Easter can be annoying. My kids all want chocolate, this year the hot cross buns sold out and Matt brought crumpets home from the supermarket instead. People who don’t normally have any time for Christianity suddenly feel they must go to church, whilst some of my Christian friends refuse to let their children eat chocolate because Easter is a pagan festival. Navigating it does my head in sometimes.
In the past week we’ve had people phone, email, text and raise in conversation that Easter was invented by Constantine, that the bunnies and the buns are pagan and thus consuming them is an offence against God. We’ve heard that the dates are wrong and that Easter dates do not coincide with Passover, that it is a Roman festival, while others say that Easter is tied up with Ishtar. This wasn’t limited to people coming to us; Matt was on the Pat Brittenden Mornings Panel earlier in the week and because of that we heard that talkback radio was full of this too. So, it was very cool that Matt and I were able to have a word with the producers at Radio Rhema after the Panel, and put them in touch with Dr Tim McGrew whose interview as to Whether Easter is Pagan aired on Tuesday – click the link to listen.
Tim is a good friend, a world renowned scholar whose expertise on miracles and particularly the historical accuracy of the resurrection qualifies him as an authority on some of these Easter-is-pagan claims. While he does not touch on all of the above in the interview he debunks a lot of it.
Normally Matt and I try to do a Passover-ish meal – we do lamb, rosemary and red wine – and the kids all get to choose a king size block of chocolate each (they reason they get more chocolate for the money than buying Easter Eggs) and I try to ensure indulgement in a decent hot cross bun. Throughout the weekend we focus on Christ, his death and resurrection. We read relevant passages, we have conversations about the Passover and the fact that Christ is the fulfillment of it, in years gone by when the kids were younger we’ve made Easter story cookies. Basically we enjoy the food, the public holiday and we weave learning opportunities and ways to focus on Christ in as we go so that the thrust of Easter is on him.
We are not worried about taking this approach because Christ conquered all and our focus and heart and intent is on him. Don’t get me wrong, it is important to pause and check that one is not engaging in Paganism but just because something at some point had something to do with Paganism does not mean it is Paganism presently. Tree worship is common among Pagans so must we eschew wood? What about Pythagorus’ theorem? If Easter was just Ishtar worship then we would not be celebrating it; how many of us wanting the spiritual side of Easter are heading to the local Ishtar temple this weekend? As for Constantine inventing Easter, direct evidence for Easter being celebrated by Christians can be identified in the 2nd century, some couple of hundred years prior to Constantine – Wikipedia can tell you that much.
Tags: Constantine · Easter · Ishtar · Pat Brittenden · Radio Rhema · Tim McGrew24 Comments
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The whole easter / ishtar thing really annoys me. It is an annoying coincidence of language brought about by speaking English. Virtually everyone else in the world calls Easter some derivative of the hebrew word for pass-over Pesach, hence words like pascal, paschal or even in english Passion as inthe film “the Passion of the Christ”.
The fact that passover just happens to fall in the same time of year known in old germanic languages as eostur-monath is completely irrelevant to anything to do with Easter as we now know it.
I know. It is easy to be ignorant on such things though.
I always thought the eggs aspect of Easter were pagan in origin but then I found last night that they originated in the practice of Lent. One used up one’s eggs prior to Lent, abstained from eggs during it so then afterwards there were an abundance of uncollected eggs from the chickens at Easter which were often hardboiled during Lent so they would not go off….
The Easter bunny thing is really recent, again nothing to do with Constantine, it got added in only about 200 years ago.
I am pretty sure (ie. certain) that “passion” has Latin roots an has nothing to do with the Hebrew word! Jeremy before you fault other people’s faulty etymological reasoning check your own!
Max i did not fault anyones etymological reasoning, the name Easter is indeed derived from Eostur and maybe Ishtar , Astarte etc. The fact that this time of year as named in old germanic languages coincides with jewish passover is the unrelated coincidence.
