Christian/Pagan Holidays (Formerly: Happy Valentine's Day!)

Caitlin

New member
Caitlin said:
Easter is celebrated the 1st full moon after
spring equinox. 1 cycle of the moon,

oops..meant to say "AFTER the 1st full moon after the equinox" didn't want anyone to think I meant ON the 1st full moon.

Tennessee R said:

Oh, and Finn will get on to you for not spelling it 'Caesar' ;)



You mean we can't talk about how salad has influenced the way we count the passing of time? ; ) (Guess I'm not the worlds greatest speller either!)
 

Aaron H

Moderator Emeritus
Talk about religion isn't barred at the Raven, rather kept in check from becoming flame war (which has happened in the past):
5. Religion:
Religion is a touchy subject. Show respect for other members their religious beliefs, whatever yours are, and they will respect you.


Personally, I don't see anything wrong with Christians taking pagan holidays and making them their own.

As to the birth of Christ vs. the death/resurrection of Christ. No they are not reversed. "Easter" is celebrated with Passover because that is when the Bible records the events taking place. Christmas is never mentioned in the Bible, but was created to do two things:
1. Allow Christians celebrate the birth of their Lord.
2. Offer Christians an alternative to a pagan holiday.

There have been several theories about the actual birth day, but some place it mid-summer because of what is known about census' in that time of the Roman Empire.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
About this whole Easter thing... Even as a Christian holiday, its date varies every year, which highly suggests that it originally was a holiday linked to the span of year (e.g. it was celebrated when you saw the first flowers or something), and that speaks heavily for Pagan origin. Perhaps there was a day for celebrating the passover, but like every other holiday, it was moved to the corresponding Pagan date.

And the Bible has changed a great deal during the years, nowadays it's though nothing but they may renew the vocabulary a bit, but there is evidence that in earlier times, even the Holy Book and its saying were constantly rewritten in order to match the current situation better, so referring to the Bible as a source <i>(and especially as a source that can't be argued)</i> must be taken with at least slight reservation.
(Though no one actually knows how heavy those modifications to the good book have been, if any, so I'm not claiming that everything it states are way off marker.)

And lastly, we could get to a debate on the ethics of moving the holidays along the days when the Julian calendar outdated...
 

westford

Member
I might be talking rubbish here, but wasn't Christmas at one time a moveable feast like Easter? Eventually a set date was chosen so that workers could be given the day as a holiday each year. This would also have been when Boxing Day was introduced - the day when household staff could return home to visit their families with a box of gifts.
 

Tennessee R

New member
Aaron H posted:
Personally, I don't see anything wrong with Christians taking pagan holidays and making them their own.
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Well, I won't try to make you change your mind. :)



Finn posted:
Perhaps there was a day for celebrating the passover, but like every other holiday, it was moved to the corresponding Pagan date.
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That's right, Finn, most of the holidays were moved to a pagan holiday with a similar date.



Finn posted:
And lastly, we could get to a debate on the ethics of moving the holidays along the days when the Julian calendar outdated.
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Calandar changes have not effected the order of the days of the week, but ten numbers were removed from October 1582 A.D.
So, before, when it was Thu the 4, Fri the 5, it became Thu the 4, Fri the 15. I believe that is what you are talking about.



Caitlin posted:
...wasn?t Christmas at one time a moveable feast like Easter?
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Well, no-one really knows when Christ was born (If that?s what you?re referring to), and the Bible was not clear when he was born. But, I believe I mentioned in a previous thread, the Bible does say something like:
...And he came, and dwelt among men...
Or something like that. The word dwelt in Hebrew means ?tabernacled?
So, it could possibly be a ?hidden? reference to the ?Feast of Tabernacles?.
 

Kate

New member
westford said:
..... but wasn't Christmas at one time a moveable feast like Easter?

OOOH it's going to bother me until I remember: there is a book called "A Moveable Feast," but I can't remember who it's by. Anyone know?
 

Caitlin

New member
Tennessee R said:
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Caitlin posted:
...wasn?t Christmas at one time a moveable feast like Easter?
[/B]
huh? I didn't post that. I believe that was Westford.

Interesting stuff BTW, Westford! I'm so caught up in my "consipary theory" mind-set , that I didn't even think of holidays being moved in modern politics for the GOOD of the people..A day off!! Isn't it too bad that we have to schedule and scramble to be able to relax...back then they were like "Hey look, it's almost a full moon..gonna party tomorrow night! whoo hooo!!"

Tennessee R said:
______________________________________________________


Calandar changes have not effected the order of the days of the week, but ten numbers were removed from October 1582 A.D.
So, before, when it was Thu the 4, Fri the 5, it became Thu the 4, Fri the 15. I believe that is what you are talking about.[/B]
10 #s removed? Interesting. Do tell more!
 

Tennessee R

New member
Sorry, Caitlin, it was Westford. I knew it was a lady, though. :)

Well, I believe it was when the Gregorian changed to the Julian (Or maybe I've got it backwards and it was vice versa), the only major changes was that 10# were removed from October, but as I said before, it did not in the least, change the order of the days. It still was Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon.... And so on.
 

