Caba,
I think it's worth mentioning that pants are way more pagan than Christmas.
'Tis the Season: Christmas and "Pagan Origins"
by cabasilas 40 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Heaven
B the X!
MERRY PANTSMAS, BILLY!
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OnTheWayOut
Everything has pagan origins. Everything was considered pagan until Christianity adopted it.
So, go full speed ahead into the pagan stuff.
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twinkle toes
Good article.
Marked
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fulltimestudent
Quoting Cabasilas (a post on 04.12.20100
I agree that there are other Christian groups that are against Christmas. I would argue, however, that such opposition to celebrating Christmas is not the historical Christian position but surfaces about 500 years ago and are based on a faulty reasoning: that a history showing some sort of use of a custom by non-Christians means it's somehow tainted.
Yes! Some Christians get upset at some aspects of chrissie celebrations. Here's a link to a somewhat humourous incident in France:
http://varenne.tc.columbia.edu/texts/levstcld093fathchri.pdf
which relates how in 1951, a number of clergy (presumably mainly Catholic, but including Protestants)in Dijon, France, had become agitated over what they called an increasing 'paganisation' of Christmas, particularly centering on Father Christmas. To symbolise their opposition they arranged on Christmas Eve, for a large group of Sunday School kids to witness the execution by hanging of Father Christmas.
The local government authorities, described as "anti-clerical," and quite possibly communist in those days, promptly arranged for the resurrection of Father Christmas the next evening.
I did find interesting the second article for which you provided a link (in fact, I found quite a few articles in his collection to be of interest to me). I won't go into those at present.
But I would like to draw your attention to this Chrissie article in the current issue of Biblical Archeology Review ( http://www.bib-arch.org/ )
Its written by a University of Melbourne academic who specialises in early Christianity. The article is named, 'How December 25 Became Christmas.'
He suggests it was a gradual process by which the early church turned to an interest in clebrating the nativity.
( See: http://www.bib-arch/e-features/christmas.asp )
That idea of the development of Christian beliefs being gradual basically fits my notions of early Christianity. From the first group(s) who seem to have been nearly all Jews or gentiles influenced by Jews, there was a 'flowering' of new ideas that gradually moved early Christianity away from Judaism. And since, for various reasons, Jews lived in many places in both the Roman Empire and the Iranian Empire, and since they mostly made a living from trading, they became great travellers (I've even found one group of jews from what is now France, who specialised in trading eunuchs-not clear at present whether they also made 'eunuchs. If they did, it would be interesting to know how they squared that with their beliefs in the Mosaic law, and whether they removed the testicles only, or all the sex organs as was sometimes the practise.) Anyway, that network of Jewish colonies, and the travelling seems to have made it possible for early Christian missionaries (dare I say pioneers?) to spread their religion quite fast. We even find evidence of Jews down in India, so there was at least a framework for Thomas to follow, if the legends of his founding the Indian church have any truthful basis.
I think we can see, that actually early Christianity spread faster in the east than in the west, and that there may have been more Christians in Egypt and what is now called Iraq and Iran, than in the west (Europe). An interesting angle is that for quite a while, the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) mostly 'ruled' over churches that were Arian in their theology.
Anyway, thank you for a brief but interesting thread.
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thetrueone
Was the celebrating of birthdays solely and only with pagan traditions ?
It is written in the bible that John the Baptist celebrated his birthday !
Mind you there is no argument that December 25th as it's recognized today as Christ's birthday was a
contrived date in apposition from a pagan king.
All religions have their own containing BS, thats how and what they were created upon, even the WTS/JWS.
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ziddina
"The term pagan is from the Latin paganus, an adjective originally meaning "rural", "rustic" or "of the country." As a noun, paganus was used to mean "country dweller, villager." I have yet to fully understand what is so heinous about being Pagan. ..."
Heaven, the term "pagan" had shades of meanings - as in, ignorant country bumpkin, uneducated dolt from the boondocks....
Sort of like the Western terms "clodhopper"... "sh*tkicker"... "greenhorn"... "tinhorn"... "drugstore cowboy"... and so on...
I don't like the implications of the original usage of the term "pagan", as most non-Christian peoples that the term was applied to, [at the beginnings of Christianity] were very urban and usually much better educated and better informed of the origins of "christianity" than the Christians themselves...
