WWUTT 845 Q&A Christmas Paganism, Santa Claus, Christmas Trees?

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Is Christmas a ripoff of a pagan holiday? Does Santa Claus come from the

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Norse god Odin? And does the Christmas tree have its roots in idol worship?

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The answers to these questions when we understand the text. Merry Christmas from your friends at When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the word of Christ who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

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Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com. Here once again is

00:41

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. And Merry Christmas to you. Aw, thanks. The house looks so Christmassy.

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It does, doesn't it? She does such a good job. She did this thing with beads all the way up the stair, the banister of the stairs, and then the rail over the,

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I don't know, that's not a balcony, what do you call that? It's kind of a balcony. It kind of overlooks the foyer a little bit.

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It's considered a balcony. Is it a balcony? I thought a balcony was more outside. Like you're outside on the balcony looking outside.

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Well, you look down, you can see down. I don't know. I always called it a balcony, but the upstairs looking down.

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It looks festive. Thank you. Either way. I don't, I didn't decorate as much this year as what

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I normally do. Really? I thought we had, I thought it was pretty equal to last year. What else do you usually do?

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I put up wreaths and decorate the kitchen a little bit more. Well, yeah, but you have the front door has the, isn't that a wreath on the front door?

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Yeah, but I mean in the living room area. We had wreaths in the living room? On the sliding, not the sliding door, but the two windows that are on the sides.

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Oh, I remember that now. Yeah. And then I had the wreath hanging down from the light in the dining room.

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I didn't like that. No? I'm glad you didn't do that this year. Really? Yeah. I loved that. I think I can say with relative safety,

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I wasn't real crazy about the wreath hanging from the chandelier. It didn't get in the way.

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Is it called a chandelier? It is called a chandelier. Even though like we're poor and it's just brass. Yes. Okay.

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It's a cheap one, but yes, it's a chandelier. Chandeliers don't have to be those rich crystal gaudy looking things.

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Okay. They're so pretty. I like how much they shine. The wreath didn't work.

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I think it's partly because though, not necessarily that your decor didn't work. It's that thing hangs down so low anyway.

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I know. It got in the way a lot. Yeah. Anytime I'm reaching over and I'm trying to cut the kid's food or something, I had a wreath in my hand.

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It just didn't work. And then it was up there for like two months after Christmas was over. It was because it was a pain.

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See all the more reason why we didn't need a wreath up. Because to tie it up there, it had to be even.

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And so anyway. I could tell the balance on that had to have taken a little bit of time. It took some time.

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All right. So today we're going to respond to a question that was asked last year.

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Because I forgot to ask the listeners to send in Christmas questions for our

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Christmas program. This is our last Q &A leading up to Christmas on Tuesday.

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And I didn't ask for Christmas questions. So we're going to come back to that Jim Staley video from last year.

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Do you remember this? Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. It was the video that was entitled

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Truth or Tradition. And his ministry is called Passion for Truth Ministries.

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Now Jim Staley's a Hebrew roots guy, and he's currently in prison. Okay. Yeah.

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Because he had conned some elderly families out of over $3 million. Whoa. And he even admitted to doing it.

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Now I haven't read this story in years, because this was back in 2014, 2015, sometime in there. He admitted to doing it, but there was something in his confession that was like a caveat.

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He was like saying, yeah, I did it, but I just didn't understand what I was doing or something like that. Okay. And the judge said, yeah, you're not sorry.

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And then put him in prison earlier than he was originally sentenced, because he was a flight risk.

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So that's currently where he's at. He's in jail for conning people. And you would think that that would be his reputation and people would stop watching this video.

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You would assume. No. Clearly, this is a con man. Right. But no, this video still gets watched.

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I still get questions asked about it, and it's usually around Christmas time and Easter. I don't have any recent questions related to this.

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So we're kind of coming back to something old, and I'm bringing this video back in, but using this to talk about some of the myths that we've come to believe about Christmas.

04:49

Oh, like from your book? Which was supposed to be out by today.

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Is that what you're doing? Yeah. Yeah. You know, we're looking at a Christmas Day release right now, which is terrible marketing.

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Yes. Well, I mean, you're still going to have families around, you know, like your family, your extended family after December 25th.

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That's true. You're terrible. I meant they're going to be in your home or you're going to be in their home.

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Got it. OK. Be around family so you can read it out loud. So you can say, Mom, here's the reason why you shouldn't have used that tradition this year, because Pastor Gabe says it's ridiculous.

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Well, you know. Is that why? Sure. You could use my book to show up your friends?

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Sure. Is that kind of the reason? Now, I find this stuff fascinating all the time. It doesn't really matter if it's

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Christmas or any other time. But yeah. Or you can save it for next year. Next year, it will be a book that you can read leading up to Christmas.

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There you go. This year, it's a book you can read after Christmas. For 25 days. That is this coming

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Tuesday. Christmas Day is when the book will be out. And I'll have the links on, you know,

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Facebook and what our website. Well, what? That was totally a language flub, but yet I got it in there.

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Yep, you did. That was awesome. Find it on the website, www .tt .com.

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I'll post it on Twitter, anywhere else I can get the book in so that you know that it's there.

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You'll be able to get it on your e -reader or in print.

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E -reader? Yeah, e -reader. Isn't that what you call it if it's not a Kindle, but you can still get digital books?

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Oh, I have no idea. It's just an e -reader. Okay. I think there is a Google e -reader. I have no idea.

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But why would somebody not use Kindle? It's just the best thing out there. And you can download your book downloads from Amazon, you know, that sort of thing.

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Okay. There still will be the Christmas Myths on Saturday. I'll still do that even the Saturday after Christmas because I wanted to cover, there's five

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Saturdays in December and I wanted to be able to cover ten myths with two myths per Saturday.

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Gotcha. So, I'll still get nine and ten in on Saturday next week. Sweet. Tomorrow is seven and eight and the next week will be nine and ten.

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Sounds superb. Right. Gotcha. Yes. You're inviting something else to add. Let's do it.

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That's not what I just said. Yes. I just said, great. I'm running out.

