Every Christmas season all sorts of wild theories circulate about the origins of Christmas and where many Christmas traditions come from. But what do historians have to say about the topic?
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Sources:
Encyclopedia of Christmas and New Year – Tanya Gulevich
The Dictionary of English Folklore – Jacqueline Simpson, Steve Roud
The Origins of the Liturgical Year – Thomas J. Talley
The Stations of the Sun – Ronald Hutton
Is Krampus Really Pagan? Tales of Times Forgotten – Spencer McDaniel
https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/12/13/is-krampus-really-pagan/
Al Ridenour – The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas
Hesperides
Poetry Collection – Robert Herrick
Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme – John Aubrey
The Reckoning of Time – St. Bede
Natural History – Pliny the Elder
The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg, Book 1
Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway – Snorri Sturluson
The Art of Simpling – William Coles
Life of Saint Francis of Assisi – Saint Bonaventure
Life of Saint Nicholas – Michael the Archimandrite
The Oxford Book of Carols – R. Vaughan Williams, Martin Shaw, Percy Dearmer
Narrenschiff – Sebastian Brant
Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas Number – Steven Hijmans
Saturnalia, Book 1 – Macrobius
Merkelbach’s Mithras – Roger Beck
How December 25 Became Christmas – Andrew McGowan
#Holiday #History #Christianity
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31 Comments
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:00 🎄 Christmas traditions often face claims of pagan origins, but historical data reveals little to no paganism in Christmas.
00:42 🐐 Krampus, often linked to pagan deities, actually originated from European folk traditions and plays, not pagan tales.
02:48 🔥 Yule logs, associated with paganism, lack evidence of a connection; the term "yule" is a general word with multiple meanings.
04:52 💏 Kissing under mistletoe dates back to the 18th century, with no clear pagan origin; mistletoe was a Christmas decoration in England.
05:59 🌟 Nativity scenes were introduced by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1223, not as pagan imitations but as holiday decorations.
06:28 🎁 Gift-giving, often linked to paganism, replaced an older custom in the 1840s and has diverse cultural roots, not necessarily pagan.
07:25 🧦 Hanging stockings, with uncertain origins, likely evolved from European folk traditions, possibly related to Saint Nicholas.
08:35 🎅 Santa Claus originated from Saint Nicholas, not pagan deities; the modern image evolved over time, influenced by various cultures.
10:55 🎄 Christmas trees have unclear origins, with no evidence of a pagan ritual connection; first depictions date back to Alsace, France, in 1576.
13:41 📅 The date of December 25th for Christmas has no strong evidence of a pagan takeover; early Christians associated it with Jesus' conception.
17:57 🚫 Despite rumors, there is no evidence that Christmas or its traditions derive from paganism; many modern customs evolved independently.
The only "traditions" I care to keep are family dinners around Christmas, gift giving, the tree and celebrating the birth of Jesus. The rest don't really feel relevant to the birth of Jesus. So, no Santa, Yule Log, Mistletoe, etc., for me, on Christmas. I don't want to lose the sight of the birth of Jesus.
Thank you for this video, Mike! It is very helpful to have all this good information in one place! To offer a slight correction, the Orthodox Church does not celebrate Christmas on January 7th. We do so on December 25th. The only problem is that the Slavic Orthodox Churches (and some Greek ones also) still follow the Old Julian Calendar, which is 13 days off from the modern Gregorian and Revised Julian Calendars, making their December 25th fall on our January 7th.
God bless!
THIS person documentiong the video sounds like his pagan due to all the taking up for i being just a "THEORY" its not its the truth go bk to HISTORY CLASS BRUH
Ok, it's earlier than ever this year but please do tell is it true that Zeus's birthday was celebrated on December 25th?? It said this is why Chanukkah was celebrated on Kislev 25th.
So what EXACTLY do you celebrate on Christmas dec 25th? your answer in this video was as much speculation as what you were debunking ..
I'm confused, so if this holiday ain't pagan then why does everyone, and most things you look up off the bat say Christmas is pagan? I am Christian but I'm debating what is good to do.
