atpollard
Well-Known Member
There is ZERO scripture on the Celebration of Christmas.
So, Scripture is irrelevant to the question of who celebrated Christmas first: Christians or Pagans.
Where did the holiday Christmas come from?
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So, Scripture is irrelevant to the question of who celebrated Christmas first: Christians or Pagans.
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
You can’t be serious......there is zero mention because the Jews never celebrated it.....all the Bible writers were Jewish.
Any Encyclopedia will tell you the origins of Christmas.....
Here is an admission from the New Catholic Encyclopedia....
“The date of Christ’s birth is not known. The Gospels indicate neither the day nor the month . . . According to the hypothesis suggested by H. Usener . . . and accepted by most scholars today, the birth of Christ was assigned the date of the winter solstice (December 25 in the Julian calendar, January 6 in the Egyptian), because on this day, as the sun began its return to northern skies, the pagan devotees of Mithra celebrated the dies natalis Solis Invicti (birthday of the invincible sun). On Dec. 25, 274, Aurelian had proclaimed the sun-god principal patron of the empire and dedicated a temple to him in the Campus Martius. Christmas originated at a time when the cult of the sun was particularly strong at Rome.”
By declaring Roman Catholicism as the state religion of Rome, the pagans were allowed to keep their favourite festivals under a new name.....the ”Christians” by that time we’re so spiritually weak that there was no protest.
Christmas is the pagan “Saturnalia” under a thin veneer of false Christianity. The magi were not sent by God and neither was the “star” that guided them.....it was a satanic plot to have Jesus killed....yet the “star” and the “wise men” have pride of place, just like Santa Claus at this time of year. It’s all based on lies.
You can justify it all you want......but try justifying it to the one who was there and saw the original. You cannot fuse true worship with false worship.....there can be no “sharing”. (2 Corinthians 6:14-18)
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It's not biblical yet millions of people seem to think so. That's your answer to regarding "nobody made that claim". On the contrary, many, many make that claim all the time and many make it a point to "go to church" once a year to celebrate that very day. This discussion has gotten dumb and warrants no further comments.Goodbye
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Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
Funny how people can turn their "Christianity" on and off depending upon what takes their fancy....?
Perhaps they assume that going to church twice a year (at Christmas and Easter) makes them "Christians" somehow.....and of course those two occasions in the year bring in so much money, that the churches are not about to let the truth get in the way of their financial gain.
Giving money somehow equates with being a Christian also.....
It won't matter to the ones who have justified it to themselves....they don't want to know, so they have both fingers in their ears.
atpollard
Well-Known Member
As fine a non sequitur as was ever posted.
Scripture still has nothing to do with answering the actual question that the OP asked … but you keep “waiting to talk” instead of “listening”.
You are very good at it.
atpollard
Well-Known Member
”Everyone that passes through these doors are a blessing to this place, some when they enter and others when they leave.”
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
Funny....I could accuse you of the same thing. The OP has been answered clearly and scripturally, but the ‘blindness’ of some just makes me shake my head. Christmas is the renamed Saturnalia.....the date and all the customs are the same, with Norse myths and mid winter solstice traditions thrown in for good measure.
No one can put Christ into Christmas because he was never there.....it is nothing more than a commercial greedfest, and the churches demonstrate how important the truth is by not exposing it for what it is. They make too much money to speak up. You can’t kill a sacred cash cow....
If you can read 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 and still justify this sham that is clearly a false “tradition of men”.....then what more needs to be said?
Thank you.....it’s a shame more are not good at defending the truth rather than accepting lies dressed up and made pretty by “the angel of light” to look like the truth........something it never was.You are very good at it.
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
Devin, can you tell me where in the Bible that God’s worshippers were free to invent their own religious traditions or festivals? After the incident with the golden calf, the Israelites were forbidden to hold any festival that was not sanctioned and commanded by their God. He was the one who told them what to celebrate, and what date and activities should be engaged in on each occasion.
Birthdays were not celebrated by Jews, which is why there are none recorded in the Bible......not even the day or month that Jesus came into the world.
Read Matthew ch 2 carefully and ask if the magi were ever at the stable? How many of them does it say were there? Did the magi come to worship Jesus as a god, or were they simply honouring a child born to be a King with gifts as was their custom? Where did they find him, and how did they know which “house” he was in?