I strongly suspect that the men who referred to Jesus' followers as, [rough quote...] "but these who follow him, they are an accursed people", may have been much better informed of the plagiarism of the rites of Dionysus and the Elysian mysteries into Christianity, than the ignorant fishermen and shepherds and tax collectors and so on, that followed the new cult of "jesus"...
Personally, I prefer the term, "Heathen" [as in the scene from the original "Wicker Man", where Christopher Lee corrects the Christian policeman when he calls the island's inhabitants "pagan"... "Oh, no, heathen surely, but let's not be so unkind as to refer to us as uneducated pagans..." rough quote...]
Or my absolute favorite, "NeoPolyTheist"!!!
And I know I'm going against the current here; most modern "Pagans" are PROUD to be called "pagan", nowadays...
I liked your quote about "paganism" - Earth worship - and the artwork!!!
Zid
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Band on the Run
Our family has been active witnesses since Pastor Russell's days. Not celebrating Christmas was very painful. I am a New Yorker so I've been exposed to many Jewish people. Most of them acknowledge a winter secular festival. I've seen many Channukah bushes in my time. Everything is pagan in origin. Everything. It is our heritage. Not every pagan was bad. Indeed, scholars now believe Paul's witness was not to Gentiles in general but to "God fearers," pagan members attracted to Jewish belief but unwilling to undergo circumcision as adults. My intent is to honor the Incarnation, not to conduct a Wiccan rite. Living in this world, most people are not Jehovah's Witnesses yet they are in no way like those described as abominations in Witness literature. Most of them are better Christians in their daily lives than Witnesses.
My mom shocked me when she told me that until well into Rutherford's tenure, Witnesses celebrated Christmas! I later checked the veracity of her statement. She saw a Christmas tree at Bethel that was very visible on a tour. Witnesses were encouraged to give Society books as Christmas presents. Looking back, the poor woman simply saw too much but could not leave her family. She was expelled for the flag salute problem. Her dreams were big. Her mother would have killed her if she saluted. Her brother scored the highest in NJ of all graduating seniors. Within less than one week before graduation, he was expelled, too.
I grew up hearing these revelations from people active in Witness life. Their intent was not to defame the WTBTS but to share with me their personal experience. She forbid me to be dedicated until I was an actual adult. I wish I could impart newcomers and present Witnesses with my family's knowledge and my personal experience reading pyramid and occult books. 1975 was simply atrocious.
Celebrating Christmas or not is a minor matter for me. Other religions hone their message, too. The Witnesses change everything, though, with never an awareness that they are fallible. Clearly, the pope shows more humanity when he apologizes for the Church. Not that he has atoned for his work with pedophilia. Details are all important to the Witnesses. They should be correct about something over time. It amazes me how gullible people are. Low Bible literacy is the problem. They reveal some Bible truths. These truths are minor. It gives them an aura of knowledge. I've studied Koine Greek. Their arrogance is pathological.
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Leolaia
Some other examples of "pagan origins":
- The city Jerusalem, originally a Jebusite stronghold, retains its pre-Israelite name which means "Foundation of Shalem". Shalem was the Canaanite god of the dusk.
- Many Levites in the OT have Egyptian names (such as Moses, Phinehas, Hophni, Merari), including names with Egyptian DNs (Ra, Horus, Osiris) as theophoric elements, e.g. Ahira, Assir, Harnepher, Hori, etc.
- The Solomonic Temple in Jerusalem was built by Phoenicians and its plan shows clear Phoenician influence.
- Chapters 22 and 23 of Proverbs most likely derive from the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope, and book of Ahiqar (used by the Jews at Elephantine) incorporates polytheistic Aramaean wisdom material (which refers to gods like Shamash and Baal-Shamayn); the later Jewish book of Tobit (in the OT apocrypha) retroactively makes Ahiqar a faithful Israelite.
- Pagan symbols like the winged sundisk and the dung beetle scarab were used by Judahite royalty, including Hezekiah, as royal iconography. The winged sundisk is also used as metaphoric imagery applied to Yahweh in Malachi 4:2.
- Several Hebrew technical terms for animal husbandry and agriculture originate from Canaanite polytheism. The term for a field irrigated by rain is shdh b`l "field of Baal", which reflects the function of Baal as a god of rain and irrigation. The plural of the name of the fertility goddess Ashtoreth is used in a term for sheep breeding (`shtrwt ts'n) in Deuteronomy (cf. 7:13, 28:4, 18, 51).