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Well, I should have finished the thought and I just kept adding to it. You did. You were coming up with new. So, anyway, back to Passion for Truth Ministries.

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Nah, we don't need to talk about them yet. All the research that had gone into this book was, it was fascinating, it was wonderful.

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And I was talking with you the other day about it's amazing how I'll end up reading an entire book just to write a single paragraph.

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Right. I read this many chapters and that helps me to write this one paragraph that's gonna go in this particular section.

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Anyway, so all that research was fun and one of the things that I discovered out of that is just everything that we have come to believe about where these traditions have originated from is itself a myth.

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We think that this tradition came from this and everybody's been saying that and it's been circulating all over the place.

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And then you do the research on it, it really doesn't even take you much digging at all before you find that's not actually where that came from.

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And it's stuff like that. Santa Claus, for example, everything you think you know about where Santa Claus came from is wrong.

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Now, the whole Saint Nicholas tie -in, that's still there. But this connection with all these other mythological creatures and everything that's just eventually created this concoction that we call today

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Santa Claus, none of that's true. Interesting. And I'll explain that coming up here in just a little bit.

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But let's begin before we even get to the Staley video and all of that. Let's start with the whamma -jamma that just hangs over the entire

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Christmas holiday. The one that people just love to throw. Christians are throwing it at each other and critics and skeptics are throwing it at Christians.

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Okay. And that is that Christmas is not a Christian holiday, it's derived from paganism.

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That is not true. It was not a pagan holiday before it was a

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Christian holiday or that day. Let's be more specific about that. That day in particular,

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December 25th, was not occupied by a pagan festival, which was then transformed into a

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Christian festival or a Christian holiday. I had talked about this was the very first myth that I did on the 25

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Christmas myths. So it would have been the first Saturday in December. Let me give you an exact date on that, in case you're looking for the podcast, it would be

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December the 1st. That episode I talked about how the

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December 25th date was not a pagan festival prior to becoming Christmas. A lot of people will say, well, it was the winter solstice and then it became

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Christmas. The winter solstice was celebrated on either the 21st or the 22nd. Pagans would either celebrate the death of the sun on the 21st, or they would celebrate the rebirth of the sun on the 22nd.

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There was not pagan festivals on the 25th. The first person to do that was Aurelian, who loved the

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Roman sun god. And in fact, he thought of himself as a god. So he wanted everybody to be worshiping him.

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And he hated Christianity. So the fact that his dedication to the

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Roman sun god was placed on December 25th actually looks more like a rip off of Christmas than it looks like Christmas ripped off the worship of the

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Roman sun god. Because in Aurelian's mind, the sun died on December the 21st, because that's the shortest amount of daylight that we have in the year, the winter solstice on December 21st.

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That's the day the sun died. Then the sun was dead for three days, 22nd, 23rd, 24th.

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Then it came back to life on the 25th. Where would he get that idea from?

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That the sun was dead for three days and then came back to life? That sounds more like he's ripping off Christianity than it sounds like Christianity is ripping off Aurelianism.

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Wouldn't be that. It would be Sol Invictus. Sol Invictus was the god that he created a temple to and dedicated that temple on that day,

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December 25th. Several years, several decades before, it was like 70 something years or something before Aurelian did this,

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Hippolytus of Rome was attempting to calculate the approximate time of Christ's birth.

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Well, he wanted an exact day. That's what he was trying to figure out. And so he believed that Gabriel appeared to the angel,

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I'm sorry, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary. Suddenly, I went into like the veneration of Mary all of a sudden.

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That was an interesting twist. That went somewhere funny. Anyway, Gabriel announced to Mary that she was going to be with child.

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He believed that happened in March. And so then nine months later would have been December. And so he calculated that Jesus would have been born on December 25th.

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And that was how he came up with that particular day. Now, if you, if you,

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I could be specific or I could be general with that. If you conceived in March, when are you going to have a baby?

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Probably going to be more like January. Yeah, yeah, it would be January, right? We have in our minds that women are pregnant for nine months, really more like 10 months.

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Yeah. It's nine full months. Nine full months. Yeah. 30, no, 40 weeks.

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Right. So if you were conceived, if you conceived in March, a baby would be born in January.

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Right. So then, and I can't remember who this was that came up with the date January 6th. So then you had two days, two different possible dates for Christ's birth,

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December 25th or January 6th, which we would celebrate today as Epiphany. And that's mostly in the

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Eastern Orthodox Church, but there are some Protestants that recognize that day as well. So you have two possible dates for the birth of Christ, December 25th just ended up being the one that won out.

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But that day was calculated decades before Aurelian ever chose that day for the birth date of Sol Invictus.

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Now even though I put a video on Facebook explaining that, even saying Hippolytus came up with this before Aurelian had chosen that date.

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There's still people insistent, absolutely insistent beside themselves that this is a pagan holiday and Christmas is ripping off paganism and it could not be further from the truth.

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I have found no link in my research that puts Christmas with paganism. Even the understanding, even this myth or this idea that Constantine, who became emperor at the start of the fourth century, there's this idea that Constantine is the one who made

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December 25th Christmas and he was replacing the holiday to Sol Invictus and instead making it a holiday unto

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Christ. There's actually no evidence that Constantine did that. It's around that time period that December 25th was established as Christ's Mass, the day that we would have a celebration to the birth of Christ.

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There's no evidence Constantine was the guy who said, yeah, you know what, we're not going to celebrate it on this day anymore.

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We're going to celebrate a different festival instead. In fact, Constantine is credited for too much in Christianity.

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People will say, well, we came about this because of Constantine. He probably had nothing to do with it. He was just the go -to guy.

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Even at the Council of Nicaea, he's the go -to guy for skeptics. Even at the

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Council of Nicaea, he didn't even really have a casting vote at the council. He was just there. He was just present.

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He convened this all together to come to a consensus. The main issue that they were dealing with was coming to a consensus on who

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Jesus was and his identity and relationship with the Father. Because Arianism was big at that time and Arius was proclaiming that Jesus was created by the

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Father, so therefore he could not have an eternal nature that is equal to the Father's. But the council at Nicaea almost unanimously decided, or the vast majority decided, that Arius was crazy and he was a blasphemous false teacher.