The magi were pagan astrologers who followed “his star”......not to Jesus at the stable, but to Herod who then hatched a plot to have the child murdered. The star was not sent from God but from the devil. God would never have announced the birth of his son to pagan astrologers.....he announced it to Jewish shepherds, who then went to Bethlehem to give honor to the newborn Jesus.
The whole story is horribly distorted by those who have no interest in the truth.
Christmas might be all pretty to men......but it’s not pretty to God.
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I'm starting to believe that people that call the good parts of life evil are fallowing wickedness, which is anti social and just sad.
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
What are “the good parts of life” if they are founded on lies, devin?
What is there about these celebrations that you enjoy? Is there some law in the Bible that says you must do what you enjoy on only certain days dictated by a calendar? Is the giving of gifts somehow confined to certain occasions? Can feasting only be enjoyed when a date requires all to celebrate the same event(s).
Step back and see what slavery people are shackled to, especially now when the economic situation of many means that even meagre food on the table is difficult to provide.....and a home is now out of reach.
How can Christmas be a happy family time when happy families are no longer in the majority? It is a time of year now when many people’s despair is heightened. Domestic violence escalates because of this.
It is the role of a Christian to make sure that his brothers and sisters are not in need.
2 Cor 8:12-15....the apostle Paul wrote....
“For if the readiness is there first, it is especially acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what a person does not have. 13 For I do not want to make it easy for others, but difficult for you; 14 but that by means of an equalizing, your surplus at the present time might offset their need, so that their surplus might also offset your deficiency, that there may be an equalizing. 15 Just as it is written: “The person with much did not have too much, and the person with little did not have too little.”
Whilst some are feasting sumptuously, others are in need.....there is no equalising in today’s world. People are greedy and selfish.....Christmas does not promote what Christ taught.
Jesus gave the parable of the Good Samaritan, which was particularly galling to the Pharisees because the hated Samaritan was the hero of the story. He did not see anything about this man who had fallen victim to robbers, as anything but a fellow human being who needed help. He was robbed of his clothing which meant that his nationality was not obvious. The ones who walked by and offered no assistance were completely devoid of compassion for this man, but the Samaritan did not hesitate to offer assistance, and even paid the inn keeper to take care of his needs.
The “traditions of men”, Jesus said invalidated God’s word. Jehovah is a God of truth....he abhors lies, so if the celebrations you enjoy are not founded on the truth, then they are unacceptable to God. It doesn’t matter if they are acceptable to a world who doesn’t serve him.
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Pilgrimer
Active Member
Hello. I am a New Testament historian and would like to offer a bit of history about Christmas and its origins.
The claim that the Christian observance of Christmas on December 25 was some adoption of a pagan festival is not true nor does it have any actual historical support, and in fact runs counter to the actual records of history. The Christian observance of Christmas dates back IN WRITING to the period of the Apostles. Clement, the co-worker of. St. Paul, mentioned by him in his Epistle to the Philippians (3:3), wrote in a letter to the churches: “Brethren, keep diligently the feast days; and truly in the first place the day of Christ's birth.” So even during the lifetime of the Apostles, Christians were celebrating the birth of Jesus with a feast, originally called "the feast of the nativity," and according to Clement it was the most important of the feasts to celebrate.
A few years later, in A.D. 137, Telesphorus, Bishop of Rome, instructed the churches that the birth of Christ was to be kept as a solemn Feast, and with the performance of Divine Services, on the 25th of December, showing this was the date believed by the original church to be the date of Jesus' birth. His instructions were, “that in the holy night of the Nativity of our Lord and Saviour, they do celebrate public Church services, and in them solemnly sing the Angels' Hymn, because also the same night he was declared unto the shepherds by an angel, as the truth itself doth witnesse.”
In this same period, an argument arose among Christians whether to celebrate the Lord’s birth on the date on which he was born or on the day of the week on which he was born. This prompted Theophilus, Bishop of Caesarea in Israel, to write a letter in which he recommends “the celebration of the birth-day of Our Lord, on what day soever the 25th of December shall happen.” This having been the established practice which was vouchsafed by such an esteemed elder from the Jewish homeland was sufficient to settle the matter.
