The God Culture: The Real History of Christmas?

Timothy Jay Schwab of The God Culture has released a series of videos about the history of Christmas. These videos serve as a great way to examine the methods he employs in his other videos and books. I have written somewhat about these methods in various articles noting that at times Tim does not even read sources but has copy/pasted things he found on the internet without verifying thier veracity. In this article I want to focus on Tim's method of researching history which entails conflating the present with the past and totally ignoring historical sources.

The first video in this series is about the history of the Christmas tree. 

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, Wherever Did You Come From? Is Christmas in the Bible?

One does not even have to watch this video to know exactly what Tim will say because it's right on the title card. Christmas trees originate way back to the time of Jeremiah and he condemns them in chapter 10 of his prophetic book. 

9:28 Oh, it's an idol by definition indeed but it is no mystery as to what it is. It is what we now call the Christmas tree in exact practice. We even showed you the videos to see, you know, this all laidout. It's a perfect match already in practice 600 years before Christ or Messiah came in the Flesh. And this practice was co-opted centuries later as supposedly originating with him? That's ridiculous.

11:46 Any so-called scholar that says that this passage is not about the Christmas tree is no Bible scholar and proves themselves illiterate. They cannot even read and comprehend.

12:38 The Catholic Church who changes the Bible on many things, thus a cursed organization according to scripture, that's what it says many times go read it, deflects on this because what they did is they brought back this ancient occult practice and they are too inept to read that Jeremiah directly rebukes them.

All of that is simply a lie. Christmas trees originated in Germany during the time of the Protestant Reformation. If the Catholic Church brought back the practice of Christmas trees then why did the Vatican not have one until 1982! That is a fact of history that Tim does not discuss at all because it does not jibe with his anti-ecclesiastical stance. Tim continually does everything he can to defame the Church which is the Body of Christ. 

The second video purports to be The Real History of Christmas. 

The Real History of Christmas. Is Christmas in the Bible?

Interesting. Is Tim going to talk about the Feast of the Epiphany and how the Feast of the Nativity did not become separate until much later? Is he going to talk about the decrees of Emperors and the Church on how to solemnize Christmas Day? Is he going to talk about the differences between the Eastern and Western Churches and why they celebrate Christmas weeks apart from one another? Will he be discussing why December 25th was actually thought to be the birth day of Jesus Christ? 

Of course not! Tim's modus is to conflate modern practices and claim that is exactly how the Feast of the Nativity was celebrated in the past. In fact he makes some downright ridiculous claims about the origin of Christmas sweaters, the twelve days of Christmas, and even Santa and the elves. 

11:08 It was an occasion for visits to friends and the presentation of gifts. Ah! Sounding familiar? Of course it is because this is the origin of Christmas.

12:55 Both of these are about gift giving and these became the manuals for this Pagan occult practice. Uh, these would morph into uh what would be called the 12 books of epigrams. Yep or origin of the 12 Days of Christmas. Indeed. There you go.

16:10 Instead of the toga colorful dinner cloths, you know like Christmas sweaters perhaps, were permitted in public as was the pilius a felt cap normally worn...wait, wait, wait, you mean like the elves wear? Like like Santa wears? Huuuuh! Especially the elves though because see they are the slaves. Hmm how about that? There you go. The origin of elves, the slaves. Nothing new under the sun folks 

31:17 They rebranded the most Pagan occult day of the year as the birth of Messiah. That's basically what they did.

36:13 They were willing to have those pagan holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.  

The third video in this series is a wholly ridiculous spiel about how Santa Claus is really Satan. He is also a Nicolaitan which is a group mentioned in the Revelation.

Jolly Old St. Nicolaitan? Old Nick = Satan? Is Christmas in the Bible?

This video is loaded through and through with the word concept fallacy. No one is meaning Satan when they are referring to Santa Claus. Santa is not Satan, he is not the devil in disguise, and he is certainly not a Nicolaitan. But Tim gets there by St. Nick, nick meaning the devil, and nick as in Ncolaitian. It's a wholly worthless video that is good enough for The God Culture's unthinking followers who do not care to verify the nonsense Tim says but is void of any actual history about the identity of Santa Claus. 

It's as stupid as if I connected Tim's name and the word tempter because Tim and Tem-pter sound similar. And who is the tempter? Why Satan of course. That means Tim is Satan. The word concept fallacy is literally Timothy Jay Schwab's historical method.

The problem with these videos is that, despite the titles, Tim does not dive into history at all. He cites from no early church witnesses about the Feast of the Nativity and how it was celebrated. Instead he criticizes modern day practices as if that is how the Church has always celebrated Christmas. The fact is the modern day Christmas season and the way it is celebrated is largely a creation of Coca-Cola and the poem The Night Before Christmas.

