My answer to this question generated correspondence and controversy from two volunteers in our volunteer organization, mostly for a Halloween comment and partially for an Easter comment. I have expanded what used to be two sentences so that I can include both sides of each issue. In our group of volunteers, we read each other's replies so that we can clear up confusions and misunderstandings, and sometimes so that we can disagree with each other. Special thanks to Judy and Michael for pointing out areas that needed expansion.
Religious and Pagan Holidays
As I recall, the holiday that you are thinking about was celebrated on or about the date December 21, what we now call the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (south of the equator, it is the Summer Solstice, of course).
The Roman Celebration which coincided with the Solstice was called Saturnalia. Back then, it probably wasn't December 21 because the calendar had drifted over time until it was finally standardized into its present form by Gregor. Since Saturnalia was celebrated about the time that our days reached their shortest length, it might have been a celebration acknowledging that the days would now start getting longer again, a sign for hope. (This is my opionion, not based on reading).
Many religious holidays have roots in or connections to other holidays, and some pagan holidays have roots in or connections to religious holidays.
April Fools Day used to be New Years Day, if you can believe it. When the beginning of the year was moved back to January, some people didn't know it, so they were sent on "fools errands" by friends.
Halloween (most people call it pagan) shares a date with All Saints Day (most people call it religious). Halloween might have some roots in the religious All Saints' Day. Some people insist that different dates mean they don't relate. All Saints' Day is November 1. Halloween is October 31, but just like Christmas Eve comes the evening before Christmas, All Hallowed Eve (one variation of the name Halloween) comes the evening before All Saints Day, and, by one stretch of the imagination, we can imagine that some people dressed in costumes to honor the souls that had gone to heaven before them.
Judy sent me a quote quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
"The theological basis for the feast is the doctrine that the souls which, on departing from the body, are not perfectly cleansed from venial sins, or have not fully atoned for past transgressions, are debarred from the Beatific Vision, and that the faithful on earth can help them by prayers, alms, deeds and especially by the sacrifice of the Mass."
Source: http://www.knight.org/advent/cathen/01315b.htm
Hey, that even sounds like something that could have grown into a costume holiday. Some people may have thought that by dressing up and pretending to be those souls, that they might have been doing a deed to help them. (Just my little interpretation here, contributing to my opinion, based in part on an alternate name for the day, All Souls Day).
Some people will tell you that Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah are connected. In fact, one Christian told me that the Jewish people started celebrating Hanukkah so that they could take away from the Christmas holidays for the Christians. Unfortunately, this statement reflects mostly bias of one group against another group. The holidays have very little connection with each other.
Back when Christmas was primarily a religious holiday, there was very little emphasis on Hanukkah. It was, and is, a minor holiday in the Jewish calendar. Once Christmas turned into a mostly secular holiday with a great deal of focus on Santa Claus, Jewish children expected something in December, so parents and businesses turned Hanukkah into a gift-giving occasion. You might also notice that Hanukkah very rarely shares any of its dates with Christmas.
Easter and Passover, both religious holidays, frequently occur near each other on the calendar, but their only connection is that some people believe that Jesus died and was resurrected during Passover, but this is only a Christian belief, not a Jewish one. As Michael wrote, "There is no relationship whatsoever. The fact that the Last Supper supposedly was a Passover Seder, is not theologically significant. In addition, there are some contentions that due to the structure of the Hebrew calendar, the Last Supper could not have occurred on the first night of Passover. That however, is a discussion that is too complex for this forum."
Many years ago, some christians created a mathematical method for calculating the date for future Easters so that it would occur on a particular set of dates in a lunar calendar. Easter falls on the First Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Someone said that he remembered that the date was chosen to facilitate the travel of Pilgrims to Jerusalem, but I just heard this. Jewish scholars, of course, were not consulted for this task, nor would they have approved any date-sharing.
Passover is one of the more important celebrations of the Jewish year. It starts on the same exact date every year, but the date in the Gregorian Calendar changes every year. Passover's "March or April" date bounces around as much as Easter's date does, and they do sometimes share a date.
Most Christians end up believing that the crucifixion occurred during Passover because two people wrote "historical" accounts saying that it occurred during Passover (the Last Supper was a Passover Seder). A third "author" decided it would look better if the crucifixion happened the day before Passover, the day when lambs were traditionally sacrificed, so that he could be called "The Passover Sacrifice" in a different way.
Some Christians (a minority, fortunately) will try to tell you that because a holiday came from a pagan background, it should not be celebrated.
I remember, from my days as a teacher, students who had to leave school whenever we had a party. Even Halloween and Valentine's Day parties were against their rules. Their ministers said that celebration of those holidays were against God.
One religious leader (he has a radio ministry) refuses to see Easter as a religious holiday. He calls it a pagan holiday. Instead, he celebrates the resurrection of Jesus on Passover, and publicly proclaims that the purpose of Passover. While I believe it is okay to celebrate what you wish when you wish to, I do not believe it is right for a leader of one faith to say that one of the important holidays of another faith has a new meaning, especially since the Bible that he proclaims to believe in tells him to celebrate the original meaning of Passover every year. Jews observe Passover as an annual celebration of their ancestors escape from Egypt. The name comes from the fact that on that one night, the Angel of Death passed over their homes, sparing their first born children. The Torah, the Law of Moses, tells us to celebrate Passover every year forever.
