Happy 'Stolen Pagan Holliday' ! :D

How do you know he lives in the woods?

(For those who don't get the joke, the word Pagan, while now commonly meant to refer to those of a non-christian faith, comes from the latin paganus, which simply means a rural person, which in itself comes from pagus, which itself means nothing more than "country".)

Ok, I've violated the "If you have to explain a joke for anyone to get it, it's not funny" rule, but...

Ok, Gwydeon, I'll step up to the plate.

Assume with me for a moment, that Jesus's... as Lordfly puts it... 'zombification' really did occur when the Bible says it did.

There is a -very- strict and detailed description of the schedule upon which the death of Jesus took place. It took place upon the day of the Jewish holiday of passover.

A note: Passover is the celebration of the time when the angel of death 'passed over' the houses of the Israelites while they were in Egypt. You know, the seventh plague and all?

Now, seeing as Jewish record keeping of their religious texts out does most, if not all other forms of record keeping known to man (destroying any manuscript or parchment related to their religious texts that were copied with even a single misspelling) and out does any piece of literature that resembles it's age including such texts as Homer's Odyssey, their date for celebrating passover probably isn't too far off.

If that date happens to be three days prior to the equinox, then so be it.

The stolen aspect of the pagan versions of any similar holidays comes from the same source as Christmas (as Christ was probably born in the spring or summer). The ancient Catholic church from the dark ages saw that pagan religions were attracting more and more followers, so they started mimicing some of the ways they celebrated those holidays, putting Christian meanings on the symbols.

Er... well passover was/is 8 (7 for reformed) days long. It also happens in the (jewish) month of Nisan. I belive the similar dates of the zombification and hide the yeast festivals are mearly coincidental (we only get 365 days, you get coincidences).

Beyond that I don't understand how that date corrilation or the strongly guarded hebrew/jewish history text in any way affect the christianic usage of pagan rituals to subvert the populas.

I don't know much about how -long- it lasts, but the Passover feast occurs at the beginning of that (the whole unleavened bread thing being what they had to eat just before the actual plague hit). That feast is what Jesus and his disciples were eating the night Judas went and betrayed him. i.e. The Last Supper.



Precisely my point. The fact that three days after the death of Jesus also happened to fall on the equinox may very well be a complete coincidence (or some form of cosmic ballet). The other half of my point was that the association of eggs and easter for Christianity didn't come about till MUCH MUCH later, when Catholics, straining for power, convinced people that Christianity had nice celebratory stuff in it's holidays too, thereby making it easier to convert (or re-convert) pagans.

As you say the 'adoption' of the eggs and other celebratory trapings of easter was a planed move by the church to gain followers and convert people. "Look we do this too but... for god" ... Sigh ... there's a link in the original post.

I know I'm a bit late to this thread.... but something amuses the hell out of me....

In christian culture, you celebrate the alleged resurrection from the dead of the alleged hebrew messiah with what traditional dinner?

Ham.

That is pretty funny, but read the book of Hebrews. Ham is ok.

Uh.... no? Correct me if I'm remembering wrong....

But didn't Ham get exiled?

Originally, yes, but the issue of clean versus unclean foods became moot in the New Testament. This is Christian culture we're talking about. In kosher Judaism pork is still off limits.

Yes, Ham...the son of Noah WAS exiled for 'uncovering his father's nakedness'. Supposedly a Hebrew idiom for...uhm, nm. I don't wanna get flamed by the gay community here. No pun intended by the word flame, guys.

Devlin, not that Ham. We're talking about the tasty kind. Wait, that sounds kind of gay too. Can we skip the ham issue?

Hey, Corwin is the one who brought up Ham.

Actually I brought up ham.... responded to Ham....

Corwin.. where did you get that name??

Just curious..I read a fantastic book series with that name as the main character..

which is exactly why they did not believe he was the messiah and why they hated hiim because he went against a lot of the teachings of the Old Testament, which I find funny when christians quote the old testament on such topic as gay marriage.

JV

Well, some people do I, personally, find ham rather un-appealing (Not for any religious reasons, or philosophical, or anything... I love bacon and sausage, just don't much like Ham or Pork Chops)... I normally opt for a nice prime rib.

The issue of clean versus unclean foods was resolved after Jesus' death and didn't have a bearing on people's reaction to him during his life. I couldn't tell if that's what you meant or not.

Jesus was seen as going against the Law, the theological part of what we now call the Old Testament (as opposed to the prophetic, poetic, historical, or governmental parts). He himself said that he was out to fulfill the Law rather than abolish it. The big points people objected to were:

For the man on the street:
1. The Law actually wasn't strong enough. Simply following the rules to the letter was insufficient. What was in your heart mattered even more. Today we might say your attitude mattered more. This was interpreted as an attack on the Law.

For the religious authorities:
2. He claimed to be God which they saw as blasphemy.
3. The rituals of sacrifice were no longer needed because Jesus, as the son of God, was the ultimate and perfect sacrifice. No other would do and after him no other would be needed.
4. Because that sacrifice was made people no longer needed a priesthood to mediate. They could have direct relationships with God.

In Christian theology Jesus was the fulfillment of Old Testament law and prophecy. He didn't show up one day and say, "All that Old Testament stuff is bunk." It was more like, "Here's what that was leading up to, and here's where we go now."

I don't think the issue of whether ham was alright to eat or not was considered important enough to deal with along with the rest of this.

The Chronicles of Amber beginning with Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny.