Who is 'weird' ?

Whoever your calling "Weird" Kountzer, we say "Thankyou"...

1 Peter 2:9
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, A PECULIAR PEOPLE; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

The Bible itself calls us, "A Peculiar People"...

The word "Peculiar" in the dictionary means, "Strange, odd, bizarre, funny, strange, weird, ordinary, normal.

So before God we are "A Weird People"...

my bad.

Kountzer: The point of my challenge is for you to look at the arguments this article brings up. He does a pretty good job at showing why we traditionally see Easter as borrowed from the Pagans, the orgins and the problems and false informaton in the traditioal view and argues that the evidence does not support it coming from the pagans. Although that's not to say that pagan ideas and traditions did not get picked up.

Also, if you get the chance please read the Bible Review article I referred to. Some of the summery of that article is that:

1. The traditonal view of Christmas was that the church started cellebrating Jesus' birth of December 25 in the 4th century after Constantine was converted and to compormise with the pagans who were already celebrating December 25. -- but actually Christians began cellebrating the birth of Jesus one hundred years before Constantine, at a time when Christians were hiding in the catacombes and wanted nothing to do with anything pagan. It is one thing for the pagan compromising church after Constantine to take the pagan holiday, but we have the problem that the Pagan rejecting church one hundred years before Constantine cellebrating Jesus' birth on December 25.

2. If you go back 200 years before Constantine, back to the second century, the church had the feast of the annunciation. It started falling on Passover, when ever Passover was in relationship to the calender, but the year that the church stopped using the Jewish calender and started using the Roman calender Passover fell on March 25 in the western churches and synogogues however in Greece and the area of some Eastern churches, the Jews in these cities cellebrated Passover on April 6. So December 25 was not the original focus, but March 25 was cellebrating when the Angel told Mary that she was going to be the mother of the messiah. For about 100 years the church celebrated March 25 (or April 6) as the major holiday and the event being the annunciation. After 100 years of celebrating the annunciation on March 25 they began cellebrating the birth of Jesus nine months later.... Now what's 9 months after March 25?

3. A Jewish legend developed durring the intertestemental period. The Rabbies said that we should expect good things on Passover. They said that it was Passover when Yahweh and the 2 angels visited Abraham and told him that Isaac was going to be born, and that 9 months later falling usually sometime in December, around the tme of Hannukkah sometimes on December 25, the Jews believed to be the birth of Isaac. They also taught that it was another passover when Abraham brought Isaac to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice him.

4. During the second century durring the church - synogogue split the Christians were sayint that Isaac was only a type for Jesus the antitipe. That as Isaac was anounced on Passover, so Jesus was announced on Passover (thus the feast of the annunciaton on Passover). That just as Issac was born 9 months later in December (around the season that was to become Hannukkah)and sometimes falling on December 25, was the birth of Jesus.

Thus December 25 for the birth of Jesus originally came from Jewish legend rather than being borrowed from Paganism.

Oh, by the way, the "Feasts of the land" in the Bible were the pagan holidays focuseing on the agracultural cycle of the land of Canaan.

You can apply Occam's razor to all that arcane msg board jib jab and cut right to the biblical fact that if the Lord, who is all knowing, wanted us to celebrate those 2 dates, He would of told us when those dates were. He didn't tell us becasue He knew people would start worshipping and idolizing the date, which is what a lot of people do now.

I realize those to holidays aren't going no where. I have a lot of fond memories of family fellowship and fun during the holidays. I've also heard a lot of good sermons about the events surrounding the life of Christ.

Hi,

Well I think "Easter" doesn't belong in the bible. It's supposed to be Passover, and the resurrection was on the Sabbath:

YLT John 20:1 And on the first of the sabbaths, Mary the Magdalene doth come early (there being yet
darkness) to the tomb, and she seeth the stone having been taken away out of the tomb.

Young's Literal Translation.


That would be the first Sabbath after Passover according to the following passage:

KJV Leviticus 23:15 And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:

Remember that the Passover was one of those annual Sabbaths, so in the year of the crucifixion it fell on Thursday. The resurrection was on the first weekly Sabbath after that.

Daniel

Jesus Himself never purchased peace by compromise. His heart overflowed with love for the whole human race, but He was never indulgent to their sins.

He was too much their friend to remain silent while they were pursuing a course that would ruin their souls,--the souls He had purchased with His own blood. He labored that man should be true to himself, true to his higher and eternal interest. The servants of Christ are called to the same work, and they should beware lest, in seeking to prevent discord, they surrender the truth. They are to "follow after the things which make for peace" (Rom. 14:19); but real peace can never be secured by compromising principle. And no man can be true to principle without exciting opposition.

A Christianity that is spiritual will be opposed by the children of disobedience.

But Jesus bade His disciples, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." Those who are true to God need not fear the power of men nor the enmity of Satan. In Christ their eternal life is secure. Their only fear should be lest they surrender the truth, and thus betray the trust with which God has honored them.

Good point. It was the translators who compromised after him by inserting "Easter" in the King James Version where the Greek has "Passover" (Acts 12:4) and by ditching the Sabbath when they corrupted MIA TON SABBATON into the "first day of the week" when its really "first of the Sabbaths". (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 29). Acts 20:1, 1 Cor. 16:2.

Daniel

Rather than the use of the word 'borrowed' ... I would use the word taken over. Just like Christmas ... I really don't care of the fact that some pagan in some time of this earths history ... had this day.

What matters is HOW we use it NOW. And it is NOW owned by Christians NOT pagans. The pagans lost the battle.

Praise God.

Happy Easter.

AMEN!!!

well said.