No, Easter Is Not Derived From an Ancient Pagan Holiday

Townhall.com ^ | April 10, 2020 | Ashley Herzog

[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.

[af_vet_1981]

hat means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name.

As others have nobly pointed out, the problem is in the English language, and to that extent in the English translations of the Bible. Easter = Pascha = Passover, and specifically, in the Gospel context, the trial, death, burial, and resurrection of our LORD Jesus Christ. That is what Easter means, all other contentions aside.

[Cronos]

here's a graphical discussion why

One thing most people don’t realize is that both modern Judaism and Christianity are sister sects and daughter religions of 2nd temple Judaism — the Judaism centered around the 2nd temple (completed by Herod) Christianity along with Modern Judaism are sister first century religions.

Modern Judaism dates from 70 AD with the council of Jamnia and more importantly with Rabbi Ben Zakkai. Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai, following in the footsteps of Gamaliel and Hilal and other Pharisee teachers (rabbis) emphasized the Oral Torah and replaced the animal sacrifices with readings and study.

Modern Judaism is derived from the Pharisaical sect (and I don’t mean that in a denigrating sense as “pharisee” sometimes is used, I mean in the purely historical sense) “Jews” of today are Modern Jews.

Now the Samaritans in particular

are

They still exist in Israel

there have been many genetic studies of the Samaritans, both to uncover their origins and to understand how they have survived so many generations of isolation. One such study by Peidong Shen and colleagues in the Journal Human Mutation has used both mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA of modern-day Samaritans to discover their origins and genetic relationship to Near Eastern Jews. Their results are fascinating.

The mitochondrial DNA results, which show maternal history (i.e. your mother’s mother’s mother, etc.), reveal no major difference between the Samaritans, Jews, or Palestinians in the Levant who were also sampled. These three groups have relatively similar maternal genetic histories. However, the story of the Y-chromosome, which shows paternal history (i.e. your father’s father’s father) is quite different. Indeed, not only are the Y-chromosomes of the Jews and Samaritans more similar to each other than either is to the Palestinians’, the Y-chromosomes of the Samaritans show striking similarities to a very specific Y-chromosome most often associated with Jewish men. Although the Samaritan type is slightly different from the Jewish type, it is clear that the two share a common ancestor, probably within the last few thousand years.

They hold to the Samaritan Pentateuch, reject the Oral Torah and the prophets

[Cronos]

No, the amazing part is that some don't realize the feast of Christ's resurrection is called Pascha - and only in English do you call it Easter, after the month of "oster" signifying east/spring.

for your edification, Oster is also the root of the country name Osterreich or eastern land.

[Cronos]

I would also add that the Samaritans helped the Jews during the Jewish-Roman wars. But after the Bar Kochkba revolt, the Samaritans themselves had their own revolts against the Romans and those were crushed as well.

[Terry L Smith]

I would think in their defense of claiming him both god and man, that they would sell his humanity a little more.

Now, thinking on that.... where is his story for the years between toddler and adult? Oh well, back to murder hornets!

[Rock N Jones]

Christ wasn’t sold, as God’s only begotten son he was given into death and resurrected that man might enter eternity.

Romans 6:3-4 King James Version (KJV)
5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:

2 Corinthians 5 New Living Translation (NLT)
1 For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body),we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.
2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.
3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.

[af_vet_1981]

They hold to the Samaritan Pentateuch

which differs from the Masoretic text, in other words, they changed the Scriptures to validate their own religion.

The Samaritans were not a sect of Judaism, yet they were related from a common origin.
1. They had changed the Torah to add a different 10th commandment to build an altar Mount Gerizim. They refused to recognize God's presence in Jerusalem, hence the gist of the Samaritan woman's sermonette to Jesus, which He rejected.
2. The Samaritans did not know what they were worshipping.
3. The Jews knew what we worship (and yes, Jesus spoke to her as a Jew).
4. The true faith rested with the (remnant of the) Jews.
5. Yet the branch of peace and salvation is also offered to the Samaritans, and they are related to the Jews.