Do not be deceived Christmas is a man made celebration pagan or not
Sorry ur wrong
Rather than arguing amongst ourselves about whether this is pagan, we all should ask ourselves what this has to do with CHRIST and look to the scriptures. There are many things we take literally from the Word of God, so why not take Jeremiah 10 literally. if the traditions came up after the Bible was written, maybe we SHOULD all be questioning it instead of bending over backwards to justify it for the sake of tradition.
I was saved from witchcraft, and seeing people celebrating traditions that I was indoctrinated to see as good breaks my heart. When we talk about the christmas tree, think about how it relates to Christ. If your first thought is anything but Jesus our Lord and Savior, get it out of your house and pray for forgiveness because that tree has become an idol.
Please do not take my emphasised words as yelling, I am doing my best to approach this with grace. God bless you all. ❤
"You made this?"
"I made this."
Cuckstianity is on some damage control, lmao. People won't stick to a Jewish psyop designed for control, if they aren't threatened by execution anymore.
10:15 I would seriously like to see evidence of the Joulipukki’s pagan origins —- I am in doubt even if this. It seems from what I have read on just Wikipedia to be a family-friendly version of an earlier tradition of “Nuuttipukki”. Young men dressed as goats on St Knuts day , January 13 to demand alchohol and leftover food from Christmas. Another case of a rowdy mumming folk practice that happened around christmastime being moved to be on Christmas and be about kids. Read “Yule-goat” as “Christmas-goat” as we know by that time yule is just a term for the Christmas holiday season .
Dressing up in costumes and demanding alcohol isn’t specifically a religious practice but it is a folk tradition that often comes up associated with holidays in Christian cultures, like mumming on New Year’s Day, Wassailing at Christmas, various festivals around Mardi Gras etc. Reformers tended to call these things “pagan” but not in the literal sense of “having origins in pre-Christian religion” they just mainly mean “this is ungodly” puritans like to call anything fun “satanic”.
Personally I see it as just a natural tendency of humans to take an opportunity to let loose and we keep ruining it again and again … look at the SantaCon, it started out as a bit of mischief, they did charity in a punk way , stealing toys from stores and giving it to a kid for instance. Now when SantaCon comes to my city I stay the he🏒🏒away it’s become an excuse for men to assault women in public
Pagan man-God worshippers try very hard to try and convince us their religion isn't pagan. Everything about Christianity is pagan
We know Christ was NOT born on December 25th. We are to worship in truth. Christmas is exactly as Saturnalia.
So is it actually ok to celebrate Christmas it has pegan origin
Praise the most high God and his son Yashua. My friend i shook my head at you. I could not believe how hard it took for you to reach for the stars to debunk the origin of Christmas. It doesn't matter what century you go back to try to prove your unwise premise. This holiday has nothing to do with the son of God the redeemer of mankind. I guess Satan, the enemy of God and his people will give everyone a clear perspective of these demonic holidays we celebrate and will send a seducing lying and cloaking spirit to get you believe the innocent of these holidays as being authentic. The purpose of Satan is allow for us to believe the innocence and endeavors of these holidays and continue to support it's idolatrous practices. What if you woke up and saw your kids bowing to the tree and your kids telling you dad i talked to jack frost he was at my door. I wonder would you deepen your shallow research. These holidays are pagan in origin. It so holy that everyone is in more debt during this year and not more in love with the son of God. God will open your eyes to see; just as the serpent beguile Eve and and cause her to trick Adam to eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that same spirit has beguiled this generation to accept everything too be good and okay never is there an evil presence to entice us from it's reality and know that it is evil and idolatrous. You need to pray and stop being conceited thinking you found truth that is spawned from satanic lies.
Maybe you should say, there is no evidence “That I have found” that Christmas is pagan. You didn’t even talk about it’s origins which line up with many pagan holidays around the winter solstice or that there is not evidence Christ was born in December. Or any quotes in the Bible that supports Christmas which you can argue a few but there are many quotes that argue against it.
The Greek name of the sun god was Helios, The Roman name was Sol.
The Greek name for the moon goddess was Selene, the Roman name was Luna.
The Greek name for the love goddess was Aphrodite, the Roman name was Venus.
The Greek name for the god of war was Ares, the Roman name was Mars.
