The connection between Christmas and Saturnalia

BibleThinker

Mike Winger

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2022

⏱️ 3 minutes

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Summary

One thing I didn't mention in the video is the idea that Saturnalia did involve gift giving. At first glance, this might seem to imply that the gift giving of Christmas must be borrowed from the gift giving of Saturnalia. But there are some obstacles to establishing that connection. First, gift giving is a widespread practice across many different celebratory days. It doesn't really mean that much to see the giving of gifts on a holiday of some kind. It's the error of many to presume that similarity = origin, even when they don't have additional evidence to support that it does. Second, gifts were given on the 19th of December in association with Saturnalia, not the 25th. Imagine how clumsy it would be for the early Christians to feel they need to have a festival to replace Saturnalia, only to put it on the wrong date, leaving the people with nothing to replace Saturnalia during its actual events. More Christmas videos here: CLICK HERE for the full "Is Christmas Pagan?" video CLICK HERE for my video dispelling other Christmas myths and wrong popular beliefs about Jesus' birth CLICK HERE for my video about the theology behind Christmas songs Does Jeremiah 10 ban Christmas trees? CLICK HERE to find out My website: https://BibleThinker.org

Transcript

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0:00.0	Is December 25th pagan, as many people suggest?
0:03.6	Is it the Roman celebration of Saturnalia?
0:05.7	Here's a meme for you, happy Saturnalia.
0:08.0	That's what you're really celebrating, anyway,
0:09.6	you Bible-thumping moron.
0:12.0	The Roman celebration of Saturnalia
0:13.4	was actually December 17th through the 23rd.
0:17.0	So if we were actually putting Christmas on Saturnalia,
0:21.6	why did we pick two days after the festival ended?
0:25.6	The 17th was the day.
0:27.3	This was the day of Saturnalia.
0:29.0	Slowly over time, the Romans extended that celebration
0:31.7	because they enjoyed it.
0:32.8	So they made it longer and longer.
0:33.9	Eventually, it got to be a week long at the longest
0:36.3	and then it ended on the 23rd.
0:39.2	They did do something very similar
0:41.4	to what people sometimes rarely do nowadays on Christmas.
0:44.0	That is they would go house to house
0:45.6	or at least walking on the street while singing.
0:49.2	Make it.
0:53.2	Not really a custom that we've entirely adopted, I don't think.
	...

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