• The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
• Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
• Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
• Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
• But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
• God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

John, Catholic chapter four, Protestant verses nineteen to twenty four,
as authorized, but not authored, by King James

[Cronos]

you’re right. Technically they aren’t a “Jewish” i.e. Judean sect, but rather they are a sect of Israelites - a sister religion to 2nd temple Judaism

and an “aunt religion” to both Christianity and modern day Judaism.

For me the revelation that modern day Judaism (modern-day meaning after 70 AD!!) is a sister religion to Christianity, and derived from Phariseeism explains a lot:
- like why there is more mention of Pharisees rather than Sadducees or Essenes in the Gospels - essentially the Pharisees (modern Judaism) were the other competitor sect
- like why “modern Jews” didn’t hold to the Messiah and at the same time didn’t have temple sacrifices

[Cronos]

The Romans kept meticulous records of what transpired in the critical parts of the empire - in the city of Rome and in Italy and Alexandria and Antioch.

But upholding a local rulers (the sanhedrin's) sentence in a backward province? Why would they?

There are no Roman records from the Levant in the first century. No census records, no records of trials or crucifixions, no tax records, nothing. It’s not just that Jesus is missing from the existing records; there are no existing records. Not only is there no official record of Jesus, there is no official record of the country he was from, the king who ruled that country, the Roman prefect who oversaw that king, the High Priest, the Sanhedrin, or anyone else for that matter.

There are Roman records from the first century, but most of them are from Rome and Egypt. A few unscrupulous authors like to claim that “the Romans kept detailed records,” and then provide a string of quotes from Roman records maintained in Egypt, before pointing out that there is no official Roman record that mentions Jesus of Nazareth. To call that disingenuous is an understatement

However, if we compile all of the works of literature produced in the first century, more of them mention Jesus than not. The New Testament alone contains 27 independent books from the first and early second centuries that mention Jesus, and he is mentioned by non-Christian (and non-contemporary first century) authors Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Josephus goes one further and describes the death of Jesus’ cousin-brother James, the same cousin-brother that Paul mentions within 20 years of the crucifixion.

Jesus’ background as a peasant from a humble family, the commonality of itinerant obscure-country preachers, the scarcity of contemporary writers and their focus on Rome, the problematic nature of Jerusalem and the Palestinian area itself garnering the attention, plus all the various other problems and issues in the empire of the time, would all serve to keep the focus off of Jesus while he was still alive. Even the teaching of Messiah-ship might look to outsiders like just more Jewish dogma

[Cronos]

Terry - you mean a 20 year window. The Pauline Epistles date to before 50 AD as does Mark and/or Matthew. Luke, the other letters and the book of Revelation date to before 69 AD and the Gospel of John to before 100 AD.

Plus you have Tacitus, Josephus etc. writing, yes up to 40 years later.

But I put it to you -- why should they write about some obscure preacher who didn't lead an armed rebellion, didn't form a kingdom, didn't do anything (in the eyes of the authorities) except get crucified on orders of the locals?

To the Roman empire he was a nobody from a backwards land. It's like us noting down about some guy in eastern DR Congo.

[Cronos]

I'll quote an active ANTI-Christian, Bart Ehrman, who denies the divinity of Jesus but says he did exist

In a Fuller Reply to Richard Carrier Bart Ehrman says:

In the course of my discussion of Freke and Gandy’s The Jesus Mysteries, I fault them for thinking that since the Romans kept such detailed records of everything (“birth notices, trial records, death certificates”), it is odd indeed that we have no such records from Roman hands about Jesus.

My response is that it is a complete myth (in the mythicist sense) that Romans kept detailed records of everything. Carrier vehemently objects that this is altogether false, indicating that in fact we have thousands of such records, and that he has “literally held some for these documents in my very hands.” And he points out that some of them are quoted and cited in ancient books, as when Suetonius refers to the birth records for Caligula.

I should reiterate that it is a complete “myth” (in the mythicist sense) that Romans kept detailed records of everything and that as a result we are inordinately well informed about the world of Roman Palestine [Note: I’m talking about Palestine] and should expect then to hear about Jesus if he really lived. If Romans kept such records, where are they? We certainly don’t have any. Think of everything we do not know about the reign of Pontius Pilate as governor of Judea…” … from Roman records: “his major accomplishments, his daily itinerary, the decrees he passed, the laws he issued, the prisoners he put on trial, the death warrants he signed, his scandals, his interview, his judicial proceedings.”

