I find this fascinating- in what way is this not the case, I am really intrigued.
In particular, the alignment of the birth/rebirth of Christ & other solar messiahs in relation to the winter solstice (including the third-day resurrection delay 22-25 Dec), and the 'moveable feast' of Easter at close to the spring equinox, but still (to this day) is date-linked to the phases of the Moon. How does that even *begin* to be validated in Christian scripture?
Can you please dissect my misunderstanding on these matters? Is it your interpretation that Christianity substantially *did not* adopt/occupy 'pagan' locations/customs/observances?
I simply said "it is not as simple and clear cut as you are suggesting", not that it did not happen at all.
As regards the alleged Christianisation of sites, I have already cited an academic book which I read many years ago. You may be aware of books that argue the opposite. I can think of a dozen old churches locally, and not one of them is obviously linked with any earlier earthworks or standing stones. Whether there was a sacred grove or tree on any of the sites is of course only a matter for speculation.
I am however reminded of a story I once read of a survey of defensible sites in Britain in preparation for a possible German invasion. I read that every site they considered building a defensive position on already had evidence of previous defences. Some sites are just ideally positioned for a purpose.
As regards Easter, here's an extract from Wkipedia about how and why the date was fixed:
Extract begins<< The feast of Easter is linked to the Jewish
Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, as Christians believe that the
crucifixion and
resurrection of Jesus occurred at the time of those observances.
As early as
Pope Sixtus I, some Christians had set Easter to a Sunday in the lunar month of
Nisan. To determine which lunar month was to be designated as Nisan, Christians relied on the Jewish community. By the later 3rd century some Christians began to express dissatisfaction with what they took to be the disorderly state of the
Jewish calendar. They argued that contemporary Jews were identifying the wrong lunar month as the month of Nisan, choosing a month whose 14th day fell before the spring equinox.
[55]
Christians, these thinkers argued, should abandon the custom of relying on Jewish informants and instead do their own computations to determine which month should be styled Nisan, setting Easter within this independently computed, Christian Nisan, which would always locate the festival after the equinox. They justified this break with tradition by arguing that it was in fact the contemporary Jewish calendar that had broken with tradition by ignoring the equinox, and that in former times the 14th of Nisan had never preceded the equinox.
[56] Others felt that the customary practice of reliance on the Jewish calendar should continue, even if the Jewish computations were in error from a Christian point of view.
[57]
The controversy between those who argued for independent computations and those who argued for continued reliance on the Jewish calendar was formally resolved by the Council, which endorsed the independent procedure that had been in use for some time at Rome and Alexandria. Easter was henceforward to be a Sunday in a lunar month chosen according to Christian criteria—in effect, a Christian Nisan—not in the month of Nisan as defined by Jews.
[6] Those who argued for continued reliance on the Jewish calendar (called "protopaschites" by later historians) were urged to come around to the majority position. That they did not all immediately do so is revealed by the existence of sermons,
[58] canons,
[59] and tracts
[60] written against the protopaschite practice in the later 4th century.
These two rules, independence of the Jewish calendar and worldwide uniformity, were the only rules for Easter explicitly laid down by the Council. No details for the computation were specified; these were worked out in practice, a process that took centuries and generated a number of
controversies (see also
Computus and
Reform of the date of Easter.) In particular, the Council did not seem to decree that Easter must fall on Sunday.
[61]
Nor did the Council decree that Easter must never coincide with Nisan 14 (the first Day of Unleavened Bread, now commonly called "Passover") in the
Hebrew calendar. By endorsing the move to independent computations, the Council had separated the Easter computation from all dependence, positive or negative, on the Jewish calendar. The "Zonaras proviso", the claim that Easter must always follow Nisan 14 in the Hebrew calendar, was not formulated until after some centuries. By that time, the accumulation of errors in the Julian solar and lunar calendars had made it the
de facto state of affairs that Julian Easter always followed Hebrew Nisan 14.
[62]>> Extract ends
Certainly it's far from a simple case of the Christians rebranding a pre-existing pagan festival.
Apart from that, much of what we think we know about pagan festivals was not written by the pagans themselves, but by Romans. You only need to read few items written in the glory days of the British Empire to see how an educated outsider with preconceptions and a sense of superiority might misrepresent or misunderstand the "natives".