Posted on 04/16/2017 12:38:42 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Was Easter actually borrowed or rather usurped from a pagan celebration? The argument largely rests on the supposed pagan names for the celebration in English and German (Easter, Ostern). Note, however, that in most other European languages, the celebrations name is derived from Pascha (Greek), from Pesach, (Hebrew), Passover. Easter is the Christian Passover.
[large snips here and throughout]
The usual argument for the pagan origins of Easter is based on Venerable Bede (673-735), an English monk who wrote:
Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month" and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month.Note: the forcible conversion of the Saxons in Europe began under Charlemagne in 772. Christians celebrated an Easter/Passover festival by the second century, if not earlier. Thus the Christian Easter/Passover celebration originated in the Mediterranean basin, not any Germanic pagan festival.
But does the name "Easter" come from the blurring of the Christian celebration with the worship of a English/Germanic fertility goddess named "Eostre"?. In his book, The Stations of the Sun Professor Ronald Hutton (a well-known historian of British paganism and occultism) says there is no evidence outside of Bede for the existence of this goddess....
Another problem with Bede's explanation concerns Charlemagne's renaming of the months. Charlemagne was the scourge of Germanic paganism. He forcibly converted them to Christianity and repressed them when they revolted because of this. It seems very unlikely, therefore, that Charlemagne would name a month after a Germanic goddess.
Hutton suggests that Eosturmonath simply meant "the month of opening," which is comparable to the meaning of "April" in Latin. The names of both the Saxon and Latin months were related to spring, the season when the buds open
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(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
Happy Easter to all of you.
I’ve often wondered if the children searching for goodies on Easter was taken from the two times children search at passover.
First, the home is cleaned of all unleavened bread, flour, etc. at the end of this cleaning, Jewish children search for some pieces of bread their parents have hidden to complete
The task. Supposedly only be candlelight (we don’t go that far).
Then you might know that part of the ceremonial matzah in the Passover Seder meal “disappears” during the meal but is needed for the Seder to go on at the end. (An adult has hidden it). The children all go searching for it, and whoever finds it is paid a few
Dollars by the Seder leader in order to use it to complete
The Seder.
Since both holidays have that children searching thing, I wondered if Easter borrowed that fun tradition.
Happy Resurrection Day, FReople.
If it borrows from anything, it would be Pesach.
Christ is Risen!!!!
The real, Orthodox Christian Easter is Pascha, and there is nothing pagan about it whatsoever!!!!
Pascha is the fulfillment of the Israelite Pesach. We read the following Old Testament lesson on Holy Saturday:
https://oca.org/readings/daily/2017/04/15/6
And we read the last line as “It is the Lord’s Pascha”!!!!
Orthodox Pascha is preceded by the Great Fast (including fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and repentance/Confession) and Holy Week. It culminates with the reception of Holy Communion on Pascha morning, without which one has not really celebrated Pascha at all.
In the Serbian tradition, we followed the Divine Liturgy with a feast featuring spit-roasted lamb and pork, as well as real, traditionally-dyed chicken eggs. I ate my first bit of chocolate only some time after returning home. It is possible to have a real celebration of Pascha with no chocolate at all!
The commercialized bunny-rabbits and chocolate-eggs “Easter” is a fake, post-modern holiday that does not even rise to the level of paganism. It gets worse and worse with every passing year. Leave it to the fake-news media to use the bogus “Easter” to bash Christianity as usual!
Indeed He is Risen!!!!
My cat killed a rabbit last night and left the headless corpse by the back door. Happy Easter from your friendly nocturnal carnivorous predator!
What you said!!!
It’s bad enough that we have to put up with the MSM “Jesus was really a gay illegal immigrant” nonsense every Easter, but worse when our own FR is the source of bad urban myths “Easter starts with E and that rhymes with P and that spells pool”
HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!!
quote-We’d be better off celebrating on Passover!
There’s a problem with that this year- the 3rd day from Passover was a roman thor’s day this year. That isn’t the 1st day of Rome’s week and scripture says He was raised the 3rd Day (from Passover), the 1st day of the week.
But, if one follows the biblical calendar, that roman thor’s day, was actually the 1st day of the Father’s work week.
So Rome’s calendar and the Father’s calendar differs.
And the biblical pattern is one most in the world can’t afford to follow. It would mess up their work, school, family lives.
And most in the world can’t even see the difference.
Easter (n.)
Old English Easterdæg, from Eastre (Northumbrian Eostre), from Proto-Germanic *austron-, "dawn," also the name of a goddess of fertility and spring, perhaps originally of sunrise, whose feast was celebrated at the spring equinox, from *aust- "east, toward the sunrise" (compare east), from PIE *aus- (1) "to shine" (especially of the dawn); see aurora.
