What is the source for the idea that Lent is pagan?
Someone made the comment that the season of Lent is pagan. Where does this idea come from?
And don't tell tell me about "Weeping for Tamuuz" That occurred AFTER the death of a Pagan god (not before), during the SUMMER (not the Spring), and it lasts for SIX days (not forty).
T Dog
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There is nothing pagan about it. Could there be pagan equivalents? Yes, but that does not mean that Catholics and Lent are Pagan and that Lent is based off of these equivalents (someone above said something about pagan Babylon godess and some Anglo-Saxon thing...again I think these are equivalents Jesus prayed in the desert for forty days and his death was around Spring time.) It may merely be coincidental.
Anonymous
Keeping it human and everyday. Lent's origins are likely to have something to do with spring rather than some organised religion.
James O
The creative paranoid imagination of many ( but not all) Fundamentalist Protestants
Lent has its origins in Christ's 40 days in the desert
and perhaps many FPs feel guilty( FP Guilt far outdoes so called Catholic Guilt)that they do not fast much, sacrifice culinary treats, etc to honour the saving death of Christ
If FPs examined the cultural milieu of Israel they would see that just about all the rituals God commands in the Old Testament are either direct borrowings from pagan neighbors or direct parallels
Many FPs remind me of people taking inkblot tests for what they see says far more about them than the people they hate and attack with their projections
Nightwind
Its not just Fundamentalists who make these claims. There are people who have issues with Christianity who try to prove its fake because it was "stolen" from other religions.
Relationships between religion are complex. Sometimes influences get shared between interacting groups. Sometimes you can find similarities between unrelated groups. Sometimes influences are specifically adopted.
?
Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon Lencten meaning spring. The 40 days of abstinence of Lent comes from the worship of the Babylonian goddess.
Also has to do with the commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz.
See the book (The Two Babylons).
Nothing to do with fundamentalists. Don't believe me, read history for yourselves.