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The Origin of
“Easter”
By Jim Staley
In the ancient heathen world
there were gods and goddesses for
everything. There were gods for the
sun, moon, trees, animals, love, and
so on. And as Paul found out, there
was even a god called the “unknown
god”, just in case they missed any.
Some of these gods were at one time
real human beings and after death
were glorified to the status of a
god or goddess. The people did not
necessarily worship the sun or the
moon but the god that was “in
charge” of the sun or the moon, etc…
Even the great Caesars were given
god-like status even while some were
still alive!
The greatest of all of the gods
throughout all of history and all
civilizations was virtually always
the “sun-god”. And the first god
worshipped as the god of the sun was
Nimrod, the very same Nimrod from
the book of Genesis. And from the
book of Genesis we learn that Nimrod
was a great grandson of Noah, an
incredible hunter and became a
mighty king on the earth. Genesis
also records for us in chapter 10
that he was responsible for building
the kingdoms of Babel and Nineveh
along with many other cities. But
his most famous accomplishment was
the “brilliant” idea to build a
“tower whose top would reach the
heavens”. This in turn provoked
the LORD to come down out of heaven
to confuse their language and
scatter them over the face of the
earth. This infamous tower became
known as the “Tower of Babel”.
Nimrod was said to be the most
powerful ruler of all time and when
he died, Babylonian legend says that
he ascended into the heavens and he
became the sun-god. The name that
the people of his time would call
him would be “Baal” which means
“lord”. The wife that he left behind
was named Semiramis, who would now
become the “Queen of Heaven” since
she was the wife of the sun-god
Baal.
Years later Semiramis became
pregnant. She declared that she had
become pregnant by the rays of the
sun of her deceased husband, Nimrod
(Baal), and nine months later she
gave birth to a son in which she
gave the name “Tammuz”. Because of
the god-like status of his late
father Nimord, baby Tammuz was
quickly haled to be the
reincarnation of his father Nimrod.
Tammuz, like his father, also became
a mighty hunter on the earth. But,
when he was forty years of age, he
was killed by a wild boar on one of
his hunting expeditions. Because he
was revered to be the reincarnated
sun-god, his death brought great
despair upon the people of Babel.
So, they set aside forty days of
weeping and fasting for Tammuz each
year in the Spring to commemorate
each year that he was alive. (This
tradition has been passed down
through the ages to the church and
is where we get the forty days of
fasting before Easter Sunday. This
is where the Catholic original
tradition of “Lent” came from until
Catholic leadership changed the
origination to the 40 days of
fasting that Jesus did in the
wilderness.) After the forty days
of weeping, they would kill a wild
boar (getting back at the boar that
killed Tammuz) and eat the ham on
the first Sunday after the Spring
Equinox (This is where the tradition
of eating ham on Easter Sunday came
from). Also as a side note, one of
the ancient statues of Mary holding
baby Jesus in the Vatican is
actually a REAL statue of Semiramis
holding baby Tammuz! The Catholic
Church just changed the names to
Mary and Jesus!
Many years later, as the legend
continues, Tammuz’s mother Semiramis
dies and ascends into heaven. But as
the luck of the Babylonian legend
would have it, when she ascended
into the heavens, the gods sent her
back down to earth in a giant egg at
sunrise on the first Sunday after
the vernal equinox (first day of
Spring). She landed in the Euphrates
River, the egg busted open and she
turned a bird into an egg laying
rabbit. (Have you ever wondered
where the Easter Bunny and Easter
Eggs came from? Well, now you
know.) Eggs were very symbolic of
many pagan religions as many
believed that the earth itself came
from a giant egg. Furthermore, the
rabbit was looked upon as the most
fertile animal on earth and the egg
was also viewed as a symbol of
fertility and new life. This is why
these two symbols were attributed to
the new “Queen of Heaven”, Ishtar.