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It was Nicholas, of all people, who went down and smacked him one after he sang his blasphemous hymn.

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And then the council decided that Jesus Christ is

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God, eternal with the Father in his nature, essence, and being. We come up with that definition of the triune relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that is derived from the

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Council of Nicaea. And they did not invent the doctrine of the Trinity. As a matter of fact, it was

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Arius that was inventing doctrine and the council was convened to combat these false teachers and the poison that they were spreading in the church.

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Now even though they had that council and they made that decision, it still wouldn't be until decades later before it stuck, because Arius was a powerful and influential man and still continued to have influence even after that council had convened.

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So it was much later that you had one of them was the Creed of Nicaea, and then it was the next council that came up with the

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Nicene Creed. They're not actually the same thing. Oh, interesting. So that's kind of getting us off the subject a little bit, but all that just to say,

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Constantine was not the guy that came up with Christmas. Here we go. We are going to delve into the myth of Santa Claus again here, and did

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I already say to you everything you think you knew about Santa is wrong? All right. So here is

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Staley again. We're going to play this clip from the video, the same clip that we played last year, and then

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I'm going to tell you where the whole concept of Santa Claus actually came from.

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All right. So does this sound familiar? Let's move to this character called Odin, because this is where we're going to get into a little bit more detail of our holidays, where some of these symbols come from.

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Along with the celebration of the sun gods, the Scandinavians also worshiped this god called

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Odin. He was the god of intoxicating drink, ecstasy, as well as the god of death, and because of the

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Feast of Saturnalia dealing with all those things, he naturally became the most popular god of the

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Feast of Saturnalia, which was a sun god, which we can trace all the way back to Baal himself.

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Guess who this character became. Look at him very carefully. What does he look like? The colors are wrong, but this guy became

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Santa Claus. That's right. Odin, or Woden, was the god of wisdom, magic, and occult knowledge, runes, poetry, and war.

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His name meant the Inspired One. You're going to begin to see as we move through these slides, you're going to see that Santa Claus, or Odin, is awfully familiar to Jesus, or Yeshua, which means salvation.

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We're going to see a god Odin who saves, and we're going to see another one called

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Yeshua who saves. Now, I want you to pay attention to some of the characteristics as we go through Odin, because it's shocking to see the similarities in how

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Satan is trying to masquerade as an angel of light, as we know from the scriptures. All right.

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So, it's stuff like that that becomes the common myth of believing where Santa Claus came from.

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Santa did not come from any of that. In fact, there is no evidence that there's any relationship whatsoever with any of these other pagan deities, or Father Christmas, or winter characters that the pagans would believe in and follow.

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There might be some similarities in appearance, might look the same, because they're old guys with white beards.

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But there's nothing in Odin that was actually transferred to Santa Claus.

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Santa started as a practical joke. It was a joke. Now, the whole thing of Santa being derived from St.

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Nicholas, Nicholas of Myra, an actual real figure who himself was at the Council of Nicaea.

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He was the guy that popped Aries in the mouth when Aries was singing his blasphemous hymn. That Santa Claus came out of that real historical figure is true.

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There is that connection. But any other connection to Santa Claus with any of these other mythical characters is erroneous.

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It's just because somebody looked at one figure and looked at Santa and was like, they look the same.

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And if they happen to be in the same month, like wintertime is when they're prominent. I think Santa came from that guy, because all things considered,

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Santa is a relatively young invention. And all these pagan deities that are worshipped have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

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Right. Here is the true story of Santa Claus. He was invented by Washington Irving.

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Now, where do you know that name from? Does that name sound familiar to you at all?

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Hmm. I might have gotten you when you're too tired. Yes. Sleepy Hollow.

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Are you familiar with that? Yeah. So the Headless Horseman, Ichabod Crane. That was all a

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Washington Irving story. So he was very good at folklore. In fact, a lot of the

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American folklore that we have that came about from like the 17th, 18th century period. Well, no, sorry.

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18th, 19th century period. That would have been from Washington Irving. Was very influential in that sense.

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But he was not just an author. He was also a politician. Now here's an article I think that best summarizes this without going into like long detail.

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It's from a blog entitled Historical Digression. And the name of the article is

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Santa Claus was made by Washington Irving by a fellow by the name of Patrick Brown. And this was published on December 6th, 2014, which is

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St. Nicholas Day. So December 6th is the feast day for St.

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Nicholas as it was established by the Roman Catholic Church. And there have been various festivals in various parts of the world, even preceding the invention of Santa Claus, where St.

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Nicholas is kind of honored as a historical figure. But nevertheless, the common views that we have of Santa Claus are not directly derived from that for Washington Irving used references to St.

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Nicholas and kind of spun this practical joke in that eventually resulted in the figure that we know now is

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Santa Claus. So here's what Brown writes. Today being St. Nicholas Day, it seems fitting to reflect a bit on the cultural origins of the

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American version of that right jolly old elf. One could argue that any number of people are responsible for inventing

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Santa Claus as we know him today. Clement Seymour, Thomas Nast. Now, Clement Seymour was the guy that wrote that poem,

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Twas the Night Before Christmas, or A Visit from St. Nick, which we more popularly know as The Night Before Christmas.

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And then there was Thomas Nast, who was famous for his paintings of Santa Claus, dressing him up in a red suit.

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That's kind of where that got derived from. Even the marketers of Coca -Cola get attributed to being the inventors of Santa Claus.

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Like some will say, Santa was just a marketing gimmick. That's true. Right. But not from Coca -Cola.

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Oh. It was from Washington Irving. Ah, yes. Many would point to Washington Irving, Brown says, that original architect of so much

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American folklore and tradition. The quote that forms the title of this article is taken from a paper by historian

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Charles W. Jones, Knickerbocker Santa Claus, published in the New York Historical Society quarterly

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October 1954. Jones challenged the longstanding traditional view that Santa Claus owes his tremendous presence in our culture to Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, which would eventually become

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New York. In fact, his research into early colonial New York newspapers, books, diaries, and letters turned up no mention at all of St.