And you appear to be right, a little research did show that passion and pesach are wholely unrelated etymologically, however the word passion derives from the latin passio used to describe Christs suffering, and also from the greek pashco , to suffer. My mixing up the latin pascha [passover] and the greek [to suffer] was ignorant on my part, but at least they are on the same subject and referring to the same events in christian history.
The name “Easter” originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE.) a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre).
She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Similarly, the “Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility was known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos.” Her name was derived from the ancient word for spring: “eastre.”
Similar Goddesses were known by other names in ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, and were celebrated in the springtime.
Some were: Aphrodite, named Cytherea (Lady of Cythera) and Cypris (Lady of Cyprus) after the two places which claimed her birth; Ashtoreth from ancient Israel; Astarte from ancient Greece; Demeter from Mycenae; Hathor from ancient Egypt; Ishtar from Assyria; Kali, from India; and Ostara a Norse Goddess of fertility.
An alternative explanation has been suggested. The name given by the Frankish church to Jesus’ resurrection festival included the Latin word “alba” which means “white.” (This was a reference to the white robes that were worn during the festival.) “Alba” also has a second meaning: “sunrise.” When the name of the festival was translated into German, the “sunrise” meaning was selected in error.
This became “ostern” in German. Ostern has been proposed as the origin of the word “Easter”.
There are two popular beliefs about the origin of the English word “Sunday.”
It is derived from the name of the Scandinavian sun Goddess Sunna (a.k.a. Sunne, Frau Sonne).
It is derived from “Sol,” the Roman God of the Sun.” Their phrase “Dies Solis” means “day of the Sun.” The Christian saint Jerome (d. 420) commented “If it is called the day of the sun by the pagans, we willingly accept this name, for on this day the Light of the world arose, on this day the Sun of Justice shone forth.”
Pagan origins of Easter:
Many, perhaps most, Pagan religions in the Mediterranean area had a major seasonal day of religious celebration at or following the Spring Equinox. Cybele, the Phrygian fertility goddess, had a consort, Attis, who was believed to have been born via a virgin birth. Attis was believed to have died and been resurrected each year during the period MAR-22 to MAR-25.
Gerald L. Berry, author of “Religions of the World,” wrote: “About 200 B.C. mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican hill …Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was reborn annually.
The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection.”
Wherever Christian worship of Jesus and Pagan worship of Attis were active in the same geographical area in ancient times, Christians: “… used to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus on the same date; and pagans and Christians used to quarrel bitterly about which of their gods was the true prototype and which the imitation.”
Many religious historians and liberal theologians believe that the death and resurrection legends were first associated with Attis, many centuries before the birth of Jesus. They were simply grafted onto stories of Jesus’ life in order to make Christian theology more acceptable to Pagans.
Others suggest that many of the events in Jesus’ life that were recorded in the gospels were lifted from the life of Krishna, the second person of the Hindu Trinity. Ancient Christians had an alternative explanation; they claimed that Satan had created counterfeit deities in advance of the coming of Christ in order to confuse humanity.
Modern-day Christians generally regard the Attis legend as being a Pagan myth of little value with no connection to Jesus. They regard Jesus’ death and resurrection account as being true, and unrelated to the earlier tradition.
Wiccans and other modern-day Neopagans continue to celebrate the Spring Equinox as one of their 8 yearly Sabbats (holy days of celebration). Near the Mediterranean, this is a time of sprouting of the summer’s crop; farther north, it is the time for seeding. Their rituals at the Spring Equinox are related primarily to the fertility of the crops and to the balance of the day and night times.
In those places where Wiccans can safely celebrate the Sabbat out of doors without threat of religious persecution, they often incorporate a bonfire into their rituals, jumping over the dying embers is believed to assure fertility of people and crops.
There is more to the Ishtar connection that Wikipedia says.
