Posted on 04/03/2007 6:31:28 AM PDT by DouglasKC
Every spring, the anticipation and excitement of Easter is electrifying for many people. Churches prepare elaborate Easter programs that illustrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Parents take time to color Easter eggs and hide them so their children can hunt for them.
It's typical for TV movies this time of year to depict Easter as an enjoyable occasion of renewed happiness. Television advertisements and commercial businesses also get very involved with Easter as they offer colorful Easter baskets, Easter costumes and chocolate rabbits to celebrate this great religious event.
Many churches advertise outdoor Easter sunrise services, with any and all invited. Weather permitting, the Easter celebration is visually reinforced by watching the sun rise in the east.
But what do bunnies and colored eggs have to do with Jesus' resurrection?
And if this celebration is so important, why didn't Jesus teach His apostles and the early Church to observe it? The books of the New Testament were written over a span of decades after Jesus Christ's death and resurrection, yet nowhere do we see so much as a hint of any kind of Easter celebration.
So where exactly did Easter and its customs come from? Why do hundreds of millions of people celebrate the holiday today?
Can we find Easter in the Bible?
Easter is considered the most important religious festival in today's Christianity. "The Easter feast has been and still is regarded as the greatest in the Christian church, since it commemorates the most important event in the life of its Founder" (The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1986, Vol. 2, "Easter"). Given its popularity, one would think that surely this observance is found in God's Word.
Some cite Acts 12:4 as authority for celebrating Easter. But there's a problem in that Easter isn't really mentioned there at all. The King James Bible translators substituted "Easter" for the Greek word Pascha, which means "Passover." "The word [Easter] does not properly occur in Scripture, although [the King James Version] has it in Acts 12:4 where it stands for Passover, as it is rightly rendered in RV" (ibid.).
The vast majority of Bible translations recognize this error in the King James Version and rightly translate the word as "Passover" in Acts 12:4. The truth is, "there is no trace of Easter celebration in the [New Testament]" (ibid.)
Where did Easter come from?
If Easter isn't found in the Bible, where exactly did it come from? And just exactly what does the name Easter mean?
It's important to review credible historical sources to understand the celebration's true history. For example, The Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us: "At Easter, popular customs reflect many ancient pagan survivals—in this instance, connected with spring fertility rites, such as the symbols of the Easter egg and the Easter hare or rabbit" (15th edition, Macropaedia, Vol. 4, p. 605, "Church Year").
In the ancient world of the Middle East, people were far more connected to the land and cycles of nature than we are today. They depended on the land's fertility and crops to survive. Spring, when fertility returned to the land after the long desolation of winter, was a much-anticipated and welcomed time for them.
Many peoples celebrated the coming of spring with celebrations and worship of their gods and goddesses, particularly those associated with fertility. Among such deities were Baal and Astarte or Ashtoreth, mentioned and condemned frequently in the Bible, whose worship typically included ritual sex to promote fertility throughout the land.
It was only natural to the peoples of the ancient Middle East to incorporate symbols of fertility—such as eggs and rabbits, which reproduce in great numbers—into those pagan celebrations for their gods. As The Encyclopaedia Britannica notes above, Easter eggs and the Easter rabbit are simply a continuation of these ancient spring fertility rites.
Nineteenth-century Scottish Protestant clergyman Alexander Hislop's work The Two Babylons is still considered a definitive work on pagan customs that survive in today's religious practices.
On Easter, he wrote: "What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by [early archaeologist Sir Austen Henry] Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar" (1959, p. 103).
The name Easter, then, comes not from the Bible. Instead its roots go far back to the ancient pre-Christian Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, known in the Bible as Astarte or Ashtoreth.
Ancient resurrection celebrations
What did worship of this goddess Ishtar involve? "Temples to Ishtar had many priestesses, or sacred prostitutes, who symbolically acted out the fertility rites of the cycle of nature. Ishtar has been identified with the Phoenician Astarte, the Semitic Ashtoreth, and the Sumerian Inanna. Strong similarities also exist between Ishtar and the Egyptian Isis, the Greek Aphrodite, and the Roman Venus.