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Nicholas until the time of the Revolution. So if not rooted in the traditions of Dutch settlers, nor the

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English settlers that followed them, how is it that the cult of Santa Claus, as Jones calls the popular tradition, emanated so suddenly from New York in the early 19th century?

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And I would say that cult of Santa Claus is a pretty apt title. Yes. He is absolutely everywhere.

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He is everywhere. At Christmas. You cannot get away from Santa Claus. You can't. No. Not at all.

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Which is why I think telling the true story of Santa Claus is so important. Telling your kids that he was a real man, that he had a fondness.

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He was a priest. He was ordained to be a priest. He had a fondness for sound doctrine. He was so zealous for the gospel that he was persecuted under Diocletian.

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He was thrown in prison. When he was released from prison after Constantine became emperor and those who were in prison for preaching the gospel were released in 313

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AD, Nicholas came from prison covered in his own blood. And when the people saw that, they called him

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Nicholas the Confessor because even in the face of persecution for preaching the gospel, he did not back down.

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Even if it was going to cost him his life, he still continued to proclaim Christ. Then it was just about a decade later that he goes to the northern end of Turkey to Nicaea where the council of Nicaea was convened and he defends sound doctrine there on the floor against Arius.

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He was also a very charitable man because of the wealth that he had that was handed down to him by his parents.

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When he became a priest and his parents passed away, he gave all of that wealth away. And the most famous story of course is the story of a father who had lost all of his money and his three daughters were without dowries.

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So there was nothing for the father to be able to give a husband to kind of entice a man to marry his daughters.

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And Nicholas, having heard about this, decided that he was going to help the family, but he didn't want to embarrass the father by looking like he was paying a dowry for somebody else.

25:55

Right. And so he waited until the cover of night and he went by their house and he dropped some gold coins in the window.

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And then he did this for three consecutive nights. So a bag of gold for each one of the daughters, so that way they would have a dowry.

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And on the third night, the father caught him. He stayed up late to see who it was that was dropping bags of gold coins in his window.

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And he thanked Nicholas for doing that. And Nicholas said to him, don't tell anybody else.

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Oh yeah, that didn't happen. Let's not let this get out. Everybody's expecting gold coins in their window.

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So years and years and years and years and years later, nobody knows. So it's stuff like that that has contributed to, you know, the gift giving that is associated with Santa Claus, filling stockings with goods and stuff like that.

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Some of that in the history of St. Nicholas has also played into the character of Santa Claus.

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That's the kind of story that I think that we should be telling our children. Oh yeah. So that we know he's a real man who loved

27:01

God, was zealous for sound doctrine and gave away what he had to help those who were less fortunate. That's a much better story than Santa Claus is a magic man at the

27:10

North Pole eating your milk and cookies on well, drinking your milk and eating your cookies on Christmas Eve when he distributes presents.

27:17

Depends on how you eat cookies, I suppose. Well when you dunk them in the milk for long enough, they kind of liquefy and you're just drinking cookies.

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Anyway. And he's got elves and eight tiny reindeer and all this other kind of thing. All of that is nonsense.

27:32

And I really think the biggest problem with the St. Nick myth is not so much that you're lying to your children.

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I think that's silly enough because you're setting them up for future failure over something that is so insignificant.

27:44

And you think that Christmas needs to be more fun if we incorporate this whole Santa Claus game into it.

27:50

Yeah. We have a great Christmas without Santa. Absolutely. We're celebrating the giving of the savior of the world.

27:57

Yes. Christ incarnate. That's about the best thing that you could celebrate at Christmas. But then we throw in this

28:03

Santa Claus thing and you set your kids up for future failure because there's going to come a time in their lives when either a friend of theirs or an adult is going to tell them that Santa Claus isn't real and it's going to break their hearts.

28:15

Yeah. Why? Why is that so big to play this game to cause your children any unnecessary heartbreak?

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In fact, in the case of my grandmother, Mimi. Yes. I keep thinking of her every time too.

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Do you remember this story? Yes. Yes, I do. So there was a neighborhood girl who said to my grandmother when she was really little, said to her,

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Santa Claus is not real. Mimi went inside the house. Now Mimi, you have to understand, is the most sweetest person you would have ever met, ever.

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Tiny little bitty thing, just super, super sweet. Reads her King James Bible every single morning.

28:53

Yeah, she did. Well, she did. Yeah. And she would pray. She's with the Lord now. Yeah, she was the one of the most hard working prayer warriors

29:02

I had ever seen. Yes. Bruises on her knees all the way to her dying day. Yeah. So sweet little woman, sweet little old lady, a wonderful, wonderful Southern accent.

29:13

Yeah. You know, I would go with her to Hardy's and which was a much different place back then.

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It wasn't owned by Carl's Jr. when I was a kid. Okay. But anyway, I would go with her to Hardy's to get some food and, you know, we'd pull up to the window and the lady at the window would open up with our food and Mimi would go, well, hello ma 'am, do you know

29:31

Jesus? She's just right ready to go right in with the gospel. She was so wonderful with that.

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Yeah. But anyway, so this little girl tells her there's no such thing as Santa Claus. Mimi goes in the house as a little girl, mind you, not as my grandmother.

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She goes in the house, she grabs her father's shotgun and she comes back out and points it in this girl's face and says, you take that back right now.

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Yep. Now, I don't think you're necessarily setting your children up to be serial killers.

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But it struck a nerve. Right. It's stuff like that. I mean, why? Why even risk that over something so silly and insignificant?

30:14

And then the whole elf on the shelf thing. My goodness. That's even worse. Oh, yeah. That's weird. I read horror stories about that.

30:21

People will frighten their kids with elf on a shelf and then they'll write a blog about it and think it's hilarious. I'm like, you're poor kids.

30:28

Good grief. They're going to need some serious psychiatric counseling one of these days.

30:35

But that's the way that we should be telling the story of Santa Claus to our kids. Telling them the truth.