It is also important to note that
the process of deifying someone
included renaming the individual
after they had died. Many times they
would be given a name that
represented whatever they were going
to be the god of. The new name of
Semiramus according to the
Babylonians was Ishtar, the god of
fertility and the god of the East,
or sunrise. Later, the Phoenicians
and the Greeks in their language
called her Astarte, the Zidonians
called her Ashtaroth
(Judges
2:13 “And they forsook the LORD and
served Baal and Ashtaroth.”),
the Philistines in the time of Saul
kept the name Ishtar and the Celtics
called her Eostra.
(Judges 10:6,
“And the children of Israel did evil
again in the sight of the LORD, and
served Baal and Ashtaroth, and the
gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon,
and the gods of Moab, and the gods
of the children of Ammon, and the
gods of the Philistines, and forsook
the LORD, and served Him not.”)
But all of these names were
referring to the same goddess: the
bare-breasted fertility goddess of
the Spring. And guess what the
Anglicization of the Babylonian name
“Ishtar” is? You guessed
it---Easter.
The Bible does mention most of the
various names of Easter, but does
not go in great detail of how she
was worshipped. So we are forced to
go to history books, ancient extra
biblical sources and ancient legends
that describe these subjects in more
detail. For example, Paul mentions
the “Circumcision Party” in one of
his letters. We don’t get a clear
picture of who these people were, so
we must rely on other historical
sources from that time period to
describe more accurately who the
Circumcision Party was in order to
correctly interpret that scripture.
In the same manner, if God tells us
not to worship Him the way that
people used to worship Baal, (Deut.
12:29-32), and not to even mention
the names of their gods in
connection with Him (Ex. 23:13),
then it is very vital to know HOW
people worshiped Baal so that we do
not adopt those same practices in
our worship of the true God, Yahweh.
Scripture does not give us all of
the details of how the people
worshipped Baal and Easter. The
reason is that the people to whom
the scriptures were written to
already knew all of the details. So
because we are thousands of years
removed from their time period and
culture, we rely on what the Bible
does tell us, but we also rely
heavily on historians like Josephus
and others that paint the pictures
of what each subject looked like in
vivid detail. Even a quick look
into what Catholic historians say
about this subject is revealing:
“The reasons for celebrating our
major feasts when we do are many and
varied. In general, however, it is
true that many of them have at least
an indirect connection with the
pre-Christian [pagan] feasts
celebrated about the same time of
year — feasts centering around the
harvest, the rebirth of the sun at
the winter solstice (now Dec. 21,
but Dec. 25 in the old Julian
calendar), the renewal of nature in
spring, and so on.”
Source: The New Question Box -
Catholic Life for the Nineties,
copyright 1988 by John J. Dietzen,
M.A., S.T.L., ISBN 0-940518-01-5
(paperback), published by Guildhall
Publishers, Peoria Illinois, 61651.,
page 554.
Even the Oxford English dictionary
defines “Easter” as “The name
of a goddess whose festival was
celebrated at the vernal
equinox…originally known as the dawn
goddess, the goddess of fertility.”
So let’s get back to the story. So,
as sun worship (Baal worship)
increased and became world wide, so
did the worship of his wife, the
“Queen of Heaven”, Easter. We are
told through this Babylonian legend
that every year on “Easter Sunday”
at sunrise, the priests of Easter
would impregnate young virgins on
the altar of Baal. Then, the next
year, they would take the now three
month old babies and sacrifice them
on the altar on Easter Sunday at the
sunrise service. They would then
take the eggs of Easter and dye the
eggs in the blood of the sacrificed
infants. Here is an interesting
quote that I found on the internet.
“Red is a traditional color for
dying eggs…Red dyed eggs are offered
to the god and goddess of the bed in
China.” Interestingly enough,
although pastel colors are mostly
used here in America, red is the
most popular color that Easter eggs
are dyed worldwide. Even the
official White House Easter egg is
made of ruby red glass. This
tradition finds its roots all the
way back to the dying of Easter eggs
in the blood of sacrificed
children. You may not have wanted
to learn that last factual root of
where the tradition of dying Easter
eggs came from. Neither did I. But
in the end, I would hope that all
true believers would rather know the
truth about these things, rather
than do something without knowledge
of why we do them or where they came
from.
