Bible Question:
I have just spent a long time on the Christian Post. It makes me so very sad to see the word easter, to describe the RESURRECTION DAY OF JESUS! Think who is honored when we use the word easter? Eastar was the goddess of fertility and the celebration of this satanic goddess was easter, thus easter eggs and bunnies. Every Resurrection Day we continue we continue to let the wong word for the most Holy Day to be called the worng word. This grieves me deeply. justme |
Bible Answer: justme, This issue has irritated me for some time. It's a nearly futile research project unless you have a lot of time and can weed through language issues. Not only that, but most people who do research this area have a conclusion in mind before they begin…and they often find that their assumptions are correct regardless of what they are. Here is what I've gleaned. Easter is an English word! The German word connection is there due to missionary connections within the Anglo-Saxon world. The word may or may not have connection to a pagan goddess, but there are no other languages in our day that use a spring goddess name to refer to the resurrection. Almost all are derived from the Hebrew word Passover. And during the second to fourth centuries when a debate over dates was heated, English wasn't the language used! In the second century, the Roman and Jerusalem branches argued over how to celebrate Passover and the Lord’s resurrection. The Roman church wanted the resurrection to always fall on the first day of the week while the Jerusalem church wanted it to fall on first fruits. (Jesus rose on both, but the first day of the week is based on the sun, and First Fruits is based on the moon, so it changes days of the week every year.) Even though the Jerusalem side could argue that they were the living disciples of the Apostle John…they knew him personally and how he did it, they still lost the argument (split between East and West), but the Lord’s resurrection was still connected to God’s festival of Passover. In short, they observed the Passover followed by a day of fast followed by the Resurrection celebration of our Lord. The festival season was still referred to by the Greek word derived from the Hebrew festivals. In the fourth century the split between anything looking “Jewish” was at its breaking point. When the Christian Church became the political church, they had the opportunity to make some definitive statements about doctrine and Holy Days. Up until then, the Christians were at least somewhat dependant on the Jews for determining when Passover began and not all Christians followed the same calendar. There was quite a bit of confusion that needed to be dealt with in the now organizing church. Therefore, a calculation was invented based on both the lunar cycle and the solar cycle. This calculation puts the Lord’s Resurrection Holy Day, almost always near the Passover. The fourth century is where people like to connect the English Easter to a pagan goddess. My personal view is that I find it very hard to apply negative intent to the fourth century church fathers. It’s simply historically not the right time for this behavior. My belief is that the gentile/Jewish separation caused the church leaders to find a good opportunity to make a clean break. They couldn’t jettison the Resurrection, and since the Resurrection is intricately connected to Passover and First Fruits, they needed to find a way to keep the days without remaining “Jewish” in appearance. Any negative intent applied to these Church leaders is in regards to anti-Judaism rather than pro pagan goddess. In other words, they wanted to separate from anything appearing Jewish, but did not want to marry themselves to anything pagan. If in fact they were attempting to borrow the pagan goddess, then why do all languages on Earth today, except English and German, use a word coming from Passover rather than a word coming from a pagan goddess? And why can we not find any fourth century Church fathers writing anything that would make you believe they were in truth, pagan mixing Aster lovers? In fact you can not. But there is ample writings showing their hatred for anything appearing Jewish! In fact the link provided by nickmostly does a good job with the etymology of the Anglo-Saxon word Easter. The case if far stronger against a pagan connection than there is for one. Now to get personal: It is enormously unfortunate that the Christian Church does not celebrate Passover! There is simply no other Festival instituted by God that more profoundly professes the Grace of God through the redemption of his children both through the Exodus and through the crucifixion/resurrection. The Christian church has no idea what it is missing. MJH |