30:41

Yes. And they're going to see Santa everywhere. It's going to be all over the place. And if your kids are in public school, especially there, and teachers are even going to say things like, you better be good or Santa's not going to bring you presents.

30:52

So you talk to them. And the cashiers. Right. Say it to our kids. Right. Yeah. We're in the checkout line.

30:58

I can't remember if it was Zeej I was with at one time. This was last year. But the lady at the checkout line said, what's

31:05

Santa going to bring you this year? And he went, Santa's not real. I was going, that's my boy.

31:12

The girls just look at me awkward. And they're like, what do we say? I'm like, we celebrate

31:20

Jesus's birthday. And then they're okay with that. That's kind of a, rather than giving me the evil eye.

31:28

You're at the checkout line at the store and the lady says that and our girls look at you and Santa bringing me presents?

31:37

Yeah. They're like, what do we say? What do we say about this? Yeah. But you're able to take these references to Santa that are all over the place that are even in the movies and the shows and all this other thing that your kids watch around Christmas time.

31:50

And you're able to tell them about this real man, a historical figure who loved Christ, was zealous for sound doctrine, gave what he had to help others.

31:58

And that as an example that we should follow. Right. And we point them to Christ. Right. And if you, anyway, so going on,

32:06

I made the mention of here's my biggest problem with the myth of Santa Claus. It's not that you're lying to your kids, although that's pretty significant, but it's that you're bearing false witness about a brother in Christ because this is a real man.

32:19

Right. And though Irving did this as a practical joke, it's, which

32:25

I haven't even gotten to that part of the story yet. But anyway, though he did this as a practical joke, that doesn't change the fact that he's a real person and we are bearing false witness against him whenever we make him into this magic man in the

32:40

North Pole instead of telling the true story of what it is that he did out of his zealousness for the gospel.

32:48

That's my, that's my bigger issue. So you're lying to your kids and you're bearing false witness about a man who's a brother in Christ with whom we share our inheritance in his eternal kingdom.

32:59

Right. So stay away from the Santa myth. Don't need to get into all of that except exposing the truth about it.

33:06

So going on, this was right after Cult of Santa Claus. We're going to go on here. Brown asked this question, if not rooted in the tradition of Dutch settlers or the

33:16

English settlers that followed him, where did Santa Claus come from? In short,

33:22

Washington Irving, the son of Scottish immigrants, Irving studied law in New York, was admitted to the bar in 1806 and promptly denied that an attorney's life was not for him.

33:32

In 1807, he established the satirical literary magazine Salmagundi, writing articles lampooning influential

33:41

New Yorkers, mostly under pseudonyms. Fake names notwithstanding, Irving's reputation as a brilliant writer spread.

33:49

In 1809, he was nominated for membership in the New York Historical Society. And here we find the intersection of Irving and Santa Claus.

33:57

The New York Historical Society was founded in 1804 by John Pinterd, a wealthy merchant, antiquarian and philanthropist.

34:06

It was Pinterd who promoted the observance of St. Nicholas Day on December the 6th as a holiday in New York.

34:14

He designated St. Nicholas the patron saint of the New York Historical Society and by extension, attempted to establish

34:22

St. Nicholas as the patron saint of the city. All of this emphasis on St.

34:28

Nick caught Washington Irving's attention. I get the impression that Irving was probably annoyed with all of this

34:35

St. Nicholas talk as annoyed as I get about all the Santa Claus talk. Probably.

34:41

So, here's how he dealt with it. In 1809, the same year he became a member of the

34:46

New York Historical Society, Irving published his first book, A History of New York from the Beginning of the

34:51

World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, under the pseudonym Dietrich Knickerbocker.

34:57

The book was more satire than history, playing fast and loose with facts, simultaneously romanticizing the history of New Amsterdam while utilizing stories of the

35:08

Dutch founders to lampoon politicians of Irving's own time. Before the book was released,

35:15

Irving implemented a brilliant publicity scheme that would put today's edgy marketing professionals to shame.

35:22

I could probably take some tips from him on how to properly market 25 Christmas Myths and what the

35:29

Bible says. He published letters in New York papers under a fictitious name, suggesting that Dietrich Knickerbocker, allegedly an old historian of Dutch descent, had gone missing.

35:40

And all that was left of him was his manuscript, A History of New York. So he created this character, which he wrote articles under, and then created another character to say that his previous character had gone missing.

35:56

And all that was left was this manuscript called A History of New York, which would have been written by his pseudonymous name,

36:04

Dietrich Knickerbocker, so that he could release this manuscript saying, see, this is all that's left of the man.

36:10

Uh -huh. Uh, going on here, the city was gripped by this mystery. Individuals even wrote to the editors of various papers claiming that they had seen

36:18

Knickerbocker, and New York officials considered offering a reward for the old man's safe return.

36:24

What? Ha ha ha! With all of this hype, when

36:29

The Mysterious History of New York was finally published on December 6th, 1809...

36:34

Imagine that. ...it became an immediate success. Note the date, St. Nicholas Day.

36:41

This was no coincidence, and a jibe at the New York Historical Society and their patron saint.

36:47

Among the many fanciful tales related in the history book,

36:52

Irving, or Knickerbocker, wrote a story of Commodore Olaf van Cortland, an actual

36:58

Dutch official who settled in New Amsterdam in 1637. In the tale, van

37:04

Cortland, after a stormy journey, washes up with his company at the mouth of the

37:09

Hudson. Grateful to be on dry land, they scrounge up a great feast of oysters, and van

37:15

Cortland soon falls asleep. Now here's an actual quote from the book. All right.

37:21

And the sage Olaf dreamed a dream, and lo, the good St. Nicholas came riding over the tops of trees in that self -same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children.

37:33

And he descended hard by where the heroes of Communapah had made their late repast.

37:40

And he lit his pipe by the fire, and sat himself down and smoked. And as he smoked, the smoke from his pipe ascended into the air and spread like a cloud overhead.

37:50

And Olaf bethought him, and he hastened and climbed up to the top of one of the tallest trees, and saw that the smoke spread over a great extent of the country.

