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From THE NY TIMES article, “Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving Is Wrong” By Maya Salam:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/us/thanksgiving-myths-fact-check.html
“High school textbooks are particularly bad about stating absolutes because these materials “teach history” by giving students facts to memorize even when the details may be unclear, said James W. Loewen, a sociologist and the author of “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.”
“That mind-set pervades everything they talk about and certainly Thanksgiving,” he said.
Here are some things that are wrong with the Thanksgiving narrative:
The timeline is relative.
The Mayflower did bring the Pilgrims to North America from Plymouth, England, in 1620, and they disembarked at what is now Plymouth, Mass., where they set up a colony. In 1621, they celebrated a successful harvest with a three-day gathering that was attended by members of the Wampanoag tribe. It’s from this that we derive Thanksgiving as we know it.
But it wasn’t until the 1830s that this event was called the first Thanksgiving by New Englanders who looked back and thought it resembled their version of the holiday, said Kate Sheehan, a spokeswoman for Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth.
The holiday wasn’t made official until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared it as a kind of thank you for the Civil War victories in Vicksburg, Miss., and Gettysburg, Pa.
Beyond that, claiming it was the “first Thanksgiving” isn’t quite right either as both Native American and European societies had been holding festivals to celebrate successful harvests for centuries, Mr. Loewen said.
A prevalent opposing viewpoint is that the first Thanksgiving stemmed from the massacre of Pequot people in 1637, a culmination of the Pequot War. While it is true that a day of thanksgiving was noted in the Massachusetts Bay and the Plymouth colonies afterward, it is not accurate to say it was the basis for our modern Thanksgiving, Ms. Sheehan said.
Origins of Thanksgiving
Teacher: Brother Elisha
Church: The Household of Faith
There’s no evidence that native people were invited.
Possibly the most common misconception is that the Pilgrims extended an invitation to the Native Americans for helping them reap the harvest. The truth of how they all ended up feasting together is unknown.
“The English-written record does not mention an invitation, and Wampanoag oral tradition does not seem to reach back to this event,” Ms. Sheehan said. But there are reasons the Wampanoag leader could have been there, she said, adding: “His people had been planting on the other side of the brook from the colony. Another possibility is that after his harvest was gathered, he was making diplomatic calls.”
It is true that the celebration was an exceptional cross-cultural moment, with food, games and prayer.
The deadly conflicts that came after, though, created an undercurrent that is glossed over, Mr. Loewen said. Still, “we might as well take shards of fairness and idealism and so on whenever we find them in our past and recognize that and give credit to them,” he said.
FROM THANKFULNESS TO GREEDINESS…MAN’S DUMB TRADITIONS
Teacher: Brother Elijah
Church: Israel, The Church of Jesus
Firstly, we must know and understand that there is nothing wrong with giving thanks to the Lord but we are to praise, worship, and serve God according to his Word and what he gave to Israel not according to man made traditions which is idolatry:
Psalm 147:1-3
King James Version (KJV)
1 Praise ye the Lord: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely.
2 The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.
3 He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
7 Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God:
8 Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.
19 He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel.
20 He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord.
Bible Christians and Spiritual Israelites do not use the fact that the Indians were slaughtered by the Pilgrims as an argument to not celebrate Thanksgiving, because if that is the case, we should not celebrate Passover because the Egyptians were slaughtered by Israel and their God on that day. So one man’s blessing can be another man’s curse. This is not to say that the genocide of Native Americans is excusable or correct because it was absolutely horrific.
Nevertheless, we with understanding do not celebrate Thanksgiving because the true and living God has already ordained Harvest Festivals (Pentecost aka FirstFruits and Tabernacles aka Ingathering) for mankind to observe in it’s season on specific days and the last Thursday in November is not one of them! To learn more about God’s annual holy days, visit our page – God’s Holy Feast Days
Exodus 23:14-16
King James Version (KJV)
14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)
16 And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.
The above harvest festivals along with all of God’s annual feasts proscribed in Leviticus 23 were not only kept by the church in the Old Testament but also by the church in the New Testament (John 7, Acts 2, Acts 20:16, 1 Corinthians 16:8). God’s church is Israel and God does not change which is why Jesus told us that “Salvation is of the Jews”.