Watch this then stick to your claims.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vRdloB70yA&feature=youtu.be
Paul you write,
Three issues here,
First, Bede said it was named Easter because it occurred in the month bearing that name, Bede noted in previous times pagans had celebrated a festival during that month and so had named the month after it, but the festival no longer existed in his time.
Second, the festival we call easter is only called easter in anglo saxon cultures, in other cultures this linguistic link is not present, given the festival is practised throughtout the Christian world under a different name its difficult to claim much mileage from this.
Third, Bede wrote in the 7th to 8th centuries, yet we know from early church writings in the second century that Christians were celebrating a festival to coincide with the Jewish Passover and had been doing so for some time. In the late second century there was debate over wether to time it with Passover or to have it in the weekend immediately after the jewish Passover. The jewish Passover of course had been part of Jewish practise for centuries prior to the time of Christ. The festival therefore in fact had been going on at this time for centuries prior to Bede and the motivation and reasons for it doing so were due to Christianities Jewish origins not its pagan origins.
It’s hard to see how a festival that had been celebrated by at that time by Christians for 600 years and had been celebrated at that time by Jews for even longer, and was being celebrated around the Christian world at that time for centuries, could have been taken from a pagan festival in one part of the world 600 years latter.
“Many religious historians and liberal theologians believe that the death and resurrection legends were first associated with Attis, many centuries before the birth of Jesus. They were simply grafted onto stories of Jesus’ life in order to make Christian theology more acceptable to Pagans.
Others suggest that many of the events in Jesus’ life that were recorded in the gospels were lifted from the life of Krishna, the second person of the Hindu Trinity. Ancient Christians had an alternative explanation; they claimed that Satan had created counterfeit deities in advance of the coming of Christ in order to confuse humanity.”
No that was the view of some scholars in the 19th century, almost no one takes this line today, even liberal scholars. because the alleged parallels have turned out to be bogus.
“Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican hill …Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was reborn annually.”
Actually the Osiris Jesus parallel has been thoroughly refuted. First according to Plutrach Osiris was born but of an adulterous affair between two Gods, Nut and Ceb, nor is Osiris crucified he is drowned in a coffin, nor is he resurrected, he lives in the underworld. In the Attis account, the earlier version in Heroditus does not mention a virgin birth. Attis is conceived when Zeus sees a mountain that looks like a goddess and ejaculates on a mountain his seed becomes first a monster and then ejaculates and the seed becomes aa tree and a nut from the tree falls in her lab. Attis is not crucified; he castrates himself and dies under a tree in one version. In another version he castrates himself and turns into a pine tree. In another version he is killed and his body not found. Doinysus was conceived when his mother had sex with Zeus. Krishna’s mother had seven children before him . Horus is conceived when his mother shags his fathers dismembered corpse.
Nor are these figures resurrected, something forigen to Greek mythology or thought in general they live on in the underworld, the abode of the dead.
Did you listen to the podcast? Tim McGrew shot down the claim as bogus that a Good Friday crucifiction and a Sunday morning ressurrection cannot come out to 3 days and 3 nights.
Easter does not come from the word Ishtar, it comes from Eostre – read Bede.
Further Easter is only called Easter in the Anglo Saxon part of the world.
The egg thing has already been shot down.
Cathedra
Actually that youtube video is spurious. But then again relying on youtube for serious study of Church history general is
First, the Christian Festival is not called “Easter” its called this in English speaking countries, in most countries it’s called “Passover”. So the alleged link is only applicable in English and only applicable after the 7th century when the festival first was given that name. The festival had been going on for 600 hundred years prior to this. So the linguistic similarity between Easter and Istar really proves nothing. Unless you assume the whole world speaks easter and the festival began to exist in the 7th century which is of course false.
Second, the early church debated the dating of easter we have copies of these debates, primary source documents not you tube videos, and it was related to the jewish festival of easter. The debates were over wether to eat the Passover at the time it fell or to have it on the weekend given Christs death was over a weekend. All this was related to Jewish dating.
