Did you know that in an increasing number of colleges and universities today, Biblical Christianity is being taught and presented as being nothing more than a myth? According to Richard Rives, author of Too Long in the Sun, and Time Is the Ally of Deceit, many of our 'institutions of higher learning' are misrepresenting Christianity as though it is nothing more than a revamping or a reinvention of Babylonian, Greek and Roman mythologies, and on the basis of that accusation they are making the false argument that, 'Enlightened, intelligent and forward thinking people' should abandon their belief in Almighty God and Jesus Christ, His Son.
Now, you and I love Yahweh Almighty God, and who love His Son the Messiah, and who believe the Scriptures, are quite naturally appalled and disgusted by such a vile false argument. Nonetheless, according to Rives, that appalling deceitful argument is gaining strength in our college campuses in our modern and postmodern day.
No doubt, your knee-jerk reaction is probably the exact same as the reaction I had when I first heard and read about the scenario taking place among our impressionable college kids. I thought to myself, 'Hey, that's absurd!! Who could possibly confuse Babylonian, Greek and Roman mythologies with Biblical Christianity, let alone make a plausible argument that truly biblical Christianity and these other ungodly pagan mythologies are one and the same thing?" "Who could turn such a whopper of a lie into a plausible argument and make people believe it?"
To my shock and horror, turning that awful lie into a plausible argument was not as hard as I had imagined it would be when I first began investigating the subject. Here's how they do it.
They take various aspects of true biblical Christianity, such as the virgin birth, and the visitation of the wise men from the East and they LOOSELY connect them to some Babylonian texts or legends. Then they go on to point out that the key characteristics of Christianity which most Christians observe today, most notably, Sunday worship, Christmas, Easter, Lent and Valentine's Day and other things like these have a clear documented history of originating in Babylon, Greece and Rome which is older than biblical Christianity.
Then they trace the customary 'celebrations', legends and decorations which Christians commonly use to commemorate Love, the birth, death and resurrection of Messiah today, and they easily trace them back to Babylonian, Greek and Roman worship practices, which are widely and historically documented. For one example, the birthday of Nimrod founder of Babylon, the birthday of the Roman sun deity, the Egyptian sun deity, the Nordic sun and fertility deity, the Syrian sun deity, and other supposed deities, (I don't mention the names of these false deities because Scripture forbids doing so- Exodus 23:13), but all of these false supposed 'deities' were all proclaimed to have been born or re-born on December 25th.
So these 'scholars' point to all of the Babylonian Greek and Roman customs and traditions which Christianity has so readily accepted and made commonplace in 'Christian worship,' and then these scholars make the libelous argument that since so many of Christianity's celebrations and practices have their clear origin from Babylonian Greek and Roman mythologies, they claim that Christianity must be nothing more than a myth. They claim that Christianity must be nothing more than a mere re-adaptation of these ancient mythological religions, and so they claim that Christianity should not be believed any more than the intelligent person should believe and follow ancient Babylonian Greek or Roman mythologies.
Yes, the argument that I just described is yet another direct assault against Biblical Christianity by people who hate God, who hate Jesus Christ, who despise and have contempt for people who hold a biblical faith.
Yes the argument I just described, is being forcibly advanced in our colleges by many a left-wing socialists and atheists who want to advance the theory that faith in God and the Bible must surely be antiquated and outdated because they say, "Humanity has advanced far beyond the need for such things as God, redemption and the Bible." Of course it's an assault on Biblical Christianity, but the argument is gaining strength and becoming more popular as is evidenced by a number of documentaries about the Bible which are becoming more commonly seen on documentaries seen in places such as A&E in the history Channels.
What these liberal historians either conveniently gloss over or do not mention at all, is that for more than the first 300 years of early Christianity, the original believers in Jesus the Messiah PURPOSELY DID NOT blend in, they DID NOT mix together, and they DID NOT incorporate ANY aspect of pagan worship practices, beliefs, pagan worship traditions, philosophies, pagan festival days or decorations into Christianity.
In fact, the very early church went out of its way and took extreme measures to make certain that it did not blend Christianity with any of the pagan practices associated with worshiping other gods. They did this for a number of reasons. First, among the Hebrews who were coming to faith in Messiah, many had relatives who were heavily into rabbinical (but not necessarily biblical) Judaism. These relatives were already suspicious of the new Hebrew sect that proclaimed Yeshua (Jesus) to be the Messiah. The believers who came from a Hebrew heritage understood that if they incorporated any pagan practices into their worship, it would be a great excuse for the relatives whom they wished to see saved to reject the Messiah, and not to come into saving relationship with Messiah.