It’s a myth that we have or that we could expect to have detailed records from Roman officials about everything that was happening there, so that if Jesus really lived, we would have some indication of it. Quite the contrary, we precisely don’t have Roman records – of much of anything – from there. We do indeed have lots of records from someplace else that doesn’t matter for the question…

There is, however, some indication that there were records of Jesus’ birth and of his death at one time. In his “First Apology” Justin Martyr says, the location and fact of Jesus’ birth could be verified by consulting the records of Cyrenius, the first procurator of Judea.

Those records are now lost, but it carries a little weight that it was believed they existed at one time.

Justin Martyr also refers to the official documentation in the ‘Acts of Pontius Pilate’ which he says recorded Jesus’ actions in life and death by crucifixion. The ‘Acts’ are also lost, but since this is one of two references to it, it carries some small weight demonstrating they existed at one time.

The Roman historian Tacitus, in his Annals (written ca. AD 115), book 15, chapter 44. describes Nero's scapegoating of the Christians following the Fire of Rome. He says that their founder was named Christus (the Christian title for Jesus), that he was executed under Pontius Pilate, and that the movement of his followers, initially checked, then broke out again in Judea and even in Rome itself. Some scholars question the historical value of the passage on various grounds.

The mention of Jesus in the Annals of the aristocratic Roman historian and senator Publius Cornelius Tacitus is significant partly because of his status as one of the most careful and sceptical historians of the ancient world and partly because it is from what is obviously a hostile witness. Tacitus absolutely despised Christianity, as he make clear when he mentions how the emperor Nero tried to scapegoat them after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD. He also gives an account to his readers as the origin of the Christian sect and their founder in Judea:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular

(Tacitus,Annals, XV.44)

[Cronos]

Terry - your I would think in their defense of claiming him both god and man, that they would sell his humanity a little more.

I assume by "they" you mean Christians, right?

The thing is that some later, 2nd century sects tried to downplay the "man" part but that ruined much of what made Christianity, well, Christianity.

There is a lot about his humanity - and the years between 12 and 30 years are quiet, but that's pretty descriptive about his humanity by its very silence

The reason the first 30 years of Jesus' life are largely left out is that it simply isn't the intent of the authors. In fact Mark and John don't even have the birth story. The gospels are not purely biographical- at least not in the modern sense

Remember - until 33 no one think this guy is God, that's not even something that would cross their minds (in a 2nd temple Judaic mind).

I think it is very telling that there are no embellishments about Jesus' life between 12 and 30 -- those would make it like the other "epic lives" of deities like Krishna, Rama etc. who have embellishments put in.

[lasereye]

All good points. With respect to "Testimonium Flavianum" by Josephus, it is stated by skeptics, as though it is historical fact, that what he wrote about Jesus is a later interpolation, presumably by Christians. This is the passage that is claimed to have been inserted:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ . And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

The problem with the skeptics' claim is that no Testimonium Flavianum manuscript has ever been found that does not contain the passage. Testimonium Flavianum was written in the late first century.

[Cronos]

Exactly. One can suppose different things, but if there is no proof, it’s incorrect to build an entire case on it.

like the original post here - where “Eostre” is only mentioned once, in a Christian monk’s supposition written centuries after paganism in England died out. the fact that there is nothing written about this eostre anywhere else, tells you that that character was never a nordic deity

[Rock N Jones]

Yes in the past is has been subjected to skepticism as so many other things are. However this Wiki article offers some support that Josephus was talking about Jesus the Christ.

“Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the second reference to Jesus in the Antiquities, found in Book 20, Chapter 9, which mentions “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James.”[13] This reference is consideredto be more authentic than the Testimonium.[14][1][15][16][17][18] “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

In any event I would submit that Crucifixion of Jesus Christ is a far more notable event today than it was at the time it happened.

[Terry L Smith]

Now that I have read the next Sunday afternoon service sermon, collaborated by two folks who pulled their volumnal library works .... is there a Cliffnotes version of this masterful thesis?

Y’alll are at the grandstand turn, and the starting gate is still up!