http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/sbs777/course/lesson13.html
Sorry, this could have been one post…
but from this link:
Providing minority Christian views is all very well, but you have, so far, failed to demonstrate that those speculations are grounded in Jewish Law or tradition.
Jewish Encyclopedia: other references to Sabbath
It has been a popular passtime among some Christians to extrapolate what Jewish Law/custom/belief was, (or “should” have been), based on the theological needs of those Christians. However, without some Jewish evidence for your position, it strikes me that most of the claims for Sabbath on a day other than our Saturday are spurious.
Svt, you’re aware that your second link is a Christian link, are you not?
you haven’t really produced any evidence that Judaism would designate a different day than Saturday as the Sabbath. The clearest reading by far of the Gospels is that it was a normal Sabbath which John further identified as a Holy Day.
It seems to me like you’re linking to Fundamentalist apologists who are trying to spin the gospels in suchh a way as to make them fit a literal prophesy of Jesus spending “three days and nights” in the tomb.
All I can tell you is that the arguments are very flawed and that they are out of step with serious scholarship.
I will calm down upon the day that people stop ignorantly looking at just the West and then impute it to all of Christianity, which includes Orthodoxy. On that day, I will calm down. Until then, I will expose the ignorance for what it is, or is it bad to fight ignorance on this board?
So, in other words, he’s perfectly qualified to make blanket claims about Christianity, just like many posters on this board.
Thank you for admitting it. you people hate horror movies, you hate scary costumes, you hate innocent fun, and you hate the idea that anyone can have a good time that is not sanctioned by your church.
And of course, you hate me and mine, but that’s 24/7/365.
That’s the same place that seems to neglect that the Cult Awareness Network was purchased by Scientology, instead claiming that it was bought by some sort of body devoted to “religious understanding”, right? **
[/QUOTE]
No, they didn’t. In the first few paragraphs of “the NEW C.A.N”, on:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/acm2.htm
The tell it all out.
And the “promoting religious understanding” tagline is their own, not the C.A.N.'s, pre or post Travolta.
MP,
Lou
Well, yes. But not at the expense of being a jerk. That’s the #1 rule around here. Seeings how this isn’t the Pit, your immediate ad hominem attacks and general nastyness directed at those who don’t share your opinion is pretty uncalled for.
You do realize that lashing out at people is a great way to alienate them, don’t you? Alienated people aren’t going to be rushing to agree with you or even really care about your position.
I’m actually suprised that everyone you’ve attacked here has remained so calm in their responses. Says a lot about the character (amongst most posters) of this board.
Whoops, that was supposed to me “Well, no.”
Yes, I can see how my argument is flawed, since it doesn’t agree with you. But since obviously they are all wrong since they are not Jewish, please tell me what the second last paragraph says in this link: http://www.torahresource.com/English%20Articles/Rm%2014%20&%20Sabbath.pdf
Let me make it easy for you:
“Should one begin to bring the omer of grain to the priests following Pesach, Pesach being a Sabbath regardless of what day of the week it fel upon.”
Bolding mine. But maybe this still isn’t Jewish enough for you?
oops, fell upon…:smack:
Errrrmmm so what the hell does any of this have to do with Halloween… Open yer own danged thread! Sheesh Bloody hijackers bloody littering up bloody threads with their bloody posts!
Ok so Here is my view of this issue this year.
There is nothing wrong with a good harmless scare or thrill. This time of year the little ones want to dress up and get candy, and there is nothing evil about that (Unless kids beging for free shell outs seems godless)
Some people dress up scary or do up their house with macbre imagry and try to add a little atmosphere, again no foul. No one is going out trying to invoke Satan to take over the world, nor are they really killing or harming anyone.
If someone takes offense to it fine, that is their perogative, however if they actively try to ruin it for others then that is another thing all together. I stand by my poory written post last year when I say these people have some defieciency that makes them only happy when others are as miserable as they are.
Happy Halloween everyone… Be safe and be happy. If you are not celibrating then enjoy whatever it is you want to do… just don’t try to spoil everyone elses good time.
That’s still not a Jewish source, Svt, it’s a website for Messianic Jews. Messianic Jews are Christians. Torahresource.com uses pseudo-Jewish language and Hebraisms to push a born-again Christian message.
There really isn’t a reason to infer that the Sabbath of the Passions was anything other than a normal Saturday. John also designates it as the Passover (a day later than the synoptics) which is why it is referred to as a “high” day.
Look at the way it’s phrased in John ("for that Sabbath was a high day). It doesn’t say that day was a “High Sabbath.” It was a Sabbath first and a Holy Day second.
Well, the Sabbath before Passover starts is called Shabbat haGadol, which is usually translated “The Great Sabbath”, but could also be translated “The High Sabbath”, so maybe that was what John was referring to.
I understand where you’re coming from. Many people make blithe statements about “Christian” beliefs and practices which are based on largely Western perceptions of Christianity and which ignore Eastern Orthodoxy (“Original Sin” is a perfect example).
My intention with my “Pagan Easter” remark, however, was not that “Christians” as a monolithic group practice Pagan traditions. I was only pointing out the irony that many of the same people who condemn Halloween as pagan also paint Easter eggs and decorate Christmas trees and those are Pagan traditions as well. I’m really only addressing the more secularized, non-religious practices and trappings of those holidays, not church practices or doctrine. If Eastern Orthodoxy does not practice these traditions then they are exempt from the hypocrisy I’m alleging for some western fundies.
I think you may be right. If John’s Passover started on Saturday Night then the period from friday sundown to saturday sundown would qualify for such a designation.
True enough, since “Messianic Jews” are Christians, not Jews.
Now, the argument that the article describes is interesting. However, it seems to indicate, mostly, that there was not a unanimous opinion within the Jewish community on the subject. In the Jewish Encyclopedia article on Pentecost/Shabu’ot, they note:
In other words, those holding for Pesach as sabbath indicated their belief merely that it was a day of rest, not that it was a special Sabbath in the way that we might capitalize the word.
For the record, here are some relevant links on this subject.
Also, can we please get back to the subject of this thread?
Not necessarily. The Eostre-Easter theory rests only on a single comment by Bede and it has long troubled the experts that there are no other sources mentioning a goddess called ‘Eostre’ (despite all the ingenious attempts to come up with the Ishtar-type comparisons). Many historians therefore think that Bede had simply fallen for a dodgy piece of folk etymology. It would be a bit like guessing that Thanksgiving was an attempt to hijack the commemoration of the mysterious pagan goddess Novem. Also the spring equinox (there is no such thing as the ‘Spring Solstice’) never coincided with Eosturmonath.
Actually, there is no real evidence that Christmas trees do derive from pagan traditions. Although the alternative story involving Luther is also wrong (or at least not the whole story), Christmas trees can only be documented back to the late Middle Ages. That is far too late for it to be plausibly suggested as some sort of pagan survival. There is slightly more evidence that Easter eggs might derive from pagan traditions, although even then that theory is mostly just guesswork.
Most of the clues are in the passage quoted by Dogface. There is no reason to believe that the German churches had moved the date. Churches in several different places came up with the idea of a feast day for martyrs, quite possibly independently of each other, and the German churches happened to pick 1 November. No one seems to know why that date was chosen, but, as the Germans had never celebrated Samhain or, so far as we know, any other pagan festival on that date, we shouldn’t just jump to the conclusion that the choice of date was intended to be significant.