Posted on 09/24/2001 9:07:24 AM PDT by NMC EXP
I've considered myself to be a christian for about two years. Prior to that, I had no religious affliation. I have been studying with a Christian pastor who does not observe Christmas or Easter. He makes a lot of sense to me from a Biblical standpoint.
For instance, today he observed the Feast of Tabernacles, and had communion. According to him (and I am not A Bible scholar, but based on my study, I agree that Jesus was born during the Feast of Tabernacles). Be advised, this communion celebrated the birth of Christ, just a different date from most Christians. He describes himself as a Christian, but sticks to the Hebrew dates for events, and says Easter is not strictialy Biblical. I agree with this as well.
I am asking for input....I do not want a shouting match regarding chapter and verse. On my next reading of the Bible, I will take notes and will be able to respond to the specific questions. At this point I cannot.Your input will be appreciated.
Regards
J.R.
Every ADL demogogue in the Western World has this thread of yours pulled up on their screen. Right now you are the author of the most watched thread on the 'net.
Enjoy!
It's nice to observe the OT holidays; it's always wonderful to celebrate the birth and death/ressurection of Christ.
I don't know what the ADL reference is about.
John 15
Inspector, that thought never occured to me until you mentioned it. Believe it or not, it is a serious question on my part.
May as well and go the whole nine yards and add a question which I deleted from the original post.....that is: why do mainstream Christian's; Christmas, Easter, and All Saints Eve celebrations coincide with pre-Christian pagan festivals? I have an opinion on that issue. My opinion is what has steered me in the direction of Messianic Judiasm. Jesus was a Jew.
I never thought about the ADL zealots, so I will stick the other foot in and offended the mainstream Christians with the pagan festival date comment. You are right, this could get interesting if I were a better debator, and did not have a short fuse. It was not my intent to offend, or start a flame war. Tough concept to get across on this forum, huh? Sigh.
Regards, Inspector.
J.R.
My understanding is that this came about because as the Christian influence grew in an area, the pagan rites became Christianized. So we have November 1 instead of Samhain, Christmas instead of Solstice. It was not "intentional" in the sense of a conscious decision being made. However, I would like to hear more about what the claendar of events is that you follow.
God Bless, ikka
Some corrections to your post:
1. Feast of trumpets was last week(1st day of 7th month), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is later this week (10th day of 7th month), and then Feast of Tabernacles is after that (15th day of 7th month - duration 7 days).
2. Why feast of tabernacles now? and note it lasts 7 days.
3. Communion is not about the birth of Christ but about his death and the bruised and beaten body (bread) and the shed blood (cup).
why do mainstream Christian's; Christmas, Easter, and All Saints Eve celebrations coincide with pre-Christian pagan festivals?
Not only that but take "Easter" for example. So many pagan traditions have been incorporated into this ONE holiday that it has completely lost sight of the original intent. What do I mean? Take the name, for example. The greek word Pasho(sp?) was translated "passover" in every single occurance in the NT except ONE. In that one instance it was translated to the word "Easter" and it caught hold. Trace the word easter back to the Babylonian goddess of fertility "Ishtar". Look at the other pagan fertility rites that have been involved in modern "easter" celebrations. Eggs, bunnies, etc.
Modern Christians have allowed the celebration of Jesus defeating death to be turned into a pagan fertility celebration. This boggles the mind.
I am asking for input....I do not want a shouting match regarding chapter and verse. On my next reading of the Bible, I will take notes and will be able to respond to the specific questions. At this point I cannot.Your input will be appreciated.
Hi..., Are you a Jew? Is your pastor a Jew? Is this a Jewish congregation? Just wondering.
If you're a Gentile, then you're covered under the pronouncement of the Jerusalem Church, from Peter and James -- given to the Apostle Paul (and to the Gentile church).
You might check out these fellows in regards to your interest.
Zola Levitt and David Hocking (both Jews preaching and teaching to the entire church). Then you might check out Dave Hunt for some good teaching.
WRONG! Orthodox Christians call Easter Pascha, and even in the Western Church, the word for "Easter" in nearly every language except English and German is very similar (e.g., French "Paques", Spanish "Pascua", etc.)
All these words mean "Passover". Easter/Pascha is an extension and fulfilment of Passover! That is clear to any Christian who has ever celebrated the last days of Holy Week, the Easter Vigil, and Easter Day (known collectively as "The Three Great Days".)
Similarly, Pentecost was originally a Jewish festival (Shevouos--"Pentecost" is a Greek-derived word that means the same as the Hebrew). Originally, Easter/Pascha and Pentecost were the only Christian feast days.
The other Christian holidays were added later, starting with Epiphany (called "Theophany" in the Eastern Church).
The occurrence of Christian holidays on the same days as pagan ones is in some cases coincidental (many cultures have a spring equinox festival), and in others represents Christians takeovers of pagan holidays. But the scriptures command us to take every spirit captive to follow Christ! We should not merely use the Christian holy days as excuses to follow pagan customs that might detract from our faith, however.
To complicate things further, many scholars believe that the Jewish festivals were all originally pagan ones, but were given new meanings based on faith in the God of Israel. So if one is more concerned with a moralistic hunting for and excluding "all pagan accretions", rather than celebrating our Christian faith in a positive way, one just can't win!!!
Prior to becoming a Christion, I did some casual comparative religion study. I had a book on paganism, the celts, and wicca, and etc.
Pretty typical was that they celebrated what were referred to as "quarter and cross quarter days". These coincided with the soltices, equinoxes, and half between each. I cannot locate the book right now to give you the nanes and purposes of the festivals, but the correlation was there. Thank you
J.R.
Heck you don't offend me. I love to celebrate the birth, death. resurrection of Jesus. Also cool are Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Ascension Thursday, Pentecost and many other days commemorating important events in the life of Christ and the early. These celebrations do not save me. They give me pleasure and glorify God.
I should be surprised if many Christian Holy days did not override (or correspond with) earlier pagan celebrations. After all, those pagans were just doing what they could with the light they had. Mostly just shadows. Now the light comes and shows not only the way, but show what was right and what was error in those pagan practices.
Piasa Bird
It's not really worth getting legalistic about, but it certainly would be worth studying. My understanding of the timing of the holidays is the Catholic church made a practice of changing pagan holidays into biblically-based holidays, but many of the pagan traditions ended up continuing.
Easter is fairly close to the proper timing - it may even be as close as we can get considering the calendar revisions that have taken place in the past 2000 years. I'm pretty sure the term "Easter" is of pagan origin, and I've been in a church that preferred to call it "Ressurection Sunday," which is more acurate and more difficult. People always slipped up, but nobody was really that concerned about it. It was usually good for a couple of laughs watching people get tongue-tied trying to correct themselves and it made the point the pastor was trying to make.
If anyone comes across some good info on this, please post it or link it. You got me curious for more details now.
No.
If you're believing in J.C. as the Messiah, you're not a Jew by definition.
Ping for Thinkin' Gal, Messianic Zionist, Simcah7, dennisew
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