Jewish Roots in Christianity

[Penn]

I am a regular attendee at St Paul Methodist Church in Lusby, and for the past five weeks we've had a most enlightening Adult Sunday School class. We had as a guest host a messaniac synagogue leader from up north in the Baltimore area. From the start, he said that some of the ideas he would be teaching would not sit well with many of us, but to bear with him. He did say he was there "to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged Methodists" To go to the heart of the matter he offered that Christ was not born on Christmas Day, but in fact some time in February.(I'd heard this before, but not the Feb part). Next, he said what we Christians normally celebrate on Easter is Christ's resurection was actually named after a Pagan god of fertility! Hence the Easter bunny and the egg are both symbols of fertility. Does anyone have any information/feedback for me on this?

 

[BudoPo]

Welcome to the forums!

Both Christmas and Easter were Pagan holidays that were used by the early church to help attract followers. In this way, Pagans could convert to Christianity, yet still celebrate their more popular festivals. Christmas was a winter solstace holiday, and Easter a rebirth (spring time thing) holiday. No one knows the exact day Jesus was born, and December 25th was used for the above reason (around the year 400, if I recall correctly). Easter is pretty close to the time of his crusifiction, so that worked out well, timing wise.

Even though the holidays and symbols (tree, bunnies, eggs, etc) are all of Pagan origins, it's the meaning of the holiday today that's important.

As for the other part of your post, there's a Methodist church in Mechanicsville (I think) that has an adult "learn about our Jewish roots" type of class. They also go to services once or twice a year to the synagogue in Lexington Park. They're often surprised at seeing a lot of similarities. But, there are also some small, but highly significant, differences between Christianity and Judaism, which a messianic congregation, in my humble opinion, overlooks. I don't know if your church has a similar class as the one in Mechanicsville, but I'm sure the synagogue in Lexington Park would be more than happy to help however they can.

 

[Penn]

Thank you for the info, BudoPo. You know, you sit there in class and after one of these revelations, you kinda feel the wind quickly blowing past your ears, realizing you've not heard that one before. It leaves you sorta stunned; begging more questions than there are answers.
penncam:

 

[Frank]

I once read a good piece that suggested that Jesus might have been born in October or November - at the end of harvest time, when people would be available for a census.