Nativity story contains conflicting clues. For instance, the presence of shepherds and their sheep suggest a spring birth.

Except, the Jews offered a minimum of 2 sacrifices every single day of the year, and kept flocks close year round. That Jesus would have been born in a place used by the temple flocks is quite fitting, don't you think?

Much love!

 

[Cassandra]

Birthdays were not even celebrated in the Scriptures by Jews or Christians. The very idea of a birthday is pagan
The only ones I can think of were Belshazzar and Herod.

 

[marks]

Birthdays were not even celebrated in the Scriptures by Jews or Christians. The very idea of a birthday is pagan
The only ones I can think of were Belshazzar and Herod.

From what I remember when I was studying these things, it was generally looked down on as a vanity to "keep one's day", that is, celebrate your birthday.

Much love!

 

[BlessedPeace]

Here's an article that refutes that Christmas has its roots as a pagan holiday. I'll probally repost this again around Christmas as this arugment comes up every year:

Merry Non-Pagan Christmas – Weapon of Mass Distraction

www.derekpgilbert.com

Yes, Pagans,from the Latin, "Pagani", country dweller, celebrated winters solstice on December 21st. Not December 25th.

 

[Rella ~ I am a woman]

Except, the Jews offered a minimum of 2 sacrifices every single day of the year, and kept flocks close year round. That Jesus would have been born in a place used by the temple flocks is quite fitting, don't you think?

Much love!

But kept where?

Luke 2:8-9 tells us that there were shepherds in the field at night on the day that Christ was born. The passage says, In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night.

But I am not so concerned about proving or disproving that Jesus was born on Dec 25.

Personally I do not believe that to be the case.

I am most concered in this first point in this article as to why anyone chose December 25 for a celebration.

We have absolutely no knowledge what month was Jesus birth. It is all guess work.
But to declare a date has to have been a reason.

 

[marks]

But kept where?

Nearby. Jerusalem was only a few miles from Bethlehem. 6 if I remember right. It's possible Mary gave birth in a structure build for the sheep, outside of Bethlehem, towards Jerusalem.

Just something interesting I wanted to share. I don't know why the date, I've heard the different theories, and I find new ones still, but I wasn't there at the time, I don't have a clue!

Much love!

 

[TinMan]

So called Pagan holidays re Christianized by the church that then campaigned and gave false histories to those whom they slaughtered and oppressed.


Today's Christian holidays are just that.Christian. Pagan tradition actually has no part in them.

Easter: rabbits, colorful eggs, the name Easter itself and it's movable date.
Christmas: Christmas tree, wreaths, holly, mistletoe, yule logs, hanging stockings, gift giving, caroling

 

[BlessedPeace]

Easter: rabbits, colorful eggs, the name Easter itself and it's movable date.
Christmas: Christmas tree, wreaths, holly, mistletoe, yule logs, hanging stockings, gift giving, caroling

Your point,please?

 

[Aunty Jane]

Birthdays were not even celebrated in the Scriptures by Jews or Christians. The very idea of a birthday is pagan
The only ones I can think of were Belshazzar and Herod.

That’s right, birthdays were not celebrated by Jews or the first Christians because they have their origins in spiritistic practices. The date of one’s birth was used by the pagans to cast horoscopes and fortell a child’s future by what star sign they were born under. The birthday “wishes” were for the bad spirits not to hinder the child’s life and the cake with lighted tapers was also to ward off evil spirits.

The nation of Israel were warned about the practices of the Canaanites who’s territory they were about to enter....
“When you have entered into the land that Jehovah your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the detestable practices of those nations. 10 There should not be found in you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, anyone who employs divination, anyone practicing magic, anyone who looks for omens, a sorcerer, 11 anyone binding others with a spell, anyone who consults a spirit medium or a fortune-teller, or anyone who inquires of the dead. 12 For whoever does these things is detestable to Jehovah, and on account of these detestable practices Jehovah your God is driving them away from before you.”

There is no way that a Jew or a Christian can justify celebrating a birthday with that kind of history...not their own and certainly not Jesus’ birthday because the scriptures are silent as to the recording of anyone’s birthday.....so imitating the pagans in any way was forbidden to God’s nation. Calling something by another name does not alter its origins.

For Christians, Paul also adds....
“Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers. For what fellowship do righteousness and lawlessness have? Or what sharing does light have with darkness? 15 Further, what harmony is there between Christ and Beʹli·al? Or what does a believer share in common with an unbeliever? 16 And what agreement does God’s temple have with idols? For we are a temple of a living God; just as God said: “I will reside among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” 17 “‘Therefore, get out from among them, and separate yourselves,’ says Jehovah, ‘and quit touching the unclean thing’”; “‘and I will take you in.’” (2 Cor 6:1417)

“What sharing” indeed....”get out from among them and separate yourselves”....”quit touching the unclean thing” if we want God to “take us in” as one of his own. Who are doing that?

Can we in all conscience keep doing what God says is “detestable” to him? Can we share in celebrations that have no biblical origins but can be traced directly back to false worship?
If it mattered to God back then, why would he condone it now?

 

[Aunty Jane]

But kept where?

Luke 2:8-9 tells us that there were shepherds in the field at night on the day that Christ was born. The passage says, In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night.

