Just how many interpretations for ‘abomination'
Do we REALLY want to go down that road? There's a strong Biblical argument that Christmas trees are against the Bible...
Jeremiah 10:2 KJV Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3* For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4* They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
I suppose there are other interpretations?
I'm not sure what your point is. Canaanite religion used trees as a symbol of their deities and a site for fertility rites. So did pagan Germanic religion, from which we draw the tradition of the Christmas tree. I'm sympathetic with those who don't have Christmas trees because of this connection; we didn't have one, the year I read "The Iron Hand of Mars," and the fact the we get one as a rule is my German husband's decision.
However, unless we're performing Nordic fertility rites around the Christmas tree, it's just a nuisance, not an idol.
Jeremiah had no idea that there were people living up in the forests of Germania who worshipped living trees (assuming they were there at that time, having migrated from points further east). St. Boniface started the idea of the evergreen trees (the Germans didn't worship evergreens but large oaks.) And the custom of cutting one down and bringing it into the house and putting ornaments on it is really a Victorian one . . . originally the trees only had candles on them anyhow.
So I'd put this one down to coincidence and a murky translation by King James's committee (worthy a group of scholars as they were!)
"'Just how many interpretations for ‘abomination' - Do we REALLY want to go down that road? There's a strong Biblical argument that Christmas trees are against the Bible... Jeremiah 10:2 KJV 'Thus saith the LORD ...' I suppose there are other interpretations?" ~ The Worthless Miracle
Most critics of Christmas are Jehovah's Witnesses, some Seventh-Day Adventists, Herbert W. Armstrong's old Worldwide Church of God cult, and its spin-off cults, and the like.
They tend to quote Jeremiah 10 from the King James Version. More recent versions make it even more obvious that Christmas trees are not being discussed. Here is how the New International Version renders the passage:
"This is what the Lord says: 'Do not learn the ways of the nations . . . For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good.' No one is like you, O Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power" (Jer. 10:2-6).
The word translated as "workman" is not the same as a "lumberjack." Instead, the original Hebrew word here, charash, means "carpenter" or "craftsman." That is what is meant by "workman." Now, whereas lumberjacks go into the forest to cut down trees, carpenters don't. Rather, carpenters make things (figurines, tools, etc.) out of wood. Thus, Jeremiah 10:3 speaks of carpenters who make wooden idols.
"Later in this passage the 'workman' is portrayed as plating an idol with silver and gold--clearly not a lumberjack!" The point that the "workman" in question is not a lumberjack but someone who would take wood and make idols out of it is further proven in a parallel passage in Isaiah 40:19-20: "Hath the workman cast a graven statue? or hath the goldsmith formed it with gold, or the silversmith with plates of silver? He hath chosen strong wood, and that will not rot: the skilful workman seeketh how he may set up an idol that may not be moved"; and again in Hosea 8:6: "A workman made it, and it is no god [but an idol]."
To equate "workman" with "lumberjack," then, would be unbiblical and eisegetical--it would be a misrepresentation of what the actual biblical text says. Other Bible translations render "workman" as "craftsman" or the like.
The passage talks about the tool of the workman being an "ax." Now, this is not the kind of tool that we would call an "ax" now. What is now called an "ax" is the Hebrew word garzen, which is used throughout the Bible when what we now call an "ax" is meant (e.g. in Deuteronomy 19:5). However, the word used in Jeremiah 10:3 is not garzen but maatsad.
Other Bible translations render maatsad as "cutting tool" (NASB), "adze" (NAB), "chisel" (NIV), and "blade" (NJB). One thing is clear: it's not an ax in the contemporary sense of the word. What is meant is a tool used to carve pieces of wood, the kind of tool a carpenter uses. Hence, once again, the "workman" is not a lumberjack but a carpenter.
Verse 5 of the passage says: "They are framed after the likeness of a palm tree. . . ." This can hardly refer to a Christmas tree! Even if having Christmas trees is a practice that Christians have adopted from paganism, this passage is certainly not talking about it! No one fashions a Christmas tree "after the likeness of a palm tree".
There is more evidence that St. Jeremiah wasn't condemning Christmas trees. "Jeremiah spoke against worshipping an idol made from a tree, not the tree itself. Though the workman could make the idol look like a living, walking, talking being, yet it was lifeless. [...]
