That Pagan World

Over the years I have posted here and there, and shared several links to the topic of the Pagan Origins of the many things we take for granted. This is an important study and the knowledge needs to be shared - again.  Don't let yourself become overwhelmed or angry or discouraged. What I am sharing is a result of my research and study and reading Scriptures that started over fifteen years ago when I innocently looked for the origin of christmas... the journey had to start somewhere! I don't claim to be any sort of scholar, but I know a lot more now than I did back then.  And we are not the first to search these things.  Once you start looking, there have been many before us seeking truth.

I will include as much as I can and pray for this to be a source of light to those searching for His Path, continually seeking Him so that He will cause the Ruach haKodesh (His Set Apart Spirit) to reveal to you Truth in everything.

The Ten Commandments begin with Yahweh, our Creator, telling us He is the one true Elohim and that we shall have no other gods besides Him.  He goes on to define those gods as man made images (idols) of things in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters and Not to bow down to them or serve them. He is serious about this and will pass on the guilt of doing such things to the generations that reject Him and He will show kindness to the generations who love Him AND keep His commandments. He also knows that Satan will set up counterfeits along the way.  It is important for us to recognize the Spirit of Yahweh so as to identify the devices of Adversary.

To 'bow down to them' is to exalt, to think very highly of them, seeing them as powerful, lesser, greater or in place of YHWH. Whether made of stone, wood, gold or silver and in the image/symbols of what we think angels look like (heavens above) or man, or animal fetishes or representing fish or other things in the water, we are not to serve them.

Look around. You will notice right away a variety of images in a variety of forms representing heaven, earth, waters, sea, air, the elements -- things Yahweh said right off the get-go not to make. He wants us to be Set Apart (righteous); set apart from the world and its pagan ways, those subtle temptations that cause us to doubt the Creator, as when Satan said to Eve, "You are not going to die, but Elohim knows that as soon as you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like divine beings who know good and bad."

Then what happened?
In short, they tried to hide themselves from Yahweh because of their guilt and were eventually kicked out of the Garden.

Right from the beginning Satan has been tempting us. It is our Faith in the Creator and our obedience to His Instructions, which are for our health and well being, reinforced by (witnessed) the life and death of His son, Y'shua Messiah that we choose to be Set Apart, resisting temptation cause the devil to flee from us.

Who would have thought that types of  Dance could be pagan?

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Yeshayahu/Isaiah 5:20)

Most folks already are aware of when Messiah was born.

The Origin of Christmas Tree

Just as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, so too worshippers of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were recruited by the Church sanctioning “Christmas Trees”.  Pagans had long worshipped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian veneer by the Church. 

 ~ Here is what God says: “... Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven [the stars]; for the heathen are dismayed at them [millions ignore this plain statement of God and read their horoscopes daily]. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cuts 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. They are upright as the palm tree…” (Jeremiah. 10:2-5).

The Origin of Mistletoe

Norse mythology recounts how the god Balder was killed using a mistletoe arrow by his rival god Hoder while fighting for the female Nanna. Druid rituals use mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim. The Christian custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” is a later synthesis of the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.

The Origin of Christmas Presents

In pre-Christian Rome, the emperors compelled their most despised citizens to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia (in December) and Kalends (in January). Later, this ritual expanded to include gift-giving among the general populace. The Catholic Church gave this custom a Christian flavor by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas.

The Origin of Santa Claus  

Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and later became Bishop of Myra. He died in 345 CE on December 6th. He was only named a saint in the 19th century.  He was among the most senior bishops who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament. The text they produced portrayed Jews as “the children of the devil” who sentenced Jesus to death.

In 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy. There Nicholas supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua Epiphania, who used to fill the children's stockings with her gifts. The Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the Nicholas cult. Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas’ death, December 6.

The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by German and Celtic pagans. These groups worshipped a pantheon led by Woden –their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw. Woden had a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn. When Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard, mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing.

In a bid for pagan adherents in Northern Europe, the Catholic Church adopted the Nicholas cult and taught that he did (and they should) distribute gifts on December 25th instead of December 6th. 

In 1809, the novelist Washington Irving (most famous his The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle) wrote a satire of Dutch culture entitled Knickerbocker History. The satire refers several times to the white bearded, flying-horse riding Saint Nicholas using his Dutch name, Santa Claus.

Dr. Clement Moore, a professor at Union Seminary, read Knickerbocker History, and in 1822 he published a poem based on the character Santa Claus: “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in the hope that Saint Nicholas soon would be there…” Moore innovated by portraying a Santa with eight reindeer who descended through chimneys.