In the following century, Cyprian begins his “Treatise on the Nativity,” thus: “The much wished for and long expected Nativity of Christ is come, the famous solemnity is come.”
All of this testimony by the early church on the celebration of Jesus’ birth, on December 25, was documented in the first two centuries, beginning during the time of the Apostles. The idea that Christmas was an adoption of a pagan holiday by the Roman Catholic Church in the 4th century, which has given rise to all the anti-Christmas speculation we see today from many quarters, is a myth that was started in the 1800s by a rabidly anti-Catholic Scottish minister who set out to try to “prove” his interpretation of the Revelation, that the harlot city, “Mystery Babylon,” was the Roman Catholic Church. He had no education in history nor was he an expert in the ancient religions of the Mesopotamian regions where the pagan religions he claimed were the source of the Christian observances once flourished. His work has been unequivocally proven to be false by historians, archaeologists, and experts in every field of these ancient religions. And yet, the fanciful and misguided notions are still being used to this day against Christian observances, including Christmas, one of the three oldest Christian observances in existence that dates back to the time of the Apostles.
In Christ,
Pilgrimer
There are no religious holidays in the NT nor days to be revered other than the first day of the week, the Lord's Day, wherein the disciples gathered together as the church, to break bread in remembrance of the Lord. The days today that are commonly recognized as religious holidays have been contrived by man and not ordained by God.
Pilgrimer
Active Member
I won't address the actual record of the early church, since I provided that information in the previous post, but it's not true that December 25 was ever celebrated by pagans. The winter solstice actually occurs on December 22/23, not December 25.
The actual Biblical and historical evidence is that the Magi visited Jesus most likely on or about February 23, after Mary and Joseph went up to Jerusalem for Mary's Purification (on the 40th day- ergo February 2) and Jesus' Presentation (as the firstborn son) and based on all the Biblical evidence as well as the astronomical and other evidence.
The Christmas image of the "nativity," or the Christmas crèche, is not intended to be some sort of historical record of the night of Jesus' birth, although most assume it is, but rather it is a model or tableau intended to convey the Christmas story, all the various events of which took place over a three-year period, beginning with the fulfillment of the star oracle of Balaam in 7 B.C. that alerted the Magi of the impending birth that came to pass 2 years later, and concluding with the Holy Family returning to Nazareth from Egypt at the Passover of 4 B.C. after Herod's death. All of these events are part of the Christmas story, which is represented by the manger scene. But most, even Christians, are not aware of all the history that is behind that beloved Christmas depiction and that's fine, the nativity scene is a wonderful composite that incorporates all the important events.
In Christ,
Pilgrimer
Pilgrimer
Active Member
I often hear this criticism of both Christmas and Easter, and while it is of course true that worship under the New Covenant lies not in observance of commandments prescribing the form and ritual that worship must take, the fact is that those who worship the Father and the Son in spirit and in truth will express their adoration and devotion in some way in their daily life. For all of Christendom the world over since the very beginning of the faith, celebrating the two most important events in the history of the world that are the root and foundation of our whole relationship with God is a "free will offering" (an offering not "required" in the law but given of one's own free will), and offering of praise and thanksgiving, not as a matter of obedience to a commandment, but as the natural fruit of a thankful heart, expressed in the manner that was in fact ordained by God in His Law ... through feasting and fasting.
In Christ,
Pilgrimer
Pilgrimer
Active Member
Actually, what Jeremiah, and many other passages in the Bible are speaking of here, has nothing to do with Christmas trees. These were the middle eastern version of "totem poles," (the word Asherim literally means "poles" and are called by archaeologists "pillar figurines"). They were lengths of a tree trunk (the "stock) that were carved with the faces and forms of the local deities. These poles were adorned with hammered sheets of gold or other metals and painted or variously decorated based on the wealth and artistic ability of the craftsmen.
These "idols" were commonly mentioned in the Scriptures and were denounced in the strongest terms by God, and the Jewish people were forbidden from making them, and were in fact forbidden from making any carved or graven images at all because of man's tendency to create these "gods" (which had eyes but could not see, a mouth but could not speak, and feet but had to be picked up and carried wherever they went, as the Scriptures mockingly attest) and then after creating them with their own hands people would fall down and worship them.
