The Myth of Xmas -- המיתוס של חג המולד

This article is taken from TorahAnytime.com's Weekly Parasha Hashavua Newsletter.

Santa Claus Was Created By Coca Cola!

  

So, X-mas has just passed and I'm willing to put money down that you fit into one of three categories with regards to this holiday: You either 1- love Chanukah but think that X-mas is pretty cool, 2- heard that X-mas has something to do with the birth of Yeshu (Jesus), but are curious how everything else (the tree, Santa, gingerbread men, etc...) fits in, or 3- couldn't care less.

Regardless of which group you're part of, it's absolutely necessary to know and understand what X-mas is reallyall about. After all, our families are raised in an extremely Christian oriented society, and if we aren't armed with the knowledge needed to combat this, we stand very little hope of preventing its influence on our families and selves.

Lets begin.

First off, we must state outright that it is a completemyth that Yeshu was born on 12/25. Not only does the New Testament fail to give any date for his birth, but the earliest Gospel written-St. Mark-records stories only of anadult Yeshu; there is no story recorded of his birth at all!

We could easily go into greater detail, but suffice it to say, there are 3 respected opinions in the Christian world as to when Yeshu was born, and-get this-none of them place it at December 25^th. DePascha Computus, the earliest Catholic document discovered, says he was born on March 28^th. Clement, a church Bishop from the same time period thought he was born on November 18th. More recently, Joseph Fitzmyer, a Cardinal with extremely close ties to the Pope disagreed with both of them, and claims he was born on September 11^th 3 BCE!

Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?

If this is the case, you might be wondering how in heaven's name X-mas ended up being celebrated on the 25^th of December? Well, in order to answer this question, we need to take a trip back in time to ancient Roman days and learn about the pagan festival of Saturnalia,which took place from Dec. 17^th-25^th.

The custom of this festival was as follows: There were no rules-plain and simple. You could dowhatever you wanted however you wanted withwhomever you wanted. In addition to human sacrifice, other customs of this day included widespread intoxication, complete rampant immorality, going from house to house singing disrobed, and eating human shaped biscuits. The last two traditions are indeed the forerunners of modern day X-mas caroling and gingerbread men cookies.

Keep reading. It gets better.

In the 4^th century, the Church decided that it wanted to convert people en masse, and so they adopted the holiday of Saturnalia into Christianity in an effort to attract pagan followers! The only problem was that there wasn't anything inherently Christian about Saturnalia, so Christian leaders...can you guess it...named the last day of the holiday-Dec. 25^th as Yeshu' birthday.

Of course, the Church couldn't have its followers spend a week out of the year getting drunk, having illicit relations, and murdering whomever they wanted, so some leaders tried to stop it; they had very little success though. After all, who would want to give up such a great holiday? The kicker is this: From 1659-1681, the Puritans in Massachusetts [the famous Pilgrims] actuallybanned X-mas because of its terrible pagan origins!

The Origin of Christian Customs:

The Tree:Just like the Church incorporated Saturnalia in an effort to attract pagans, they attracted the worshippers of the Asheira Cult by incorporating the trees they worshipped into Christian Doctrine. Sounds familiar? Asheira Trees? The Torah mentions them outright as a form of idolatry!

Mistletoe: Norse/Druid mythology tells the story of their god Balder being shot and killed by an arrow laced with poisonous mistletoe. Druid rituals, therefore, used mistletoe poison to kill their sacrificial human victim. Just as with the Asheira cult, Christians adopted their customs in an effort to missionize them, and "kissing one's beloved under the mistletoe" (a combination of the immorality of Saturnalia and Druid sacrifices) was born.

Presents:  Roman Emperors forced their most despised citizens to give them gifts during Saturnalia. This soon became a tradition amongst all Romans during Saturnalia, and when Saturnalia became a "Christian" Holiday, the Church gave it a "Christian flavor" by claiming that St. Nicholas would give presents.

But how is Santa connected to St. Nicholas?

We're running out of room so I'll keep it short and sweet:

St. Nicholas, a Middle-Eastern Christian man, died and was buried in Turkey in 345 CE. About 800 years later, his bones were uprooted by sailors who idolized him, and they reburied him in Italy. Ultimately, because of his popularity in the region, he replaced the god of the area, Pasqua Ephiphania, who used to fill children's stockings with gifts. And so, Nicholas had now become a gift-giving god. His popularity spread north into the Germanic regions where he ultimately replaced their god, Woden, as well. Woden had a long white beard and rode a horse through the heavens in late autumn. Now it was Nicholas who grew a beard, had heavy winter clothing, and flew a flying horse. In deference to Saturnalia however, his flight was rescheduled to December.

Not quite the modern Santa, but we're getting closer...

In the 1800's, a new and improved history of St. Nicholas began surface. Firstly, the Dutch equivalent of St. Nicholas,called Santa Claus, became extremely popular through the efforts of popular author Washington Irving (who also wrote Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle), and people stopped calling him St. Nicholas and only called him Santa Claus. Additionally, through the publications of well-known professor Dr. Clement Moore and illustrator Thomas Nast, Santa Claus was popularly portrayed in books and newspaper cartoons as flying with reindeer, descending through chimneys, having a home in the North Pole, owning a workshop filled with elves, and keeping a list of good and bad children.

That's right. You read correctly. The majority of Santa Claus stories...are just made up stories.

All we're missing is the red suit.

Enter Coca Cola...

In 1931, Coke's sales had plunged because they'd removed their key ingredient due to legal issues-cocaine. In an effort to boost sales, they contracted Swedish artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke drinking Santa. Sundblom modeled Santa, who up until then was a skinny man, after his friend Lou Prentice, a cheerful and chubby person. Coca Cola insisted that Santa's suit be colored Coca Cola Red, and at long last, our classic modern-day Santa complete with his red suit, big belly, and reindeer was born...

NOW I want you to think about the difference between Chanukah and X-mas. What does each holiday represent? Which has any intrinsic value and why?                                                                    Shabbat Shalom | Chanan Tzionov