-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Is Pesach Pagan?
- Thread starter Rival
- Start date
Everything is pagan as words don't have meaning any longer. 
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Is Lent pagan?
no / no
Wandering Monk
Well-Known Member
Paganoia.
I know of no Pagans that celebrate them, and I never celebrated them when I identified as Pagan, so I'm going with no?
Yes, pagans Lent it to Christians, of course.
One can only assume that Easter was appropriated by Christians and based on its predecessor, East. It remains to be seen when Eastest will arrive as the next version of the appropriated pagan holiday.
Not the question I ask as a Pagan. The question I ask as a Pagan is "why are you all comparing your non-Pagan holidays to our holidays all the time in the first place? If you want to be Pagan, just be Pagan and get it over with for gods sakes!"
Augustus
…
That's impossible.
Jesus was a Jacobean who wrote the King James Bible.
The Victoria Sponge didn't exist then. Sake.
Augustus
…
In the beginning, the Victoria sponge was coexistant with God.
Tamino
Active Member
I'd say it's an anti-pagan holiday. The entire festival pretty much celebrates "my God is better than your gods". I once spent Seder with colleague's family near Tel'Aviv. They didn't know I'm Kemetic.
It was a weird experience... step by step they recreate this ritual environment where the Egyptian polytheists are evil and get defeated, and the Jews are freed. I can kinda appreciate the basic idea of freedom from oppression... but it was still weird.
Ehav4Ever
Well-Known Member
It depends. What is your definition of the word "pagan" and where does your definition come from? Hopefully not pagans.
Last edited:
Tamino
Active Member
@Jayhawker Soule well, how would you summarize it, then?
For you, and in a (perhaps unserious) thread about paganism? I wouldn't.
Callisto
Hellenismos, BTW
Was rather than is, it went through changes over the centuries:
The Surprising Ancient Origins of Passover
Haaretz.com
(Excerpt)
Not only does our modern Seder wildly diverge from the Passover of old: during antiquity itself the holiday underwent radical changes... As the centralized Israelite state took shape about 3,000 years ago, the religion of the people varied from place to place and took variegated forms, hints of which we can see in the Bible, virtually the only historical narrative we have of this period. Among the different folk beliefs and frankly polytheistic practices these proto-Israelites practiced, the springtime rites seem to have had special status. Two of these rituals would later become subsumed by Passover: Pesach and Hag Hamatzot.
Pesach was a pastoral apotropaic ritual, that is: its purpose is to ward off evil. It was carried out by the semi-nomadic segment of Israelite society that subsisted on livestock. Spring was a critical time of the year for them, a time of lambing and a sign that soon they would have to migrate to find a summer pasture for their flock.
Hag Hamatzot, on the other hand, was celebrated by the settled segment of Israelite society, who lived in villages and who drew their subsistence from farming. For them too spring was crucial, meaning the start of the harvest, of the cereals on which they depended.
The holidays are merged
As the monarchy was established and a centralized religion took form, the two holidays began merging into one. The process was a gradual one, which culminated in both converging to the full moon in the middle of the spring month of Nisan. The location of the celebrations was moved from the home and the community to the Temple in Jerusalem.
It was no longer supposed to be a family affair but a centralized national observance: the Book of Deuteronomy clearly stipulates that the Pesach sacrifice may not be made “within any of thy gates” but rather at the Temple. (16:5-6)
[Fast forward to 44 BCE]
The civil war that resulted from the murder of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE led to the demise of the Hasmonean Dynasty and the ascent of Herod the Great to the Judean crown in 37 BCE, as a puppet ruler of Rome. This had little effect on Passover, which continued pretty much as it was under Hasmonean rule. However, the vast numbers of Jews coming from throughout the Roman Empire forced change, as there was no longer room for everyone to have their paschal mean within the confines of the Temple. The rules were relaxed to the extent that the meal could be eaten anywhere within Jerusalem...
The Passover meal in this form was the meal described in the New Testament as Jesus’ last supper.
The Passover meal in this form was the meal described in the New Testament as Jesus’ last supper.