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Just in time to wish you all joyful days in whichever way. Good wishes to those who are present and to those who must be somewhere, I hope doing and being well.
My computer is on repairs trip.
My son's is rarely accessible. Merry Christmas!TO TEDS AND MILO'S AND ANNA'S AND ANU'S AND HYDRA'S AND BAWDY BELMARDUKS AND WORDWINDS AND.............so many.
(All I want for Christmas is my front door blocked with snow)
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To you,BranShea, a very Merry Christmas as well. I see from
noradsanta.org that the jolly ole fellow is leaving Europe now
and heading west. I wish you lots of snow. And if there were
a way to send all that is in my yard I would gladly do so.
Blessings for Christmas to you and your family.
Last edited by LukeJavan8; 12/24/2008 10:58 PM.
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Done stuffing stockings... going off to bed.... god bless :0)
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The old fellow is not really generally regocnized here and we stuff no stockings at Christmas. Thanks for the generous gift of snow. Nice tree, twosleepy ! Most certainly considering the after 2.00 AM.
Have a jolly day.
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The old fellow is not really generally regocnized here and we stuff no stockings at Christmas. Thanks for the generous gift of snow. Nice tree, twosleepy ! Most certainly considering the after 2.00 AM.
Have a jolly day. Interesting,Bran. Isn't their a Kris Kringle character in Germany? and Father Christmas in UK. You're being betwen I 'd think some sort of character would exist. He's even in Japan now. Oh, yes, I'd give you the ice under the snow too. I see lots of people out with ice-breakers trying to get it off the cement. I just put down some chemical, which probably ruins the environment (despite its disclaimer) and hope someone does not take a tumble.
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The old fellow is not really generally regocnized here and we stuff no stockings at Christmas. Thanks for the generous gift of snow. Nice tree, twosleepy ! Most certainly considering the after 2.00 AM.
Have a jolly day. Interesting,Bran. Isn't their a Kris Kringle character in Germany? and Father Christmas in UK. You're being betwen I 'd think some sort of character would exist. He's even in Japan now. Oh, yes, I'd give you the ice under the snow too. I see lots of people out with ice-breakers trying to get it off the cement. I just put down some chemical, which probably ruins the environment (despite its disclaimer) and hope someone does not take a tumble. In Germany traditionally Father Christmas brings sweets on December 6 and "The Christ Child" brings the presents on Christmas Eve. But I suspect that nowadays perhaps they've given in to American cultural imperialism like everyone else, for whom the Coca-Cola version of Santa invented ca 1930 is the central act at Christmas.
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And in Asian nations where the Saint Nicholas is not even part
of their culture,it is rightly called
American Cultural Imperialism: the almight Dollar controls
everything. (actually the dollar is the central act of Christmas,
in my opinion.)
Last edited by LukeJavan8; 12/26/2008 4:36 PM.
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Dec. 6 corresponds with our celebration of St.Nicolaas. On the evening of Dec.5 we celebrate this family-friends feast by unwrapping the gifts from st. Nicolas and Black Peter (his aid).
For kids up to 7 / 8 present the bagful of gifts is thrown over the threshold by a unnoticed temporary absentee of the gathered group or by one of the neighbours willing to do this.
Families with children over 8 fun give eachother gifts in diguised forms: the "surprise", pronounced the French way. This surprise should be a comment on actualities or merits or bad habits of the one who recieves the gift.
This fun side used to prevail over the importance of the present, but alas, money value is taking over everywhere.
There has been a political fight over whether ( fake) Black Peter should change color for reasons of discrimination. Fortunately this has passed and now real blacks join the Black Peter crowd (two or three weeks before Dec.5 many help-St. Nicolasses and Black Peters tour the country, scaring the 'bad' and cheering the 'good' children.
Why it is that in a predominantly Protestant country a Catholic Martyr has become the Saint of the season's gifts party no one really knows for sure. There is a famous Jan Steen ( 17th C.) painting showing the 'Sint Nikolaas avond' complete with a crying boy who got no present because he had not been good during the year.