- In the exile, Jews accepted pagan names with Babylonian DNs as theophoric elements. Examples include Sheshbazzar (< Shamash-aba-usur "Shamash protect the father"), the prince of Judah in the first group of returnees, and Mordecai (< Marduk) in Ezra-Nehemiah (cf. Ezra 1:8, 2:2, Nehemiah 7:7); another Mordecai figures in the story of Esther (the name "Esther" derives either from Ishtar or the Persian word for "star") set in the Persian period, rabbinical sources claim the full name was Mordechai-bilshan (< Marduk-bel-shunu "Marduk is their lord"). Daniel retrospectively portrays faithful exiled Jews as receiving foreign names and accepting education in the Babylonian mantic arts (ch. 1). Azariah is renamed Abednego (< Abed-Nabu "servant of Nabu") and Daniel is named Belteshazzar (< Balat-shar-usur "Protect the life of the prince"), erroneously interpreted in 4:5 as derived from the name of the god Bel (= Marduk), suggesting that for the author of Aramaic Daniel names with pagan DNs were acceptable at least in principle. The names Meshach and Shadrach are Persian names attesting the name and an epithet of the Persian god Mithra: Mishaka "little Mithra", attested in Persepolis (< Mithaka < Mithraka, i.e. Mithra- + -ka, hypocoristic suffix), and Chithraka "little shining one" (Chithra "brilliant" + hypocoristic -ka).
- The post-exilic Jews brought from Babylon a calendar derived from the Neo-Babylonian calendar, with month names derived from Akkadian. These month names appear in post-exilic works (e.g. Nehemiah, Esther, 1 Maccabees, Josephus), and include the month Tammuz, June/July, the name of a Babylonian god likely associated with seasonal changes.
- Post-exilic Judaism shows evidence of influence of Zoroastrian and other Persian religious ideas, particularly in apocalyptic eschatology (division of history in world eras, eschatological judgment and punishment with fire, eschatological Savior figure and adversary/antagonist figure, bodily resurrection, paradise, etc.).
- In addition to the influence of the Enuma Elish and the Gilgamesh Epic in Genesis, the Enochic corpus in the Hellenistic era draws on traditions from the Gilgamesh Epic and the Book of Giants even names "Gilgamesh" as one of the giants who lived before the Flood (another figure, Atambish, might reflect the Utnapishtim of the Mesopotamian work). 1 Enoch (an edited collection of Enochic material) is cited as inspired prophecy in the NT letter of Jude (v. 6, 12-13, 14-15, 16 in particular allude and quote from 1 Enoch).
- Hellenistic modes of thought are pervasive in the NT just as they are in later Second Temple Judaism, such as an anthropology reflective of Platonic/Pythagorean ideas (2 Corinthians 5:1-8, 12:2, Philippians 1:22-23, 2 Peter 1:13-14, Revelation 6:9-11) and an ethics influenced by Stoicism (e.g. 2 Peter 1:3-8, 2:2, 10, 12, 18-19, 3:5-7, 11-12).
- The author of 2 Peter draws on Greek mythology for the name Tartarus as the place of punishment of the fallen angels (2:4). This follows the earlier use of Tartarus in 1 Enoch.
- Revelation (ch. 12) and the 13Kingdoms section of the Apocalypse of Adam draw on the Apollo-Leto/Horus-Isis myth in characterizing the birth of the Messiah. This myth also has certain narrative parallels with the nativity story in Matthew (which otherwise draws on stories about Moses).
- The chiliasm of Revelation was part of a more general millenarian movement in Phrygia, and since Phyrgia was strongly influenced by Zoroastrianism, this suggests that Revelation was impacted by Persian ideas; this is supported further by the literary similarity between ch. 11 and 13 of Revelation with fragments of the Oracles of Hystaspes, a Zoroastrian apocalypse which according to Justin Martyr (one of the earliest commentators of Revelation) and Clement of Alexandria was popular among Christians. The Nero redivivus legend in ch. 13 and 17 may also indicate a Parthian connection. The harlot in ch. 17 draws on imagery associated with the goddess Dea Roma (parodying the patron goddess of Rome as a drunken harlot).