Third, the discrepancy in the modern jewish dating of Passover and “easter” is due to the debates about when the Passover is correctly calculated, this again is attested by the debates that occurred in the 2nd and third centuries which were over how to correctly date the Jewish Passover and concerns that the Jewish estimation was making mistakes. The month of Nissan is in the torah said to be associated with the harvest and hence in spring. In the 3rd and 4th centuries concern was raised that the Jewish system of dating was leading to mistakes and leading to Passovers before the spring equinox. So there was debate over wether to rely on the jewish communities customs or to make an idependent calculation. Again this can all be determined by looking at the writings of the people who had this discussion rather than on youtube .
@ Matt
Easter may be Christianity’s oldest holiday, but not much of the popular celebrations have anything to do with Christianity and most of the Christian aspects can be traced to more ancient pagan celebrations.
You neatly forget in your reply that Celtic society can be historically proven as existing in Europe from as early as 9th Century BC and religiously important Pagan sites such as Stonehenge have been estimated to have existed in one form or another as early as 3000 BC
Its design includes a celestial observatory function, which might have allowed prediction of eclipse, solstice, equinox and other celestial events important to a contemporary religion.
I agree that unlike your historically documented Jewish religion, the Pagans don’t have the benefit of similar evidence, but I feel it would be somewhat arrogant to presume that Christian culture has not used aspects of prior belief systems to help promote their own religion.
In northern climates, Easter comes around the time when winter is disappearing and it’s time to plant new crops,. This has linked Eater celebrations in northern Christian cultures with pagan rituals dealing with spring planting.
We must remember, though that Easter comes from a Mediterranean culture where the vernal equinox is a time when the summer crops begin to sprout. This is why it has also always been a celebration of new life and a triumph of life over death.
Romans celebrated around this time festivals of purification and fertility; northern pagans celebrated the day as a time when divination was easier. After Christians appropriated February 2nd, they made it a day of purification and cleansing that followed pagan traditions in Rome.
Easter contains elements of shedding winter in anticipation of spring, warmer weather, and a rebirth of life and especially a future of hope for life and prosperity. Representing a significant shift in the yearly cycle, a date to commemorate to remind us what we have come out of (winter, cold, sin) and what we are moving forward to (new crops, new life, Kingdom of God).
I think that most Christians don’t want to think of the extent to which even their most religious holidays remain deeply connected with ancient pagan celebrations.
I think that anyone who cares about these kinds of issues knows that the Easter holiday has, at the very least, pagan derivatives.
I think that the important thing for those of us who recognise what this holiday is meant to represent, is that we strike the right balance – let the kids indulge a little but ensure they are mindful that but for Christ we would all fall (and still do!) short of the grace of God.
I think by banning anything pagan one would be giving those who have secular view on life, far too much power. Chocolate eggs are harmless – it’s just round chocolate so I think as long you and your children know the difference then I am sure you and they will always ensure the celebrations are kept in perspective.
P.s I should add that if one is to really get up in arms about the excessive celebrations of Easter in modern society then focus would perhaps be better spent away from the academic discussions on its derivatives and more on how it adds to the ever increasing consumer driven world which is always at the expense of someone, somewhere…usually not here.
You talk of eating chocolate instead of an Easter egg as if that is a good moral compromise. And for perhaps it is, but my concern would be first and foremost whether that chocolate was Fair Trade and free of child labour rather than what shape it ended up in before it melted in your mouth.
There is no reason why God couldn’t use Easter and Easter Eggs to remind the world about how to treat each other – and their children – with respect, dignity and humane working conditions.
Just saying!
“You talk of eating chocolate instead of an Easter egg as if that is a good moral compromise.”
No I talk of it as being a good example of frugality.
A king size block of Cadbury chocolate is $2.79 at Pak n Save and weighs about 200g.
