Christmas ? Trees a Delusion?

[Bible Speaks]

The Bible says: "Do not learn the way of the nations. . .For the customs of the peoples are a delusion. It is just a tree of the forest that is cut down. . .They adorn it with silver and gold and fasten it with hammer and nails so that it will not fall over." (Jeremiah 10:2-4) The Encyclopædia Britannica states regarding the Christmas tree: “Tree worship was common among the pagan Europeans and survived their conversion to Christianity.” It was done in various rites and customs, including “the custom . . . of placing a Yuletree at an entrance or inside the house during the midwinter holidays.” Too, the early Romans marked the winter solstice with a feast called the Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs. Also, the Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of their sun god, Balder. Today, the Christmas tree is recognized all over the world, and the demand for countless millions of natural and artificial Christmas trees seems endless. Meanwhile, Scandinavian rock carvings provide silent testimony, literally set in stone, that the Christmas tree is not of Christian origin. This is evident in Bohuslän Province on the west coast of Sweden and in a nearby province in Norway. In those areas, more than 75,000 individual rock carvings have been found at some 5,000 different sites. Archaeologists say that many of these rock carvings were made between about 1,800 and 500 B.C.E. The book Rock Carvings in the Borderlands, published in cooperation with the Swedish National Heritage Board, says: “The images of trees in rock carvings illustrate that as early as the Bronze Age the southern Scandinavian region was part of a larger religious and cultural context that covered the whole of Europe and large parts of Asia. Religion and cosmology were adapted to people whose livelihoods were farming and animal husbandry. They largely worshipped the same gods, although the names of the gods varied.”

[Ann O'Maly]

 "A main concern is, not what the practice meant hundreds of years ago, but how it is viewed today in your area. Understandably, opinions may vary from one place to another. Hence, it is wise to avoid turning such matters into big issues." - g03 9/22 p. 24