Not a mention of Demeter (who's golden hair falls in rich
plaits as only a goddess' does) or the Eleusinian Mystery.
Drink the Kykeon, BECOME Epoptes!
This is not exactly news.
Not too long ago it finally dawned on me that the story about Moses being pulled from the rushes in the river was the same as the story about Sargon being pulled from the rushes in the river.
One supposes these stories derive from the characteristic of major rivers, e.g. the Nile and the Euphrates, to rise in the Spring due to rains in the uplands.
Or, the stories could be about real events.
I know people who celebrate Easter by killing a baby sheep, roasting it whole, and then eating it. Frankly, I've never appreciated the taste of mutton, nor of rabbit - just keeping my eyes out for a religious subgroup that has some sort of holiday and ceremony focused on fried squirrel.
Shabbos. Gotta' go. See y'all tomorrow evening.
Interesting thing: only in the German, Norse, and English speaking worlds do they even have these types of customs.
Also: in any other language that I've seen/looked up, the holiday is known by a local transliteration of "passover"
A joyous Solemnity of the Resurrection of the Lord to you and yours!
three days and three nights later at sunset on the end of the weekly Sabbath, at the same time the wave-sheaf was being cut (Leviticus 23:10-11).
He is a crackpot cultist trying to tear people away from their Christian denominations so they will join his cult.
This nonsense has already been posted to multiple threads, but Doug has to continue to spread his gospel of hate, sh!tting all over people's festivities.
Hey, guess what Dougie? Pagans had sex. I guess that means Christians who have sex are committing idolatry.
And pagans had children. I guess that means Christians who have children are committing idolatry.
And pagans invented geometry, algebra and calculus. I guess that means Christians who do High School math are committing idolatry.
A brief summary of the REAL truth:
Easter eggs come from the Catholic tradition of fasting from meat during lent. They could choose when to kill their animals, and therefore not kill anything during lent, but they couldn't get their chickens to stop laying eggs during lent. So they'd save them up all Lent, and then break the fast by eating them. The ancient Jews used eggs in their passover ritual, representing new life. Why? Because they were following some pagan gods? No! Duh, because it's an obvious representation of new life.
The name "Easter" is unique to Anglo-Saxons. It's not likely to have anything to do with Eostre, directly. Rather, it's named after a month, named after a direction, named after Eostre. Eostre is a goddess of war, not of fertility as falsely claimed. There is no connection between Eostre and any of the Easter festivals. Asserting Easter is pagan is like asserting Holy Thursday is pagan, because its name stems from the Norse god of thunder, Thor. Outside of Anglo-Saxon culture, Easter is still universally known by a word stemming from "passover."
The cross on hot cross buns represents the cross. Duh.
The closest thing to pagan is the notion of the Easter Bunny. When Protestants wanted to continue the tradition of Easter eggs, they were at a loss for how to explain their significance. A common bird in Germany builds a nest very much like hares do. Many people searching for hares would come across what they presumed to be hares' nests, and found them full of eggs. So started the German notion of hares (not bunnies; that's a British morphing of the tradition) mysteriously bringing eggs.
Did other German religions create stories for why hares had eggs. You betcha. Did people create Easter Bunnies as a way of preserving pagan religions? No way.
We know for a fact that the cult of Eostre was long dead by the time Christians arrived in England, and the practices of Eostre had died with it, and those practices had nothing to do with the Easter practices.
The name Easter is the modern form of the Anglo-Saxon Earth Mother goddess Eostre (pronounced eestra.) Her festival was celebrated on or near the vernal (spring ) equinox
This might be relevant if Easter originated in Anglo Saxon and if almost all other languages didn't use variations of Pascha (from passover) as the name of the holiday.
But it didn't and they do. This is a very sloppy piece of work: agenda posing as scholarship.
Give it a rest for a few days. It was Good Friday when you posted this. Focus on the death and resurrection of Christ.
Give it a rest for a few days. It was Good Friday when you posted this. Focus on the death and resurrection of Christ.
Boo. Hiss. Garbage article without any historical veracity.
Easter Eggs for Geeks...
http://www.eeggs.com/
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,109378,00.asp