There has been some competition between SantaClaus and Sinterklaas, but for now Sinterklaas still holds the lead. I know no of no other European country where Sinterklaas is really celebrated. (?)
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I know no of no other European country where Sinterklaas is really celebrated. (?)Well, Sinterklaas seems to be confined to Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium). But other countries do celebrate feasts involving St Nicholas ( link).
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Oh, well thank you Jim, for this wonderful update on old oude Klaas.
Even in Armenia! What a widespread traditon it then is! I guess it just stands out more distinctly in Holland. It really is THE big thing. Thanks for all the interesting details and Christmas time is not yet over here. No presents, but we always have a double holy free day. So Merry Christmas to you.
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So Merry Christmas to you.And a Happy Boxing Day to you. The Mexicans (and other Latin Americans) do their gift-giving on January 6th, Epiphany, el Día de los Tres Reyes, or the Twelfth Day of Christmas ( link). The relics of the Magi are in a lovely golden reliquary in the cathedral of Cologne ( link). The relics were presented to the Archbishop of Cologne by Friedrich Barbarossa in the 12th century and have been a tourist attraction since. And that's why the city escutcheon has three crowns on it. For Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. If you ever find yourself in Kölle om Ring, standing in front of the Dom, be sure two visit two nearby musts: the Römisch-Germanisches Museum (built over the site of a Roman villa with a wonderful mosaic of Dionysus, link) and the Cölner Hofbräu Früh for a Kölsch and a halver Hahn ( link).
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Bran
you mention Holland being a predominantly Protestant country.
True enough. But prior to Martin Luther only 500 years ago +/-
was it not Catholic Christian, like the rest of Europe? And
the St. Nicholas story goes back to St. Nicholas, Bishop of
Myra in the early centuries with the legends he performed with
gifts in shoes, etc.
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Happy Boxing day to our neighbors to the North in Canada, as
well. The Magi in Cologne, their relics, that is, is truly
resplendant.
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a predominantly Protestant countryAccording to the CIA World Factbook (2006, link), the religious breakdown for the Netherlands is: Roman Catholic 30% Dutch Reformed 11% Calvinist 6% other Protestant 3% Muslim 5.8% other 2.2% none 42% So, it looks like the atheists have the majority, followed by Roman Catholics, and then Protestants.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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And would it not be interesting to see how many of the
persons quoted in your statistics participate in the
celebration Bran tells us about?
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And in Asian nations where the Saint Nicholas is not even part
of their culture,it is rightly called
American Cultural Imperialism: the almight Dollar controls
everything. (actually the dollar is the central act of Christmas,
in my opinion.)
That, and the grand tradition of the Family Argument. Some familes travel hundreds of miles at Christmas to get together for a good one of those!
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a predominantly Protestant countryAccording to the CIA World Factbook (2006, link), the religious breakdown for the Netherlands is: Roman Catholic 30% Dutch Reformed 11% Calvinist 6% other Protestant 3% Muslim 5.8% other 2.2% none 42% So, it looks like the atheists have the majority, followed by Roman Catholics, and then Protestants. Putting "no religion" on a census form isn't a declaration of Atheism. It represents a diverse bunch of people, including: - true Atheists - Agnostics - members of sects and cults, and even some mainstream Christians who don't like the word 'religion' to describe their views - people who believe in God (or something) but don't go to church, synagogue, mosque, etc or consider themselves 'religious' - people who left the question blank The number of true atheists in the world is probably less than ten percent of the population, even in the most secular countries of Europe.
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Why it is that in a predominantly Protestant country a Catholic Martyr has become the Saint of the season's gifts party no one really knows for sure. Nicolas of Myra (going from memory here, as usual can't be bothered looking it up) was not just a Catholic saint, since he was around before the Catholics and Orthodx split. He was a 4th century Eastern bishop in what we now call Turkey around whom several myths and legends have grown up. On top of the early Eastern legends, Europeans later added random bits of Nordic and Germanic elements to his story, so that he now lives at the north pole, etc. Originally his robes and hat were those of a bishop, and until the late 19th and early 20th century he was depicted as a thin gaunt man with a long beard in rather dull coloured flowing robes. Somewhere along the line Europeans were kind enough to give him a fur collar and cuffs and fur lined hat or hood for the harsh European winter. And finally the Coca Cola company for an advertising campaign in the 1930s gave him the red and white (guess why???) pyjamas we are now used to seeing him wear.