37:59

And as he considered it more attentively, he fancied that the great volume of smoke assumed a variety of marvelous forms, where in dim obscurity he saw shadowed -out places and domes and lofty spires, all of which lasted but a moment, and then faded away, until the whole rolled off and nothing but the green woods were left.

38:19

And when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe, he twisted it in his hatband, and laying his finger beside his nose, he gave the astonished

38:27

Van Cortland a very significant look. Then mounting his wagon, he returned over the treetops and disappeared.

38:34

And that's the very first mention of Santa Claus. So Brown goes on to say, the vision given to Van Cortland by St.

38:45

Nicholas is one of the marvel that New Amsterdam will one day become. Anything sound familiar in this passage?

38:53

The smoke of his pipe, a knowing look, laying his finger beside his nose, all of these would be used by New York professor of Oriental and Greek literature,

39:02

Clement C. Moore, in his A Visit from St. Nicholas, published in 1823. Moore was friends with Washington Irving, and he loved

39:12

Irving's invention of St. Nicholas as this guy that rode over rooftops in this wagon.

39:20

But of course, when Moore got a hold of it, it was a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. And every other common association that we know of Santa Claus, we can attribute to Moore's poem.

39:31

Right. The fact that he's a jolly fat man, that he got rosy cheeks, the whole touch of his nose, the pipe, all of that was in the poem, distributing presents, filling stockings, his

39:45

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. He says, happy Christmas. Happy Christmas. That is what he says in the poem.

39:51

That is correct. But this was Washington Irving who came up with this. Moore loved it.

39:56

And so he incorporated it into his poem. And the rest is history. That is where Santa Claus came from.

40:04

That is interesting. Any connection to anything pagan? No, absolutely not.

40:11

Now over the years, as the fame of Santa Claus and how he's been utilized in American culture spread throughout the world, there have been other pagan traditions that have been held around winter in which those figures have been incorporated in with Santa Claus.

40:28

But the fact that Santa Claus himself was derived from those figures is absolutely false.

40:34

Right. And it's the same like Mithraism myth that gets tagged with Christianity all the time.

40:42

This idea of Jesus Christ actually being a ripoff or a plagiarization of Mithraism.

40:49

Oh, yeah, yeah. And one of the evidences that a skeptic will put out is, well,

40:54

Mithras, the worship of Mithras was centuries before Jesus. That's true.

41:00

Because he was a Persian and Babylonian God that was worshiped by the

41:06

Zoroastrians. But then he became one of the Roman mystery religions at the end of the first century.

41:13

And it isn't until then that we actually have any traditions associated with Mithraism. So even though he is a

41:20

God, a false God from the Babylonian and Persian area, he doesn't actually come into having a cult following until after Christianity has long since been established.

41:33

So all of those associations that sound like Jesus, that people will say, well, Mithras had 12 apostles,

41:40

Mithras rose from the dead, Mithras was born of a virgin, you know, all these other things. No, all of that's a ripoff of Christianity.

41:47

None of those things were true of the myth that was Mithras. So it's stuff like that.

41:53

You'll hear those kinds of attributions and then you'll think, well, they must be the origin of them because they're actually older than the thing that we recognize today.

42:03

Does that make sense? Yeah. And that's the case with Santa Claus. Yeah, all those other pagan myths, they did come before Santa Claus.

42:11

But the incorporation of Santa Claus into those myths did not happen until after this figure was created.

42:16

And this was exactly the way that he came about. So yes, he's derived from Saint Nicholas. Yes, he's a magic man at the at the

42:25

North Pole. And yes, there may be some connections with Father Christmas in Great Britain or Odin in the

42:31

Germanic countries in Western Europe. But there is no direct relationship to Odin became

42:38

Santa Claus, which is, you know, it's like the old church lady in the Saturday Night Live sketches might as well be called

42:45

Satan Claus. Santa looks like Satan. It's just the same name.

42:50

You just move the letters around. All right. No, that's not where that came from. She's like my church lady.

42:56

That was interesting. Isn't that special? That was Dana Carvey way back in the day.

43:03

Nobody cares. No, I don't. All right. Anyway, there is the the original the the original origin of Santa Claus.

43:12

Now we're going to move on from here into another favorite myth that the skeptics love to to pull out.

43:19

And that is the one related to the Christmas tree. Oh, yes, that one is a favorite. The Christmas tree.

43:26

Trees have been worshipped by virtually every pagan culture in the world and was, again, a major symbol of sun god worship and fertility.

43:34

It took the place inside the pagan home of the the obelisk.

43:40

The fir tree took the place of that obelisk as a picture or a symbol of the sun god.

43:47

That's why they put the sunburst or the eight pointed star on top of it. The fir tree was said to be magical tree because it remained green all year long.

43:58

It was decorated in some cultures with fruit to symbolize new life. And in other cultures, it was decorated with 12 candles to honor their sun god, because the feast of Saturnalia was 12 days.

44:10

That's where you get the 12 days of Christmas from. Not true. Where does where do the 12 days of Christmas come from?

44:17

So we just talked about December 25th being one day that was chosen for the possible birth date of Christ.

44:23

Then January 6 was another possible birth date for Christ. The 12 days in between those two dates.

44:32

That's the 12 days of Christmas. So his whole thing of like, we get the 12 days of Christmas from paganism.

44:37

Not true. Yeah, not at all. True. Today, we even sing songs to it, just like they did in the pagan worship rituals.

44:47

Now that part's true. We sing, we sing songs to the Christmas tree. Oh, yeah. Well, maybe somebody does like in Hallmark movies.

44:54

I don't. Every Hallmark movie. OK, maybe not every, but pretty close.

45:01

That Oh Christmas tree, that is the favorite Christmas carol of Hallmark Christmas movies. It is.

45:06

It's kind of weird. And I've looked at the lyrics. There is no redeeming value to that song at all. It's just silly.

45:12

Oh, Tenenbaum. Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree.

45:18

How lovely are your branches? That's not even one of the lines, I don't think.

45:23

It's not worded exactly like that, but that's anyway. Speaking of which, these grocery stores that keep playing.

45:31

These are a few of my favorite things from the Sound of Music. That's not a Christmas song.