Were the Church Fathers erecting Christmas trees, exchanging gifts, feasting, watching sports, and singing carols about elves and Santa Claus? Of course not but one would not know that by listening to Timothy Jay Schwab. 

Tim's thesis in a nutshell is December 25th is Saturnalia, Christmas was celebrated on December 25th to Christianize that pagan holiday, therefore Christmas is Saturnalia and is bad. But not one time does he prove this. Not one time does he cite a single document showing that Christmas is celebrated on that date for that express purpose. He is also ignorant that the Eastern Church does not and never has celebrated Christmas on December 25th. That fact alone shoots down his thesis.

Here is Augustine in Book 4 of On the Trinity showing what a fool Tim is.

For He is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also He suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which He was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which He was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before nor since. But He was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/130104.htm

Encyclopedia Britanica even takes Tim's sloppy thesis to task

One of the difficulties with this view is that it suggests a nonchalant willingness on the part of the Christian church to appropriate a pagan festival when the early church was so intent on distinguishing itself categorically from pagan beliefs and practices.

A second view suggests that December 25 became the date of Jesus’ birth by a priori reasoning that identified the spring equinox as the date of the creation of the world and the fourth day of creation, when the light was created, as the day of Jesus’ conception (i.e., March 25). December 25, nine months later, then became the date of Jesus’ birth. For a long time the celebration of Jesus’ birth was observed in conjunction with his baptism, celebrated January 6.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christmas

According to Tim on Christmas Day the Church Fathers were watching football and drinking beer and having a riotous time like the pagans whose holiday they co-opted. Not so according to the Code of Theodosius which forbids all such celebrations during the Feast of the Nativity.

 The Theodosian Code and Novels, and the Sirmondian Constitutions, Clyde Pharr, pg. 433

On the following occasions all amusements of the theaters and the circuses shall be denied throughout all cities to the people thereof, and the minds of Christians and of the faithful shall be wholly occupied in the worship of God : namely, on the Lord's day, which is the first day of the whole week, on the Natal Day and Epiphany of Christ, and on the day of Easter and of Pentecost

It is not my purpose here to give a full treatment of the REAL Real History of Christmas. For that I point you to a book Timothy Jay Schwab has previously cited yet has never read, The Antiquities of the Christian Church by Joseph Bingham.

https://archive.org/details/originesecclesi02bing/page/1140/mode/2up

The section of his two-volume work about the festivals and holy days of the early church is unparalleled. He goes right to the sources and shows exactly what the early church taught and practiced in regards to Christmas, the sabbath, the Lord's Day, Easter, and other holy days. It is not at all like what Timothy Jay Schwab claims. But nothing ever is what Tim claims it to be as he is constantly misinterpreting and twisting his sources to fit his erroneous worldview. 

The God Culture: Origin of the Races

After discussing the course of the sun and moon as described in Enoch and proving himself to be a complete enemy to actual science Timothy Jay Schwab of The God Culture now goes on to tell us all how the races of men came to be. In sum, Noah was born an albino and his three sons Shem, Japheth, and Ham passed down the races of men through his albino genes combining with theirs. Shem is brown, Japheth is white, and Ham is black. There is a lot of nonsense to skim through here.

The Mysterious Birth of Noah. Why Was He Different? Answers In First Enoch Part 47

The first thing to note is this title card. How were the races preserved? That assumes there were different races of men before the flood. But that would not be possible if mankind has Adam and Eve alone as their parents. Like begets like and there is simply no way the children of Adam and Eve would beget offspring differing from themselves. It's just not going to happen and Tim offers no proof there were various races of men before the flood.

Second of all when Tim talks about race he is talking ONLY about skin color. 

8:23 How did the races such as what we call white, brown, black, or whatever you want to call it. No, the terms aren't even accurate as we're all brown, period. I mean many will say that and and that's truth, that is actually truth. We're just different shades of brown. That's what we all are. There's no such thing as white or black really 

Race is a heck of a lot more deeper than the color of one's skin. There is bone structure (forensic pathologists can identify someones race by thier bones), cranial capacity (look at IQ by nation!), eye formation (epicanthic folds!!), nose structure, and hair texture. 

Skin Color is not the only difference here!

There is also society or civilization. Not all peoples have created great societies. The Europeans, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, and Mesoamericans have each created great societies with monuments that last to this day testifying to their high level of intelligence. Sub-Saharan Africans and Australian aborigines have produced nothing. Is that due to skin color? Of course not! Culture is an expression of racial character which is much more than merely the color of one's skin. The Muslim historian and traveller Ibn Khaldun knew this principle a long time ago.