These shepherds went to Bethlehem to see the new born baby whom the angels told them about, so they were in the vicinity. It was cold and rainy in the month of December so the shepherds usually kept their flocks indoors to protect them. Being out in the fields at night proves that it was earlier...more like early October.
Just as a side point, the magi who came with gifts for the child born to be “king of the Jews” didn’t arrive until Jesus was a young child and living in a house with his parent. They were never at the stable, so all those nativity scenes depicting them there are bogus.

I am most concered in this first point in this article as to why anyone chose December 25 for a celebration.

The pagans already celebrated their own festival to their own god at that time of year. The ancient Saturnalia was a time when gross immorality was practiced under the guise of festivities. Little changed because it was the Roman way.

To consolidate his religiously divided empire, Constantine fused the two religious systems together to form Roman Catholicism. All the pagan Roman festival were still celebrated but under a new name. The Christians by that time were nothing like what Christ left behind. Time has always been the enemy of God’s worshippers. Even when they started off well, it wasn’t long before they were doing exactly what God told them not to do.

We have absolutely no knowledge what month was Jesus birth. It is all guess work.
But to declare a date has to have been a reason.

It was already celebrated....they just exchanged the Christian god for the pagan one and carried on with their merry making.

 

[BlessedPeace]

Should Christians celebrate birthdays? | GotQuestions.org

Should Christians celebrate birthdays? What does the Bible say about birthdays? Is there anything wrong with celebrating a birthday?

www.gotquestions.org

 

[Pearl]

Birthdays were not even celebrated in the Scriptures by Jews or Christians. The very idea of a birthday is pagan
The only ones I can think of were Belshazzar and Herod.

Jehovah's witnesses have that belief.

 

[Rella ~ I am a woman]

Please look at the following links. ( done in 2 parts due to size)

It is a well studied article about this subject of December 25 and Christ's birthday celebration.

It was written by a member here on Christianity Board (but initially posted elsewhere)

Part 1 is the most important for our purposes here.

The Origins of Christmas ~PART 1

PART 1 OF 2 PARTS DUE TO TOO MANY CHARACTERS. This is an article from Grace Centered Magazine. https://www.gracecentered.com/the-origin-of-christmas.htm Please note the author of this is a member here, Ben Abraham. You can read his posts right here. The Origin of Christmas Ben Avraham...

www.christianityboard.com

The Origins of Christmas ~PART 2

PART 2 OF 2 PARTS DUE TO TOO MANY CHARACTERS. This is an article from Grace Centered Magazine. https://www.gracecentered.com/the-origin-of-christmas.htm SEE PART 1 for information regarding Jesus. Now, how did this fat guy named “Santa Claus” come into being? He started out as the...

www.christianityboard.com

 

[Pearl]

It really doesn't matter. This is an old, old topic discussed ad nauseam on every forum I've ever been on. But a few people with nothing better to do always want to tell the rest of us how wrong we are.

 

[liafailrock]

Cassandra suggested a thread on this so I am starting one.


It is important to look at the link but I suggest we take one festival at a time and lets try to figure out
why they chose a tie in with a Pagan festival.

Preview in the link says:





NOW~ I have a couple of unexplained questions and this is one of them.... perhap there are some opinions out there.

A. We celebrate the birth of the christ child on December 25 and the date of that never changes from year to year. We also know He was not born on that date nor in the month of December. But world wide
this is an accepted time..... EXCEPT for the Orthodox who celebrate it on Jan. 7 in 19 countries and Jan. 6 in 2 countries.

So why was December 25 picked as there is not one biblical reference that would suggest this.

This link from History.com may shed a light. (It is a very insightful read.)

Why Is Christmas Celebrated on December 25? | HISTORY

Church officials wanted the date to coincide with existing pagan festivals.

www.history.com

What say you?

Yes, these are pagan which is why I personally observe the feast days (Leviticus 23) instead. I can't speak for my family or the decorations that go up but Christmas especially is a hokey kind of holiday.The only good thing about these holidays is that's when people take off from work so you can meet up with family (sort of like the world's Sabbath I don't have to collect mail on Sunday, either LOL). But I made it clear my participation is the same manner as a secular holiday such as the 4th of July. I know that Jesus was not both December 25th.

However, I will make an exception for Easter and Pentecost because they are based in the feasts. I tell people Easter should be called Firstfruits day (technically first of the Firstfruits) occurring on the morrow after the Sabbath. But otherwise, it tends to follow the biblical calendar to the very day, i.e. so-called Easter and Pentecost are when those days fall on the biblical calendar except when a leap month is added and then it's off by a month. But this does not happen very often. They are the only two feast/Sabbath days that the church is accidentally celebrating as if there's a divine reason for not messing up the timing.

Christians "Christianized" the pagan days to remember something that happened in the Bible so as to get the pagans a bit more comfortable as old habits die hard. In the case of the birth of Jesus Christ, I think Revelation 12:1 is the clincher that says when he was born given that's a passage about the birth of Messiah written not only in symbolism, but coded astronomical language that points to the time of the year; otherwise, the astronomical mention would be superfluous and I don't believe God puts unneeded information in His Word. God's Word is also told in the stars and it's no secret that the constellation names were mentioned in Scripture and go back a very long time. The picture images of the constellations are fairly constant which shows a common origin to the beginning of Adam's race.

 

[Pearl]

Come on folks. Lighten up and don't be legalistic.