Bede says Anglo-Saxon Christians adopted her name and many of the celebratory practices for their Mass of Christ's resurrection. Almost all neighboring languages use a variant of Latin Pascha to name this holiday (see paschal). Easter egg attested by 1825, earlier pace egg (1610s). Easter bunny attested by 1904 in children's lessons; Easter rabbit is by 1888; the paganish customs of Easter seem to have grown popular c. 1900; before that they were limited to German immigrants.
If the children have no garden, they make nests in the wood-shed, barn, or house. They gather colored flowers for the rabbit to eat, that it may lay colored eggs. If there be a garden, the eggs are hidden singly in the green grass, box-wood, or elsewhere. On Easter Sunday morning they whistle for the rabbit, and the children imagine that they see him jump the fence. After church, on Easter Sunday morning, they hunt the eggs, and in the afternoon the boys go out in the meadows and crack eggs or play with them like marbles. Or sometimes children are invited to a neighbor's to hunt eggs. [Phebe Earle Gibbons, "Pennsylvania Dutch," Philadelphia 1882]
Ref: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Easter
Cite any scripture which mentions Easter (Pascha, Pesach) as a festival day to be celebrated by Christians. Cite any scripture which establishes any Christian festival day whatsoever. Without that, the evidence is incontrovertible: Easter (Pesach) became a Christian festival by way of adopting a non-Christian holiday (holy day; Passover is not a Christian event.)
There's a problem with that every year. Passover doesn't land on the same day year after year because the Jewish calendar doesn't calculate holidays according to the day of the week.
Straight and narrow vs wide and well traveled.
Then again, We know not what we do.
Jesus celebrated Passover. He is as Christian as it gets.
The biblical answer is it doesn’t matter:
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Colossians 2:16
I have no problem with roasted lamb.
Try this one: https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/common/easter-sunday
Easter wasn’t a holiday until Constantine declared in 326 c.e. the day is celebrated differently between Eastern Orthodox and Catholic depending on the Gregorian or Julian Calendar. It was declared a holiday because the Last Supper was a Passover Seder and He was presented as a Passover Lamb Sacrifice. Since that time, however, many other doctrines crept into the Symbology, which is Resurrection, new life, a new beginning, etc. To this day, however, Easter has little to do with Passover. Passover is always the same day, always on the 15th of Nissan, always a full moon. They needed the full moon to escape Egypt through the desert and it took the length of Passover(8 days) to get to the reed sea.
Cite the scripture which commands, or even condones, Christians celebrating any "holy day" whatsoever.
And no, scriptural affirmation of eating, drinking and having non-religious parties doesn't count. That's not the issue. The issue is whether elevating a festival to the status of "required by Christianity" or even just "defined by Christianity" is scripturally sanctioned.
quote-Passover doesn’t land on the same day year after year because the Jewish calendar doesn’t calculate holidays according to the day of the week.
Bipolar,The Father’s calendar and the Jewish calendar are not the same.
Which is why Judaism doesn’t understand Passover, His 14th Day, is always the 6th Day of His 2nd week-
In every month.
They don’t have the Son to show them this. They reject the Son so they reject the Father.
And the Father tells time with His Son.
When Judaism understands Passover (14th Day)= 6th Day and Unleavened Bread (15th Day)= 7th Day and First Fruits (16th Day) =1st Day, they will see the Son.
That pattern is in the scriptures. But unseen to those with eyes that cannot see.
It’s not an accident Creation was ‘finished’ on the 7th Day in Genesis 2(unless the bible versions have messed with that). and the Son finished redemption on the 14th Day.
The days after each of those 6th work days were 7th Day sabbath rests.
Israel was able to have Passover on the 14th day of the 2nd month because that is His 6th Day of the 2nd week.
If they see this and follow this, which is found in the scriptures, then the command to ‘Remember the Sabbath’ may drop them to their knees after the punch in the gut they receive- for following the traditions of men.
quote-Passover doesn’t land on the same day year after year because the Jewish calendar doesn’t calculate holidays according to the day of the week.
Bipolar,The Father’s calendar and the Jewish calendar are not the same.
Which is why Judaism doesn’t understand Passover, His 14th Day, is always the 6th Day of His 2nd week-
In every month.
They don’t have the Son to show them this. They reject the Son so they reject the Father.
And the Father tells time with His Son.
When Judaism understands Passover (14th Day)= 6th Day and Unleavened Bread (15th Day)= 7th Day and First Fruits (16th Day) =1st Day, they will see the Son.
That pattern is in the scriptures. But unseen to those with eyes that cannot see.
It’s not an accident Creation was ‘finished’ on the 7th Day in Genesis 2(unless the bible versions have messed with that). and the Son finished redemption on the 14th Day.
The days after each of those 6th work days were 7th Day sabbath rests.
Israel was able to have Passover on the 14th day of the 2nd month because that is His 6th Day of the 2nd week.
If they see this and follow this, which is found in the scriptures, then the command to ‘Remember the Sabbath’ may drop them to their knees after the punch in the gut they receive- for following the traditions of men.
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