The "Christmas tree" did not even exist until the 1600s, and was an adoption of the tree used in the popular "Paradise Plays."
I have written a piece about this and included all the Biblical, historical, and archaeological evidence if anyone is interested in a bit more on the subject.
The Christmas Tree - A Study on it's Origins and History | DLBray
The internet and social media are seeing a growing host of articles, blogs, videos, and social media posts roundly condemning Christianity's Christmas observance as a "pagan" invention, usually ascribing the innovation to the Roman Catholic Church, the "hated source of all things pagan." One of t
Pilgrimer
Pilgrimer
Active Member
It's not true that birthdays were not celebrated in the Bible, they just weren't called "birthdays." But the various stages of a child's development each had a specific name in Hebrew and were in fact celebrated by families, usually in the Biblical mode of celebrating, which is with a feast. The Scripture particularly mentions that Abraham held a feast to celebrate what would have been Isaac's second birthday, the day he was officially weaned from the breast. (Genesis 21:8) The next major milestone was the 5th birthday, on which boys would begin their education at the local synagogue and girls began to be instructed in household chores. And the next major milestone was the 12th birthday for girls and 13th birthday for boys, when a child was considered an adult and would take on personal responsibility for their observance of the Law, the "Bar" or "Bat" Mitzvah you have probably heard of. Young men would enter into a trade at age 21. At age 30, after formal training, qualified young men could enter the priesthood or become a Scribe (Dr. of the Law).
So while the word "birthday" does not appear in Scripture, all these milestones of growth and maturity in a child's life were celebrated, beginning with the 8th day when an infant son was circumcised and named, to the 40th day when firstborn sons were formally presented to the Lord, to all the various milestones throughout a person's life. Keeping track of a person's birthday is how we know a person's age. Luke begins his Gospel by stating that Jesus "began to be about 30 years old," which means he had to have known when Jesus' birthday was to know that at that time, early January of A.D. 27, Jesus had just turned 30.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that Christians are "obligated" to celebrate Jesus' birth, the only ones I see trying to law down laws about Christian practice are those who believe Christmas and Easter are pagan, and sometimes they go so far as to claim that anyone who celebrates these holidays is committing idolatry and will burn in the lake of fire. So the ones trying to lay "commandments" on Christians isn't those who celebrate Jesus' birth and his death and resurrection, but those who don't.
As to the date, all the evidence (and there is a mountain of evidence to take into consideration) supports the December 25 date, a date first mentioned by Christians who lived within one generation of the time of Jesus.
In Christ,
Pilgrimer
BARNEY BRIGHT
Well-Known Member
To interpret those events as birthdays I'm going to disagree. Plus what your speaking of here has nothing to do with any commandment to observe Christmas. Tell me what does Santa Clause, elves, wizards, magic, etc have to do with my lord Jesus Christ. Any event that connected to wizardry, magic etc I'm going to have nothing to do with. I know for a fact Jesus wouldn't have anything to do with wizardry or magic, etc so I'm not either. What others choose to do is their choice
Pilgrimer
Active Member
Excellent post! And to add a bit more: Rabbinic law required that pens for cattle and sheep could not be kept close to a city, especially not the Holy City. If you have ever been anywhere near a stockyard, you can well understand why! And we are talking about tens of thousands of animals that were required to meet the sacrificial needs of the Temple day in and day out. At the Passover alone, thousands of lambs would be slain. At the time, there were more Jews living in the Diaspora (dispersed among the nations) than there were living in Israel. Annual pilgrimages saw the population of Jerusalem swell several times over, so that every guestroom, every courtyard, every available spot within the city walls where one could lay down a mat was in use, and the overflow spilled onto the surrounding hills and a virtual tent city would spring up, giving the whole city a carnival atmosphere. It was not possible for all these pilgrims from distant cities and lands to bring with them all the animals they would need for sacrifices, so there was a very robust trade in the temple courts selling sacrificial animals, thousands of them, already inspected and approved.
Every priest from all 24 courses were required to be on duty during the festivals to handle the incredible demands, barefoot and blood-spattered, hurrying about their duties, and the evening sacrifice, normally offered at 3:00 p.m., was moved up to just past noon, and then at 1:00 p.m. the Passover sacrifices began and continued until 5:00 p.m., at which time the sacrifice and butchering had to stop in order to have time to roast the portions of the Lambs and other sacrifices that would be eaten that evening, at the Passover Feast, which was the first of 7 days of eating unleavened bread.