As we are learning, not only is the history of Thanksgiving wrongfully taught in American society, but it is also Biblically inept and contrary to God’s ordained harvest festivals. The word “DUMB” may sound harsh, but anytime you substitute man’s traditions in place of what the God of the creation has ordained, it is dumb. This is not to be an insult, but rather to tell the truth of the matter. Furthermore, and not to be funny but we know that this custom is truly dumb because American society has been trained like robots in the matrix to go from being “thankful” to GREEDY the next day on Black Friday whereby people fight, trample, stampede, degrade, and even kill others to satisfy their lusts. I guess folks were not so “thankful” after all.
Jesus tells us that a man’s life does not consist with the things that we have, but man has allowed his lusts to blind him and the system to train him in a fashion that is ungodly. This behavior and the fact that it is not in the Bible, shows that these customs come from Satan and not God.
Apostle Paul, the Israelite warned the Europeans that before he taught them the Word of God, they were following DUMB IDOLS (false gods) and traditions. The world is following the same folly today and that is why we are teaching the world the truth out of the Bible.
1 Corinthians 12:2
King James Version (KJV)
2 Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led.
Thanksgiving is a Harvest Festival – Plymouth Plantation (Plimoth.org)
“Thanksgiving is a particularly American holiday. The word evokes images of football, family reunions, roasted turkey with stuffing, pumpkin pie and, of course, the Pilgrims and Wampanoag, the acknowledged founders of the feast.
But was it always so? Read on to find out…
Giving thanks for the Creator’s gifts had always been a part of Wampanoag daily life. From ancient times, Native People of North America have held ceremonies to give thanks for successful harvests, for the hope of a good growing season in the early spring, and for other good fortune such as the birth of a child. Giving thanks was, and still is, the primary reason for ceremonies or celebrations.
As with Native traditions in America, celebrations – complete with merrymaking and feasting – in England and throughout Europe after a successful crop are as ancient as the harvest-time itself. In 1621, when their labors were rewarded with a bountiful harvest after a year of sickness and scarcity, the Pilgrims gave thanks to God and celebrated His bounty in the Harvest Home tradition with feasting and sport (recreation).
The arrival of the Pilgrims and Puritans brought new Thanksgiving traditions to the American scene. Today’s national Thanksgiving celebration is a blend of two traditions: the New England custom of rejoicing after a successful harvest, based on ancient English harvest festivals; and the Puritan Thanksgiving, a solemn religious observance combining prayer and feasting.
Florida, Texas, Maine and Virginia each declare itself the site of the First Thanksgiving and historical documents support the various claims. Spanish explorers and other English Colonists celebrated religious services of thanksgiving years before Mayflower arrived. However, few people knew about these events until the 20th century. They were isolated celebrations, forgotten long before the establishment of the American holiday, and they played no role in the evolution of Thanksgiving. But as James W. Baker states in his book, Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday, “despite disagreements over the details” the 3-day event in Plymouth in the fall of 1621 was “the historical birth of the American Thanksgiving holiday.”
In a letter from “E.W.” (Edward Winslow) to a friend in England, he says: “And God be praised, we had a good increase…. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling that so we might after a special manner rejoice together….” Winslow continues, “These things I thought good to let you understand… that you might on our behalf give God thanks who hath dealt so favourably with us.”
In 1622, without his approval, Winslow’s letter was printed in a pamphlet that historians commonly call Mourt’s Relation. This published description of the First Thanksgiving was lost during the Colonial period. It was rediscovered in Philadelphia around 1820. Antiquarian Alexander Young included the entire text in his Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (1841). Reverend Young saw a similarity between his contemporary American Thanksgiving and the 1621 Harvest Feast. In the footnotes that accompanied Winslow’s letter, Young writes, “This was the first Thanksgiving, the harvest festival of New England. On this occasion they no doubt feasted on the wild turkey as well as venison.”
THE PAGAN ORIGINS OF THANKSGIVING
https://www.facebook.com/linesandprecepts/videos/274787686713571/
Teacher: Brother Brian
Church: Israel, The Church of Jesus
https://www.facebook.com/WiccaTeachings/photos/a.128666473948974/263731897109097/?type=3&theater
Thanksgiving’s Ancient Origins (History Channel):
“Although the American concept of Thanksgiving developed in the colonies of New England, its roots can be traced back to the other side of the Atlantic. Both the Separatists who came over on the Mayflower and the Puritans who arrived soon after brought with them a tradition of providential holidays—days of fasting during difficult or pivotal moments and days of feasting and celebration to thank God in times of plenty.