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Putting "no religion" on a census form isn't a declaration of Atheism.
Too true. Many of them could be Pastafarians. Followers of the True Religion. Or maybe even Sub-Genius types.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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And finally the Coca Cola company for an advertising campaign in the 1930s gave him the red and white (guess why???) pyjamas we are now used to seeing him wear. The whack-a-doodlest idea I've heard is that it's the color of amanita muscaria mushrooms that the Lapp shamans consumed (second hand by drinking the urine of the reindeer they fed the mushrooms to) to go on their shamanistic flights. They left and returned by flying through the smoke holes of their tents, hence Santa's entry through the chimney.
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And finally the Coca Cola company for an advertising campaign in the 1930s gave him the red and white (guess why???) pyjamas we are now used to seeing him wear. The whack-a-doodlest idea I've heard is that it's the color of amanita muscaria mushrooms that the Lapp shamans consumed (second hand by drinking the urine of the reindeer they fed the mushrooms to) to go on their shamanistic flights. They left and returned by flying through the smoke holes of their tents, hence Santa's entry through the chimney. Aww, shucks, y'all made that'n up y'self faldo! 
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The whack-a-doodlest idea I've heardI am an aficionado of krank-kook-ism, and the work of one John Allegro yclept The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) is one of the doodly-whackiest ( link). It makes a great reading companion to the just as pseudo-scholarly, though slightlyless whacky, and still controversial Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968) of R Gordon Wasson ( link). Allegro alleged that Jesus was actually a mushroom. (and he has a ton of Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hebraic etymologies to prove all sorts of other things; it helps that mushrooms tend to be phallic shaped. Wasson claimed that Amanita muscaria was the Vedic soma. I don't remember Faldo's offered Santa Claus theory having been mentioned by either author, but it is possible, both myco-amateurs being so enormously fecund with factoids and theories. Oh, the shamans, the reindeer urine, the 'shrooms.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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And visions of sugar plums.
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Poor Nicholas of Myra, in what is now Turkey. A 1930's American
advertising campaign to drinking reindeer urine. Oh how our
discussions travel, more so that the ole' elf hisself,
to say nothing of sugar plums or 'shrooms.
Last edited by LukeJavan8; 12/28/2008 12:48 AM.
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Does Holland have a church tax like Germany? That might be a reason for so many declared atheists. Happy happy to you, too, Bran, and it's nice to see a picture of youfor a change! 
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No church tax that I know of. I remember black (!) velvet saggy bags on top of a stick that where passed along the bench rows where we put in nickles and dimes, called "collecte". Of course the rich people put in old useless buttons . (we children made that up in our home made radio plays) For the rest you've all worked it out and I've made the virtual trip to Köln. Christmas has always been celebrated as a family feast, only without Santa C and presents, but always with the tree and true candles up to the mid-sixtees. In spite of statistics and mushrooms, the country's culture has been till this day dominated by Calvinistic morals since the end of the spanish reign and religious civil war's ending in the beginning of the 17th century. (but see Pook, globbelism has changed a lot on the surface) (thanks for all the links, I can't do much searching; as long as I don't have my own computer back I 'm just a wandering visitor).
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Why might a Roman Catholic martyr be celebrated in a predominately protestant country at Christmas time? May I suggest the following for consideration. Assuming that the protestant country referred to is the Netherlands, one of the reasons has to do with Reformation history and the formation of the various protestant churches. What must be realized is that the Reformation did not consist of an absolute and total repudiation of Christianity before the 16th Century. The Reformed or Calvinistic Reformation was a restoration movement that intended to restore Christianity to its Biblical roots in part by removing the unbiblical accretions instituted by Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthdoxy. Some and even much of pre-16th Century Christianity was retained by Protestantism. I was going to write more on differences within Protestantism to explain the existence of differing practices and traditions connected with Christmas -- but will not for now.
