Posted on 04/10/2020 3:01:19 PM PDT by Kaslin
Maybe you’ve seen the eyebrow-raising claims on the Internet or elsewhere in the media: rather than celebrating Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and triumph over crucifixion, Easter is really derived from a pagan holiday. Proponents of this theory point to symbols of rebirth and fertility, like eggs and bunnies, that we see at Easter as proof. But the foundation of the claim that Easter is a pagan tradition is the similarity in names: Easter, they say, is the English translation of Eostre, a Germanic goddess of fertility. (Others claim Easter got its name from the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, or the Ethiopian god Ashtar. That they have trouble keeping their story straight should be your first clue the Easter skeptics don’t have much in the way of actual evidence)! Others take the theory even further, arguing that the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection was lifted from ancient mythology—and therefore can’t possibly be true.
It’s intriguing stuff for people who wish to deny the divinity of Christ. But, much like the fertility myths surrounding Eostre, these claims are more fiction than fact. For starters, the word for Easter in many languages—including Spanish (Pascua), French (Pâques), and Romanian (Pa?ti)—is derived from the Hebrew word pesach, or “Passover.” Christians indeed borrowed many of their Easter traditions from another faith, but it was the monotheistic religion of Judaism, not paganism. Moreover, Ronald Nash, a philosophy professor at Reformed Theological Seminary, spent years thoroughly researching ancient mythology and found no evidence for resurrection stories similar to Christ’s. He did find a few examples of gods who died and then came back to life, but the circumstances bore no resemblance to Jesus’ execution and resurrection: “None of the so-called savior-gods died for someone else...Only Jesus died for sin. The other ‘dying gods’ tend to die because of accidents or quarrels. Jesus died once and for all, according to the teachings of the New Testament. Other stories involve the ‘god’ dying every year, corresponding to changing seasons."
As for Easter eggs and bunnies, there is little evidence that modern Christians lifted these symbols from pagans. In the early years of the Church, eating eggs was forbidden during Lent. Therefore, Christians celebrated the end of Lent and the arrival of Easter Sunday by cracking open beautifully painted eggs. And the Easter Bunny didn’t appear until sometime in the 1700s, when German immigrants in Pennsylvania introduced him into their Easter celebrations as a special surprise for children.
In sum, Christians borrowed their Pascal celebrations from the Jewish Passover. Easter traditions—whether it’s Orthodox Christians in Russia painting elaborate eggs or German Catholics delivering gifts to children from the “Easter bunny”—have varied according to regional and cultural traditions, and have changed greatly since the early days of the Church. But none of these traditions seem to have roots in paganism. Those who seek to undermine Christianity might tout this theory to make it seem as if believing in Christ’s resurrection has as much validity as worshipping animals or fertility goddesses. But the next time you hear these dubious claims about Easter and pagan mythology, remember it is just that: a myth.
PASCHALE GAUDIUM.
Now, the Church uses three names to designate the Easter day and season; one an English name, one a Latin name, and one a Hebrew name—Easter, Resurrectio, Phase. Some have never thought it worth while to inquire why this season is called Easter-tide.
Just add the letter “N” to the word, make it “Eastern ,” and we have the solution. Some, indeed, derive from “Eastre” the Goddess of Dawn; this season being dedicated to that goddess in pagan, Anglo-Saxon days. But these have only pursued the inquiry half-way. Why was the Goddess of Dawn called Eastre? Because the dawn of day is in the East—Morgenland—as the musical, mystical Germans call it—morningland.
The Church took the pagan philosophy and made it the buckler of faith against the heathen. She took the pagan Roman Pantheon, temple of all the gods, and made it sacred to all the martyrs; so it stands to this day. She took the pagan Sunday and made it the Christian Sunday. She took the pagan Easter and made it the feast we celebrate during this season.
