Easter – What’s the real reason for the season?
OK, you usually hear this around mid December – people talking about “the reason for the season”, but does anyone really study history enough to know the REAL reasons for any of these religious centric holidays?
Based on the Biblical historical record (and yes, I think it’s a correct historical record), Christ died and was resurrected during the last weekend of Passover. I think most of Christianity will easily agree with me on that.
Interestingly enough, the Biblical record makes no references to brightly coloured eggs or bunnies. So, what’s really going on here?
Well, like it or not, Easter is yet another pagan holiday season that Christianity felt it had to adopt for its purposes. You would think that Christianity would follow the Biblical historical record in celebrating the death and resurrection of their Saviour and celebrate it when it ACTUALLY DID HAPPEN – uh, that would be the last weekend of Passover.
But, the calendars tend to create a bit of a problem here. This year Easter and Passover actually happen on the same week, but this is NOT case on a REGULAR basis! Consult your calendar if you disagree with me. Sometimes the two events are several WEEKS apart! Gee! Go figure!
The Jewish calendar dictates when Passover occurs but, who and how do we determine when Easter occurs? Well, for that we need to look at the historical record.
In 325AD, the council of Nicaea determined that Easter would be the first Sunday after the first full moon, occurring on or after the vernal equinox. From then on, the date of Easter depended on the ecclsiastical approximation of March 21 for the vernal equinox. Hmmm….doesn’t sound like Passover to me. Let me make this simpler, Easter is the Sunday after the first Full Moon occurring on or after the March equinox. Sounds more like a Druid event than a Christian one.
If we look further, we find that the term “easter” we find that the it directly refers to the mythical goddess “Eostre” – sometimes also referred to as Ostara or Ishtar. So, we’d be just as accurate to be saying “Happy Ishtar!”. Oh, by the way, her symbol was a bunny or rabbit because of the high reproductive proclivities of rabbits…and I’m sure you’ve heard several humorous analogies during your life.
Chances are the Germans brought us the colored eggs from their traditions, but then, there’s also the ancient Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex, yes Ishtar again, in which bunnies and eggs play a big part.
If you really want to dig deeper into this, you’ll find origins going back to Nimrod and his family as well. Interesting reading on a rainy afternoon when you’re really interested in finding out the real roots of how you got where you are now…not just what your preacher is telling you.
Christianity has a bad habit of attempting to sanitize old pagan and druid customs, rites and celebrations and attempting to make them Christ centric events. But is this right?
Christianity could also declare the color green to be called brown…but would that make it right or better yet – correct?
I’m Don Rima and that’s the way I see it, from where I stand.
