The ancient Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians, and Hindus all believed the world began with an enormous egg, thus the egg as a symbol of new life has been around for eons.
The legend of the Easter Bunny is far from a modern invention. Long ago, the rabbit was the earthly symbol of the pagan goddess Eastre, and was worshipped in the pagan festival of Eastre
>> Long ago, the rabbit was the earthly symbol of the pagan goddess Eastre, and was worshipped in the pagan festival of Eastre <<
The belief in Eostre was long dead by the time Bede wrote of the customs of the English people.
Did you know that neither Astarte nor Eostre were related to bunnies, or eggs, or chocolate? It was a German humanist by the name of Jacob Grimm who asserted that Eostre was Ostara, based purely on the supposed similarity of their names. It was Ostara who was associated with eggs.
Both Eostre and East came, however, from a word meaning to "enlighten, as with the break of dawn." But it was the disciple John who referred to Christ as light, so we know the relationship between East and Easter ties Easter to Eostre only secondarily.
[It should be noted that Bede, writing in the 7th century, noted a relationship between Easter and Eostre, but this because of the Eostremon, the month Easter fell in, was named after the crossing of the rising sun through the equator.]
Such suppositions are as Grimm's are as flimsy as if I were to asser that Austria was so named because they worshipped Austra... In fact, Austria is really "Austereich," the "Southern Kingdom" in relation to Germany... even though Auster quite possibly is linguistically related to Austra.
>> The ancient Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians, and Hindus all believed the world began with an enormous egg, thus the egg as a symbol of new life has been around for eons. <<
What difference does it make why the Egyptians liked eggs, if we know it was God's people, the Jews, who associated eggs with Passover?
>> The legend of the Easter Bunny is far from a modern invention. Long ago, the rabbit was the earthly symbol of the pagan goddess Eastre, and was worshipped in the pagan festival of Eastre <<
No, Eastre was NOT associated with the bunnies. To find any association with bunnies, you have to find a German god, Ostare. An 18th-century humanist was the first person to associate the two, and he did so on the basis of the meager similarity of their names. Of course, Ostare was not associated with the first lunar month after the equinox, nor with the direction East. So what Ostare would have to do with anything is unknowable.
By the way, springtime in northern climes is when flowers, trees, and hibernating animals are risen to new life from the dead... and in doing so create new life and new fertility. (This is much less so in Israel.) Echoes of such correlations are, therefore, not necessarily evil.
The heavens and earth proclaim the good news of God. And the ignorant peoples attributed such proclamations to false gods. But there should be no scandal made to true religion that such a time of the year as Spring, when even the pagans notice that the world teems with new fertility and new life, happens to also be the time of the year when Christ was conceived within the womb of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit (March 25th), and when Christ re-emerged from the grave.