EXCERPT FROM GOOD OLD TIME RELIGION
IS THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN THE Bible?
Have you ever wondered why the whole world cuts down a tree and brings it into their home during the Yule season? There is a reason. You might not want to know it though. The real history behind the "Christmas" tree is as shocking as finding out that your uncle Frank, whom you love dearly, was a serial killer years ago, but he is a sweet old man now. If you don't like hard truths, please stop reading now.
THE HISTORY
William Sansom, in "A Book of Christmas," states that human sacrifice originated during the winter solstice, which falls around December 25th. He says, “The giving of presents, particularly candles and dolls, called Sigillaria also derives from the insistent origin of human sacrifice at this time of year......Winter solstice traditions included giving dolls to children. Scholars believe that the term doll is derived from the word idol and may specifically refer to the “dolls” or clay effigies that were placed under evergreen trees in the home, imitating the actual sacrifice of children made under a grove of evergreen trees.
THE EVERGREEN TREE
The words “green tree” (evergreen tree) are used 10 different times in the Bible in connection with idolatrous worship and, in four cases, with child sacrifice. Sun worship or Baal worship required firstborn children to be burned alive by “passing through the fire to Molech” under a grove of evergreens.
Stop and think about the fact that thousands of years ago, the whole world worshipped the sun. Firstborn children were sacrificed under green trees (stayed green all year) and this is specifically mentioned in the Bible! Read Isaiah 57!
Isaiah 57:5 “Enflaming yourselves with idols, under every green tree slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks...”
Jeremiah 10 certainly does sound like a description of the modern Christmas tree! But rather than commanding us to put a tree in our house, it says, “Thus says the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; (the winter solstice of December 25th) for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain, for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the axe. They deck it with silver and gold, they fasten it with nails and with hammers that it moves not....” Jeremiah 10:2-4
In fact, the whole book of Jeremiah mentions the solstice god Baal or Baalim 13 times altogether and it is in connection with sun worship that God is stating, “learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. (The signs of heaven that he alludes to is the December 25th winter solstice!) Sun worshippers were astronomers who clocked the movements of the sun, moon and stars as part of their religion. The winter solstice was fear provoking to them.....and that is how human sacrifice began.
Can it be a coincidence that scriptures directly place child sacrifice and the evergreen tree in the same context? People who want to say, yes Christmas may have pagan origins, but we have "Christianized it," need to remember that it was a time of child sacrifice. That can never be sanitized or made acceptable! It would be like saying yes, old uncle Frank was a serial killer, but he was nice to me and he went to church, so he was a great man in my book. That just doesn't fly. Neither can we keep a holiday that is so evil with a clear conscience before God. His admonition concerning the matter, if that matters to us, is "Keep not the way of the heathen."
Several paragraphs were excerpted from our article "Good Old Time Religion"
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