The Bavarian illustrator Thomas Nast almost completed the modern picture of Santa Claus. From 1862 through 1886, based on Moore’s poem, Nast drew more than 2,200 cartoon images of Santa for Harper’s Weekly. Before Nast, Saint Nicholas had been pictured as everything from a stern looking bishop to a gnome-like figure in a frock. Nast also gave Santa a home at the North Pole, his workshop filled with elves, and his list of the good and bad children of the world. All Santa was missing was his red outfit.

  

1931, the Coca Cola Corporation contracted the Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke-drinking Santa. Sundblom modeled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice, chosen for his cheerful, chubby face. The corporation insisted that Santa’s fur-trimmed suit be bright, Coca Cola red. And Santa was born – a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and commercial idol. (I never heard this one about Coca-Cola - ckc) 

The origins of Easter

John 4:22-24 You worship something that you do not know. But we worship what we know, for life is from the Yehudeans (Messiah is referred to as the Lion of Judah). But the hour is coming, and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, indeed. For the Father, He seeks worshippers as these. For Elohim is Spirit and those who worship they must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Mark 7:6-7 Messiah says, Yesha'yahu (Isaiah) the prophet did well prophesy about you hypocrites! As it is written that 'This people honor me with their lips (words) but their hearts are very distance from me. And vainly they fear me while they are teaching the doctrines of the (man made) commandments of the sons of men.

My husband and I don't 'celebrate' Purim or Hanukkah because they are not 'commanded' by Elohim. I realize they are of historical value, like the 4th of July or Memorial Day (which we do not celebrate, either).

Chanukah is a man made tradition. 

Quote: (John 10:22-24). Notice that this is the only reference to the festival of Chanukah (חַג חֲנֻכָּה) that occurs in all of Scriptures. Some additional "extra biblical" sources include the testimony of the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who likewise referred to the commemoration of the Maccabees as an eight day "festival of lights", and various midrashim that quote Hillel and Shammai (i.e., two famous sages that predated the time of Yeshua) discussing the method of kindling the lights of the Chanukah menorah. One midrash states that Chanukah was to be regarded as an acronym for Chet Nerot veHalakhah K'bet Hillel ("eight candles and the law according to the House of Hillel"), referring to Hillel's view (his opinion) that we should light one candle on the first night and increase the amount by one every day (Shammai, on the other hand, thought we should light eight candles on the first night and reduce one every subsequent night). According to early Jewish tradition (preserved in Megillat Antiochus, 2nd Century AD), since the Maccabees were unable to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot at its proper time in the fall, they decided that it should be observed after the Temple was restored, which they did on the 25th of the month of Kislev in the year 164 B.C. Since Sukkot lasts eight days, this became the time frame adopted for Chanukah."  End Quote.

John 10:22 gives us a time frame, noting the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) occurred in Jerusalem and it was winter and Y'shua was walking in the temple in the porch of Solomon. (note: this is the only time Hanukkah is mentioned in Scriptures - there's no 2 or 3 other times to bear witness or support its importance as a feast day.)  Folks think because Messiah was 'there' that he was 'celebrating' but I think the reason he was there was because he was 'teaching', as he was accustomed to doing, not so much partaking of the feast. 

John 10 starts out with his Sheep Parable, then the feast day is mentioned, then: The Jews surround him again asking how long will he keep them waiting: "if you are the Mashiyach, tell us!" He lets them know that he HAS told them but they do not believe because 'they are not of his sheep'. Perhaps noting the feast day and the fact these Jews were celebrating it (which is why they were at the temple) and then Y'shua saying they were not his sheep, lets us know it is not of Elohim and we should not partake of it, either.

Y'shua was not celebrating Chanukah - he was present, on the porch of the Temple. It appears he was taking the opportunity to teach to those who had gathered there.  The lead in verses to John 10:22 sets the tone for what's going on.  In 10:7 he says that he is the Gate of the flock. He goes on to say if a man should enter by him (the Gate) he will live, enter and go out and find pasture. (No man comes to the Father except by Y'shua). He says he is the Good Shepherd that lays his life down for the flock. He knows those who are his and they know him. Then he says in 10:16 that he also has other sheep, those not of this sheepfold. It is necessary for me to bring them and they will hear my voice and all the flocks will become one and there will be One Shepherd. (I love this! He just told us the sheepfold is the House of Israel and the other sheep are those who have chosen to obey YHWH and have the testimony of His son - we will be One People with One Faith and One Elohim!) Well, once again Y'shua causes a stir among the Yehudeans, they don't believe, they don't recognize their Shepherd's voice and think Y'shua is possessed.

Here's info on Purim   

As a reminder, No matter what one uses for research and reference material, ALWAYS take what you have gleaned and measure it against Scriptures, the Word of God our Creator. His Ruach haKodesh - His Set Apart Spirit - will reveal the Truth as long as we maintain our Faith in the one true God. It's not about religion, but His perfect government system.  Judaism is a religion. Christianity is a religion. Islam is a religion, etc...