How did the Resurrection
become associated with Easter’s
Sunday?
One author on the subject writes,
“Around the second century A.D.,
Christian missionaries traveled
among the Teutonic tribes north of
Rome. Whenever possible, they
converted the tribes of northern
Europe realizing that the time of
the crucifixion of Jesus roughly
coincided with the Pagan springtime
celebrations of Easter…Since it
would have been suicide for the very
early Christian converts to
celebrate the biblical holy days
(Passover) alongside the pagan
observances that were already set in
place, the missionaries cleverly
devised a plan. In order to save the
lives of their converts, they would
allow them to continue to celebrate
their pagan feasts, but to do so in
a Christian manner. Since the Easter
festival to celebrate spring
coincided with the time of the
Christian observance of the
resurrection (Passover) of
Christ, this crossover was achieved
smoothly.”
And so for the purpose of making it
easier for the pagan gentiles to
convert to Christianity, they were
allowed to keep the festival of
Easter as long as they tied it to
the resurrection of Christ. But the
entire early church of the New
Testament for over a hundred years
celebrated the actual week of
Passover as the time that Jesus died
and rose from the dead as the
scriptures say. It is interesting
to note at this point that this
author says that it would "have been
suicide" for the new converts to
keep the Biblical Holy days because
they were so surrounded by paganism.
By even mentioning this fact, he is
by logical deduction, implying that
Christians outside of those pagan
social pressures, DID keep the
Biblical Holy days such as Passover
as Jesus commanded. Unfortunately,
man seems to always compromise and
cave in to social pressures, rather
than stand up for the truth through
faith.
As you will see by the end of this
article, the main reason why the
Christian Church at large celebrates
Easter instead of the Biblical
celebration of Passover that Jesus
and his followers observed is
because more and more pagan
Gentiles were coming into the
church, rising to leadership, and
removing the things that Jesus and
his followers did that they thought
were “too Jewish” and would replace
them would celebrations that they
were more accustomed to. It is
important to remember that the pagan
Gentiles that were converting to
Christianity hated the Jews and did
not want to have anything to do with
them or their traditions…even if
their traditions came from the Bible
itself. For the sake of adding more
converts, (instead of the biblical
creating disciples method), the
“Church” began to compromise the
footsteps and teachings of the first
century disciples.
Through all of this historical
change though, there has always
remained a remnant that retained the
true meaning and traditions of the
Bible. Even by the fourth century
there were still many believers that
still celebrated the resurrection on
Passover like the early church
before them. The Roman Emperor
Constantine said at the council of
Nicea in 325A.D., “It appears
that the churches of Syria and
Mesopotamia continues to follow the
custom of the Jews, and celebrated
Easter on the fourteenth day of the
moon whether falling on Sunday or
not. All the other churches observed
the solemnity on Sunday only.”
(The “fourteenth day of the moon”
was how the Bible told the early
believers to calculate Passover.) It
was also at the Council of Nicea
that Constantine made it law that
the celebration of the resurrection
of Christ was to be done on Easter
Sunday: “…This subject having
been discussed, it was decreed to
celebrate Easter on the same
day…(Sunday) …which was the practice
of Rome.”
Constantine was a huge sun
worshipper before he supposedly
converted to Christianity along with
the rest of the citizens of Rome.
And celebrating Easter on the first
Sunday after the spring equinox was
already “the practice of Rome”.
Constantine went on to finally
declare for all time, “…We should
perpetuate to all future ages the
celebration of this rite.”
And so it went down in history on
that day, in the beginnings of the
Roman Catholic Church, that anyone
that celebrated the resurrection on
any other day would be
excommunicated, severely punished or
even killed. Not much has changed
since that proclamation by
Constantine almost seventeen hundred
years ago. Sure, there was a
Protestant Reformation. But for the
most part, most Christian churches
operate in some way shape or form
EXACTLY how their Catholic
predecessors taught them without
virtually any examination of
doctrine and traditions to verify
their biblical accuracy. For too
long we have just done things
because we have always done them and
they appear to have no harm. But, is
it possible that we are missing out
on something that carries incredible
blessings and significance for both
us and our children?