Vaughn Hathaway
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And what could better represent the restoration of Christianity to its Biblical roots than the greed and spending frenzy personified by the ghost of a Roman Catholic martyr?
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Christmas was hardly celebrated at all in Scotland until the 1950s when English TV introduced it to the dour northerners. Even today some exclusive Presbyterian sects don't acknowlege it as a valid expression of Christian celebration.
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The Pook is correct. The addition of Christmas in the 1930s to the annual calendar of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (the Southern Presbyterian Church), which merged with the Presbyterian Church in the USA (the Northern Presbyterian Church) in the early 1980s, was labeled by conservatives, who eventually founded the Presbyterian Church in America in the 1970s, as a move away from biblical Christianity. The commercialization of Christmas is not a fruit of Christianity. The additional item that I chose not to include in my first post is what separates strictly Reformed Christian denominations, such as the Pook referenced, from other Protestant denominations, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. It is a doctrine called the Regulative Principle of Worship and is based on an interpretation of the Second Commandment found in Exodus 20:4-6. Simply stated the RPW limits acceptable Christian worship and celebrations to those that are specifically indicated in the Bible. Since Christmas is not one such, it has not been observed by many Reformed (i.e., Presbyterian) Christians. Unfortunately, many Protestant Christians do observe Christmas; but to their credit decry the commercialization of the corporate world. Christians this side of heaven are not perfect. They are all sinners.
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Simply stated the RPW limits acceptable Christian worship and celebrations to those that are specifically indicated in the Bible. And that would be just the traditional Jewish holidays except Hanukkah?
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No. Sunday (celebrating the Resurrection) as for the day of worship and the observation of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper (Communion or Eucharist) including the several elements of worship such as prayer, singing of praise, reading and preaching the Word (the Scriptures or the Bible). Christians do not observe the Old Testament feasts such as the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) or Passover except as their implications are assimilated into the Lord's Supper for example. Jesus, who Christians believe to be the Second Person of the Godhead, instituted the Lord's Supper which was to be and is observed in these New Testament times with elements of Passover.
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Ah. I wasn't aware that they were actually stipulated as holidays. Of course, I'm only going by hearsay on the biblical stipulation of the Jewish holidays.
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The regulative principle is often misunderstood. It's true generally speaking that Anglican and Lutheran denominations work on the principle of if it's not prohibited by the bible it's allowable while the Reformed tradition says if it's not in the bible it's not allowed. However, Presbyterians distinguish between matters of content or theological substance and matters of form in worship. The latter are not so important. Moreover, the principle was meant to exclude things like Roman Catholic saints days and Mariolatry, etc. Conservative Presbyterians have mounted good cases within their own tradition's beliefs for celebrating Christmas, and most Presbyterians do so. Christmas is celebrating the birth of the Saviour and that is certainly in Scripture. A related irony is that many who hold strictly to the regulative principle (even some who don't like Christmas) often celebrate Reformation Sunday. But this is all getting a bit theological and drifting into areas that are verboten by the no religion thread police... 
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And the 12 days of Christmas??
Very interesting topic above, even if verboten by the
police.
Christmas trees on the curb for trash on 26 December, whereas
that is only the 2nd day of Christmas with the 12th being
the day the Magi appeared in the reckoning of the Church
way long before the Reformation.
The 12 days of Christmas are after the Christmas day itself, up
to Epiphany: day 12.
Last edited by LukeJavan8; 01/09/2009 6:33 PM.
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Simply stated the RPW limits acceptable Christian worship and celebrations to those that are specifically indicated in the Bible. And that would be just the traditional Jewish holidays except Hanukkah? And Hanukkah is found in the Bible, the Bible still used by Catholics and Orthodox, before Luther threw out the Books of Macabbees. This is 2000 years vs. the 500 since the Reformation.
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And Hanukkah is found in the Bible, the Bible still used by Catholics and Orthodox,
before Luther threw out the Books of Macabbees. This is 2000 years vs. the 500 since
the Reformation.