Beyond them to the south, there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings.

https://delong.typepad.com/files/muquaddimah.pdf

If race were merely skin deep then an African albino would look just like a white European.

Do these people look like Europeans? No! That's because race is far more than the color of one's skin. 

The first video in this series is quite long and foundational. Tim spends a great deal of time defending the account of Noah's birth in Enoch by appealing to the fragmented Genesis Apocryphon which was found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls. Tim claims that Noah was born an albino or albino-like. The account from Enoch 106 is as follows:

1. And after some days my son Methuselah took a wife for his son Lamech, and she became pregnant by him and bore a son. 

2. And his body was white as snow and red as the blooming of a rose, and the hair of his head and his long locks were white as wool, and his eyes beautiful. And when he opened his eyes, he lighted up the whole house like the sun, and the whole house was very bright. 

3. And thereupon he arose in the hands of the midwife, opened his mouth, and conversed with the Lord of righteousness.

That is NOT albinism! His eyes lit up the room?  He is speaking with God immediately after being born? Leave it to Tim to remove the miraculous as he did with the story of Jonah. Albinism is a genetic defect and yet Tim claims Noah was genetically perfect!

4:30: "Noah was a just man and perfect in his Generations." Now, what does that mean? His DNA. 

A commenter brought up this exact point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQuetvKkd0M&lc=UgwPdzNH9Ll7rM2rnBh4AaABAg

Millennial in Manila: Shem as red as blood but of course he is not that red maybe just exageration just to make a point just like Noah being as white as snow but definitely not that white but just the same as white people that we have now. He couldn’t be albino since albinism is a genetic disorder and Noah genes was pure.

The God Culture: What video did you watch because you certainly do not represent this one. Noah was perfect genetically not possessing a disorder nor do we ever say so. His special genes account for the continuation of diverse races. He is not an albino today which would be illiterate and we never say so. His genes however, are the origin. Albinism is not a disease and it is extremely racist to call it such. Yes, many albinos today have other disorders but that has nothing to do with Noah and impertinent. Noah was perfect and he was white as an albino indeed similar to a an Angel/Nephilim white not like white people. Did you even watch this video? That is what Lamech and Methuselah say of Noah. Why do you reframe their words? Don't do that here. You will be muted. No agitation. No debate in ignorance. Our channel, our rules. Yah Bless.

What a load of nonsense. Noah is not an albino today? What does that even mean? Yeah, Noah is long dead. 

Calling albinism a genetic defect is racist? Clearly Tim has no idea what albinism is. If Noah had albino-like genes then he was defective genetically. End of story. Amazingly enough Tim claims there is no scientific explanation for albinism and the only proper answer is that it comes from Noah. 

1:01:38 First Noah is truly described as being albino like. Now this is our conclusion that we're drawing from this but it does make logical sense. Uh, it's something very unique to his time of course. Uh, it's still rare today but not as unique today as as likely those are genes handed down at least in part from Noah to this day and that's where uh albinism came from really. 

When an albino mates the genes of their pair, uh, who whomever they take as a mate, become the dominant genes. If they take an African-American wife they'll basically generally, again we're not saying in all cases, and not everybody's the same, but generally they'll have an African-American child. If they marry white person their children will be white because whatever trait of the maid of the spouse would dominate theirs assuming they were, you know, it wasn't another albino of course. And then who knows? But this trait has no explanation except for first Enoch in this account. There's really no, uh, true good scientific explanation for the origin of albinism, uh, nor how we got the races.

Yet, Enoch's about to tell you, and this is going to blow you away, you just wait. So, it makes sense though that Noah had the special genes to carry the major races across the flood. 

The second paragraph is unbelievably stupid. If an albino mates with a negro a negro child will be produced? What if the albino is not a negro albino? Then the child won't be a negro of course. Negroes carry negro genes and will always give birth to negroes even if they happen to be albino. The same goes for every race. Tim's view of race is incredibly simplistic and does not take into account the fact that race is not just about skin color. And where is his proof? Where are his scientific papers to prove this horse hockey about what kind of children albinos produce? He has none because Tim is making it up as he goes. After all, "it makes sense."

Likewise Tim's claim that there is no true good scientific explanation for the origin of albinism" is simply not true. Albinism occurs in plants and animals. We know its cause which is the lack of pigmentation in animals and lack of chlorophyll in plants. Tim is a liar!! This is utterly ridiculous. 