As an annual celebration of the harvest and its bounty, moreover, Thanksgiving falls under a category of festivals that spans cultures, continents and millennia. In ancient times, the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans feasted and paid tribute to their gods after the fall harvest. Thanksgiving also bears a resemblance to the ancient Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot. Finally, historians have noted that Native Americans had a rich tradition of commemorating the fall harvest with feasting and merrymaking long before Europeans set foot on their shores.” – From the History Channel (click here for the entire article).
How 10 countries besides the U.S. celebrate Thanksgiving (USA TODAY)
Traditional customs may be different, but you can still find Thanksgiving in cultures around the world
Thanksgiving might feel like the all-American holiday, but celebrating gratitude and harvest over a bountiful meal is more universal than we think. Even though dates and traditions may vary, there are many countries around the world that have a designated holiday for giving thanks.
1. Germany | Erntedankfest
An Erntedankfest celebration — Photo courtesy of Norbert Staudt / flickr
“Erntedankfest” literally translates to “harvest thank festival.” Yeah, the German language tends to cut right to the chase. But the tradition of holding a harvest festival in Germany and other European countries dates back to before Christianity.
The image of a Thanksgiving cornucopia (also known as a “horn of plenty”) actually comes from a European pagan tradition where farmers would fill a curved goat horn with fruits, vegetables and grains as a thanks for the bounty provided by the previous season’s labor.
Today, Erntedankfest takes place on the first Sunday of October. Unlike an American Thanksgiving where we stay at home with close friends and family, German communities take their festivities to the streets and to town squares for parades, music, dancing and, of course, food. Because turkey, a bird native to North America, is not as common in Germany, an Erntedankfest meal would have chicken or a goose.”
Visit the USA TODAY article here, to see the other 9 pagan variations of Thanksgiving around the world.
NATIONAL FEAST
The Continental Congress proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving in 1777. A somber event, it specifically recommended “that servile labor and such recreations (although at other times innocent) may be unbecoming the purpose of this appointment [and should] be omitted on so solemn an occasion.”
Presidents Washington, Adams and Monroe proclaimed national Thanksgivings, but the custom fell out of use by 1815, after which the celebration of the holiday was limited to individual state observances. By the 1850s, almost every state and territory celebrated Thanksgiving.
Proclamation of Thanksgiving (AbrahamLincolnonline.org)
This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America’s national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders similar to this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.
Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on September 28, 1863, urging him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” She explained, “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritative fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”
Prior to this, each state scheduled its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times, mainly in New England and other Northern states. President Lincoln responded to Mrs. Hale’s request immediately, unlike several of his predecessors, who ignored her petitions altogether. In her letter to Lincoln she mentioned that she had been advocating a national thanksgiving date for 15 years as the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. George Washington was the first president to proclaim a day of thanksgiving, issuing his request on October 3, 1789, exactly 74 years before Lincoln’s.
The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln’s secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary how he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.
When you deal with man made traditions that God did not give you, you end up forgetting and not observing the customs that God gave us to observe.
1 Corinthians 10:14
King James Version (KJV)
14 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.
20 But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.
God warned about “New” gods and “New” traditions that provoke him through customs that he did not ordain. When we honor religious customs that were not ordained by god we are worshipping Satan. We do not know God if we are not obeying his commandments.
Deuteronomy 32
King James Version (KJV)
16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.
17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
It is not acceptable to observe any type of feast days that a leader/king ordains, even if it is done by God’s chosen people, let alone another nationality that God did not choose (which automatically disqualifies Abraham Lincoln who was a Gentile leader/king from ordaining feast days). God chose King Jeroboam to be the King over Israel but he did not ordain or tell him to change God’s feast days nor to ordain new feast days. Doing so was a sin!
Why? Because, God did not ordain it nor proscribe and if we call ourselves honoring God by doing something he did not command then it is automatically false worship/idolatry/ or having another “god” before the true God.
