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What Is The Origin Of Christmas?
#20370
12/18/05 02:24 PM
12/18/05 02:24 PM
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Christmas day is one week from today.
Does anybody know how Christmas, the various things of Christmas such as Santa Claus, Christmas tree, etc., began, where it originated from?
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Re: What Is The Origin Of Christmas?
#20371
12/18/05 07:09 PM
12/18/05 07:09 PM
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Dedicated Member
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 1,009
Ohio
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I know part of the origin of Santa was Saint Nicholas who would give gifts to children.
The earliest record of an evergreen tree being used and decorated (but without lights) for Christmas is 1521 in the German region of Alsace
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Re: What Is The Origin Of Christmas?
#20372
12/18/05 08:10 PM
12/18/05 08:10 PM
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A quick google search of the origins of Christmas will bring up a plethora of sites showing that Christmas, and it's traditions of the tree, Santa Claus, mistletoe etc came mostly from pagan customs combined with Roman traditions by the church at Rome. In other words there is nothing Biblical about keeping Christmas.
So does that make celebrating Christmas wrong?
Redfog
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Re: What Is The Origin Of Christmas?
#20373
12/18/05 08:38 PM
12/18/05 08:38 PM
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Dedicated Member
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 1,009
Ohio
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Ellen White did not seem to think so: quote:
Shall We Have a Christmas Tree?"--God would be well pleased if on Christmas each church would have a Christmas tree on which shall be hung offerings, great and small, for these houses of worship. [NOTE: REFERENCE IS MADE IN THIS ARTICLE TO CURRENT BUILDING PROJECTS. AS THE PRINCIPLES SET FORTH IN THIS CONNECTION ARE APPLICABLE TODAY, THESE SPECIFIC REFERENCES ARE LEFT IN THE ARTICLE.] Letters of inquiry have come to us asking, Shall we have a Christmas tree? Will it not be like the world? We answer, You can make it like the world if you have a disposition to do so, or you can make it as unlike the world as possible. There is no particular sin in selecting a fragrant evergreen and placing it in our churches, but the sin lies in the motive which prompts to action and the use which is made of the gifts placed upon the tree. {AH 482.1}
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Re: What Is The Origin Of Christmas?
#20374
12/18/05 08:41 PM
12/18/05 08:41 PM
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Dedicated Member
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 1,009
Ohio
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Is it wrong to remember, and even celebrate Christ's first advent at any time? As to the commercial aspect of Christmas, I do not like it at all. In fact, I feel the same way C. S. Lewis did: quote:
We are told that the whole dreary business (Christmas as a commercial racket) must go on because it is good for trade. It is in fact merely one annual symptom of that lunatic condition of our country, and indeed of the world, in which everyone lives by persuading everyone else to buy things. I don't know the way out. But can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If the worst comes to the worst I'd sooner give them money for nothing and write if off as a charity. For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance.
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Re: What Is The Origin Of Christmas?
#20375
12/18/05 10:09 PM
12/18/05 10:09 PM
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quote:
Does anybody know how Christmas, the various things of Christmas such as Santa Claus, Christmas tree, etc., began, where it originated from?
I do not know all of the origins of Xmas but here are the salient points that I have picked up over the last 15 or so years:
Firstly the date of December 25 originated as the birthday of the various pagan sun Gods - in particular Mithras.
Secondly the tree decoration I do not know when that first started however in the book of Jeremiah we are counselled not to decorate the trees as the heathen do - therefore the heathen must have been decorating the trees atleast back BEFORE the time of Christ as even before the time of Daniel.
As has already been stated the myth of Santa Claus evolved from the actions of St Nicholas.
I also know that the wreaths and other paraphanalia evolved out of pagan fertility rights, although I do not know very much more.
Each of these things has been gradually infiltrated into christianity since the time of Constatine in the 4th centuary.
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Re: What Is The Origin Of Christmas?
#20376
12/18/05 11:10 PM
12/18/05 11:10 PM
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Active Member 2011
3500+ Member
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 3,965
Sweden
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If you read the piece in jeremiah more closely and in context, it is obvious that he is talking about people making idols out of wood for the purpose of worship. Few if any modern christmas-trees are prepeared either as idols or for worship.
/Thomas
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Re: What Is The Origin Of Christmas?
#20377
12/19/05 02:03 AM
12/19/05 02:03 AM
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SDA
Active Member 2024
Senior Member
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 634
New York
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quote:
Originally posted by DebbieB:
quote:
Does anybody know how Christmas, the various things of Christmas such as Santa Claus, Christmas tree, etc., began, where it originated from?
I do not know all of the origins of Xmas but here are the salient points that I have picked up over the last 15 or so years:
Firstly the date of December 25 originated as the birthday of the various pagan sun Gods - in particular Mithras.
Secondly the tree decoration I do not know when that first started however in the book of Jeremiah we are counselled not to decorate the trees as the heathen do - therefore the heathen must have been decorating the trees atleast back BEFORE the time of Christ as even before the time of Daniel.
As has already been stated the myth of Santa Claus evolved from the actions of St Nicholas.
I also know that the wreaths and other paraphanalia evolved out of pagan fertility rights, although I do not know very much more.
Each of these things has been gradually infiltrated into christianity since the time of Constatine in the 4th centuary.
I mentioned this in an earlier post. Middle Ages Catholic Historians did place Christmas as coming into the church during the time of Constantine during the 4th century, to appeal to the pagans by celebrating the birthday of Mithras and this has become Christian tradition. However as archaeology has continued to study and older and older documents have shown up, there are problems with this history as to the orgin of Christmas.