"Associated with Ishtar was the young god Tammuz [mentioned in Ezekiel 8:14], considered both divine and mortal . . . In Babylonian mythology Tammuz died annually and was reborn year after year, representing the yearly cycle of the seasons and the crops. This pagan belief later was identified with the pagan gods Baal and Anat in Canaan " (Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 1995, "Gods, Pagan," p. 509).
Alan Watts, expert in comparative religion, wrote: "It would be tedious to describe in detail all that has been handed down to us about the various rites of Tammuz . . . and many others . . . But their universal theme—the drama of death and resurrection—makes them the forerunners of the Christian Easter, and thus the first 'Easter services.' As we go on to describe the Christian observance of Easter we shall see how many of its customs and ceremonies resemble these former rites" (Easter: Its Story and Meaning, 1950, p. 58).
He goes on to explain how such practices as fasting during Lent, erecting an image of the deity in the temple sanctuary, singing hymns of mourning, lighting candles and nighttime services before Easter morning originated with ancient idolatrous practices (pp. 59-62).
Another author, Sir James Frazer (1854-1941), knighted for his contributions to our understanding of ancient religions, describes the culmination of the ancient idolatrous worship this way: "The sorrow of the worshippers was turned to joy . . . The tomb was opened: the god had risen from the dead; and as the priest touched the lips of the weeping mourners with balm, he softly whispered in their ears the glad tidings of salvation.
"The resurrection of the god was hailed by his disciples as a promise that they too would issue triumphant from the corruption of the grave. On the morrow . . . the divine resurrection was celebrated with a wild outburst of glee. At Rome, and probably elsewhere, the celebration took the form of a carnival" (The Golden Bough, 1993, p. 350).
A new celebration with ancient idolatrous roots
In various forms, worship of this god under the names Tammuz, Adonis and Attis, among others, spread from the outer reaches of the Roman Empire to Rome itself. There a truly remarkable development took place: Early Catholic Church leaders merged customs and practices associated with this earlier "resurrected" god and spring fertility celebrations and applied them to the resurrected Son of God.
The customs of the ancient fertility and resurrection celebrations weren't the only ones morphed into a new "Christian" celebration, but they are among the most obvious. After all, many historians readily admit the origin of the name Easter and the ancient fertility symbolism of rabbits and decorated eggs (which you can verify yourself in almost any encyclopedia).
Frazer observes: "When we reflect how often the Church has skilfully contrived to plant the seeds of the new faith on the old stock of paganism, we may surmise that the Easter celebration of the dead and risen Christ was grafted upon a similar celebration of the dead and risen Adonis" (p. 345).
He goes on to note that the desire to bring heathens into the Catholic Church without forcing them to surrender their idolatrous celebrations "may have led the ecclesiastical authorities to assimilate the Easter festival of the death and resurrection of their Lord to the festival of the death and resurrection of another Asiatic god which fell at the same season . . . the Church may have consciously adapted the new festival [of Easter] to its heathen predecessor for the sake of winning souls to Christ" (p. 359).
Surprisingly, the celebration of Easter didn't finally win out until A.D. 325, nearly 300 years after Jesus Christ's death and resurrection!
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains in the section titled "The Liturgical Year," "At the Council of Nicaea in 325, all the Churches agreed that Easter . . . should be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon . . . after the vernal equinox" (1995, p. 332).
Up until this time, many believers had continued to commemorate Jesus' death through the biblical Passover as Jesus and the apostles had instructed (Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Now, however, with the power of the Roman Empire behind it, the Catholic Church enforced its preference for Easter. Those who wished to continue to observe the biblical Passover had to go underground to avoid persecution.
Would Jesus Christ celebrate Easter?
