Is Christmas “pagan”?

[Aquila]

Is Christmas “pagan”? According to this article from the North County Times, John Chrysostom reasoned:

Luke 1 says Zechariah was performing priestly duty in the Temple when an angel told his wife Elizabeth she would bear John the Baptist. During the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, Mary learned about her conception of Jesus and visited Elizabeth "with haste."

The 24 classes of Jewish priests served one week in the Temple, and Zechariah was in the eighth class. Rabbinical tradition fixed the class on duty when the Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 and, calculating backward from that, Zechariah's class would have been serving Oct. 2-9 in 5 B.C. So Mary's conception visit six months later might have occurred the following March and Jesus' birth nine months afterward…December.

Thus, for John Chrysostom, the month of December was based on Scripture and Jewish tradition. While it is possible John was mistaken, this demonstrates that Christians at the time were choosing the dates of feasts based on Scripture, not paganism.

There are other good, Jewish, Christian, and biblical reasons why Christians chose the date of December 25th. One is based on the estimated date of the death of Jesus. This is all based on the Jewish idea of the "integral age," that great prophets were conceived on the same date as their death. Early Jewish Christian writers thought that Jesus, who was believed to have died on March 25th according to the current calendar, was also conceived that date. If we assume nine months in the womb, this means he was born on December 25th.

So…in all honesty, the date of our Christmas celebration appears to be based largely on ancient Jewish traditions that early Jewish Christians continued to carry.

Thoughts?

[Amanah]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

Date of celebration
For centuries, Christian writers accepted that Christmas was the actual date on which Jesus was born.[31] John Chrysostom preached a sermon in Antioch c. 386 which established the date of Christmas as December 25 on the Julian calendar since the conception of Jesus (Luke 1:26) had been announced during the sixth month of Elisabeth's pregnancy with John the Baptist (Luke 1:10-13) as dated from the duties Zacharias performed on the Day of Atonement during the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar Ethanim or Tishri (Lev. 16:29, 1 Kings 8:2) which falls in September–October.[6]

In the early 18th century, scholars began proposing alternative explanations. Isaac Newton argued that the date of Christmas was selected to correspond with the winter solstice,[17] which the Romans called bruma and celebrated on December 25.[32] In 1743, German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski argued Christmas was placed on December 25 to correspond with the Roman solar holiday Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and was therefore a "paganization" that debased the true church.[18] In 1889, Louis Duchesne proposed that the date of Christmas was calculated as nine months after the Annunciation, the traditional date of the conception of Jesus, which itself was based on a traditional belief that he was conceived and crucified on the same date, 15 Nisan.[33][16]

In the early 4th century, the church calendar contained Christmas on December 25 and other holidays placed on solar dates: "It is cosmic symbolism...which inspired the Church leadership in Rome to elect the winter solstice, December 25, as the birthday of Christ, and the summer solstice as that of John the Baptist, supplemented by the equinoxes as their respective dates of conception. While they were aware that pagans called this day the 'birthday' of Sol Invictus, this did not concern them and it did not play any role in their choice of date for Christmas," according to modern scholar S.E. Hijmans.[34]

However, today, whether or not the birth date of Jesus is on December 25 is not considered to be an important issue among mainstream Christian denominations;[35][36][37] rather, celebrating the coming of God into the world in the form of man to atone for the sins of humanity is considered to be the primary meaning of Christmas.[35][36][37]

[Michael The Disciple]

We can be certain most of the early disciples did not know the day Yeshua was born. They did not even know how old he was.

3:23 Jesus himself, when he began to teach, was about thirty years old, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, Luke 3:23

Here Luke was a historian of the Church who worked and fellowshipped with the apostle Paul and he himself was not sure of Yeshua's age.

The Christmas holiday is at best a falsehood stamped upon the Church and at worst a pagan holiday.

[Amanah]

oh the weather outside is frightfull

but the fire is so delightfull

And since we've no place to go

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

when we finally kiss goodnight

how i hate going out in the storm

And since we've no place to go

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

[bbyrd009]

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

We can be certain most of the early disciples did not know the day Yeshua was born. They did not even know how old he was.

3:23 Jesus himself, when he began to teach, was about thirty years old, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, Luke 3:23

Here Luke was a historian of the Church who worked and fellowshipped with the apostle Paul and he himself was not sure of Yeshua's age.

