Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 November 27

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November 27

How do I delete my Wikipedia account?

Had to create an account on Wikipedia a few days ago just to move or rename a page. I guess that has finally been done and now I want to delete my account. how do I do this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charlie22557 (talk • contribs) 03:02, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia accounts cannot actually be deleted; the software doesn't allow it. You could either simply walk away and leave the account alone, or, if you are certain you do not want to ever edit again, you can use the process described at Wikipedia:Courtesy vanishing. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 03:07, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. The only downside to keeping the account is that nobody else can create an account named "Charlie22557", but that doesn't seem to be likely to be a problem. StuRat (talk) 04:38, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Why don't you just keep using the account? Your privacy is better protected than if you use an IP address. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:45, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

@Charlie22557:, Wikipedia:Help_desk and Wikipedia:teahouse is a better place to ask such questions.--Aryan ( है?) 07:45, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Early Christian festival

Do we have any evidence of what festivals (if any) were celebrated by the Jewish Christians of New Testament times? --TammyMoet (talk) 17:54, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Think this is going to be an impossible question to answer. The festivals where a carry-over from the pre Christian era. The Christian's just adopted them as their own. --Aspro (talk) 18:04, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

In particular, Communion aka Eucharist was a scaled-down version of the Passover Seder, which is what the Last Supper was. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:16, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, Just because one became a follower of the teaching of the prophet Jesus, did not mean one abandoned long practised festivals that was ingrained into society, culture and daily life.--Aspro (talk) 18:21, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I'll expand a little. I'm having a discussion with a friend who reckons that the early Christians commemorated Christmas at Hanukkah, and my position is that I don't think they celebrated the birth of the Christ but would certainly have celebrated his death and resurrection at Passover. So is there any evidence for either position? I'm sure I read it somewhere and didn't make it up out of thin air. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:36, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Jehovah's Witnesses have published the answer (They did not) at http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2000920?q=christians+christmas&p=par.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:02, 28 November 2015 (UTC) and 19:55, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

The somewhat complicated story of Christmas provides some insight. In a nutshell, Christmas was adopted several hundred years A.D. in order to supplant the old pagan winter holiday traditions. There is nothing in the Bible demonstrating when Jesus was actually born, although some think that it would have been in the springtime, with the lambs in foal. And as noted in Hanukkah, the festival of lights only became a big deal relatively recently, as what some Jews I've known derisively call the "Jewish Christmas". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:00, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Easter corresponds to Pesach, Pentecost corresponds to Shavuot and both have the Sabbath, although on different days of the week, a matter of consternation and controversy. The co-option of pagan European equinox festivals and the winter solstice are later, and have nothing to do with Judaism per se. The OP might also want to look up the proselytes, Noachides and, especially, the God-fearers, who were believed to make up a large minority of the non-Jewish population of the Roman Empire.

The OP can also look up Jewish Christians who were Jews centered on James and Jerusalem, who followed Jesus as the Messiah but otherwise considered themselves Jewish, and the Gentile Christians centered on Paul and Antioch who declared Jewish practices such as circumcision and kashrut deprecated, and through whom various Gnostic ideas entered early Christianity.

The split between early Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism seems to have occurred with the promulgation of the rabbinical Birkat haMinim and the destruction of the Second Temple and the Jewish Diaspora brought on by the Jewish–Roman wars (AD 66-135), which left diluted any remaining Jewish Christians as exiles among a see of Gentile Christians. At that point any rationale for Christians to follow practices based on the Temple, or Jerusalem, was lost, although the practice of a calendar of weekly readings in the Liturgical year remained as a calque from the rabbinical Hebrew calendar.

All of the above points are contentious, and most of the relevant history is lost, so I am bringing up the above as relevant areas of study, not to argue any point. μηδείς (talk) 21:25, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Some Christians talk about Sunday as the "Sabbath", which it ain't, but it's treated as an equivalent, because Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, hence "The Lord's Day". Easter naturally corresponds to Pesach because Jesus' Last Supper was the Passover Seder, and both Easter and Pesach derive from the Jewish lunar calendar or similar logic. And what was then the Spring Equinox, March 25, was assigned as Annunciation Day by the early Roman church, and of course exactly nine months later was what was then the Winter Solstice, December 25, restyled as the celebration day for Jesus' birth, though no one actually knows when He was born. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:12, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, it is really, just different; see Sabbath in Christianity. Alansplodge (talk) 14:40, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

With reference to earlier comments about Chanukah, there's a difference between the modern treatment of Chanukah which presumably Bug's knowledgable friends are complaining about, and it's undoubtedly ancient origins.

While Josephus is notoriously a dodgy source for his complex and conflicted political views on the Jewish War, much of his comment on religious practice and ethnographic observations is pretty damn reliable. You could question how he knows for sure that Chanukah observance went back centuries (here's the source, last paragraph), it's clear that in first century Judaea, it was already a festival that had been observed for many many generations.

Therefore Chanukah would absolutely fit the requirements of the questioner. --Dweller (talk) 11:07, 30 November 2015 (UTC)