Xzins, Easter has never been considered cognate to Passover, which celebrates the sacrifice of the Lamb (and which is observed, if at all, by most Christians as Good Friday), but to the Feast of Firstfruits, the day when our Lord Yeshua was raised as the Firstfruits of the dead (cf. 1 Co. 15:20, 23). It's true that the King James' translators put "Easter" instead of "Passover" in Acts 12:4, but this was simply one of the many documented errors of the King James Version, an example of reading an anachronism back into the text.
Xenia, while it's true that Constantine mandated Sunday worship and also the Easter-based date of the Resurrection Day--and he was pretty blunt that he didn't want any of the Church's practices linked to those of the Jews--he was in many ways simply ratifying the majority position of the churches at that time. The fact is that many Christians were already worshiping on Sunday (which is not in and of itself a sin, since we should worship every day) and ignoring the Biblical Sabbath (which is a problem) and had adopted and adapted some pagan holidays into their practice.
But let's be fair to those early believers: When they adopted the Feast of Ishtar (Easter) or Saturnalia (Christmas), they were not attempting to bring idols into the Temple like Solomon, so to speak. Rather, they were engaged in a type of cultural "one-upmanship" and outreach. Since those were the days on which everyone was released from work, it made sense to them to co-opt those days--especially in a time when keeping the Jewish Feasts instead only increased the level of persecution.
So they could say, "You celebrate the Feast of Ishtar because you think she brings life*? Well our Lord rose on this day from the dead, and He truly gives eternal life!" Or, "You celebrate the 'rebirth' of the Sun on Saturnalia. But we celebrate the birth of the Son of God, who truly is the Light of the World."
* As in fertility; hence the eggs and bunnies, as the article points out. And that, xzins, is why I respectfully don't buy your alternative explanation for the origin of the name Easter. Even if you are right that the name is merely a coincidence (and to be honest, your explanation seems rather contrived), the symbols of a cult of fertility are all over Easter to this very day.As a side-note, December 25th was probably chosen because it was roughly equivalent to Kislev 25th on the Jewish Calendar--the beginning of Hanunkkah, and the time of our Lord Yeshua's conception, though not His birth.
Now, do I agree with that decision even though I'm sympathetic to the motives of the early believers and difficult situation they were in? No. I think it was a very human solution in a difficult situation--which is exactly the problem with it. God condemns making up our own appointed times in lieu of His (1 Ki. 12:33, Dan. 7:25), and even in such a time of persecution, the Ekklesia, empowered by His Spirit, should have kept the Biblical Feasts:
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Messiah. (Col. 2:16-17)This isn't about legalism. One is saved by grace received through faith, not by observing all of the right holy days--Abraham was saved by faith 430 years before Passover even existed, after all. However, I remain firm in my belief that by giving up keeping God's Appointed Times, that the Church has lost a great blessing, for the entire plan of Salvation, from the birth of the Messiah and His Forerunner (Elijah/John the Baptist) to the Crucifixion, to the giving of the Holy Spirit to the destruction of the Temple, to the Second Coming/Rapture, to the restoration of God's covenant relationship with Israel, to God dwelling in Jerusalem is played out every year in the Feasts, and we are just now rediscovering this after so long an absence.Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Messiah our Passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Co. 5:7-8)
We--and here I'm specifically speaking to my fellow Messianics--need to regard this restored gift as a matter of great joy, a blessing to be shared, not as a matter for contention among our brothers and sisters in the Messiah.
This thread is tainted by XeniaSt's offensive rhetoric. I'm staying off this thread.
Okay, I gotta keep saying this because it's not getting through to people.
The name "Easter" has nothing to do with Ishtar. Easter apparently (it's not absolutely certain) came from the Germanic goddess of the dawn, Eostre. There are technical linguistic reasons why "Ishtar" didn't turn into Easter.
Easter is only called by a name derived from Eostre in English and German. That's it. In Greek, it's called Pascha, a name obviously derived from the Hebrew pesach, or Passover. The word in Latin and all Romance languages comes from the Greek. Even many Germanic languages use a word derived from Pascha (Dutch and Norwegian, for example), and some Germans call it "Paisken" instead of "Ostern". Slavs call it "Bright Night", and the following week, "Bright Week".
Not only are there technical linguistic reasons why Ishtar didn't turn into Easter, but there are obvious geographic ones: how is it that the English worship "Ishtar" but nobody else between England and Mesopotamia does?
The official name of the festival, as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, is Dominica Resurrectionis ("Lord's Day of the Resurrection"), the first day of the 8-day Festa Paschalis ("Passover Feast").
The Ishtar=Easter foolishness comes from Alexander Hislop. He had no credentials to make that claim (like the rest of his nonsense) and was merely positing a guess based in anti-Catholic bigotry and bad scholarship.