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With Apologies: Did Nephites Celebrate Christmas?

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Disclaimer: the following is entirely satire.

Aaron: Did Nephites really practice Christmas? The answer might be less straightforward than you think, because critics of the LDS church have pointed out that the Book of Mormon says that Nephites were separated from the Old World centuries prior to the rise of not only Christmas as a holiday but the Christian religion as a whole. But that's what we're going to talk about today, especially because this actually turns into kind of a surprising evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon when you actually get to the bottom of the criticism and what the actual evidence says. So Mason, did Nephites celebrate Christmas?

Mason: Uh, well, obviously, they're Christians, they don't just practice "happy holidays."

Aaron, Mason, Dean: *laughing*

Mason: Only joking, and it's important to note that we aren't going to know for sure what festivals developed in the Nephite civilization.

Dean: We do have a good idea about some things, though!

Mason: Right! We know that the Nephites were a unique branch of the House of Israel from the moment they settled on the American continent. Nephi the First relates that his people were taught to obey the Law of Moses with exactness, and this is affirmed to still be their practice into the first century BC. But then Nephi also shows that his people were aware that the "law" - that is, Moses's law - was dead in Christ, an allusion to how Jesus would become the new law following his death and resurrection. Jacob, Nephi's brother, is very explicit that there will be a Messiah to redeem the world from sin, and even that his name will be "Christ," which is a really cool play on words that we see in Hebraic poetry. I mean, how could Joseph have known that "Messiah" and "Christ" are the same word in different languages?

Aaron: Yeah, and that kind of works against the critic's argument that Joseph made this all up, because you can read this all in the Bible. Are you telling me Joseph knew every word in the Bible to dictate it and include a Hebraic couplet at the same time?

Dean: But it's true that this rubs a lot of people the wrong way because it would mean that there are prophets on the Earth who got all these details right centuries before Jesus lived, so they assume 'Oh, Joseph must have made this up,' but then we get to the historical record that suggests maybe there is possibly evidence of indigenous rituals that behave like we would expect from 1st-century AD Christianity.

Aaron: Go ahead and tell us about that.

Dean: Yeah, so the critic's position can be boiled down to: "Christmas is celebrated only after Jesus and only in Old World Christianity, therefore the Nephites couldn't have also practiced it." But check this out, lemme just put this on the screen here for our audience...

Dean: Okay, so first we have the notion of using Christmas trees as a symbol of life, hope, and renewal. They're evergreen trees, they spiral upward, and trees have long been associated with rebirth and communal stability. And across from this you'll see we have the Navajo Corn Plant, which is another evergreen plant that spirals upward and is part of the Navajo Blessingway ritual, which symbolizes...get ready for this...life, hope, and renewal.

Aaron, Mason: Wow! Very cool.

Dean: Yeah, isn't it? And we don't intend any disrespect in making this comparison; in fact, we're paying high compliments to the Navajo people by acknowledging that their traditions have sacred and even divine roots.

Aaron: Haha, a pun!

Dean: Yup, I definitely intended that one, haha.

Mason: Okay, next up is celebrations on the winter solstice. Christmas is celebrated in the winter solstice because it marks the transition between winter and spring in the Old World, but wouldn't you know it...we have the same thing in the Soyal festivals held among the Hopi Indians on December 21, which is a bullseye for the winter solstice.

Aaron: That's amazing!

Mason: Right? All those critics who said there were no indigenous celebrations on winter solstice, and they were dead wrong!

Aaron, Mason, Dean: *chuckling*

Dean: Okay, but what about celebrations on the winter solstice that involve the veneration of a god who is seen as a savior to mankind? Well, look no further than Huitzilopochtli, the legendary patron deity of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. Known as the "fire serpent" -

Aaron: Whoa, I just got chills down my spine. Very cool.

Dean: - and depicted as a hummingbird that hibernates in a tree until reborn in the spring -

Aaron, Mason: Whooooooa!

Dean: - and whose festivities occurred across 18 holy days, culminating in a statue of Huitzilopochtli being created out of grain seeds to be divided up and eaten by the people. Sound at all familiar?

Mason: I remember stumbling onto this fact and being blown away. The parallels to LDS doctrine are incredible.

Aaron: So what you're saying is that there's in fact very good reason to believe that there could have been a practice among indigenous American populations of gift-giving and evergreen decorating in the winter solstice to celebrate the death and rebirth of their hero-god?

Dean: Yes, it's entirely possible...and remember, there's nothing in the Book of Mormon that says that Nephites didn't practice Christmas, and we don't know if they would have celebrated this date before or after Jesus, because they knew that he was going to be born.

Mason: And, at the end of the day, none of this matters anyway, because we have our testimonies as the best proof of the arrival of Jesus. We shouldn't need a cultural festival to commemorate Jesus' birth, because we renew our covenants every Sabbath day in church. When we participate in the Christmas holiday, it's with the understanding that we aren't celebrating Jesus's exact date of birth, just joining in the cultural expectations, as God's children done for thousands of years.

Aaron: All very, very cool. So we've talked in detail about the historical sources, and there's a lot to consider here - no matter how the Nephites celebrated their Christian heritage, we know that they worshipped the same God and Jesus that we did. Thanks for joining today, Mason, Dean.

Mason: You're so welcome.

Dean: Absolutely!

Aaron: Remember to smash that like button, subscribe, and tell us in the comments below what you've learned today, or what other scholarly information you've come across that strengthens your faith. Remember: there's always a reason to believe!

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