A story appeared in the Herald (from Scotland) on December 19, which purported to give the straight story about Christmas. The articles first tackles the date, December 25: It contends that the date was not chosen to make Jesus' birth harmonize with pagan celebrations. Rather, the proposed date of December 25 was supposedly chosen because early members of the church believed that Christ was conceived on March 25. If we do the math, that would evidently bring us to December 25 as the date of Christ's birth. But one major problem is that the Bible doesn't supply a date for the conception or birth of Christ. Nor does it endorse celebrating the day of his birth. Moreover, the Gospel of Luke implies that Jesus was not born in the winter. These explanations are nothing but speculation upon speculation. Whether the pagan hypothesis for Christmas is true or not, there is no biblical justification for observing December 25 as the birth of Christ. Early Christians did not observe Jesus' birthday.
There are other concerns about Christmas: the prolific myths like Santa Claus and flying reindeer along with the gross consumerism the holiday promotes. Jesus said you can tell a tree by its fruits. What fruits has Christmas produced?Have they been good fruits?
See https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19794788.big-read-secret-history-christmas---everything-think-know-wrong/
I've seen that argument, I haven't looked into it, but a lot of the traditions do come from solstice celebrations, and it seems like a stretch to argue there was no connection, whether or not there were post-hoc justifications is not the issue ... of course there would be, but I'm skeptical about this argument that it came from counting from the "conception" of Christ, which I don't recognize as being something dated in the NT or even being an issue in the early Church. (again, post-hoc justifications =/= origins).
ReplyDeleteI have seen more and more lately, ones trying to explain why Christmas is Christian, especially among Orthodox Christians.
ReplyDeleteDue to the nature of history, it might be possible to lay a glove on the paganism argument contra Christmas, but there are so many other possible arguments one could make against the holiday as you say with counting from the conception of Christ and even celebrating the holiday along with the crass commericlaism and sheer falsehoods associated with Christmas. Since the celebration is "strongly entrenched," we can expect more apologetics for Christmas as the days progress.
ReplyDeleteAlso see https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2009/12/the_true_meaning_of_christmas.html
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