With the Holidays here in the States upon us, I've been wondering which course on here discusses these. My memory is slipping as I age, but I vaguely remember a course that discusses holidays. Does anyone know which one it is? I'd like to go back and retake it.
Yes it is Church life: AD 150! I am currently going through that course!
Thank you brother.
Does it actually talk about Holidays? Like how?
Yes Brother David does. As I said, my memory is failing me some. If I remember correctly, during the pagan festival of Saturnus?, they put lots of lights around their homes and decorated their homes with "garlands". Sounds a lot like most people do for Christmas, doesn't it? I would suggest taking the course so you can see rightly for yourself brother, as I may have gotten that wrong.
I just finished that module! Yea it mostly talks about Easter and Christmas and then briefly at the end it talks about New Year, Holloween, Valentines day, St Patrick’s day, and Thanksgiving.
He teaches that the earliest Christians celebrated easter. It was called Pischar which means passover and they celebrated the Lord’s resurrection every year on that day. They did it around the same time as the Jewish passover on Nissan 14. Mid 2nd Century writings verify that they celebrated Easter and there is strong evidence that the apostle John taught the custom to the churches to practice. All the churches were in agreement on practicing it.
They only had confliction on what day they should practice it, whether they would practice it on Nissan 14 or the following Sunday on the Lord’s day. They fasted and prayed the day before and at dawn they praised the Lord and ate and celebrated the Lord’s resurrection together. Rabbits and eggs were merely a later pagan corruption and addition to the holiday later on in history. That is the only early Christian originated holiday that can be found in their writings.
Christmas wasn’t known until the 4th century after the church got corrupted and mixed with the world with Constantine. They don’t know where it started or who started it but they know it was formed by Christians to counteract the Roman pagan holiday Saturnalia which took place around the same time in December. They took over that holiday with Christmas and adopted many of its customs (decorating their doors with wreaths and their houses with colored lights and giving gifts).
Those were the main details he gave about those two holidays. The other ones he gives some minor origin history on but nothing too significant. It is all good information. The Module is a good module to learn from if you want more knowledge on the origins of holidays. Easter and Christmas were the most significant holidays you could learn about in it.