Albinism is a congenital condition characterized in humans by the partial or complete absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes. Albinism is associated with a number of vision defects, such as photophobia, nystagmus, and amblyopia. Lack of skin pigmentation makes for more susceptibility to sunburn and skin cancers. In rare cases such as Chédiak–Higashi syndrome, albinism may be associated with deficiencies in the transportation of melanin granules. This also affects essential granules present in immune cells leading to increased susceptibility to infection.

Albinism results from inheritance of recessive gene alleles and is known to affect all vertebrates, including humans. It is due to absence or defect of tyrosinase, a copper-containing enzyme involved in the production of melanin. Unlike humans, other animals have multiple pigments and for these, albinism is considered to be a hereditary condition characterised by the absence of melanin in particular, in the eyes, skin, hair, scales, feathers or cuticle. While an organism with complete absence of melanin is called an albino, an organism with only a diminished amount of melanin is described as leucistic or albinoid. The term is from the Latin albus, "white".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albinism_in_humans

Though race is 100% real geneticists who have been studying the human genome for decades say there is no genetic basis for race meaning all humans are human and not that there are no differences in the way many humans look and act.

The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 confirmed humans are 99.9% identical at the DNA level and there is no genetic basis for race

https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/9/1/232/6299389

Tim's thesis falls flat at every single level. From Noah being genetically perfect yet an albino or albino-like to the races being skin deep. This is laughable nonsense. 

Above I referred to Enoch part 47 as the first video in a series but I was wrong. This is the ONLY video about how Noah preserved the races of men through his three sons. Tim does promise he will tell us the mechanics of this process but he never does. The bit about albinos mating and producing certain offspring based upon the race of thier chosen mate is not a coherent explanation. Instead the next video is an interpretation of Enoch's animal dream vision which touches ever so slightly upon the subject.

Enoch's Animal Dream Vision 101 Animation. Answers In First Enoch Part 48

19:49 But that white bull, Noah, which had become a man, now human skin tone in identification, but in this case really white like a Nephilim, similar to an albino to carry the genes across the flood, and we'll see how. No, Noah was not an actual albino. Albinism would have begun with Noah of sort though he had no defects whatsoever. He was perfect. Came out of that vessel and the three bulls with him and one of those three was white like that bull. Whoa! That's Japheth who inherited the lands known in origin as white peoples to the north. And one of them was red is blood. That's Shem as shemite, Semite, same word should be don't know why they dropped the H but very deceptive, generally is a medium brown or red skin in history such as the Native American Indian or the Filipino. He was given Asia essentially. And one black this is Ham who received the Southern Hemisphere and that matches.

And that's it. That one paragraph is all Tim has to say on the subject of the races being preserved through Noah in this video. Perhaps he will have something more to say in the future. 

So, Noah was not an albino but merely similar to an albino because he was white. What does that even mean? Tim does not say. He also promises we will see how the various racial genes were carried across the flood via Noah because of his "albinism" but Tim never gives any mechanics as to how that would work. He simply assumes it. He does give a cute little animation to illustrate his false doctrine.

Let's try to find a conclusion here. 

Tim's argument for the origin of the races is that Noah was white skinned like an albino and that somehow the genes for all the various races were encoded in his DNA which he transferred to his three sons. Rather than his sons progeny looking like weird creatures which is always the result of race mixing Japheth became the white race, Ham the negro race, and Shem all the brown races. How this happened Tim does not say. 

Once again Tim is going way above his pay grade. He is no geneticist. All he has is the book of Enoch as his guide. This dream vision of Enoch has been interpreted in the manner Tim ascribes to it, that each of Noah's sons was the father of the various races. However, Enoch says nothing about Noah having special genes for this purpose. Instead Enoch relates that Noah had a miraculous birth wherein his skin was white, his eyes lit up the room when they opened, and he could immediately talk upon leaving the womb. Tim pulls the fanciful notion about Noah being born that way to carry the genes of each race across the flood right out of his hat and he offers no proof of any kind whatsoever. 

When confronted with the fact that albinism is a genetic defect Tim retreats and says Noah was not an albino but merely albino-like. What that means he does not say. Albinos have no skin pigment which is why they are white. Did Noah have a white skin pigment or was his skin without pigmentation? And how would that entail having the genes of all the races encoded in his DNA? Tim does not say. He assumes it every step of the way without giving any proof whatsoever. That is his method. It is par for the course. 

It's funny that Timothy Jay Schwab wants us to trust our eyes when it comes to the sun but not when it comes to race.

Do these women look like they are merely different shades of brown? The notion is absurd.