The record of the New Testament is clear: The faithful members of the early Church continued to observe all that the apostles taught them, as they were taught by Jesus Christ. The record of history is equally clear: In later centuries new customs, practices and doctrines were introduced that were quite foreign to the original Christians, forming a new "Christianity" they would scarcely recognize.
So a key question is, should a Christian follow what Jesus taught or what later religious teachers taught?
It's always a good idea to ask the question, what would Jesus do?
If Jesus were in the flesh today, would He celebrate Easter? The simple answer is No. He does not change. "Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever," as Hebrews 13:8 tells us (emphasis added throughout). Jesus never observed Easter, never sanctioned it and never taught His disciples to celebrate it. Nor did the apostles teach the Church to do so.
Today, Jesus would observe the biblical Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread as Scripture teaches and as He practiced and taught (John 13:15-17; 1 Corinthians 5:7-8). In fact, He specifically said that He anticipated observing the Passover with His true followers "in My Father's kingdom" after His return (Matthew 26:26-29).
The feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread have deep meaning to Christ's true disciples. They reveal aspects of God's plan for the salvation of humanity—commemorating the fact that Jesus died for us and lives in us and for us (1 Corinthians 11:26; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:3-4).
Should you observe Easter?
If you want to be a true disciple of Christ Jesus, you need to carefully examine whether your beliefs agree with the Bible. It is not acceptable to God to merely assume that He approves of or accepts non-biblical celebrations, regardless of whether they are done for proper motives.
The fact is that God says, "Learn not the way of the heathen"—those who don't know God's truth (Jeremiah 10:2, King James Version).
His Word gives us explicit instructions regarding worshipping Him with practices adopted from pagan idolatry: "Do not inquire after their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.' You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods . . . Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it" (Deuteronomy 12:30-32).
Jesus Christ now commands everyone to repent of following all man-made religious traditions: "Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30; compare Matthew 15:3).
Will you honor Christ's lifesaving instructions so that God can bless you? He said: "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor" (John 12:26).
God wants you and me to obey His life-giving Word. When we do, we can serve Christ as His ambassadors on earth. There is no greater calling on earth and throughout time. For your ongoing happiness and security, turn to God now and seek His complete and perfect way. GN
In any case, between you and kawaii, you've more than adequately answered my question about the original text, for which I thank you.
As for the etymology of the word "Easter" your case that it was not seen in the earliest Church documents is well taken, though I would point out that you are merely arguing that the name comes from a different pagan goddess (one which was probably "descended" from Ishtar anyway, given the names and attributes). I'd also like to see the source that shows why Ishtar-Eostre-Easter would be a false etymology (mostly because I find etymology fascinating).
Nevertheless, there are several points on the Messianic side which you've not successfully disputed:
1) Constantine and the Council of Nicea formally decoupled the "Christian Pesach" from the Biblical date, whereas it was formerly the practice of many churches, particularly in the east, to celebrate the Feast in accordance with the Jewish Passover as our Lord did--for the express purpose of rejecting the Jews.See, if it was only the name at stake, there wouldn't be much more objection than you hear about the names of the months (March for Mars) or days of the week (Wodens-tag = Wednesday), which also happens in the Hebrew calendar (e.g., the month of Tammuz).2) Etimology aside, we've replaced the Biblical commands of Pesach (the lamb, the bitter herbs, a week of unleavened bread, etc.) and those Jewish customs which point directly to our Messiah (the afikomen, the way in which leaven is sought out and disposed of) with fertility symbols: Rabbits and eggs.