Sooo, we have come to the point in
our journey on this subject that I
believe we must address what you are
probably thinking: “Those facts
about the origin of Easter are
interesting, but that is not what
Easter means to me.” Before we
answer this common response, we must
first answer the following question:
Can we “Christianize” pagan holidays
and worship our God using the things
that the pagans used to worship
their gods? Before going to
the scriptures, let me answer by
using a simple example of how a
husband relates to his wife. Should
a husband love his wife the way that
HE wants to love her? Or should he
love her the way that SHE wants to
be loved. Over the lifetime of my
marriage I have learned that my wife
does not want me to solve her
problems as much as she wants me to
listen to them. I still do not
understand why she wants to be loved
like this because if it were me it
seems more logical to just solve the
problem and things instantly get
better. The problem is that it is
NOT me. It is about HER. Whether I
understand it or not, it is my
responsibility to serve her in the
way that most pleases her. She will
not be fulfilled any other way. In
the same way, are we to think that
the Creator of the Universe will
accept our worship in whatever form
we want to give it just because our
hearts are “sincere”? The condition
of our heart and motives ONLY matter
as we are obeying Him in the way
that pleases HIM. Obedience must
come first. Otherwise, what would be
the point in even sharing the
gospel? Virtually everyone is
sincere and thinks that they are
pleasing God. The reason why we
share the gospel is because we can
only please God THROUGH faith and
obedience to Jesus Christ (John
14:6). We know that they cannot just
choose any old way to worship
Yahweh. But for some reason, we do
not apply the same logic to our own
beliefs and traditions. \
Many might say it doesn't really
matter if we celebrate Easter using
pagan traditions, especially since
we use them to celebrate the
resurrection of Jesus. What do the
Scriptures have to say about this?
Can we “Christianize” pagan
holidays and worship our God using
the things that the pagans used to
worship their gods? Let’s take
a look at the book of Deuteronomy:
Deut. 12:29
says, "When the LORD your God cuts
off from before you the nations
which you go to dispossess, and you
displace them and dwell in their
land, 30 "take heed to yourself that
you are not ensnared to follow them,
after they are destroyed from before
you, and that you do not inquire
after their gods, saying, ‘How did
these nations serve their gods? I
also will do likewise.’ 31 "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; for they burn
even their sons and daughters in the
fire to their gods. 32 "Whatever I
command you, be careful to observe
it; you shall not add to it nor take
away from it. "You shall not worship
the LORD your God in that way”
The Israelites were engrained in
Egypt to worship gods through
man-made things and ideas. Yahweh
knew that they would be inclined to
want to take the idols of the
nations and use them and their
traditions to worship Him, so He
made it EXTREMELY clear that He
wanted His people to be “set apart”,
a “holy priesthood”(I Pet. 2:5), to
“not learn the ways of the heathens”
(Jer. 10:2), and to “NOT WORSHIP THE
LORD GOD IN THAT WAY”. What way?
The same ways and traditions that
the pagans used to worship their
gods.
Now, at first glance it is tempting
to read into these scriptures that
God is telling them not to worship
other gods, but that is NOT what He
is saying. Verse 31 does not say,
“You shall not worship other gods.”
It says, “You shall not worship the
LORD your God in THAT way…” These
were people that were already prone,
from the golden calf experience, to
worship the true God through
“unapproved” measures. Man seems to
be bent in inventing and creating
new ways to do everything and
worshipping seems to be no
exception. The question though,
seems to be whether or not we have
the rite to invent, change, add or
subtract from the things that He has
already approved. It is hard for us
finite humans to remember that HE is
the one being worshipped and not
us. The last verse in that chapter
is worth repeating:
32 “Whatever I
command you, be careful to observe
it; you shall not add to it nor take
away from it.