Caitlin

New member
Kate said:
OOOH it's going to bother me until I remember: there is a book called "A Moveable Feast," but I can't remember who it's by. Anyone know? [/B]

Haven't read it...just looked it up. Hemmingway. But from the book reviews I don't see how it relates.....(Looks pretty damn good tho!) Is there another book of a similar title..or is this the one you are thinking of?
 

Caitlin

New member
I completely stole this from some student's website at Drexel Unv.? in PA. TennR, ya made me want to know more! Think he's right on , or what? I'm definately going to look into this some more onmy own. Neat!

"The formula for figuring out the date of Easter (The "Golden Rule") relative to the sun and the moon was set in the 4th Century AD (at the Council of Nicea). The religious calendar called for a certain number of masses to be held between Christmas and Easter. By the year 1500 approximately, the number of Sundays was no longer the same, because the date of the equinox had shifted by over a week from where it had been when the rules were set. The equinox was taking place on March12 instead of March 21 as it had during the early days of the church.

This was brought to the attention of Pope Gregory XIII by a priest/astronomer named Christopher Clavius (note the name... another famous astronomer named Christopher). By 1582 the accumulated error was estimated to have amounted to 10 days, thus the real length of the solar year was not EXACTLY 365.25 days as had been believed, but closer to 365.2425. So the way to fix this was to add another correction factor by DROPPING 3 leap years every 400 years. To bring the religious calendar back into synch with the solar events, Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the day following Oct. 4, 1582, should be called Oct. 15, thus dropping 10 days"
 

Pale Horse

Moderator
Staff member
Not to stir up any trouble, but this sort of manipulation by the Early Church is part of the controversy surrounding Gibsons film, if I'm not mistaken.
 

Pale Horse

Moderator
Staff member
Most definately. Let's chat about it in the other thread.

Back on topic, Tenn are my musings correct about how the Vatican II is responsible for the deviation in the days?
 

Tennessee R

New member
I haven't seen the movie, but I believe you are correct, Apalehorse.
I can't prove it, Caitlin, but, yes, I believe the fellow who wrote that had his facts straight.
 

Tennessee R

New member
Yes, A Pale Horse, it had to do with the Catholic Church. Pope Gregory is where we get the Gregorian calendar, and we have the Julian calandar, and so on.
 

Aaron H

Moderator Emeritus
Let's settle the issue of "Easter" (Death/Burial/Resurrection of Christ). It's time is determined according to the Jewish calendar, thus we have the dates of the "Easter" events down pat, it is when it gets translated over to our calendar that it gets confusing.
<small>The controversy surrounding "The Passion of the Christ" does not have anything to do with dates or times, primarily because that issue is firmly settled in both the religious and secular debate circles. Rather it has to deal with if the movie portrays Jews in a negative light...but I won't get into that here.</small>

Christmas is the major holiday that has the largest question mark on it. I believe it was stated that Christmas is also on Saturnalia. The early Church fathers chose to celebrate Christmas on Saturnalia because they wanted to offer an alternative to the festival, thus preventing believers from falling away. (Does that make any sense?) The logic is there, but the reasoning is flawed. However, birth records weren't kept during the first century, so the Church fathers, even though they were fairly close to the actual time of Christ, wouldn't have a clue as to when exactly his real birthday was.
As I stated before, it is believed that Jesus was in fact born in mid-summer. This is because of the fact that the shepherds were watching their flocks by night (if it was winter it would be awfully cold...even in Israel!), and Rome conducted census' when weather would allow for quick and easy travel for the census takers and those being census-ed <small>(okay so it?s a made up word)</small>.


Okay, one last thing to further clarify my earlier statement. Christian festivals on pagan holidays were done for several reasons. Some more apparent than others:
1. To prevent the Believers from sinning by participating in a pagan ritual or practice.
2. To show to the pagans that Christians can have fun too. <small>(I'm serious here)</small>
3. To keep Believers excited about their faith.
4. To attract new Believers to the Faith.
That is my logic to my statement "Personally, I don't see anything wrong with Christians taking pagan holidays and making them their own."

Wow this is a long post; I will stop for now and carry on later.
 

Pale Horse

Moderator
Staff member
Aaron H said:
Let's settle the issue of "Easter" (Death/Burial/Resurrection of Christ). It's time is determined according to the Jewish calendar, thus we have the dates of the "Easter" events down pat, it is when it gets translated over to our calendar that it gets confusing.
<small>The controversy surrounding "The Passion of the Christ" does not have anything to do with dates or times, primarily because that issue is firmly settled in both the religious and secular debate circles. Rather it has to deal with if the movie portrays Jews in a negative light...but I won't get into that here.</small>

I will carry the Vatican II arguement into the other thread as well. But I will allude to it here as I feel it is relevant, until someone shows me more.

I think that between you, TR, Finn and my humble musings, we could come to some consensus on dates. The Vatican II (1960's) made significant changes from the Catholic Dogma originated with the Missale Romanum around 1570 ad, which was protested by Luther, yada yada yada...and that stemmed the current Catholic/Protestant branches we loosley ascribe to today (<small>agreed?</small>)

Obviously our holidays were around before the 1960's, but I am not sure about which dates and calandars we are discussing or questioning.

So any changes to that
 
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