The Christmas holiday is at best a falsehood stamped upon the Church and at worst a pagan holiday.

Mmm, thematically (I think Aquila could be completely right here, and still be wrong, considering what Christmas has become for many; which I think you're responding to, maybe; but) I have to agree that Christmas, literally and spiritually, is doing a lot better than Easter, lol.

[AreYouReady?]

About Pastor Meyer:

David J. Meyer was born in Clintonville, Wisconsin. He was born into a family where superstition and occultism were everywhere. His paternal grandmother and great grandmother were both practicing witches in the old wiccan tradition.

When David was 13 years old he began his involvement with astrology, numerology and palm reading. This continued until age 19 and he became well-known in northern Wisconsin as a psychic astrologer. Many mysterious events made him popular with the people in that area.

At age 19 a friend coaxed him to attend a small church where miracles and healing were said to happen. Being drawn first of all by curiosity, David attended a Sunday evening service where the Holy Ghost began to work conviction in his heart. At the end of the service he went up to the front and fell to his knees and repented before the Lord. The following week he was baptized in the name of the Lord. One week later, he was baptized with the Holy Ghost. It was an experience reminiscent of Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road.

After deliverance from many devils that came out from him, he instantly began to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the streets. While continuing his ministry, David also assisted various pastors and completed his Associate of Arts degree at Fox Valley Technical Institute. He also completed 10 years of service with the University of Wisconsin system as a master locksmith in charge of physical security. During that time he won many awards and certificates including the highest award presented by the Governor of Wisconsin. David also did computer programming and security systems designing and analysis.

David J. Meyer is now the pastor of Truth Tabernacle, a totally independent Bible-believing Christian church which he founded in 1974, located in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. He is also the editor and publisher of the Last Trumpet Newsletter, which began publication in 1981 and currently has over 10,000 readers. Last Trumpet Ministries International also distributes over 25,000 tapes per year. Seminars are held throughout the United States and overseas as well. Pastor Meyer specializes in deliverance ministry and exposes the dangers of the occult and secret societies. He has traveled extensively from coast-to-coast doing research and spiritual warfare.

Pastor Meyer died on June 8, 2010.

This is Pastor Meyer's view about Christmas.

The Origin Of Christmas
Christmas is a holiday shared and celebrated by many religions.
It is a day that has an effect on the entire world.

To many people, it is a favorite time of the year involving gift giving, parties and feasting. Christmas is a holiday that unifies almost all of professing Christendom.

The spirit of Christmas causes people to decorate their homes and churches, cut down trees and bring them into their homes, decking them with silver and gold.

In the light of that tree, families make merry and give gifts one to another.

When the sun goes down on December 24th, and darkness covers the land, families and churches prepare for participation in customs such as burning the yule log, singing around the decorated tree, kissing under the mistletoe and holly, and attending a late night service or midnight mass.

What is the meaning of Christmas? Where did the customs and traditions originate?

You, as a Christian, would want to worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth, discerning good from evil.

The truth is that all of the customs of Christmas pre-date the birth of Jesus Christ, and a study of this would reveal that
Christmas in our day is a collection of traditions and practices taken from many cultures and nations.

The date of December 25th comes from Rome and was a celebration of the Italic god, Saturn, and the rebirth of the sun god.

This was done long before the birth of Jesus.

It was noted by the pre-Christian Romans and other pagans, that daylight began to increase after December 22nd, when they assumed that the sun god died.

These ancients believed that the sun god rose from the dead three days later as the new-born and venerable sun.

Thus, they figured that to be the reason for increasing daylight.

This was a cause for much wild excitement and celebration. Gift giving and merriment filled the temples of ancient Rome, as sacred priests of Saturn, called dendrophori, carried wreaths of evergreen boughs in procession.

In Germany, the evergreen tree was used in worship and celebration of the yule god, also in observance of the resurrected sun god.

The evergreen tree was a symbol of the essence of life and was regarded as a phallic symbol in fertility worship.

Witches and other pagans regarded the red holly as a symbol of the menstrual blood of the queen of heaven, also known as Diana.

The holly wood was used by witches to make wands.

The white berries of mistletoe were believed by pagans to represent droplets of the semen of the sun god.