Anyway, my point is to show that it is NOT a problem for two holidays to be proximate to each other, or to share a date, no matter how closely. Just because the date for Christmas might have been chosen from the earlier Roman or German celebration of the Winter Solstice does not make Christmas wrong. If this were the case, almost every holiday today would be wrong, because I'm sure that there was some group of people who celebrated something on most dates in the distant or near past.
* * * additional comments * * *
By the way, as a side note, the fact that there are two different accounts for when the crucifixion takes place is conveniently overlooked by many christians who claim that the Bible is 100% truth. As a result, we have to deduce that is is also very possible that the event could have occurred days or even weeks later or earlier. If two authors wrote that the crucifixion occured during Passover, and one writes that it occurred just before Passover, isn't it possible that we are seeing some historical editing. I'll even say that it's remotely possible that the event occurred days or weeks earlier or later, but since I'm not an expert, I'll just say it as a possibility, then follow it by saying that I've always believed that the Last Supper was a Passover Seder, and I have read nothing to change my mind.
Since it is obvious that at least one author fictionalized at least a part of his account, it must be obvious that some other parts of the Bible, both Old and New, are in the words that the authors decided would sound best. I have heard the argument that various authors wrote down what they thought Jesus should have said or did in some cases, rather than what was said or happened, and I do not disagree with that argument. I'd love to see if any of the Roman histories shed any light on this. I heard that some Roman Historical document actually described Jesus as a specific height (somewhere in the vicinity of 5' 6") with long hair, but I forget where I heard it.
If you look at some of the other books that were written around the time of Jesus, you will see how much OBVIOUS fictionalization took place in some books that didn't make the final cut. For example, Thomas's Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ (which you can find in the book The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden) has a boy Jesus killing playmates for things that were trivial. Read the comments on the web page from people who have read the book and you'll find them interesting, though I suspect that the person who says "don't read the book" never read it.
How the Biblical Scholars who chose the books of the New Testament could authoritatively say, 400 years after some were written, that one book was 100% truth while another was total fiction is beyond me. Instead, I choose to believe that many parts of the account are historical fiction, with details added that the individual authors believe will strengthen their stories, or which will help them make a point to the people they are writing to.
This is also part of the support for my argument that we can look to other religions for truth also. If parts of the Bible are fiction, then parts of other religious writings must be truth. There is no black and white in religious literature. Every religion has books and writings that contain the truth. Instead of telling another person "the only way that you can understand God is to take training in my religion," we need to say to each other, "the only way that I can understand God even better than I do already is to learn more about what you believe".
Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, there are christian preachers and organizations who preach things that are against other religions. Several years ago, there was an article in our local newspaper about Passover being the annual celebration of Jesus's resurrection. I wrote a letter to the editor correcting that statement and pointing out the various details from the Torah and from the Old Testament showing that it was "forever" a commemoration of the Hebrew people's escape from Egypt. The radio-ministry leader wrote back and claimed that anyone who did not agree with him was going to hell. For weeks afterward, I proudly told my friends that Pastor M___ said I was going to Hell, then I would explain to them that it was because I did not believe that it was necessary for my Jewish friends to convert for them to be saved. I also added that if Pastor M___ demanded that I choose between his "Radio Chapel" brand of faith and my Jewish friends and their faith, I would pick my Jewish Friends because they have always accepted my non-Jewish point of view and would never ask me to give up my belief in Jesus, while he would demand I give up my belief that God has plans for other people that we don't understand. Of all my friends and acquaintances, only one took his side of the argument, and that person's wife told me privately that she agreed with me.
One of my favorite jokes ends with the punchline that we will all realize how wrong we were as individuals and how much our fellow believers were right when we are finally perfect. Truth does not belong to one person or one religion, it belongs to ALL OF US once we try to understand each other.
I might add, as a postscript, that I have visited churches who said, with one side of the mouth that it was okay for a non-member to participate, while saying with the other side of the mouth that it was SIN for a non-member to so do. In one case, a friend invited me to his church, telling me in advance that it was allowed. During the sermon, however, the sermonizer preached about how it is SIN for me to do what I was there to do, and during Sunday School, they made it VERY CLEAR that I was not a member by how they addressed me (I was the only "mister" in the room, everyone else was "brother this" and "brother that". Needless to say, I never went back to that church. I learned what I went meant to learn (yes, I did get some positive messages, too, like the fact that it doesn't matter if it's wine or grape juice or even water in the cup, it is still what I have been taught it to be), in my heart, my faith is still what it is supposed to be, to me, no matter what others say.
* * * Conclusion * * *
Finallly, not to toot my own horn, but to show comments that I have received, Trish (one of my fellow volunteers) sent this comment after receiving the first message:
VERY GOOD ANSWER! I'm impressed! And
by the way, I do agree there is one God for all.
These discussions, back and forth by e-mail, make for some very interesting dialogue. It is a lot of great fun. I enjoy it, and even if someone disagrees with me, I still call them friend. If everybody was alike, it would be a very boring world.
John
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