Sunday and Easter day are, if we consider their derivation, much the same. In truth, all Sundays are Sundays only because they are a weekly, partial recurrence of Easter day. The pagan Sunday was, in a manner, an unconscious preparation for Easter day. The Sun was a foremost god with heathendom. Balder the Beautiful, the White God, the old Scandinavians called him. The Sun has worshipers at this hour in Persia and other lands. ... There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the Sun, making it a fit emblem of Jesus, the Sun of Justice. Hence, the Church, in these countries, would seem to have said, “Keep that old pagan name. It shall remain consecrated, sanctified.” And thus, the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder, became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus. The Sun is a fitting emblem of Jesus. The Fathers often compared Jesus to the Sun; as they compared Mary to the Moon, the beautiful Moon, the beautiful Mary, shedding her mild, beneficent light on the darkness and night of this world—not light of her own; no Catholic says this; but—light reflected from the Sun, Jesus.
Source: The Rev. William L. Gildea, D. D., THE CATHOLIC WORLD, Vol. LVIII (58), Oct., 1893 to Mar., 1894, pgs. 808-813.
You must not have gotten the memo from your own church. Nearly everything they stand for comes directly from Paganism. Most of the writers, priests, popes, etc... from your church wore it as a badge of honor and openly admitted it. But you deny it.
“you really ought to read history and the bible”
“So in conclusion, it should now be quite plain that the day of the year celebrated by Christianity as “Easter” is based only on nothing more than Sun worshipping paganism and unbiblical decrees of the Roman Catholic Church. Why then, does the “Bible Only” Protestant Christian observe it at all? Is this not a contradiction between profession and practice of truly monumental, ... nay, stupifying proportions? Indeed, I believe it is. Despite their good intentions, and mostly in ignorance, they are in fact celebrating the risen Sun, not the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/easter.htm
Yup, Paganism died out in England in the years before Bede.
Perhaps you don’t realize it but
1. the mention of Eostre is only a conjection and only by Bede, who wrote AFTER paganism died out in England.
2. it is mentioned in no other place,
3. in contrast you have lots of mentions of Woden, Odin, Thor, Tew, Fryja, Frigga etc. in various texts by the pagans themselves before the dawn of Christianity among the Anglo Saxons.
4. Eostre is derived from the germanic word for east - spring.
There never was any goddess named “Eostre”.
Wicca, Odinism etc. are modern newly created religions based on what people THINK the pre-Christian pagans believed.
There is no continuity not historically, nor in beliefs
Did you even read the links you sent? All of them have only one reference - Bede
And Bede himself wrote as speculation.
Think of it - there are tons of references to Thor, Twe, Woden, Oden etc. in Anglo-Saxon and norse writings and runes, but not a single one of any eostre, no mention, nada, zilch.
there is no contemporary mention of this goddess - while the Romans wrote down the names of the barbarian gods quite thoroughly.
Ergo - there was no goddess called Eostre
A very good point - Jesus, a Jewish man, was found guilty by the Jewish court and sentenced to death. But since only the empire could sanction the death penalty they went to Pontius who was in charge of Judaea. Pontius tried to fob it off to Herod Agrippa, the client king of Galilee, with the excuse that Jesus was a Galilean, but Herod declined the hot potato.
admin - to note: Philsworld doesn’t even follow the basic rules of the forum to cc me while he breaks the other rules of civil discourse
You are correct that Pasqua (as the non-English world calls the pascal feast) is intrinsically Christian. No doubt about it.
btw, Rev. William L. Gildea, D. D. has no real historical ability and he gets his first sentence wrong.
The proper name for Paschal is Pasqua etc. - only in the modern language called English is it called easter.
You do realize that there are other languages beside English, right?
oh and just a point - the Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek - not in KJV English. That may shatter your world, but that’s just the first...
“Pontius tried to fob it off”
Barabbas the scapegoat. Very interesting stuff.
What I found interesting are the following books
1. the day christ died - by Jim Bishop
2. first century Judaism in crisis - Neusner
3. Christ or Allah - Nabeel Qureishi
The historical background that there were 5 sects of Judaism in 30 AD to 69 AD is fascinating:
1. the Sadduccees - they held to the written Torah and the prophets. Didn’t believe in life after death and were the high priests and elites
2. the Samaritans - descendents of Ephraim and Manasseh, they held only to the Torah, but have(and had) their own Torah which doesn’t have Jerusalem but Mt Gerizim
3. The Pharisees - they held to the written AND the oral Torah
4. the Essenes - vegetarian ascetics
5. the Jesus movement
And the Zealots were a branch of the Pharisees that believed in action now.