45:37

Stop oppressing me with your secularism and play some Hark the Herald Angels sing.

45:44

Every time you send me to the grocery store for something on the loudspeakers, they have these are a few of my favorite things.

45:50

I'm sorry. You have to endure that. There's no Christmas in that song. It's a cute song.

45:56

Yeah, but it's not a Christmas song. No, it's not a Christmas song. There's not. Here, I'm going to go through the lyrics right here.

46:01

It talks about packages, though, like the presents. No. Brown, yeah. Brown paper packages tied up with strings.

46:07

Yeah. That's not Christmas presents. Who wraps Christmas presents in brown paper packages?

46:13

Back then. During World War II? Sure. Let's see.

46:21

Doorbells and sleigh bells. Ooh. Yeah. Oh, we're getting close. Let's see.

46:28

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes. That's Easter. Yeah, that's not Christmas. Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes.

46:37

Let's see. Silver white winters that melt into springs, but there's nothing in there about Christmas.

46:43

That's like the song, Let It Snow. There's nothing in the song, Let It Snow, about Christmas. You could actually play that song as just a winter song.

46:51

Yeah, that's why I try to buy a whole bunch of decorations that say, Let It Snow, because then

46:56

I don't have to take it down for all of winter. Now I got it.

47:02

I'm a little cheater. I'm getting it now. I understand why all that is up now. And the snowmen. Yeah.

47:09

Check. I'm getting it. All right. Let's finish this thing up with Staley. Okay. Yes. Jeremiah 10 verses 2 and following says,

47:16

Thus says the Lord, or Yahweh, Do not learn the way of the Gentiles.

47:22

Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven. For the Gentiles are dismayed at them, for the customs of the people are futile.

47:28

Now, for one cuts a tree down from the forest, the work of the hands of a workman with the axe.

47:34

They decorate it with silver and gold. They fasten it with nails and hammers, so that it will not topple.

47:39

They are upright like a palm tree, and they cannot speak. They must be carried, because they cannot go by themselves.

47:46

Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor can they do any good.

47:51

Now many people believe that this particular scripture is talking about Christmas trees themselves.

47:57

The truth of the matter is, this particular scripture is not really connected to Christmas trees, as it is the idea that they took and they went to the woods, they got fir trees, and then they would carve them, and they would decorate them with silver and gold.

48:11

And what I wanted to point out with this scripture is that the whole decorating was silver and gold balls, which actually, believe it or not, are representative in ancient cultures as the testicles of the sun god, that went on the shaft of Baal, with the symbol of the pagan fertility rite of the sun burst on top of it.

48:32

That's where they got the silver and gold from. It was the idea that they decorated their idols with silver and gold.

48:38

So that's what I wanted to pull from this scripture, not necessarily that they're cutting down a Christmas tree.

48:43

That tradition didn't happen until later, but this is where they got the idea from, because idols were decorated with silver and gold.

48:51

Oh, all the jokes that I want to make right now. That would just be very inappropriate, but I want to make them.

49:00

Do you know what you've got in your living room right now? A big Christmas tree, what it represents?

49:07

It represents our love for Christ. That's actually a true story.

49:12

That is what it represents. You're welcome. Let me, let me come back to Jeremiah 10 here.

49:17

So when he was talking about the Christmas tree, and then he went off on this tangent of reading from Jeremiah 10, which is what everybody who is skeptical of Christmas goes to.

49:28

They go to this passage and say, see right here, this is exactly about the Christmas tree. Let me read it to you from the

49:34

English standard version here. Jeremiah 10, starting in verse one, hear the word that the Lord speaks to you,

49:39

Oh, house of Israel, thus says the Lord, learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens, because the nations are dismayed at them.

49:49

For the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an ax by the hands of a craftsman.

49:57

They decorate it with silver and gold. They fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field and they cannot speak.

50:08

I didn't know you put a scarecrows in cucumber fields and they have to be carried for. They cannot walk.

50:14

Do not be afraid of them for they cannot do evil. Neither is it in them to do good. Now when

50:19

Staley first broke in with. Now some people think this is talking about Christmas trees. When he went into that, I was like,

50:24

Oh wow, he's actually going to give the proper context of this passage. But then he goes into talking about what you actually have in your living room and what that Christmas tree represents.

50:34

Yeah, maybe that's why people are so appalled and adamant about being appalled. Oh my goodness.

50:42

He did not actually exegete this properly. The point that's being made here in Jeremiah 10, because Staley said, they went out in the forest and they cut down fir trees and they brought them in and carved them up and decorated with silver and gold.

50:56

No, they weren't cutting down fir trees. The point of what is being talked about here is that they cut down a tree.

51:02

A man goes out to the woods, cuts down a tree. He cuts it up. He carves it into an idol.

51:09

That's what I got out of it. He overlays it with silver and gold, not these gold balls that Staley was talking about.

51:16

He covers it in silver and gold so that it's a metallic idol, but it's not solid gold or solid silver.

51:22

It's wood on the inside and gold and silver on the outside. And then once they've made the thing, then they're scared of it.

51:31

Then they're afraid of the idol instead of God and they will worship the idol and they will offer sacrifices to the idol, thinking that they have to please the idol.

51:41

Jeremiah is pointing out the absurdity of this. You made it. You went out to the woods.

51:46

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. From beginning to end, you are the creator of this thing, and yet you've feared the created thing rather than the creator himself.

51:56

That's the whole point that's being made there in Jeremiah. It has nothing to do with Christmas trees and all this other stuff, even though Staley even kind of made that connection.

52:06

He tried to disconnect it, and then he's like, but no, it's not about Christmas trees, but it's about Christmas trees. That is not the connection there in Jeremiah 10.

52:14

It's talking about worshiping an idol. The true story of the Christmas tree comes from Boniface back in the 8th century when he went traveling through Germany preaching the gospel.

52:27

And Boniface came to a place where I don't really know my geography of Germany very well, but it was a place that was called

52:36

Lower Hesse. And he came to this place where this giant oak tree was being honored and worshipped by the people.

