Posted on 04/16/2006 9:07:24 AM PDT by The Lumster
The Pagan Origin Of Easter
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Easter is a day that is honered by nearly all of contemporary Christianity and is used to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The holiday often involves a church service at sunrise, a feast which includes an "Easter Ham", decorated eggs and stories about rabbits.
Those who love truth learn to ask questions, and many questions must be asked regarding the holiday of Easter.
Is it truly the day when Jesus arose from the dead? Where did all of the strange customs come from, which have nothing to do with the resurrection of our Saviour?
The purpose of this tract is to help answer those questions, and to help those who seek truth to draw their own conclusions.
The first thing we must understand is that professing Christians were not the only ones who celebrated a festival called "Easter."
"Ishtar", which is pronounced "Easter" was a day that commemorated the resurrection of one of their gods that they called "Tammuz", who was believed to be the only begotten son of the moon-goddess and the sun-god.
In those ancient times, there was a man named Nimrod, who was the grandson of one of Noah's son named Ham.
Ham had a son named Cush who married a woman named Semiramis.Cush and Semiramis then had a son named him "Nimrod."
After the death of his father, Nimrod married his own mother and became a powerful King.
The Bible tells of of this man, Nimrod, in Genesis 10:8-10 as follows: "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad,and Calneh, in the land of Shinar."
Nimrod became a god-man to the people and Semiramis, his wife and mother, became the powerful Queen of ancient Babylon.
Nimrod was eventually killed by an enemy, and his body was cut in pieces and sent to various parts of his kingdom.
Semiramis had all of the parts gathered, except for one part that could not be found.
That missing part was his reproductive organ. Semiramis claimed that Nimrod could not come back to life without it and told the people of Babylon that Nimrod had ascended to the sun and was now to be called "Baal", the sun god.
Queen Semiramis also proclaimed that Baal would be present on earth in the form of a flame, whether candle or lamp, when used in worship.
Semiramis was creating a mystery religion, and with the help of Satan, she set herself up as a goddess.
Semiramis claimed that she was immaculately conceived.
She taught that the moon was a goddess that went through a 28 day cycle and ovulated when full.
She further claimed that she came down from the moon in a giant moon egg that fell into the Euphrates River.
This was to have happened at the time of the first full moon after the spring equinox.
Semiramis became known as "Ishtar" which is pronounced "Easter", and her moon egg became known as "Ishtar's" egg."
Ishtar soon became pregnant and claimed that it was the rays of the sun-god Baal that caused her to conceive.
The son that she brought forth was named Tammuz.
Tammuz was noted to be especially fond of rabbits, and they became sacred in the ancient religion, because Tammuz was believed to be the son of the sun-god, Baal. Tammuz, like his supposed father, became a hunter.
The day came when Tammuz was killed by a wild pig.
Queen Ishtar told the people that Tammuz was now ascended to his father, Baal, and that the two of them would be with the worshippers in the sacred candle or lamp flame as Father, Son and Spirit.
Ishtar, who was now worshipped as the "Mother of God and Queen of Heaven", continued to build her mystery religion.
The queen told the worshippers that when Tammuz was killed by the wild pig, some of his blood fell on the stump of an evergreen tree, and the stump grew into a full new tree overnight. This made the evergreen tree sacred by the blood of Tammuz.
She also proclaimed a forty day period of time of sorrow each year prior to the anniversary of the death of Tammuz.
During this time, no meat was to be eaten.
Worshippers were to meditate upon the sacred mysteries of Baal and Tammuz, and to make the sign of the "T" in front of their hearts as they worshipped.
They also ate sacred cakes with the marking of a "T" or cross on the top.
Every year, on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, a celebration was made.
It was Ishtar's Sunday and was celebrated with rabbits and eggs.
Ishtar also proclaimed that because Tammuz was killed by a pig, that a pig must be eaten on that Sunday.
By now, the readers of this tract should have made the connection that paganism has infiltrated the contemporary "Christian" churches, and further study indicates that this paganism came in by way of the Roman Catholic System.