An Easter Egg weighs about 120g, is generally not made of Cadbury chocolate, but some awful chocolate that does not melt in your mouth and tastes bad, and it costs $4.99.
If I could get 200g Easter eggs made of Cadbury or Whittakers chocolate for $2.79 or better I would buy them for my kids at Easter because as argued above, the eggs aspect of Easter originated in a Christian practice and are not pagan.
Another thing thats odd here is that there is a conflation between easter customs and what is part of the religious festival. As far as I can tell easter eggs are not part of the religious rituals of easter. The religious rituals involve such things as fasting washing feet, the stations of the cross, staying up all night, announcing Christ is risen, and so on. I don’t think there are many parallels here to fertility cults.
There also seems confusion between origins of a thing and its nature. Suppose the custom of eating eggs has a pagan origin. This is true also of mathematics, early mathematicans such as Pythagoras used math as part of a pagan religion. Astronomy originated in astrology, does it follow that using telescopes and engaging in Pythagoras theorum is pagan? No because despite there origins today they are used in a purely secular context, the same of course is true of eating chocolate eggs.
@ Matt
I agree that Easter eggs may be used within a Christian perspective, but the fact that other religions have used them in other symbolic ways cannot be ignored, especially when they predate the timeline for Christian use that you and others have argued for.
Such as the ancient Zorastrians painted eggs for Nowrooz, their New Year celebration, which falls on the Spring Equinox. The Nowrooz tradition may have existed for at least 500 years prior to Christ.
Nowruz marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year in Iranian calendar. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical Northward equinox, which usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed.
As well as being a Zorastrian holiday and having significance amongst the Zoroastrian ancestors of modern Iranians, the same time is celebrated in parts of the South Asian sub-continent as the new year.
The moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day is calculated exactly every year and Iranian families gather together to observe the rituals.
The term Nowruz in writing, first appeared in Persian records in the 2nd century AD, but it was also an important day during the time of the Achaemenids c. 548–330 BC), where kings from different nations under the Persian empire used to bring gifts to the Emperor, also called King of Kings (Shahanshah), of Persia on Nowruz.
Navroz in Pakistan is celebrated by gathering and distributing painted color egg that signifies the earth.
These items include sonbol (hyacinth plant), sekkeh (coins representing wealth), aajeel (dried nuts, berries and raisins), lit candles (enlightenment and happiness), a mirror (cleanness and honesty), and decorated eggs (fertility)
People do house cleaning, plant trees, make new dresses, paint eggs, make national pastries such as shakarbura, pakhlava.
In fact, given the number of Pagan items that have become entwined with the Christian Christmas; Kissing under miseltoe; Christmas trees Halloween, Celtic festival of Samhein, etc, etc.
I’m glad to see that you accept that over time many different customs and ideas have been interwoven with many of our modern day religions and belief systems.
Makes you wonder about all the other beliefs that various religions claim to be true, don’t you think?
Happy Easter!
@ Matt
With regard to your comment concerning your personal view that there can be no obvious parallel between Christ rising from the dead and Pagan fertility cults.
Personally I can see how over a long period of time, aspects of one belief system may influence and/or be absorbed/adapted into another belief system. In fact I can see a very easy and clear link between aspects of a fertility cult that views the return of “new life” in the springtime as miraculous given the “death” of wintertime.
In fact I can see easily how such thinking could be developed, extended that the return of “life” in new born animals and returning vegetation to that of the return to life of a dead human being because of their supposed divinity.
Changing the subject, I’ve also been following Professor Dale B. Martin of Yale University free on-line course: Introduction to New Testament (RLST 152) This course approaches the New Testament not as scripture, or a piece of authoritative holy writing, but as a collection of historical documents. Therefore, students are urged to leave behind their pre-conceived notions of the New Testament and read it as if they had never heard of it before. This involves understanding the historical context of the New Testament and imagining how it might appear to an ancient person. This course was recorded in Spring 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtQ2TS1CiDY&lr=1
Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses
This is just one of 425 Free Online Courses available from Top Universities
http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
So, contrary to your earlier assertion that “Again this can all be determined by looking at the writings of the people who had this discussion rather than on youtube”
That may actually depend on where exactly on Youtube you are looking!