52:45

They would gather around it, and they would pray and offer sacrifices to it. And one of the things that Boniface noticed is that they would sometimes even offer child sacrifices to this oak tree, just the same thing that those who were worshiping

52:58

Moloch in the Old Testament would do. And Boniface had to put an end to this. So he grabs an axe, and he runs over to the tree, and he starts cutting the tree down.

53:08

And he wants to not only put an end to child sacrifice, but also show these people, I'm going to cut down Thor's oak, and he's not going to strike me down with lightning.

53:18

So by the way, this is the same Thor in Marvel comics that Marvel has turned into this superhero.

53:24

The same false god that the ancient

53:29

Germans would worship. So he cuts down this oak. Of course, lightning doesn't strike him.

53:34

The people are amazed. He stands on the stump of that oak and delivers the gospel. And he points to a fir tree, and he says to them, you're not going to be worshiping false gods out in the woods like this anymore.

53:47

You're going to take this fir tree and put it in your home and be reminded of the eternal gift of God's Son for the salvation of your sins.

53:56

And worship is going to happen in your homes. It's not going to happen out here in the wilderness.

54:02

The fir tree is pointed. It points up into the heavens so that you will be reminded that your worship and honor should be of God.

54:09

So no longer worship these trees, but look at this tree and be reminded that true worship should be to the

54:15

Lord Christ. That's where that came from. And then it's believed, since this was a German tradition, it was a German tradition for hundreds of years, about almost a thousand years, up to the point that Martin Luther is believed to be the first to decorate the

54:28

Christmas tree with lights. Now that sounds like a fire hazard to me because there was no electricity at that time.

54:33

He would have been hanging candles on the tree. But we can say of Martin Luther that he burned down monasteries with sound teaching, not with Christmas trees.

54:44

But that's where the Christmas tree originates from. It is not a pagan symbol.

54:50

It was because they weren't worshiping fir trees. They were worshiping the oak of Thor. And Boniface cut that down and said, now be reminded that you're not going to be out in the woods worshiping these trees anymore.

55:02

You have this fir tree in your home on the birth of Christ because he associated it with the birth of Christ. And in this season, you're going to remember that worship is in your homes, not out here in the woods like the pagans do.

55:16

Praise the Lord. Now, for a person to have a Christmas tree in their home, I see it as being exactly the same as having a plant in your home.

55:23

So if anybody is going to criticize someone else for having a

55:28

Christmas tree in your home, I hope you don't have a decorative centerpiece on your dining room table with flowers and stuff in it, because that would make you a hypocrite.

55:37

It's the same concept. It's exactly the same thing. It's just seasonal instead of a plant that you might have in your home all year round, whether real or fake.

55:47

Since most Christmas trees are fake. Or in our case, ones that are dying. Because I need to water them.

55:53

Because you still need to water the plants. I do. So there's our few myths that we're addressing in this particular show.

56:01

Hey, you made it. I did. Even though you're kind of fading now. I am. All right. Look for the book.

56:08

It could be out next week sometime. Yep. Christmas Day. Could be. Could be. Could.

56:14

Wink wink. Nudge nudge. And there will be a couple of more myths.

56:21

Myths eight. I'm sorry. Seven and eight. Isn't that what I'm up to? That's tomorrow. Seven and eight will be tomorrow, and then nine and ten on the podcast will be the next week.

56:29

Right. All right. Let's pray. Let's. Our wonderful Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of your

56:35

Son, Jesus Christ, who became incarnate. God put on flesh and dwelt among us.

56:41

We were sinners who had been separated, alienated from a holy God, and you considered our need and sent your

56:49

Son as a sacrifice for our sins. And this is the message of Christmas. As great as all of the traditions and time with family and friends can be, ultimately the message is that Christ came into the world to save sinners.

57:05

And so I pray that we would be convicted of our sin, that we would worship you all the time, not just at Christmas, but always, every day with our whole bodies, and then on Sundays gathering together with the saints to join in worship and sing your praises.

57:19

Continue to guide us in your steps and lead us in paths of righteousness and forgive us our sins and help us to have grace in our hearts that we may give that grace to others.

57:31

We may forgive others their sins as you have forgiven us. And always sharing the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins, rose again from the grave, and all who believe in him will have everlasting life.

57:45

Thank you for this holiday season and I pray that we worship and honor

57:51

Christ always. In his name, amen. Amen. Check, check, check.

59:00

Test, test. Check, check, check. Still can't hear me. You can't hear you? I can't hear me. Why? I don't know.

59:09

I can hear you. Testing, testing. I can hear you. Yeah, you can hear me. I can't hear you. Whoa. See?

59:16

Now I can hear you. I almost want to whisper. Oh, I can still hear that really loud. That didn't change.

59:22

That didn't change the input. That just changed how loud it is in your headphones. Which is really loud.

59:27

I think I'll turn it that to that. Better? No. Well, it's kind of weird. It's because I cranked that up when I'm grabbing audio and then turned the headphones down so it's not so loud.

59:38

Got it. It makes sense. It's not like I'm in here every day.

59:45

What? You're not in here every day. Are you in here every day?

59:52

No, but if you listen to the podcast, I do the intro. Oh, right.

59:57

Yeah. So you come in here and do that every day? Yes. Right, right. So I was thinking about going through, what are you going through next?

01:00:07

Galatians? Yes. Going through Galatians and doing a coloring page and information page for kiddos for every day.

01:00:17

I've thought about that. I just don't have the time. I don't either, but I think it's nice and it would be awesome.

01:00:23

Put a little coloring page in the bulletin. And like a little fill out thing and add the extra

01:00:30

Bible verses that you're going to reference too. Okay. So you're going to be working with me on the sermon all week long so that you can also put together this page?

01:00:40

Is that what you're going to do? Well, I was thinking about starting now rather than when you start because I have a little bit more to do than you do.

01:00:51

Yeah, right, because I don't have to write anything out. Well, that and also I have to catch up to where you're at because you already have a general idea of where you're going with it.

01:01:03

I have not. A general idea? Yeah, I already know where I'm going with it. Stop.