I believe in evolution. No, really, I do.
Take, for instance, Christmas. Christmas started with the birth of God's Son. We don't know when (although it would be reasonable to guess it is somewhere in the spring or the fall), but we know Jesus was born. In early Christianity birthdays weren't much noted; death days were. Thus, the main "Christian holiday" was the Resurrection of Christ. That took place at the Passover. In the 4th century, then, the church decided it needed to put an end to the Saturnalia and other winter feasts celebrating false gods and designated December 25 as the day to celebrate Christ's birth, not because He was born on that day, but because it was a convenient day for a big celebration. By the Middle Ages, Christmas had replaced the pagan events. In the 18th century, the Puritans pointed out that Jesus was not born on December 25th and the date was actually a product of a pagan celebration, so they outlawed it in the United States. Like Prohibition of the 20th century, it didn't last long. Christmas was back in full swing by the mid to late 19th century.
Other components were added after the 4th century. Christmas trees took a place in Germany after they became the symbol of the "Christ Tree" which stood after a missionary felled an oak to demonstrate that the "tree spirits" were impotent. Tradition says that Martin Luther added lights to the Christmas tree using candles in order to show his family the wonder of the stars in the trees at night. Saint Nicholas lived in the 4th century and was not a Christmas figure, but became one later. St. Nicholas was introduced in America in 1774 by a New York newspaper. The New York Historical Society distributed woodcuts of the popular Christmas scene of stockings, toys, trees and fruits in 1809. The fat Santa didn't make his appearance until Coca Cola featured the rotund character drinking a Coke in a magazine advertisement in 1931. A copywriter, Robert May, from Montgomery Ward molded Santa's image further with his 'Twas the Night Before Christmas giving us more imagery as well as Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer. May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, wrote the popular Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer song which Gene Autry took to the top of the Billboard charts in 1949. And the evolution continued.
In 2013 the networks put out a Christmas special based on the Ice Age cartoon series -- you know, before a Christmas of any kind existed. And why not? Christmas has evolved. Surveys suggested that while 95% of Americans celebrate Christmas every year including 80% non-Christians, 83% believe it's about spending time with family and friends, 41% think it's about celebrating God's love for humanity, and 40% think it means nothing but a day off. In 2010 a survey found that 51% considered Jesus's birth irrelevant to Christmas. Only one in three say they would attend a Christmas-related religious service. That's how far we've come. From an unknown date but the certain birth of Christ, we've arrived at a non-religious celebration of the unknown on an unrelated date for no explained reason. Now that is evolution.
Or take sex and marriage ...
3 comments:
I recently read that the date of Christmas was not the result of co-opting the pagan holidays, but a matter of early Christians tying one's day of death to one's conception. The belief was that one died on the same day one was conceived. Thus, from the crucifixion, the math puts date of birth in December, which happened to merely coincide with Saturnalia, or whatever they called it. Personally, I can live with either explanation.
That would be a brand new and completely unheard of explanation to me. I've read the co-opting of pagan winter celebrations from so many sources that I take it as fact and, having not once heard that anyone thought that conception date = death date, it wouldn't occur to me.
I searched and searched and finally came up with a source for this date-of-conception-date-of-death notion. This source (Bible History Daily, a biblical archaeology society) says that it was held by a few early Christians and, more, by early Jewish rabbis that believed that all significant events occur in the same month (Nisan). Interesting. And the only source I could find.
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