If Jeremiah was speaking of a Christmas tree--no one expects a Christmas tree to talk! These idols apparently had legs, yet could not walk. They must be carried, 'because they cannot go' (Jer. 10:5). Had Jeremiah been speaking of a Christmas tree, his whole argument would break down: everyone realizes that a Christmas tree must be carried--no one supposes a Christmas tree should walk"
Verse 9 speaks about the idols being clothed in "violet and purple." Again, this is obviously not referring to a Christmas tree, or any tree for that matter, but the idols carved out of the wood from the trees in the forest. They were made to look like men--clothed, and with feet and hands and eyes and mouths, though they can neither speak nor see, nor walk or talk (cf. Psalm 115:4-8 ).
The great prophet Isaiah proves that this analysis of Jeremiah 10:9 is correct: "The makers of idols are all of them nothing, and their best beloved things shall not profit them. [...] The carpenter hath stretched out his rule, he hath formed it with a plane: he hath made it with corners, and hath fashioned it round with the compass: and he hath made the image of a man as it were a beautiful man dwelling in a house. He hath cut down cedars, taken the holm, and the oak that stood among the trees of the forest: he hath planted the pine tree, which the rain hath nourished. And it hath served men for fuel: he took thereof, and warmed himself: and he kindled it, and baked bread: but of the rest he made a god, and adored it: he made a graven thing, and bowed down before it" (Isaiah 44:9,13-15).
Jeremiah described idol worship, not tree worship. And it is absurd to suggest anyway that Christians who have a decorated a tree for Christmas are in any way worshipping that tree. It's as absurd as it is false. I have yet to meet someone who worships a Christmas tree. Besides, when the Christmas season is over, Christmas trees are discarded--burned or otherwise disposed of. This is "not something people would do with an object of worship"
Moreover, if a Christmas tree presented an occasion of sin for Christians because they would be tempted to worship it, as the SDA claim seems to go, then any trees would do so, not just Christmas trees, and one would have to cut down all trees throughout the world in order to keep people from falling into idolatry. Certainly, this is absurd.
Obviously, trees are not evil. Nothing God has made is evil. Isaiah 60:13: "The glory of Libanus shall come to thee, the fir tree, and the box tree, and the pine tree together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary: and I will glorify the place of my feet." Here fir and pine (box) trees are used to embellish the sanctuary of the one and only True God! So much for the appropriateness of trees for decoration.
The Christmas tree, as we know it, only dates back a few centuries [so much for the pagan connection!--M.D.]. In those earlier times, trees were decorated with fruit, which some considered symbolic of fruit on the tree of life (Rev. 22:2). Today's round Christmas tree balls are simply stylized fruit. For some, anything round is a pagan symbol. But who made fruit round, who made the manna round, who made the moon round, who made the sun round, who made the earth round? Round is not wrong.
The statement of Jeremiah, "the customs of the people are vain" (Jer. 10:3), must be understood within the context of the horrible and abominable customs that were practiced at that time. Not all "customs" are evil (Judges 11:39; Lk. 4:16). Neither are all "traditions" wrong (2 Thess. 2:15).
In the early centuries of the Church, the Gnostics held, as some modernists do today, that Jesus became the Christ at His baptism, and was not Christ from birth. This is heresy, and one important way the Church has counteracted it is by celebrating the Birth of Christ the Lord, to ensure and emphasize the truth that Christ was God, the Messiah, and conscious of His Messianic Dignity from His very birth!
There is no doubt that many anti-Christmas believers are well-intentioned people who wish to guard against idolatry; this is a noble goal, of course. But they must let go of their errors once they have been proven wrong. They see idolatry under every stone, and this makes them blind and bitter. During the period when most of the biblical commandments against idolatry were written--under Moses' leadership--the Israelites had standards and ensigns about their camp (see Num. 2:2,3,10,17,18,25,34). These, obviously, were not considered idols"
As pointed out earlier - given the kind of standard that such anti-Christmas believers go by, they would have to accuse God Himself of being pagan--which should obviously tell them that their standard is wrong. Nobody wants to condone idolatry. We must only worship the one true God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But we must do so "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23), and truth is never served by telling lies or spreading error." ~ Ralph Woodrow [Excerpts from Christmas Reconsidered http://www.ralphwoodrow.org/books/pages/christmas.html]