It’s less about the Christian myths overtly copying other pagan myths, I don’t think anyone believes that believes “Mark” sat down with a copy of Plutrach story (even though “Matthew” and “Luke” likely did sit down with a copy of Mark) because he wanted to retell the Osiris. But rather it’s about the Christian myths addressing the same subject (solar cycles, agricultural cycles) in a way that’s uniquely informed by their Jewish and Roman origins.
They Christian myths are not based on pagan myths, they are “pagan” myths!
Corelation does not substantiate causation, or even relationship.
The Christian celebration [called Easter in English] relates to Christ’s death and resurrection which happened at Jewish Passover. For various reasons these no longer coincide exactly, different calendars, different priorities, etc.The fact that other people other cultures even other religions may have also celebrated things at similar times of the year—-SO WHAT. Given the extent of humanity, the annual planetary rotation and the sheer length of history, this kind of coincidence and corelation is inevitable. Likewise the use of symbols.
Paul you in particular seem confused by the difference between the Christian celebration and what happens in populist culture at any time.
Try this as a question, if we were able to look back on the early 21C from a distance of several hundred years would we assume that the Christian celebrations of Christmas and Easter had incorporated large scale retail sales offering big discounts on consumer goods?
Plutarch is a rough contemporary of the gospels so it tells us the shape of the Osiris story at the time the gospels were written. And what we find is that the so called parallels between the stories do not exist.
If there was any evidence the gospels were doing that, this might have a point but there isn’t.
In fact a comparison with contemporary literature and in particular the preface of Luke suggests that the Gospels have the genre of biography and history. There are clear documented similarities between the gospels and historical biography from this period, there are not with regards to pagan myths.
This horse has been flogged and all but abandoned in scripture scholarship over a 100 years ago. It’s pretty much only on the internet that these ideas are taken seriously.
What genre is Plutarch using when he tells us about the Theseus myths?
Felsmere.
Yes, a minorities of Plutarch’s biographies are about mythical figures. Most however are historical biographies such as his writings about Ceaser and Alexander the Great particularly when they are about figures from recent history Thesus was associated with the founding of Athens and event that occurred thousands of years earlier, and was a known mythological figure and his story had been retold for centuries this way by the time Plutarch wrote.
The opening chapter of Luke’s Gospel gives the difference here.
Here Luke is referring to an event that occurred only a few decades earlier at the most, not a founding story from thousands of years earlier. ( note the reference to fulfilled amougst us). Moreover note what he says about the compilation of Luke. He states that there exists in his time eye witness testimony and also accounts based on eyewitness testimony, he has done a careful investigation into these sources and is writing his biography based on that. This is historical biography writing not myth.
The difference is like this. If someone today who wrote a biography of king arthur it would be larged based on legend.
If I went out and investigated the aramona massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramoana_massacre which occured in the 1990. Looked at media reports on it, interviewed witnesses and then wrote an account of it based on this, and wrote a biography of the last days of David Gray. I am writing historical biography.
Madeleine wrote
“One used up one’s eggs prior to Lent, abstained from eggs during it so then afterwards there were an abundance of uncollected eggs from the chickens at Easter which were often hardboiled during Lent so they would not go off….”
Lime water.
“Don’t get me wrong, it is important to pause and check that one is not engaging in Paganism but just because something at some point had something to do with Paganism does not mean it is Paganism presently.”
and that made me smile.
Thanks, guys.
@ Matt
Quick question.
I posted a comment at 11.00pm on April the 10th, but it still doesn’t show, as it states that it is still awaiting moderation.
Just wondered when you might get round to assessing it?
I see my comment has been moderated and accepted
Thanks!