The truth is that Easter has nothing whatsoever to do with the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We also know that Easter can be as much as three weeks away from the Passover, because the pagan holiday is always set as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.
Some have wondered why the word "Easter" is in the the King James Bible.
It is because Acts, chapter 12, tells us that it was the evil King Herod, who was planning to celebrate Easter, and not the Christians.
The true Passover and pagan Easter sometimes coincide, but in some years, they are a great distance apart.
So much more could be said, and we have much more information for you, if you are a seeker of the truth.
We know that the Bible tells us in John 4:24, "God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
The truth is that the forty days of Lent, eggs, rabbits,hot cross buns and the Easter ham have everything to do with the ancient pagan religion of Mystery Babylon.These are all antichrist activities!
Satan is a master deceiver, and has filled the lives of well-meaning, professing Christians with idolatry.
These things bring the wrath of God upon children of disobedience, who try to make pagan customs of Baal worship Christian.
You must answer for your activities and for what you teach your children.
These customs of Easter honor Baal, who is also Satan, and is still worshipped as the "Rising Sun" and his house is the "House of the Rising Sun."
How many churches have "sunrise services" on Ishtar's day and face the rising sun in the East?
How many will use colored eggs and rabbit stories, as they did in ancient Babylon.
These things are no joke, any more than Judgement day is a joke.
I pray to God that this tract will cause you to search for more truth.
We will be glad to help you by providing more information and by praying for you.
These are the last days, and it is time to repent, come out and be separate.
David J. Meyer
Last Trumpet Ministries International PO Box 806 Beaver Dam, WI 53916
http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/
Oh there are still plenty of nimrods around -- and many of them spend a lot of effort trying to mock the Word of God.
"The truth is that the forty days of Lent, eggs, rabbits,hot cross buns and the Easter ham have everything to do with the ancient pagan religion of Mystery Babylon.These are all antichrist activities!"
40 Days of Lent is "antichrist"?? Bible passages disagree.
http://www.apocalipsis.org/jesustemptation.htm
I guess the Bible is antichrist too, then?
It's nice to see an anti-Catholic post on the most important day of Christianity!
//major sarcasm
I've studied a bit of Babylonian history, and I had no idea that Ishtar liked hot cross buns! What a concept!
What a load of rabbit droppings!
The author needs to buy a few chocolate bunnies, cream-filled eggs, and enjoy and then stop writing stupid tracts!
The word Easter comes from the name of an Anglo Saxon fertility goddess.
Christianity in its early days frequently adopted its festivals so that they corresponded to those of the pagans whom they were trying to convert. Many Germanic tribes, among others, had spring fertility festivals.
It's funny because the Easter Bunny came by our house this morning and THEN we went to church and worshipped Christ. My kids know the difference. It's all in the presentation.
Religious forum perhaps?
"We do that every Sunday - actually every day that ends with a Y"
Have you noticed that lately the Bible and Christian practices come under fire more and more? The history channel runs the decode the Bible series about the Da Vinci code. Christmas is a pagan Holiday, Easter is a pagan Holiday, they go out of their way to figure ways to freeze the water so Jesus could walk on it, they even made a story about how it was possible that the wind may have blown just right so Moses and his people could cross. They try to figure ways to explain miracles naturally. They figure that Sodom and gomorra were destroyed by earthquake and Lots waife wasnt really turned to salt. they try to make it appear that all the miracles of God just happened to be coincidence with stories told of the occurrences.
They preach anything but faith.
Was easter the day Jesus rolled back the rock and appeared before his disciples. I doubt. Was December 25th. the day Jesus Christ was born ? I doubt it.
What I dont doubt is that Jesus Christ was born that he died and rose again. The he turned water into wine and fed the multitudes, that he did walk on water.That he broguht Lazarus back to life, that he was the Entity that founded Christianity, and is our Saviour. Who can explain the Trinity? People of faith dont need it explained. It is.
