Happy Feast of Ishtar! Uh, I mean Easter… BRING OUT THE BUNNIES!!!
So I’m driving home today and standing there on the corner of the intersection is a group of people waving signs and banners inviting me to their church next weekend for Easter celebrations. The thing that was absolutely hilarious was that they also had a dancing bunny with them. YES, a BUNNY!
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. Uh, you may want to actually check your calendar or Google to see when that actually is this year…
Simply put: ACCORDING TO THE BIBLICAL RECORD: Christ died the Friday evening at the END OF PASSOVER! Uh, that’s the NEXT WEEKEND!!!!
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(2019) Easter and Passover actually happen on consecutive weeks, it’s incredibly rare for them to happen on the same week! 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. If that sounds like it’s more out of astrology than Biblical, well, it is. 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?
Instead of celebrating the death and resurrection of the Saviour of mankind, humanity is more interested in eating chocolate bunnies. Just what are Christianity’s priorities?
Don’t you just love it when people let preachers tell them what to do and believe and don’t think for themselves?
SO, if you still want to continue to celebrate the old Babylonian and pre-Babylonian fertility rites and celebrations, GO FOR IT! Don’t forget your chocolate eggs, bunnies and viagra !!!
Have a great weekend and enjoy doing what bunnies do best!
I’m Don Rima and that’s the view From Where I Stand.
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