Way I heard it, and as I said in a later post I only have it by hearsay, that while the events around which Hanukkah is based might be found in the Bible, Hanukkah itself is not a holiday mandated by God as the other Jewish holidays are. Similarly, the events around which the major Christian holidays are based, to my knowledge, are not mandated by God as holidays. I can see, for example, the Eucharist as a ritual but not the celebration of Maundy Thursday as a holiday. While the date of the Resurrection can be calculated based on the dates of Passover I don't see anything that states it should be celebrated as a holiday. Perhaps, PastorVon, if he isn't ignoring me, could enlighten me. The dating of the Nativity is, of course, quite controversial. I've heard that the fact that the shepherds were tending there flocks means that it was in the spring and James Tabor, the author of The Jesus Dynasty, has said that he thinks it was in September, IIRC.
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What Faldo says is correct, about Hannukah (however it's spelt) and the various Christian feasts he mentions. Although there is some implied scriptural mandate for the celebration of Easter, if not for an annual date, at least for celebrating it every Sunday, the day Jesus rose - the early church met specially on that day from the start for that reason.
Regarding Luke's statement about the extra books of the Old Testament, it's not as simple as that. It was not Luther who "threw out" the seven inter-testamental writings (and additions to two other books) that had always been accepted as scripture up to that point. That's historically incorrect.
First, they were not always accepted by everyone. The Jews, at the council of Jamnia in ca 80AD failed to include them in their Canon of the Hebrew Scriptures. I don't believe any of them are among the books or portions of books found in the Dead Sea Scrolls either. In the 4th century, several prominent Church Fathers declared them non-Canonical and not authoritative, only to be read for edification. Augustine (Luther's favourite father!) accepted them, Jerome did not. Various figures throughout history up to the Reformation continued to express doubts about them. There were other books, too, such as 1 & 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, that were not accepted by Rome but were accepted by parts of the Eastern Orthodox church (called the Anagignoskomena). And there are yet other ones that practically nobody accepts.
Second, these extra books (Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, and the additions to Daniel and Esther) were only finally definitively and officially accepted as scripture by the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in 1561, AFTER the Reformation. That is why they are sometimes referred to by Rome as the 'Deutero-Canonical' books, because they were part of a "second" canoning process by the Roman Church, having not been part of the canon prior to that.
So the idea that the "Protestant" Old Testament Canon (which is also the Jewish one!) is only 500 years old versus a Catholic Canon which is four times more ancient, is actually an historical fallacy. The Roman Canon is some 50 years later than Luther, not 1500 years earlier!
Last edited by The Pook; 01/10/2009 4:12 AM.
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Simply stated the RPW limits acceptable Christian worship and celebrations to those that are specifically indicated in the Bible. And that would be just the traditional Jewish holidays except Hanukkah? And Hanukkah is found in the Bible, the Bible still used by Catholics and Orthodox, before Luther threw out the Books of Macabbees. This is 2000 years vs. the 500 since the Reformation. It would be erroneous to blame Luther for "throwing out" the Books of Macabbees, because the Deuterocanonical books were never universally accepted by the Church, whether Eastern or Western, on the same level as the Canonical books. Even Jerome who first translated them questioned their authenticity. But, even if it were conceded that the Books of Macabbees were to be included in the list of canonical books, it would be erroneous to include Hannakuh as a mandated feast for two reasons: 1) you would have to prove that the references to Hannakuh were not purely narrative; and 2) that any subsequent observation of Hannakuh was not abrogated by the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ as explicated by the Epistle to the Hebrews. Hebrews very clearly demonstrates that even those Jewish feasts that were mandated before the coming of Jesus Christ were superseded by the sacrificial work of Christ and are no longer to be observed. Just because something is found in the Bible does not make it into something to be observed.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
1) you would have to prove that the references to Hannakuh were not purely narrative; My comment was that Hanukkah wasn't a mandated feast. 2) that any subsequent observation of Hannakuh was not abrogated by the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ as explicated by the Epistle to the Hebrews. Do we know who wrote Hebrews? Is that one that biblical scholars are pretty sure was written by Paul?
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