Happy Easter, Which is Not Named After Istar, OK?

Daily Beast ^ | Megan McCardle

[donmeaker]

My unfavorite new Facebook meme is this bit of sillyness which has apparently been spotted everywhere from the feeds of my college friends to (allegedly) that of Richard Dawkins' Foundation for Reason and Science:

[Campion]

That poster in the article says, “After Constantine decided to Christianize the empire, Easter was changed to represent Jesus” is a strange anachronism. Do they imagine that Constantine spoke English? No: Constantine spoke Greek, and the only thing that changed about Easter on his account was that he promulgated a decree making uniform the date of a feast he, and his decree, called “PASCHA”.

[roamer_1]

The root of "Easter" isn't Babylonian, and, as the article correctly notes, practically everyone else in Western Europe calls Easter by a name cognate to "Passover". Should we believe that Babylonians brought Easter to England, but mysteriously skipped Greece, Italy, Spain, etc.?

Look up Ea/Oestre/Ostara. same dang thing, all over again. Sure it is Babylon, right at the root - Why was Esther's name changed to 'Esther' (Her actual name is Hadasa)? What is the entymology surrounding the word?

What they call it doesn't matter. it is not what was ordained, and it follows the tradition of the pagans. That all y'all co-opted it doesn't make it good. We are *not* to do as the pagans do, and say it is for Him. That is an abomination.

The whole "Easter"-"Ishtar" thing was started by an incredibly ignorant man named Alexander Hislop, who had absolutely no scholarly credentials in linguistics or archaeology, simply invented some of the "evidence" he cites in his book, and was blissfully ignorant of Christianity outside England.

Funny, but I was accused for years of drawing upon Hislop... Anyone making a comparative study of pagan gods will certainly be able to see where he is coming from (whether one agrees or not). I was able to arrive at a very similar conclusion, having never read him until recently. There are broad similarities between pantheons. To claim no linkage is just ludicrous.

[roamer_1]

No: Constantine spoke Greek, and the only thing that changed about Easter on his account was that he promulgated a decree making uniform the date of a feast he, and his decree, called “PASCHA”.

This is disingenuous. What Constantine did was to tear Christianity away from it's Hebrew root. Quite amazing, isn't it, that Constantine's compromise landed Pascha directly upon the day of Ishtar/Isis? What a coincidence, huh?

[Campion]

What Constantine did was to tear Christianity away from it's Hebrew root.

By ratifying the decision of the bishops, most of whom suffered persecution for the faith under Diocletian? What rot!

Quite amazing, isn't it, that Constantine's compromise landed Pascha directly upon the day of Ishtar/Isis?

Care to provide evidence that there was a "day of Ishtar" that fell on the Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox ON THE JULIAN CALENDAR ???

Of course not; the Babylonians knew of no such day, nor of the calendar on which it was based, nor did Constantine know of any holiday called "Easter".

[Campion]

"Broad similarities between pantheons" prove absolutely nothing except that human cultures are broadly similar. For example, Hislop tries to claim that a picture of the Madonna and Child is somehow evidence of pagan influence. Setting aside the fact that a picture of the Madonna and Child depicts an event that Hislop's own religion claims actually happened, we can observe only that every culture, including pagan ones, has mothers and children. And pictures of them together.

What does Esther have to do with Easter, aside from the similarity in sound? Obviously Esther lived in a pagan country next door to Babylon, not in Anglo-Saxon England.

Please, explain to me why no name sounding remotely like "Ishtar" has EVER been used for Easter outside England, Holland, western German dialect, and I believe Norwegian? How did "Babylonian, right at the root" get from Mesopotamia to England, missing everywhere in between? Teleportation? Ancient astronauts?

Hislop was exactly what Paul had in mind when he warned us against cleverly designed myths.

[Rashputin]

So, you've accept Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God, God from God, and our Savior through His death on the cross but you're hung up on Jewish feast days?

[Rashputin]

Sure.

And Dan Brown knows more than anyone who has ever lived even Jesus Christ Himself and the Apostoles.

[ladyL]

Your lack of knowledge at calling the Feasts Jewish shows you are too far away from me instructing you in truth so let’s leave it at I will have to respectfully disagree with your entire position. Perhaps I would have to study the Bible another 30 years before I could tackle this job. May you have a good First Fruit Feast.

[donmeaker]

At least he knew to sell his books as fiction.

[Rashputin]

At least he knew to sell his books as fiction."

Which shows he smarter than the sort of  gullible mental dwarf who claims The Gnostic Hoax of Judas is nonfiction.