For futher study may I recommend the article in Bible Review December (or winter) either 2001 or 2002. I shared this information last year and Daryl brought it up to the top last week, but no one seems to want to read it....
Anyway, it turns out that the Chruch did not start keeping Christmas NOT in the 4th Century with Constintine and the time of compromise with Paganism, but were kept since the 3rd century, during the days of less pagan compromise, many Christian marters and the Catacombs. This was not based on Paganism but based on a Christian feast cellebrated during the second century AD, the Feast of the Announcation on, depending on which part of the church you lived, was cellebrated on either March 25 or April 6.
Now the feast of the Announcation came from a sad time in Churth history. Christianity was a subgroup of Judaism until 135 AD when Christianity and Judaism became two different religions. The split was simmilar to a divorce, Strange mixtures of releaf and anger as well as sadness and hurt on both sides.
Anyway, the feast of the Announciation was based on Jewish Mythology. Since intertestamal days the Jews said that the conception of Issac was on Passover, and that it was also on Passover that Abraham took Issac to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice him and the angel stoped him and promiced a substitute on Passover.
During the second century AD when the Church sepperated from the Synogogue, the Christians took this myth and said that it was indeed true, and that it was a prophecy of Jesus, that Jesus was the second Issac, entering Mary on Passover and being sacrificed on Passover. But as the Jews had a luner calender and the gentiles had a solar calender, while passover moved around, the church calender stayed on the date that Passover fell and was modified by the majority of Jews that lived in the area. The Jews in the west cellebrated Passover on March 25 that year while those in the east cellebrated April 6, and the Western chruch began cellebrating the feast of the Annunciation on March 25 every year and the Eastern Church would cellebrate it April 6 every year.
Then by the next century, the third century, someone added 9 months to these dates, and the birth of Christ was cellebrated on December 25 in the west and January 6 in the east. By the time of Constantine, the church had been celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25 for 100 years, and the Feast of the Announciation nine months previous for 200 year.
I'm sorry but the Jeremiah text is clearly about making idols. It's application to the Christmas Tree has been used in different Bible classes in both College and Seminary (and I think Academy) as an example on how people love to latch on to a text, ripp it out of context and build a whole theology on it.
I have not come across as strongly written article about the Christmas tree as I did the BR article about the orgin of December 25, but what I have come across in many places was that the Christmas Tree is the creation of Martin Luther. That through the centuries, the church tended to have a nativity scene as the center of Christmas. Luther suggested putting an Evergreen over the natvity scene which represented God's imortality and holding up the universe, with lights to represent the stars in the sky and that God hold up the universe.
The Christmas tree was just used by German Protestants, some like Lutherans had it over their nativity scenes, others who did not want any immages replaced their nativity scene with the Christmas Tree. A king of England married a German princess who in England continued to use a Christmas tree so others in England began to follow her example and the Christmas tree became a part of our tradition.
As for Santa, Schloars say that some of the oldest poetry forms in scripture talk about God living in the far north and being loving and giving. The ancient world saw the universe as egg shaped with the stars on the dome of the heavens, the earth about across the middle and the waters under the earth, the lower part of the egg, the underworld. The very point was at the far north and where the most high god's thrown was. Thus temples (including David's temple to Yahweh) were built to the north.
In Paganism this was where all the other gods met and the most high god was in a lot of ways just the accumlation of the other gods. In the Bible, the far north was where an Infinate-Personal, who was not the sum of all the other gods, but independent of reality and created the universe and lived outside of reality.
Apprently durring the darkest times of History, God likes to at least be known as someone out there but who loves and wants to give.
Anyway, after people such as St. Nicholas and the idea of wanting to give, these different ancient views were mixed with the spirit of giving to form Santa. Now sadly in Europe Christmas did deteriate to a day of getting drunk and vandalizing, as (according to a program I saw on the History Channel) the season began to focus more on Santa and through this to their children, Christmas developed from a time to get drunk to a time for family and the story of the birth of Jesus. Although currently the developing world economic state is using Santa to turn from giving to buying and getting into debt, and to loose sight of birth of Jesus by getting drunk on the wine of wealth, setting up for the merchants of the earth to be the first to cry at the fall of Babylon as predicted in Revelation 18.
Now the orgins of wreaths and other things I have not come across, but as the days just after the shortest day of the year December 21, started to get longer, people would rejoice and this season would be a major cellebration in the northern hemisphere, so there would be local things incorporated into the season. I know I like to incorporate Hannakua and the story of the raising of Lazarous, and mix this with thinking about the coming last days and the resurection of our loved ones, and being of Scandinavian heritage, incorporate Scandinavian elements.
I hope this helps.
[ December 19, 2005, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: Kevin H ]
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Re: What Is The Origin Of Christmas?
#20378
12/20/05 07:12 PM
12/20/05 07:12 PM
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SDA
Active Member 2024
Senior Member
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 634
New York
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I was hoping that my post here and my other thread about a few aspects of Christmas would add to the discussion, not end the discussion, any comments on this or the other post?
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Re: What Is The Origin Of Christmas?
#20379
12/20/05 10:13 PM
12/20/05 10:13 PM
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Active Member 2011
3500+ Member
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 3,965
Sweden
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Dont have knowledge to add to what you have written. Just a question, what would the scandinavian elements you mentioned be?
/Thomas
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