Christianity in its early days frequently adopted its festivals so that they corresponded to those of the pagans whom they were trying to convert. Many Germanic tribes, among others, had spring fertility festivals.It's no coincidence that the two major Christian holidays coincide with the winter solstice and vernal equinox, both commonly celebrated by pagan faiths.
-Eric
Have a happy Easter!
How about this version:
http://www.ldolphin.org/ishtar.html
The word Easter appears once in the King James version of the Bible.Herod has put Peter in prison, "intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people" (Acts 12:4). Yet in the original Greek text the word is not Easter, but Pesach, that is Passover. So why was the name changed? Please read on, and remember Exodus 34:14; For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous G-d.
"Asherah" the Greek form of this word from the Septuagint is "Astarte", who is the Babylonian goddess of the sea, sea being symbolic of people, and consort of the god El. She was the mother of several gods, including Ba'al, the Babylonian god of the sun. These deities were soon adopted by the Canaanites when they named these female deities the Ashereh or Asherim. These deities were made of wood carved from a type of evergreen tree, or often they were set up in Canaanite homes as full trees cut down from a forest. The Asherim normally were highly acknowledged during two specific occasions. First and foremost, they were the fertility gods of the spring equinox, when the days and nights were approximately the same in length, signifying the beginning of living things growing for the summer season. A very common practice in the Canaanite religion was performed on the first Sunday of the equinox. The families would face east to await the rising of the sun, which was the chief symbol of the sun god, Ba'al. Later on during the day, the children of the Canaanite parents would often go and hunt for eggs, which were symbolic of sex, fertility and new life. It was believed that these eggs came from rabbits, which in the pagan world were symbolic of lust, sexual prowess and reproduction. The Canaanites, however, were not the only ones who worshipped rabbits as deities. The Egyptians and the Persians (Babylon) also held rabbits in high esteem because they believed that rabbits first came from the divine Phoenix birds, who once ruled the ancient skies until they were attacked by other gods in a power struggle. When they were struck down, they reincarnated into rabbits, but kept the ability to produce eggs like the ancient birds to show their origins.
Other stories concerning the egg rose later in the Middle Ages by the Anglo-Saxons, where they believed the origin of the Universe had the earth being hatched out of an enormous egg. Decorating eggs came about to honor their pagan gods and were often presented as gifts to other families to bring them fertility and sexual success during the coming year. And secondly, they were highly worshipped and celebrated during the winter solstice. As according to Jer. 10:1-5; Is. 40:19-20; 41:7 and 44:9-20, the pagans would go out into the forest and do one of two things. Either they chopped down a tree and carved a female deity out of it, or they would simply bring the tree into the house and decorate it with gold and silver ornaments symbolizing the sun and the moon while nailing a stand on the bottom so it would not totter or tip over.
Out of this practice came many other variations of these pagan festivals until the Roman Catholic Church adopted the Asherah worship and named it EASTER around 155 A.D. According to the CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, Easter was named after a pagan goddess of the Anglo-Saxons named Eostre, the goddess of the dawn. A great controversy arose between the Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church in 325 A.D. on whether to celebrate Easter on Sundays or on whatever day the Jewish Passover fell upon. Unfortunately, the Greeks lost a lot of followers and the Catholics contended that keeping Easter on Sundays would stimulate the practices of both the Christian world and the pagan worshippers. Note that the word CATHOLIC means "universal" or "one world" in thought, concept and practice. Hence, since the original practice of Asherah worship we now have in our time the celebration of Easter, a counterfeit holiday to the true Christian festival of the Passover which was instituted in the Bible and completed in the New Testament when Christ died on the cross as our Passover Lamb.
"...For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us."
I prayed for folks like you on Good Friday. I will continue to do so. You may mock, but you cannot see Truth. Perhaps you should consider Pascal's wager?
Happy Easter!
Christ Our Savior is Risen!
Francis
That said, I love boiled eggs and chocolate marshmallow bunnies. :-)
Peeps are NEVER OK to eat.
Don't all religions basically do the seasonal party thing? Something in spring, something at harvest, something around winter solstice? It's just people stealing each other's riffs.
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