The Greek name for the hunting goddess was Artemis, the Roman name was Diana.
The Greek name for the goddess of wisdom and crafts was Athena, the Roman name was Minerva.
Demeter was a Greek fertility goddess, the Roman equivalent was Ceres.
Hera was a Greek marriage goddess, the Roman equivalent was Juno.
The Greek name for the god of commerce was Hermes, the Roman name was Mercury.
The Greek name for the stay-at-home goddess was Hestia, the Roman name was Vesta.
The Greek name for the sea and fresh water springs god was Poseidon, the Roman name was Neptune. – Taken from ThoughtCo. Table of Roman Equivalents of Greek Gods
As you can see, most of these gods were considered aspects of the universe. I think civil governments should treat paganism and pagans the same as all other religions and religious groups.
It is true that, beginning no later than the sixth century and for more than a thousand years, the religious traditions of Europe were widely considered to be Christian (and not pagan) but, during much of the previous several centuries, the majority of the citizens of the Roman Empire still referred to Venus, Mars, Mercury, Vesta, Neptune, etc. as gods.
The study of the history of religion often overlooks the influence of the Roman hatred of Hebrews in the development of religious beliefs and practices in the Roman Empire in the first few centuries A.D, especially in Rome itself.
Hebrews in Judea were the first people to consider Jesus to be the Messiah foretold by the Hebrew prophets of antiquity. Jesus strongly condemned SOME aspects of traditional Judaism but only those that were based on traditional INTERPRETATIONS of the Hebrew Bible – not those that were based on the Hebrew Bible itself.
The first step away from biblical Christianity was the teaching that “Christianity” was an altogether new religion having little or nothing to do with the faith of the Hebrew patriarchs and prophets of antiquity.
The first Jerusalem Council condemned REQUIRING non-Hebrews to be circumcised but not the practice of circumcision per se. Over time the recommendation of the first Jerusalem Council morphed into a prohibition of circumcision.
Paul had encouraged Christians to keep the feast of Passover (I Corinthians 5) but hatred of anything Hebrew led to prohibitions against keeping Passover.
Perhaps the most egregious mutation of the teachings of Jesus and his apostles was the doctrine that all Hebrews – even those born after the crucifixion of Jesus – were guilty of deicide (killing God).
The rejection of the beliefs and practices of the Hebrews could hardly have resulted in anything other than the adoption or adaptation of the beliefs and practices of the citizens of the Roman Empire, some of which were quite similar to the Greek culture that preceded it.
In the early sixteenth century, Martin Luther took steps away from SOME of the doctrines that had been based on traditions. Later in that same century, people in England insisted that the English reformation hadn’t gone far enough in discarding certain practices they didn’t consider biblical, which is why they were called “puritans”. One of the practices they specifically condemned was the celebration of Christmas.
Whether the puritans referred to Christmas as “pagan”, I don’t know but their objection was based primarily on their understanding that Christmas was “a mass for Christ”. The puritans objected to the entire ceremony of the mass (on Christmas or any other time of year) because they had been taught that the priests were conducting a sacrifice (search the Internet under “sacrifice of the mass”) and that conflicted with the puritan understanding that the sacrifice of Jesus was once for all time and once for all humans (Hebrews 10).
Today before finding this video, I was doing some research on this very subject and found an article titled “Paganism” and posted by americanhumanist.org. (Search under “relationship between humanism and paganism.) Here are two quotations from that article.
“I am a Pagan.
I am a part of the whole of Nature.
The rocks, the animals, the plants, the elements are my relatives.
Other humans are my sisters and brothers, whatever their races, colors, ages, nationalities, creeds, or sexual preferences.
The earth is my Mother and the sky is my Father.
The sun and moon are my Grandparents, and the stars my ancestors.
I am part of this large family of Nature, not the master of it.
I have my own special part to play and I seek to play that part to the best of my ability.
