The multi-layered history of Christmas and Hanukkah


At this time of the year it is interesting to reflect on the origins of the festivals we are celebrating. The modern version of Christmas which many contemporary American Christians believe is under threat did not appear until the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Christmas trees and Santa Claus) and was in fact opposed by 17thC American Puritans as "unchristian". As a couple of articles point out the histories of Christmas and Hanukkah are not as simple as some adherents might believe and are in fact accretions of many layers of belief and tradition which have occurred over centuries. Gary Leupp , a professor of history and comparative religion at Tufts University points out that Christmas had its origins as the birthday celebrations of the Persian god Mithras (a virgin birth also) who was quite popular in the Roman Empire, to which was added later the Roman Saturnalia, and Celtic and Germanic winter solstice festivals (with the green pine tree). Santa came much later still. James Ponet in Slate does something similar to Hanukkah. [Read more]

At this time of the year it is interesting to reflect on the origins of the festivals we are celebrating. The modern version of Christmas which many contemporary American Christians believe is under threat did not appear until the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Christmas trees and Santa Claus) and was in fact opposed by 17thC American Puritans as "unchristian". As a couple of articles point out the histories of Christmas and Hanukkah are not as simple as some adherents might believe and are in fact accretions of many layers of belief and tradition which have occurred over centuries. Gary Leupp , a professor of history and comparative religion at Tufts University points out that Christmas had its origins as the birthday celebrations of the Persian god Mithras (a virgin birth also) who was quite popular in the Roman Empire, to which was added later the Roman Saturnalia, and Celtic and Germanic winter solstice festivals (with the green pine tree). Santa came much later still. James Ponet in Slate does something similar to Hanukkah where he argues that "read in its historical context, however, the Hanukkah story is really about a revolt against the Hellenized Jews who had fallen madly in love with the sophisticated, globalizing superculture of their day. The Apocrypha's texts make it clear that the battle against Hellenization was in fact a kulturkampf among the Jews themselves... In Judea, then, there were Jews choosing to die rather than publicly profane Jewish law—and there were Jews risking death to free themselves from the parochial constraints of that law. The historic Jewish passion to merge and disappear confronted the attested Jewish will to stand apart and persist. That's the clash of Hanukkah. Armed Hasmonean priests and their comrades from the rural town of Modi'in attacked urban Jews, priests and laity alike, who supported Greek reform, like the gymnasium and new rules for governing commerce. The Hasmoneans imposed, at sword's edge, traditional observance. After years of protracted warfare, the priests established a Hasmonean state that never ceased fighting Jews who disagreed with its rule. So the miracle-of-the-oil celebration of Hanukkah that the rabbis later invented covers up a blood-soaked struggle that pitted Jew against Jew. The rabbis drummed out this history with a fairy tale about a light that did not go out. But really, who can blame them—after all, what nation creates a living monument to a civil war?"

Posted: Tue - December 27, 2005 at 12:40 PM        

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