One author wrote on this verse,
“In this brief clause he teaches
that no other service of God is
lawful, except that of which He has
testified His approval in His word,
and that obedience is as it were the
mother of piety; By forbidding the
addition, or diminishing of
anything, he plainly condemns as
illegitimate whatever men invent of
their own imagination; whence it
follows that they, who in
worshipping God are guided by any
rule save that which He Himself has
prescribed.”
It is our job to worship God the way
that He wants to be worshipped, and
NOT the way we want to worship Him.
Let’s use another example: Let's say
there was a guy named Joe that
before he was married to a different
girl, dated a girl for five years
that had a 1969 red mustang.
Furthermore, Joe had gone on
hundreds of dates with this girl in
this mustang. On top of that, let’s
say Joe’s new wife knew all about
this mustang and Joe's old
girlfriend. How excited would Joe's
wife be if he decided to buy her a
1969 red mustang for their first
wedding anniversary? Not very
excited I would imagine. And if
that wasn’t enough, Joe decided that
he was so used to celebrating his
girlfriend”vs birthday on December
25th, that he decided to change his
wife’s birthday to December 25th
thinking that she wouldn’t mind
since after all, he was doing his
best to show his love toward her.
Given the above scenario, I think it
might be his last anniversary to say
the least. But, on behalf of Joe,
at this point he doesn’t know any
better because she hasn’t slapped
him yet with the truth of how she
feels! But, after the shock of
learning this new truth, Joe will
now be responsible to pray and ask
God to help him “sell the mustang”
regardless of how much it meant to
him or the memories that are
associated with it.
No matter how pure Joe’s motives
were in how he wanted to please her,
she did not want to be pleased
“in that way”. In the same way,
we cannot say, “That’s not what
Easter means to me”, because WE are
not the ones receiving the worship.
The only thing that matters is what
our God YAHWEH thinks! And I hope by
now that it has become very clear
what God thinks about using things,
ideas and traditions that were
formally used by pagans to worship
their gods, for the purpose of
worshipping the one true God. It
does not matter if times have
changed and Easter does not mean to
us what it did 2000 years ago.
The facts are that virtually
everything that is associated with
Easter can be traced back to pagan
ritualistic ceremonies that Yahweh
hated. How do you think God feels
looking down from Heaven and seeing
us celebrate a day with the name of
a pagan goddess, passing out stuffed
Easter bunnies to the children that
are picking up dyed Easter eggs,
eating Easter ham on Easter Sunday
morning while we attend Easter
sunrise services on the exact same
day that all of the sun-worshippers
did for thousands of years!? We
each have to answer that question
privately in our own relationship
with God. But, it is my belief that
it disgusts him to see his people
mix (compromise) past abominations
in with the resurrection of His Son.
And on top of that we KNOW that the
tradition comes from a pagan
background (every dictionary and
encyclopedia admits this), and yet
we justify it by saying that “it
doesn’t mean that to ME”. Have we
fallen so far from truth that we put
more of an emphasis on what WE think
than what God Almighty says? But
then again, that is just my belief.
Each of us will have to come to our
own conclusions on the matter.