I seek to live in harmony with others in the family of Nature, treating others with respect, not abuse…”
— Selena Fox
“Trees have from time immemorial been closely associated with magic. These stout members of the vegetable kingdom may stand for as long as a thousand years and tower far above our mortal heads. As such they are symbols and keepers of unlimited power, longevity, and timelessness. An untouched forest, studded with trees of all ages, sizes and types, is more than a mysterious, magical place – – it is one of the energy reservoirs of nature. Within its boundaries stand ancient and new sentinels, guardians of the universal force which has manifested on the Earth.” – – Scott Cunningham
There is nothing intrinsically evil about trees. The God of Moses claimed to have created trees along with all other forms of life. In biblical times, however, some pagans were accustomed to bowing or kneeling toward trees.
Smith’s Bible Dictionary has the following entry for “grove:”
“1. A word used in the Authorized Version (KJV), with two exceptions, to translate the mysterious Hebrew term Asherah, which is not a grove, but probably an idol or image of some kind. [ASHERAH.] It is also probable that there was a connection between this symbol or image, whatever it was, and the sacred symbolic tree, the representation of which occurs so frequently on Assyrian sculptures….”
To what extent these objects of pagan worship resembled what we today call “totem poles” I don’t pretend to know but it is from the dozens of biblical references to the cutting down of “groves” by the prophets and judges of Israel that many Christians have inferred that it is inappropriate to bow or kneel toward a tree or any object of worship made from a tree.
About 1959, I was invited to go to the home of a young man I considered to be protestant on Christmas eve. Imagine my astonishment when his entire family knelt in front of a “Christmas tree”! I’m sure no one in his family thought of themselves as worshiping the tree but the way my religious upbringing had been influenced by puritan thought prevented me from participating.
Jeremiah 10 talks about people decorating trees as a sign of celebrating false idols.
Christmas wasn’t a thing because it wasn’t a term until around 1038. 🤣
To pretend Winter celebrations didn’t exist prior to the Christian tradition is just either ignorance or blatant misinformation.
I am a grumpy and militant atheist before. But now I am more tolerant about religious customs when I studied them more. While I retained my stance about the not believing of existence of any dieties, I still respect the Christian traditions especially Catholicism since its truly shaped the Western world we see today. I can't imagine the world without the church preserving classical knowledge after the fall of Roman Empire. And most Western Philosophies, originated from them.
I don’t know what Christian Holiday traditions are Christianized versions of pagan traditions but I know Christmas, Easter, and most Christian Holidays and their holiday traditions aren’t pagan but Christian or inspired by Jewish traditions.
A Lot of good solid information here.
I like https://youtu.be/NXm_sYn_-OA
Also. Talks about ancient Babylon, nimrod etc…great info. Origin
So so sorry BUT this video may claim to debunk pagan ties to christmas BUT IT MOST DEFINITELY DOES NOT PROVE OR EVEN ATTEMPT TO PROVE THAT christmas IS IN ANY WAY BIBLICAL!!! SO ALL Y'ALL HEATHENS GET OVER YOURSELVES
I am not convinced. Christmas is not mentioned in the bible but admonishment against the Christmas tree is. Read Jeremiah chapter 10. This smacks of very light research. Dig deeper. Satan is the prince of this world and a master deceiver.
Thank you so much for this video. Now I can enjoy the holiday as the Birth of the Lord Jesus, as it was intended. Ultimately, we all have to decide whether we will partake of customs not mentioned in Scripture. We would all be saved from a lot of rancor, misery, and confusion if we would just follow St. Paul's advice on stronger vs. weaker brethren as found in Romans and elsewhere. Whether you celebrate or not, do it to the glory of God.
Yeah… And let's just entirely forget about Saturnalia. Like do you think lying to make people more delusional so they feel better is something God wants? It is literally a sin.
Something Something… Jesus hated hypocrisy.
We Christian's invented the holiday long ago, so don't be wimpy and try giving it away to the Pagans -Merry Christmas!
Well that was interesting. I've heard about some of the video's content before, so at this point, all I can come up with is this: Christmas may have had some relation to the Winter Solstice. After the Winter Solstice, days will become naturally longer, and Spring & Summer are coming, with the hope of renewed life. If people celebrated that, then why not celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ too? It's a theory that I can't prove.
Not once did I see u use the Bible to prove it isn't pagan, all I hear you say what this pagan festival is loosely basted on. X-mass 100% pagan
That was a strange and highly annoying pronunciation of the 25th. Not fift but fifth