Finally with the destruction of the temple in 69 AD after 42 months of war (as seen in the vision of John of Patmos in the book of the Revelation) - the 1260 days you ahve only the Jesus movement and the pharisees surviving because they find different ways of worship without the temple and its sacrifices.
these two were the christian and modern jewish religions.
The other fascinating piece that I was researching was Jewish presence in what is now (and was Israel).
In short, there has never been a time with no Jewish presence in the holy land - not since 1000 BC.
The Babylonian exile still left some behind.
In 69 AD with the 2nd temple and Jerusalem destroyed, the Judeans were still in the villages and towns all over Judea and Galilee etc.
In 117 AD the Jews rose in the Kitos war and slaughtered the gentile (not Christian either) populations of Cyrene (Libya) and Cyprus - these areas became depopulated.
As a follow-up the Bar Kochkba revolt of 132 BC which failed led to Hadrian deciding that the Jews needed to be run out of Jerusalem completely and renaming their land after their long assimilated enemies, the Philistines. But Jews still remained in Ceasarea.
And Jerusalem was rebuilt as Aelia Capitolina — the “Old Jerusalem” we have today dates from this time period - the oldest parts of Jerusalem are from Hadrian’s Roman city with the exception of the Wailing wall.
The Wailing wall was a wall of the BASE of the temple mount (it’s not a wall of the temple).
But Jews remained - and when the ARabs came in the 600s, they gave the city to control of the Jews temporarily until Arab rulers came along.
And Jews remained there even under the Crusader states, under the Mameluks, Turks, etc.
Jewish presence in the holy land has been a constant feature for 3000 years.
Many of the things we consider have a past we don’t understand or even know about. My personal beliefs are based upon what I observe and understand the same as everyone else. One of the people that sent me a note mentioned that I was just quoting Bede. There are others far more learned in the field than I that have identified local lore that may have been passed. Jacob Grimm for instance claimed that he found evidence of her existence in the oral traditions of certain parts of Germany. He lived from 1785 to 1863, over 1000 years after Bede died. It’s likely that Eostre was a localized goddess worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons in what is now Southeastern England. There are others.
Another article that might be read is this:
I mentioned the original study of the earth by early man. Their fears led them more than their understanding. But the sun’s warmth, the soils ability to produce vegetation, water for its ability to quench thirst, and with time the ability to determine that there is air to breath. These are all basic living requirements that early man would not have the ability or experience to understand. But they all would have been determined special and be considered sacred. When it clouded up, they would fear the disappearance of the sun’s warmth, lightening would strike and they would fear it, the mountains would avalanche and people would drown so they feared that part.
This is how man evolves, through studying and learning. And the identification of the Mother Earth wasn’t identified, even though it was done by early man, until Greco-roman times. So don’t cast aside what man did and how it evolved. None of us were around until just the 20 century. Our knowledge had to come from somewhere, also.
rwood
Then, by your definition, there exists nothing, by any Roman, Jew, or Gentile, there is no one within a 40 year window, who even seen the guy sneeze. Not exactly eyewitness reports, more like “telephone game”.
“Not exactly eyewitness reports”
Well I never saw him sneeze either. Heck I don’t even know if he had a cold?
“oh and just a point - the Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek - not in KJV English. That may shatter your world, but that’s just the first...”
Amazing how many English speaking only people in the world know about Christ, the Sabbath, Rightiousness by faith, Justification, etc... and have never read it in any other language other than English. Simply amazing. There was a time when only Catholic priests were allowed to read from the bible or even have one and then it was in Latin (which most of the general population did not speak). Anyone else even caught with a few pages of the bible was hunted down and put to death (after being tortured, of course). The bible has been faithfully translated and the KJV is pretty much as close to the original Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek as it gets. I don’t need to read it in the original language to be assured of a true translation. But, you have my permission to read from the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. Be my guest.
“admin - to note: Philsworld doesn’t even follow the basic rules of the forum to cc me while he breaks the other rules of civil discourse”
Admin: I certainly do follow rules of civil discourse and for the record, I have never been cc’d by Cronos. I would be more than happy to discuss this in further detail if you wish.
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