By the same token, those who were coming in to faith in Messiah from a Gentile or non-Hebrew background already knew that these pagan practices were already being used in their day to worship other gods. These believers from a Gentile background were trying to get their family members free and out of paganism, and so they would not want their relatives honoring Yahweh Almighty God and honoring Jesus as an addition to add to the top of the pile of other gods which their family members already worshiped.
They were trying to get their relatives away from the world and into Christ's fellowship. So Christians with a Gentile background did not want to mix paganism into their Christian worship, because these new Gentile converts did not want to further the mistaken point of view that Jesus was just one more god among many other gods, which was a common approach to worship among the pagan cultures of their day. So both sides, believers in Messiah from a Hebrew background and believers in Messiah who originated from a pagan Gentile background both had their own reasons for wanting to make sure that they did not blend any aspects of pagan worship into the early church. In reality many Christians actively went out of their way to make certain that they did not blend pagan practices into Christianity well into the 400s A.D. and beyond. In the early days of Christianity. MIXING ANY ASPECT OF PAGANISM IN WITH CHRISTIANITY WAS SINCERELY THOUGHT TO BE A SIN.
· Here's some key concepts that were well understood in the first centuries of Christianity which have often been forgotten in modern times:
· WE MUST UNDERSTAND that righteousness before the One True Almighty Creator God; the Great I Am That I Am (Yahweh in Hebrew) Comes by Believing HIM (Genesis 15:6; Habakkuk 2:4; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38).
· It was well understood in the first century that anything which did not originate from faith in Yahweh; or did not truly feed faith or reflect faith in Yahweh IS SIN (Romans 14:23b; 1 Corinthians 10:31).
· They understood that anything which could cause people to diverge or turn from truly believing God, and could cause people to accept ideas and philosophies which were contrary to God, would be the same as causing them to stumble into IDOLATRY. So they went out of their way to make sure that they DID NOT BLEND Christianity with other worldly philosophies and ideas that might cause people to disobey God. The apostles actively and strenuously TAUGHT AGAINST mixing Christianity with any worldly philosophy such as Gnosticism, or any other mythologies that might cause people to pollute their beliefs with other gods (2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 1 Corinthians 10:1-21; Revelation 21:7-8). They understood that what we believe is literally a matter of eternal life or death, so they did not want to risk causing people to believe other things contrary to God (James 4:4; Romans 12:1-2; Colossians 2:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:22).
· The apostles had a strong Scriptural basis for teaching that we MUST NOT blend our Biblical beliefs with anything related to other gods:
· The Almighty Creator COMMANDED that we MUST NOT MIX, DO NOT IMPORT and do not copy or DO NOT apply ANY idolatrous methods into worshiping God (Deuteronomy 12:1-4, 8, 29-32; cf. Exodus 32:1-10; Jeremiah 10:1-2). Yahweh Almighty God specifically said, "DON'T DO IT."
· God's relationship with His people has always been closely identified with the characteristics of a Holy marriage; which God Himself invented (Hosea 2:19-20; cf. Ephesians 5:31-32: John 17:11, 21 God considered the above commands to be so serious that blending Godly worship with worldly philosophies and other idolatrous religions was considered to be equal to spiritual whoring, spiritual infidelity, spiritual adultery and playing the harlot with other gods. All of those terms are used interchangeably throughout the prophets in Scripture for the idea of mixing aspects of godly worship with worldly philosophies or idolatrous ideas. In regard to prophetic Scripture, normally speaking of spiritual unfaithfulness rather than moral infidelity, that is, the idea of turning from their true God to love a human god, resulting in spiritual harlotry. The concept is so critically important that the entire book of Hosea was written to illustrate the concept (see also Judges 2:17; Exodus 34:15-16; Ezekiel 8:14 etc. etc. etc.).
In Ezekiel 8, for example, we see Israel observing a pagan idolatrous tradition, but doing so in the temple of Yahweh. If you read the chapter, you can see how Yahweh felt about it (Cf. Jeremiah 18:15).