The issue--at least for me--is that we changed times and the Law (Dan. 7:25 again) rather than obeying our Lord's commands in such things. And in so doing, we inadvertently adopted in pagan symbols and practices that have nothing to do with the "reason for the season." Even Thomas Bokenkotter, a Catholic historian (and a priest, IIRC), admits that under the Constantinian revolution,
Millions of pagans suddenly entered the Church, and some of their customs inevitably crept into the liturgy: the use of the kiss as a sign of reverence for holy objects, the practice of genuflection, devotion to relics, and the use of candles, incense, and other ceremonial features derived from the imperial court. Under this pagan influence Christians began to face the east [the direction of the rising sun, rather than towards Jerusalem] while praying, which made it necessary for the priest to lead prayers with his back to the congregation.So again, though I sympathize with the fathers for the decisions they made, usually with the best of intentions and in times of great difficulty and under enormous pressure, I think that we've lost a great blessing in not keeping the days which God Himself decreed from Sinai and took part in in the Person of the Messiah Yeshua.--A Concise History of the Catholic Church, p. 46
I’m sorry; what is your question?
No, they could be neutral, adiaphora. But that's irrelevant.
God's worship is defined by God alone. He sets the rules as to what is in and what is out.
E.g., I get a lot of pleasure out of barbecuing various choice cut of meat. Nothing wrong with that. However, if I brought that practice into the Church and called everyone to join me in my moment of "worship", that would be wrong (sin) because God has not called us in His word to drag a barbecue grill before Him. He set the terms. He defines what pleases Him. When men take over that role they invariably fail, badly. Unless their practice is entirely circumscribed by the Word of God they will begin to construct idols by their imaginations. Will-worship replaces God’s worship.
"Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord." (Lev. 10:1,2)
Serious stuff.
??? huh ???
You're confused. The English term "Easter" is not found in any ancient or medieval church documents. They weren't written in English, or German for that matter. They were written in Greek, and (later on, in the West), Latin.
There are no similarly detailed descriptions of Christian worship given in the New Testament. (And any Jew will tell you that many of the details in Jewish worship aren't in Torah, but are known only through tradition.) Christian liturgy comes to us through the Church, and the Church is perfectly able to take objectively-good things that pagans have stolen from YVWH, and return them to the worship of the true God.
And an extremely liberal one, with quite a substantial agenda (read the last few chapters of the book; I have, it's on my bookshelf at home).
Indeed. They meant well when they worshipped the golden calf, too.
Hmm . . . so does that mean that I should automatically toss out any citations you make from conservative Catholic authors as having an agenda (that being to prop up the RCC)?
Not at all. You said (in post #88), that the name Easter "came from the Germanic goddess of the dawn, Eostre."
So you're admitting that the name is pagan, just disputing which goddess it refers to. I'm admitting that the name was not the one used in the earliest Church documents, emerging in about the 8th Century. Where then is the confusion?
I wouldn't have been used in any church documents (of any church) until the reformation.
The language of the Western Church was Latin until the Reformation, and the language of the Catholic Church in the West was Latin until, well, today (but beyond dispute until 1963) ... and the language of the Eastern Church was Greek, and Church Slavonic.
English and German aren't on that list, so "Easter" or "Ostern" wouldn't have been in any Church documents at all prior to the reformation, and not in Catholic or Orthodox ones since then, either.
No, feel free to quote liberal proponents of, e.g., women's ordination here if you like. Just don't expect many of us to give them much credibility.
BTW, he's more or less paraphrasing a quotation from Cardinal Newman. Newman included "the giving of the ring in marriage" as one of the Christianized pagan customs in his list. Y'all better get rid of those wedding rings. ;-)
We celebrate the Pascal mystery not the "Easter" Mystery.
Anyway, I've pretty much conceded the etymological point. Perhaps you'd like to concede my point about moving the date and changing the customs/commands?
Not prejudice, historical reality. As Elijah said, how long be ye of two opinions? Facts are indeed stubborn things.
it’s called passover in the bible
Indeed, it is called Passover in the Bible. Do you celebrate it in the same fashion and context as it was celebrated when Jesus commanded it to be done in remembrance of Him? Do you celebrate it on the 14th of Abib? If not, why not?
Hi.
True.