Both holly and mistletoe were hung in doorways of temples and homes to invoke powers of fertility in those who stood beneath and kissed, causing the spirits of the god and goddess to enter them.

These customs transcended the borders of Rome and Germany to the far reaches of the known world.

The question now arises: How did all of these customs find their way into contemporary Christianity, ranging from Catholicism to Protestantism to fundamentalist churches?

The word "Christmas"itself reveals who married paganism to Christianity.

The word "Christmas" is a combination of the words "Christ" and "Mass.

The word "Mass" means death and was coined originally by the Roman Catholic Church, and belongs exclusively to the church of Rome.

The ritual of the Mass involves the death of Christ, and the distribution of the "Host", a word taken from the Latin word "hostiall" meaning victim!

In short, Christmas is strictly a Roman Catholic word.

A simple study of the tactics of the Romish Church reveals that in every case, the church absorbed the customs, traditions and general paganism of every tribe, culture and nation in their efforts to increase the number of people under their control.

In short, the Romish church told all of these pagan cultures, "Bring your gods, goddesses, rituals and rites, and we will assign Christian sounding titles and names to them.

When Martin Luther started the reformation on October 31st, 1517, and other reformers followed his lead, all of them took with them the paganism that was so firmly imbedded in Rome.

These reformers left Christmas intact.

In England, as the authorized Bible became available to the common people by the decree of King James the II in 1611, people began to discover the pagan roots of Christmas, which are clearly revealed in Scripture.

The Puritans in England, and later in Massachusetts Colony, outlawed this holiday as witchcraft.

Near the end of the nineteenth century, when other Bible versions began to appear, there was a revival of the celebration of Christmas.

We are now seeing ever-increasing celebrating of Christmas or Yule, its true name, as we draw closer to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In both witchcraft circles and contemporary Christian churches, the same things are going on.

As the Bible clearly states in Jeremiah 10:2-4, "Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen; and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven. For the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain. For one cutteth a tree out of the forest. The work of the hands of the workman with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers that it move not."

So, what is wrong with Christmas?

1. To say that Jesus was born on December 25th is a lie! The true date is sometime in September according to the Scriptures.

2. Trees, wreaths, holly, mistletoe and the like are strictly forbidden as pagan and heathen! To say that these are Christian or that they can be made Christian is a lie!

3. The Lord never spoke of commemorating his birth but rather commanded us to remember the sacrifice of His suffering and death, which purchased our salvation.

Think about it! Can we worship and honor God by involving ourselves with customs and traditions, which God Himself forbade as idolatry? Can we convince God to somehow "Christianize" these customs and the whole pretense and lie of Christmas, so we can enjoy ourselves? Can we obey through disobedience?

So what is right about Christmas? 1. Nothing!
For more information and documentation contact:

Last Trumpet Ministries International
PO Box 806
Beaver Dam, WI 53916

[AreYouReady?]

Pastor David J. Meyer also wrote the following about Christ-mass.


The True Meaning Of Christ-Mass
They tell us that it is the season to be jolly. It is a time of ornaments, red and green decorations, silver bells, holly, mistletoe and colored lights. It is also a time of department store Santas calling out their universal mantra, "Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas." Nearly all of the realm of so-called "Christianity" join in and repeat this same greeting, "Merry Christmas!"

Although we hear these words constantly as they resonate millions of times throughout the land, almost nobody understands what they are really saying. It is the purpose of this tract to take the words, "Merry Christmas" and examine the true meaning and essence of those words.

A true Christian would want to examine everything they say, because Jesus said in Matthew 12:36-37, "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." We will now set aside all of the customs, glitter and traditions of Christmas, which were taken from pagan witchcraft and popularized by the Roman Catholic Church, and we will focus on the true meaning of the words, "Merry Christmas!"

The word "Merry" is simple to define. It unquestionably means to be happy, joyful and light-hearted. The word "merry" fits into the ambience of laughter and frivolity. This word "merry" by itself is innocent and innocuous enough, but as we will now see, it becomes heinously blasphemous when used with the word "Christmas."

Here let it be noted that most people think that the word, "Christmas" means "the birth of Christ." By definition, it means "death of Christ", and I will prove it by using the World Book Encyclopedia, the Catholic Encyclopedia, and a book entitled, The Mass In Slow Motion.

