The end of the first century saw a time of severe persecution of the Jews in and around Rome. It was no wonder that the Roman Christians began to differentiate themselves from the Jews in every way they could. Many practices that were very common in the early church disappeared in the smoke of the persecution of the Jews. But why would the early church have paid any attention to what we know as Jewish holidays in the first place? For one thing, Christians and Jews shared the same God. In its earliest years, Christianity was viewed by the world, not as a separate religion, but as a sect of Judaism. The earliest Christians were Jewish, and they had no consciousness of starting a new religion. Many saw what they were doing as a restoration of a purer faith. Judaism, in their view, had gone astray from the faith of Abraham and Moses.

We are introduced to the so-called “Feasts of Israel” in Leviticus 23:2. This is really a misnomer, because in Scripture the Holy days are never called the “Feasts of Israel.” It might be more accurate to call them the “Feasts of YHWH,” however, one of the “Feasts” (Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement) is really a day of fasting. The Hebrew term is “Moedei YHWH,” which would be more accurately translated, “appointed times of YHWH.”