If man sets up RELIGIOUS days that are contrary to God’s holy days, it obviously takes away from doing what God said to do. God has an harvest festival that he commands mankind to observe. Therefore, it does not make sense, and it is wrong to observe a harvest festival that some man (that does not follow God) setup in place of God’s holy days. This also shows how important it is to honor God on the exact day that he ordained.
Jeroboam’s holiday that he ordained was devised out of his own heart, for his own personal reasons. It was NOT given by God and was a month after God’s TRUE holy day, so it cannot be holy because God did not consecrate it.
1 Kings 12:32-33
King James Version (KJV)
32 And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.
33 So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.
When the “first” Thanksgiving festival commenced in 1621, Israelites (negroes) were still legal slaves within the colonies of America. Therefore, our rights, and freedom was not in consideration when this religious festival took place. This hypocrisy shows that it was not ordained by God because Israel had their freedom when God gave them his law, customs, and harvest festivals.
Another clear sign which shows that Thanksgiving is dedicated to a false god is the fact that God foretold that his people would go into captivity and worship the false gods of their enemies. That is exactly what Israel is doing on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter etc even though the slave master tells us that these days are to honor, worship, and give thanks to God.
Furthermore, the slave masters that possessed Israel during the time of “Thanksgiving” (1621-1863) were not thankful to god but they were thankful for the fact that they had Israelite slaves to work the land and make them wealthy. The real “Black Friday” was the fact that slaves were the stock that were bought and sold to make the slave masters profitable.
Zechariah 11:4-5
King James Version (KJV)
4 Thus saith the Lord my God; Feed the flock of the slaughter;
5 Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.
BLACK FRIDAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA8DoI6XD4A
The leaders and merchants are the people who setup and benefit off of idolatry and pagan customs that do not honor God. Unfortunately, the masses blindly follow these customs that benefit only a few because they do not know better. Even back in Paul’s day, the outward basis for the customs were to worship a deity (but it was not the true and living God) with good intent, but the true intent was based on greed and “wealth”.
The masses did not realize this but the merchants did. This is the same concept with Thanksgiving/Black Friday, Christmas, Easter etc. The majority thinks it is about honoring and giving thanks to God but in actuality these customs are not in the Bible and they do not honor God. We know that the true intent was greed because when Paul preached and turned people away from the vain traditions, the main people that were upset were the merchants and craftsmen who were concerned with their money.
This example below reveals how the traditions of men can be blatantly dumb and vain because they do not have any real spiritual significance. They are not like God’s holy days that lead to salvation through holiness, reveal God’s wonderful works. This is clearly shown through the confusion, stress, sin, chaos, lust, and greed exhibited during man’s holidays in general and “Thanksgiving/ “Black Friday” in particular. The way the people “rushed into the theatre” is the same way people RUSH into shops on Black Friday due to greed.
BLACK FRIDAY: The Link Between False Worship and Commerce Continues
Teacher: Brother Elisha
Church: The Household of Faith
Acts 19:20-36
King James Version (KJV)
20 So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.
21 After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome.
22 So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, Timotheus and Erastus; but he himself stayed in Asia for a season.
23 And the same time there arose no small stir about that way.
24 For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen;
25 Whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation, and said, Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth.
26 Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands:
27 So that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.
28 And when they heard these sayings, they were full of wrath, and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.
29 And the whole city was filled with confusion: and having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s companions in travel, they rushed with one accord into the theatre.
Even with all the scriptures, evidence, and reason presented, people will think that it is weird that those with understanding do not observe the traditions of men because it is popular. The same thing happened to Jesus in his day, and even the mainstream religious leaders questioned why Jesus did not partake in the traditions of the elders.
Jesus had to admonish these people and let them know that they were worshipping God in vain because all they had to offer was lip service and it did not line up with the commandments that God gave. Rather, the traditions that many hold dear are the commandments of man which will not lead to salvation. The same goes for our traditions of Thanksgiving and others such as Christmas, Easter, etc.
Jesus is showing us that we should not participate in man made traditions because they make us lay aside his commandments in favor of man’s vain traditions. We see that this is true because it is no coincidence that the true followers of God keep the feast days such as Tabernacles, Pentecost, Passover etc and those keeping man made traditions and holidays disregard the holy days that God proscribed for man to observe throughout every generation for eternal life.
Mark 7:5-10
King James Version (KJV)
5 Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?
6 He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.
9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:
13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
Joshua Lette
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