If you are an honest, sincere and discerning Christian, please read on; if not, you might as well stop right here. The World Book Encyclopedia defines "Christmas" as follows: "The word Christmas comes from "Cristes Maesse", an early English phrase that means "Mass of Christ." (1) It is interesting to note that the word "Mass", as used by the Roman Catholics, has traditionally been rejected by the so-called Protestants, such as Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals and so on. The word "Mass" is strictly a Catholic word and thus, so is "Christ-Mass."

It would stand to reason, that since all of these denominations love and embrace "Christ-Mass", that December 25th is the great homecoming day, when all of the Protestants become Catholic for a day. It would seem that all of the so-called "wayward daughters" of the Romish church return to their mother, the scarlet harlot. Thus, all of the so-called Protestant churches could sing to the Pope that popular song "I'll be home for Christmas."

As previously stated, the word "Mass" in religious usage means a "death sacrifice." The impact of this fact is horrifying and shocking; for when the millions of people are saying, "Merry Christmas", they are literally saying "Merry death of Christ!" Furthermore, when the fat man in the red suit laughs boisterously and says, "Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas", he is mocking and laughing at the suffering and bleeding Saviour, who died for our sins. He does this while parents place their little children into his waiting arms to hear his false promises of gifts that he says he will give them. Consider what you are saying when you say "Merry Christmas."

What is so amusing about our Saviour's painful death? What is so funny? Why is Santa laughing? Why are you going along with it? Your words do count and Satan knows it. Yes, the word "Mass" does mean "death sacrifice", and to cement that fact, we will consider the definition of the inventors of the religious application of the word "Mass." I am looking at page 537 of the Catholic Encyclopedia, which says, "In the Christian law, the supreme sacrifice is that of the Mass." It goes on to say, "The supreme act of worship consists essentially in an offering of a worthy victim to God, the offering made by a proper person, as a priest, the destruction of the victim." (2) Please note carefully the word, "victim" of the Mass. The Latin word for victim is "Hostia" from which the word "host" is derived. The Mass, by definition of those who coined the word, is a sacrifice involving a victim. There is no other meaning for the word "Mass" or "Christ-Mass." On page 110 of a book entitled "The Mass In Slow Motion", we find the following words: "It is only with the consecration that the sacrifice of the Mass is achieved. I have represented the Mass to you, more than once, as a kind of ritual dance." (3)

In essence, the Mass is the ceremonial slaying of Jesus Christ over and over again, followed by the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood. The Mass is the death sacrifice, and the "Host" is the victim. This is official Roman Catholic doctrine, and "Christmas" is a word that they invented. Again, I ask, what is so merry about the pain, bleeding, suffering and death of Jesus Christ? Satan has done quite a job of getting millions of so-called "Christians" to blaspheme. What a deceiver he is.
Now you know the true meaning of the word "Christmas" or Mass of Christ. There is much more to know about this pagan holiday, and we will be glad to provide you with plenty of evidence that Jesus was not born on December 25th, and that Christmas is not only a lie, but is actually a witches' sabbat called "Yule" in clever disguise. Please contact us at the address below, and for the sake of your soul, flee from idolatry!

David J. Meyer

Acknowledgements:
01. World Book Encyclopedia, vol.3, p. 408, 1986 ed., World Book Inc., Chicago, IL

02. The Catholic Encyclopedia, R.C. Broderick, 1975 ed., Nihil Obstat, Richard J. Sklba, Censor Librorum. Imprimatur, Archbishop William E. Cousins, Milwaukee, WI.

03. The Mass In Slow Motion, Ronald Knox, 1948, Sheed & Ward, Inc., New York, NY. Nihil Obstat, E.C. Messenger, Censor Deputatus. Imprimatur, E. Morrogh Bernard, Vic. Gen.

Last Trumpet Ministries International
PO Box 806
Beaver Dam, WI 53916

[Titus2woman]

For our house the objection is not to the when of Christmas, it is to how Christmas is celebrated. I am just not seeing that God would be pleased by many/most of the current traditions practiced around this time of year. They just do not glorify God.

[bbyrd009]

Hmm; the one seems to follow the other...

[Rudy]

For me it is.