Bethlehem, 5 miles to the south and a little less than a two-hour walk, was where the herds and flocks, referred to as the "Temple flock," were kept in preparation for being taken up to the Temple in Jerusalem for sacrifice. The "Shepherd's Field" was the valley just to the east and the north of the village of Bethlehem, the village itself situated on a ridge. There is a lot of fascinating history about this valley that lay beneath the ridge of Bethlehem. This valley is where Boaz had fields that he cultivated and Naiomi and Ruth were gleaning in these fields when Ruth met Boaz, and she became the great-grandmother of King David, who was from Bethlehem.
During the time of David, he built a royal castle in this valley. Now by the time of Jesus, 27 generations later, that castle was a ruin, nothing was left but a single watchtower. During New Testament times, this watchtower which had been preserved was used by the shepherds to keep watch out over the valley where the herds and flocks to be used for sacrifice were kept. And there is an ancient prophecy about this watchtower (Micah 4:8), called the "Migdal Eder," the "Watchtower of the Flock," and even the Rabbinic interpretation was that the messianic kingdom would be announced from this watchtower, where shepherds kept watch over those flocks that were destined to be taken up to Jerusalem for sacrifice.
These were the shepherds, not under the Rabbinic ban as normal shepherds were, that the angel of the Lord appeared to during the night of Jesus' birth and announced that the Savior had been born that day, and the rest is history ...
In Christ,
Pilgrimer
Pilgrimer
Active Member
Actually, that is not true. Quite the opposite, in fact, according to what history actually recorded, and you can look up these old records, they no longer belong exclusively to the narrow world of the academics.
In 361, a new Emperor came to power, Julian, called "the Apostate" because of his hatred of Christianity. By this time, so many Romans had converted to Christ and abandoned their paganism, that the old pagan temples had fallen to wrack and ruin, and the old pagan worship had effectively ceased. So Julian spent a fortune rebuilding the temples and hiring new priests in an effort to revive the old pagan worship. But his efforts proved fruitless as the Christianized Romans refused to return to the pagan gods of their fathers.
So Julian went a step further. In a letter he wrote to his "high priest" Arsacius, (Letter #22), he opened the letter by saying that no one would have even ventured to pray that the worship of the old gods would be restored on such a splendid and magnificent scale in so short a time. And yet, his efforts were not as successful as he had hoped because the people were not returning to their old former pagan worship. Now, a very important part of his letter, Julian wrote that it was "the benevolence of the Christians and the holiness of their lives" that had won over so many converts to Christ, and he goes on to lay out what the virtues of the Christians were that had been so effective in winning the hearts of the Roman people: their benevolence to strangers (even pagans), their care for the graves of the dead, and the holiness of their lives (not trafficking in theaters or drinking in taverns, not engaged in any craft or trade that was not respectable, providing "hostels" (from which comes the word hotels) for strangers in every city, and feeding the poor, even pagans, and contributing to the public good as first fruits offered up to their God. And Julian ordered his high priest to immediately instruct the pagan priests to begin to practice these virtues, and even further, that the priests were to lie, and teach the people that "this was our practice of old." And Julian told the high priest that he was to "shame or persuade them into righteousness, or else remove them from their priestly office."
Now this is a letter that was written by the Emperor of Rome, it is an historical record, and it absolutely refutes the popular theories circulating everywhere on the internet right now. And a whole generation of Christians, many of whom came out of terrible persecution and still bore in their backs the proof of their faithfulness to the Gospel, and who were living such exemplary lives of Christian faith that they had won the Roman Empire to Christ, are being falsely accused of compromising the Gospel and selling out Christ in order to appease Romans who wanted to hold on to their old pagan ways! That is absolutely not true, and shame on us Christians, most of whom have never suffered so much as a pin prick for Christ, and whose only knowledge of the things we expound is based on some articles on the internet, to so malign those early Christians, and what a fearful thing it will be to answer to God for it.
Let us study to show ourselves approved, a workman that does not need to be ashamed,
Pilgrimer
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