Oddly, women's ordination doesn't bother me. In any case, you're simply poisoning the well, not giving us any reason to discount Bokenkotter's specific claims in this area. Are you actually denying that when the pagans were forced into the Church that they brought many of their traditions with them? How do you, within a Biblical context, explain not only Easter eggs and rabbits, but mistletoe, Yule logs and Christmas Trees? And those are just the easy-to-point-out ones.
The fact is that there is no real debate on whether there are pagan influences on common Church tradition, but rather on how deep do those influences go. That is, are they only seen in a few odd customs that we keep around the holidays but don't really influence our theology, or do they actually (and erroneously) affect our understanding of the Bible and Christian theology?
That's a much deeper question than we can go into on this thread in full detail. However, the fact remains that there was a distinct change in the Ekklesia's practice of keeping the Passover according to the Jewish calendar that is well-documented in the early Church fathers, and that we have numerous odd rituals in our current holidays that make no sense from a Biblical standpoint, but which are consistent with pagan beliefs and practices about the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.
You've still not even attempted to argue those two points.
Newman included "the giving of the ring in marriage" as one of the Christianized pagan customs in his list. Y'all better get rid of those wedding rings. ;-)
Nah, the Jews do that too, and the wedding ring--plain or adorned with a single stone--is about as neutral a symbol of union as one could ever imagine. Now, if we customarily decorated our rings with rabbits and eggs to symbolize the hope for a fruitful union, we might begin to wonder.
..perhaps I wasn’t clear—THE Resurrection...
Can you please show where those are part of the Catholic faith, as referenced in the Catechism of the Catholic Church?
In any case, don't eggs symbolize the cycle of life and the hope for a future?
Here's my original set of questions:
How do you guys define sin? Are we free to sin in the New Covenant? Can we sin so that Grace may abound? How do you define harlotry in reference to prophesy and historical Israel?
Your response:
What is not of faith is sin.
That's quite vague and not the Biblical definition of sin. Here's the Biblical definition of sin:
I John 3 4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, for sin is lawlessness.
But we are not speaking of sin. We are speaking to the observance of days and of the other ceremonies of the Old Covenant, which is passing away and has been once and for all fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Yes, we are speaking of sin. This is why I asked how you define harlotry. Perhaps you could address that point?
Could you elaborate on this comment? What do you think passed away with the New Covenant? Who do you think the New Covenant applies to? At any rate, the only thing that Jesus commanded His followers, those partaking of the New Covenant IMO, was for them to observe the Passover, as He was the Passover Lamb. Nowhere do we see any command to keep Easter, and, in fact, we can see ample condemnation of adopting pagan practises throughout scripture.
I don't see how any of that affects the way we are to approach the worship of God The principles still hold, esp. we only do what God has commanded in His word.
There are no similarly detailed descriptions of Christian worship given in the New Testament.
Well that should tell you somethng about gospel worship ... simplicity. No bells and smells. No altars ... no priests ... no sacrifices. And no annual holy days.
And no will-worship. No inventions based on what we "think" God might like us to do. We are to worship Him in Spirit and Truth. Both things exist outside of us. Truth is objective and found in divine revelation.
Anything else is idolatry.
I know how difficult it is to persuade the world that God disapproves of all modes of worship not expressly sanctioned by his word. The opposite persuasion which cleaves to them, being seated, as it were, in their very bones and marrow, is, that whatever they do has in itself a sufficient sanction, provided it exhibits some kind of zeal for the honor of God. But since God not only regards as fruitless, but also plainly abominates, whatever we undertake from zeal to his worship, if at variance with his command, what do we gain by a contrary course? The words of God are clear and distinct, "Obedience is better than sacrifice." "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men," (1 Sam. 15:22; Matt. 15:9). Every addition to his word, especially in this matter, is a lie. Mere "will worship" (ethelothreeskeia) is vanity. This is the decision, and when once the judge has decided, it is no longer time to debate.John Calvin, The Necessity of Reforming the Church
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