Unlike the popular theory that is being advanced today, Christianity DID NOT originate from pagan Babylonian, Greek, and Roman mythologies. On the contrary, for more than the first 300 years of biblical Christianity, the early church went out of its way to make sure they did not blend biblical Christian doctrine with Babylonian, Greek, Roman and other pagan religions and philosophies, because they wanted to make sure that the bride of Christ (the church) would remain pure and would not defile itself or play the harlot with other worldly belief systems. The first apostles actively preached that God's people should get out of Babylon, not join with it (Revelation 18:1-4).
For this reason, early Christians purposely held their holy convocations and gatherings around the Biblical feasts and festivals which Yahweh Almighty God has ordained in Scripture (Leviticus 23), in order to keep their identity clearly separate from the world. They honored the biblical Sabbaths, they commemorated Messiah's death and holiness in the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They honored Messiah's resurrection with the Feast of First Fruits. They looked forward to the Messiah's second coming in the fall feast of trumpets, and the Day of Atonement. They look forward to the wedding supper of the Lamb and eternity, as well with the Feast of Tabernacles.
It was not until well after 312 to 314 A.D. when Emperor Constantine SUPPOSEDLY became a Christian that he FORCIBLY outlawed the biblical Sabbath. He also outlawed the Passover, and ordered that they be replaced with the Babylonian/Roman festival of Ishtar (a.k.a. Easter). Subsequent Roman emperors and Roman Senates passed laws forcing believers to abandon biblical decrees and required people to adopt the "Roman version" of Christianity. If they didn't, they could lose their properties, their liberties and even their lives.
For more then 300 years the Roman Empire tried to destroy Christianity through persecution. They could not defeat Christianity by force. So they pretended to join it and try to defeat it from within.
The Roman emperors held the title Pontificus Maximus (Which means That he claimed the right to rule over every religious belief in the empire), so when the Emperor 'became a Christian, ‘he claimed to be the head of the church and the right to change Christianity. Anyone who did not cooperate could be considered guilty of treason. Later, the Roman Catholic popes (who also claimed the title Pontificus Maximus for themselves), maintain the Imperial tradition of mixing pagan and ungodly religious belief systems with Christianity, but in the beginnings of Christianity this was not done at all.
Over the last 1701 years since Constantine, the tradition of mixing pagan religions and worldly philosophies with Christianity has become thoroughly entrenched. So much so, that for many, there is not even much awareness that these traditions are a CLEAR violation of Scripture, and that there is a far more biblical way to live. Although they are now in the minority, there has always been a remnant of God's people who supported returning to the Scriptural ways which God commanded, and not submitting to the commands of the Roman Empire and later the Roman Catholic Church.
The Argument for Keeping Human Traditions is Now Being Turned Against Christianity
Among those who support continuing to disobey Scripture in favor of maintaining the Babylonian Greco Roman Catholic traditions of men, the excuse has often been given that by mixing paganism with Christianity, Christian principles have been introduced to more pagans and Christianity has supposedly spread. Isn't it ironic that the very compromise which people said was so necessary to bring Christianity to the pagans, is now being used to claim that Christianity must have been taken from paganism in the first place, and the very compromise is now being used to try to deny the truth of Christianity altogether.The words of the prophet Ezekiel could not be more eerily appropriate:
“Her priests have done violence to My law and have profaned My holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the profane, and they have not taught the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they hide their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.” (Ezekiel 22:26, NASB95)
“You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4, NASB95)
Since we have abandoned Yahweh’s ways, and since we have failed maintain the clear separation between what Yahweh Almighty God calls clean and what He considers unclean, God is now being profaned, and centuries of compromise with paganism which was proclaimed is necessary to spread the gospel to unbelievers, is now being used as an excuse to deny God and reject the Messiah altogether.
It’s for this reason that Hebrew Roots Movements and Whole Testament Theology Movements are beginning to spring up and are now spreading throughout the world. It’s a sincere attempt to return to the ancient paths (Jeremiah 6:16), and the Biblically PROVABLE method of expressing faith in the Messiah. In so doing, it also fulfills the prophecy in Jeremiah:
“O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, And my refuge in the day of distress, To You the nations will come From the ends of the earth and say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but falsehood, Futility and things of no profit.” Can man make gods for himself? Yet they are not gods! “Therefore behold, I am going to make them know— This time I will make them know My power and My might; And they shall know that My name is the Lord.”” (Jeremiah 16:19–21, NASB95)
LET US BE A FAITHFUL BRIDE TO MESSIAH AND RETURN TO GOD’S ANCIENT PATHS.
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