Did the Pagans Steal Christmas

This is kinda scary, its the first time I have ever stepped foot into this part of the fora....

Ok,

http://hillcountrynews.com/articles/2005/12/08/opinion/opinion02.txt

Based on this Opinion article, and this is a loos specuation on my part,

Winter Soltice and Pagans never existed, its all the idea of some German fellow that hated Roman Catholics and that Christ was born on Christmas day and died at Easter. Now, from what I have been told most of my life, is that Pagans have always celebrated Winter Solstice and that Christrian holidays have been moved around to match up with Pagan holidays. Who is correct?

 

From the article:

"Of course, with the passage of time, theories often turn into “facts” ...."

Sometimes -- that passage of time can be as long as 15 seconds.

 

meaning?? I'm running a little slow today only one cup of coffee....

 

Neither holiday has a Jewish equivalent unlike, say, Pentecost.

But religions tend to borrow, modify, and adapt existing celebrations to their own uses. Passover, for example, is thought to be the combination of two earlier, non Jewish festivals.

 

Dionysius bar-Salibi, bishop of Amida, quoted by Ramsay MacMullen from the Latin of the 'Biblioteca orientalis Clementino-Vaticanae 2', in his 'Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries', 1997, Yale U.P., p. 155.

 

Christianity was originally a part of Judiasm (until the destruction of the Temple in AD 70) ... one which believed that they had found the long-awaited Messiah. As Christianity spread to other cultures, it evolved and adapted. As Christianity expanded among the Romans, December 25 was chosen as the date of Christmas in order to compete with Saturnalia. As Christianity expanded among the Germans, Christmas trees and Yule logs were introduced as Christmas traditions.

 

Yshua was likely born in the springtime. There is no way those shepherds were keeping their sheep up in the hills in the Holy Land in December.

 

Re: Re: Did the Pagans Steal Christmas

In most parts of the world, the idea of sheep grazing in the hills in December would be laughable. But a few parts of the world -- and Israel happens to be located in one -- have "Mediterranean" climate zones. In Mediterranean climates, the summers are hot, dry, and harsh, while the winters are mild and rainy. So the seasons are flipped by 180 degrees: the mild wet winter is the primary growing season for native plants, while the vegetation is dead or dormant during the hot dry summer.

The only other Mediterranean climate zone in the Northern Hemisphere is here in coastal California. Right now, in December, our hills are turning lush and green and are well suited for grazing. I would expect that the same is true in Israel and other parts of the Mediterranean basin.

 

I would have THOUGHT that Christianity parted ways with Judaism around the time Paul wrote, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free."

Not so?

 

Hi Nosbourne,

In context, Paul is writing to Gentile believers in Jesus who think they actually have to convert to Judaism and fully follow Torah in order to follow Jesus, an issue which had been settled for Gentiles within the Christian faith since the Council of Jerusalem recorded in Acts 15. Many Jewish believers, however, continued following Jewish principles, and indeed, the number of Jesus-followers from among the Jews was actually significant; Ya'acov ("James") tells Paul on the latter's return to Jerusalem, "You see, brother, how many tens of thousands of believers there are among the Judeans, and they are all zealots for the Torah." (CJB translation)

I think we've been around this mulberry bush once before, but the early Jewish Christians continued to be involved as part of the Jewish community until more or less the close of the first century, when the Council of Jamnia (or Yavne) added the "Birkat Ha-Minim", or the "blessing" (curse, actually) on the "apostates". While some have interpreted this as having been specifically directed at the early Jewish Christians in order to keep them out of the synagogue, some scholars consider rather that what was really going on was a felt need for the rabbinic (e.g., Pharisaic) leadership to consolidate their position as the leaders of Judaism. The "final straw" may actually have rather been Rabbi Akiva's attempt, in the midst of the final war for Jewish Independance from the Romans (about 125), to proclaim his military general Bar Kochba to be the Messiah, something obviously unacceptable to the Judeo-Christian community.

The definitive work on this is Dr. Ray Pritz' Hebrew University doctoral dissertation on the subject, published as Nazarene Jewish Christianity. There are also web sites with some information on this here and here.

Shalom,

Matt

 

It's an interesting theory, although Bill D's quotation above from a reputable source gives one a cause to pause in accepting it. Certainly there is record of the Church in antiquity contextualizing the celebration of Christian faith to a particular culture by co-opting local festivals. The Venerable Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of England (early 8th century), quotes Gregory the Great's instructions to Augustine of Canterbury as he went to bring Latin Christianity to England,

Peace,

Matt

 

So answer me this, though maybe you have, are Jewish Chrisitans todays Jews for Jesus?

 

This is a difficult question because it depends on:

-whom you ask; and

-why are you asking.

If you ask the Israeli government, surely an important source of Jewish law, no Christian (or Muslim or Buddist or Hindu) can register as a Jew and be permitted instant citizenship under the Law of Return. Some such people can sometimes settle in Israel under other parts of the law, however. A born Jew who converts to Christianity is definitey not a Jew under the Law of Return.

If you ask a Reform Rabbi, his first response is that no born Christian can be a Jew. A Jew is not a Jew merely through birth to a Jewish parent but must also have been raised Jewishly. In this way, Reform is more demanding than Orthodoxy. A Jew who accepts Christianity is an apostate and treated pretty much the same way as an Orthodox Rabbi would treat an apostate.

An Orthodox Rabbi might weasel a bit, though. Technically, the convenent with God cannot be broken by either side unilaterally. A Jew by birth to a Jewish mother (regardless of HER level of observence) does not lose his obligation to the Law merely by announcing that he has become a Christian. God made him a Jew and he will die a Jew. But he cuts himself off from the Jewish community by engaging in religious practices that are repugnant to Judaism.

David ben Gurion posited his own definition of a Jew:

-He considers himself a Jew;
-Other Jews consider him to be a Jew;
-Non Jews consider him to be a Jew
-He shares the fateof the Jewish community.

Few Christians could fit that definition.

Both kinds of Rabbi would require a good bit of "reformation" on the part of the apostate who adopted Christianity then wanted to return.

No "branch" of American Judaism will have anything official to do with "Jews for Jesus" or "Messianic Jewish" congregations. They are considered the same as all other Christians.

 

Well, maybe I could put it this way:

The Nazarenes, who were the Jewish followers of Jesus who remained more of a Jesus-believing group within the Jewish community rather than completely assimilating into the numerically stronger (by the end of the first century, at least) Gentile Church, probably vanished at some point in the fifth century (Pritz 1992, p. 82).

Among modern "Jewish Christians" (often called "Messianic Jews"), some are involved with "Jews for Jesus", which is really more of a specific organization than a particular sect or group. Messianic Jews vary as widely as other Jews in respect to how much Jewish culture and religious practice they maintain, from those who are completely assimilated into a non-Jewish Christian tradition, to those who continue to maintain a completely Jewish lifestyle including dietary laws, Shabbat observance, etc. What all these would have in common is their ultimate faith in Jesus (Hebrew=Yeshua) as Messiah.

Peace,

Matt

 

A couple of points are worth noting vis-a-vis the above:

1. Certainly the Orthodox position on whether a Jesus-following Jew retains his Jewish identity is, erm, more orthodox, nu?

2. Consider the great Ben Gurion's definition of a Jew, as noted, as applied in the early years of the Christian faith as applied to Jewish identity: bear in mind that the early arguments were not whether one remained a Jew upon having come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but whether non-Jews had to fully convert to Judaism (circumcision, mikvah, etc) in order to follow Jesus. In the early days, all four criteriae would have been applicable to Messianic Jews without difficulty. In more modern times, all but the second often, indeed usually apply; it's worth noting, though, that there have been dissenting voices within the non-Messianic Jewish community, such as Dan Cohn-Sherbok, who edited Voices of Messianic Judaism: Confronting Critical Issues Facing a Maturing Movement, and Carol Harris-Shapiro, who wrote Messianic Judaism: A Rabbi's Journey Through Religious Change in America, although I hasten to add that these voices have been by and large resisted in the Jewish community as a whole.

An interesting article on the subject from the Israeli publication Ha'aretz is located here.

Anyway, that's my $0.02 for the moment on that.

Peace,

Matt

 

Mattchand,

I really do not know.

I have never read in Talmud or anywhere else that Jesus was NOT considered a Jew. Christianity itself comes in for a great deal of well veiled sarcasm and there can be little doubt that the sarcasm was directed at Christians from Jewish backgrounds, since the Rabbis couldn't care less about the customs and beliefs of non Jews.

I should think that Jesus was considered to be Jewish but remember, that was as much a statement of ethnicity as anything else.

If you think that an Orthodox Rabbi would still consider a Jew who converted to Christianity to be a Jew, you would be right BUT there are serious and severe communial sanctions that would apply. Among other things, the apostate would be shunned by the community.

If you saw the recent movie Merchant of Venice, the final scene gives you a faint idea of how it would be.

 

parting shot....

well....

Here is the story of Rabbi Daniel Zion, Chief Rabbi of Bulgaria during WWII, who led as well as suffered along with the Jewish community there, although they received what I can only call something of a miraculous deliverance from the hand of the Nazis. Was he still Jewish?

Shalom,

Matt

 

I don't know if this is the same Brother Daniel whose case under the Law of Return in the Supreme Court of Israel established the rule I mentioned earlier.

If so, then according to the State of Israel, he was not a Jew for purposes of the Law of Return.

Whether his community thought of him as a Jew is another question.

Whether I would consider him a Jew is irrelevant.

 

Apparently not

The Brother Daniel of the famous case is, or was, one Meyer Lansky. Similar story, though.

 

The "Brother Daniel" was a Carmelite monk who was not living anything like a Jewish lifestyle (as far as I know); this was in contrast to Rabbi Daniel Zion, who continued to live as a Jew along with his belief in Jesus.

As for Meyer Lansky, I never knew about the "Israel" part of his story; his rejection, of course, had little to do with whatever fragments of religion he professed.

Peace,

Matt