I must admit that the first time I
came across this truth, I rejected
it, on the account that I could not
believe that for over 1700 years the
“Christian” church would be teaching
its followers to do something that
God doesn’t approve of. But as my
passion for truth and my desire to
serve Him grew stronger, I could not
deny the facts any longer. Either I
was going to honor God in the ways
that HE chooses or the ways in which
I choose. God has told us how He
wants us to worship Him and we are
not “to add or take away” from those
instructions. Originally the Spring
Feast of Passover was replaced by
the Roman Church for Easter. I
believe it is time to re-replace
Easter with what Jesus, the
disciples and Paul tell us to keep:
Passover. As foreign as it might
sound to keep Passover instead of
Easter, (because most of us have
been brought up in churches that
have adopted “Roman Catholic”
holidays and traditions), it is time
that we put our preconceived biases
and emotions aside and call bible
things by bible names and do bible
things in bible ways. We keep SAYING
that we want to be like the early
church. Well, the early Christians
kept Passover for almost three
hundred years until it was outlawed
by Constantine in 325 A.D. We see
“WWJD” everywhere. What WOULD Jesus
Do? I think that it is a safe
assumption that He would most
definitely not celebrate Easter, but
Passover, like he instructed us to
do. Besides, Passover, like the
other six Biblical Holy Days are all
about the Messiah! Every one of
them are prophetic and forecast
details about His first coming and
His second! Each one has tremendous
symbolic teaching tools for us and
especially our children that teach
deep spiritual principles for out
lives. For example, have you ever
wondered why it was so significant
that Jesus said, “This is my body
and this is my blood”? The answer
is because up until this point, for
the past 1200 years, the Jewish
people had celebrated the Passover
as a remembrance of the leaving of
Egypt and at that point in the
supper, the head of each household
would hold up the bread and thank
God in Heaven for providing for them
bread from the earth. But, this
time was different. Jesus changed
the age old ceremony in that one
sentence. The bread was to now
signify his body and the wine his
blood that would usher in a New
Covenant. He told us to now
celebrate the Passover in
remembrance of being freed from sin
and that He is now the Passover Lamb
that we are to remember. Luke 22:7
says,
“Then came the Day of Unleavened
Bread, when the Passover lamb must
be killed.”, and 1
Cor. 5:7,
“…For indeed Christ, our Passover,
was sacrificed for us.”
And this lamb which had been
killed and sacrificed for thousands
of years as a rehearsal for the
atonement of the sins of Israel was
now going to be this day, the
“lamb of
God who takes away the sins of the
world.” John 1:29.
Or how about the 3 pieces of
unleavened bread (like crackers)
that are wrapped in linen that are
pierced with holes and have
stripes? The middle piece is broken
and hidden somewhere in the house
for all the children to find. This
represents the body of Messiah that
was broken and pierced for us and
hidden for 3 days. We personally
take the other half of the broken
piece and wrap each piece in linen
and write a child’s name on it in
red ink signifying that Jesus paid
for their sins personally. Then we
hide all the pieces throughout the
house and all the children go
looking for their name and whoever
finds the middle piece gets a
special prize. What a wonderful
teaching tool! The entire dinner is
filled with deep, spiritual
symbolism and teaching tools for the
whole family and it all points and
is centered around the Messiah!
Isn’t that what we as believers are
really trying to do anyway…put focus
and emphasis on the death and
resurrection of our Messiah and
teach our children the same? Why
not use the tools that God gave His
people so long ago that are from
Him? Does He not know what we need
to remember and properly teach our
children? Why celebrate the
resurrection of the Son of God using
things that came from man when we
can utilize the very things that
came from Yahweh Himself that were
created for our blessing and
benefit?
My Final Hurdle
The last hurdle that I had to get
over in my own mind was that I
thought that Passover was “Jewish”.
Little did I know that was only what
I had been taught and that idea is
not found in scripture. I had
presumed that they were Jewish
because they were the only ones that
seemed to keep them! But God said
that these were HIS Holy Days and if
anyone wanted to be a part of His
Covenant and be a part of the
“Chosen People”, they would have to
play by His rules:
Le 23:2
Speak unto the children of Israel,
and say unto them, Concerning the
feasts of the LORD, which ye shall
proclaim to be holy convocations,
even these are My feasts.
Numbers
9:14 “If an alien sojourns among
you and observes the Passover to the
LORD, according to the statute of
the Passover and according to its
ordinance, so he shall do; you shall
have one statute, both for the alien
and for the native of the land.'"
Final Thoughts
We are all on our own journey in
our relationship and our walk with
Him. In my journey into these
things back in 2002, I only sought
out to find where the Easter Bunny
came from and “Holy Cow” (no pun
intended), I ended up here! Jesus
said to know the truth and the truth
will set you free. And there is
something very freeing in giving up
traditions that God does not approve
of and replacing them with the
things that He has. In a way, I
feel reconnected to the early
Christians that chose to serve God
only in the ways that He wanted to
be served. Celebrating Passover
instead of Easter has empowered me
to teach my family age old truths
about the Messiah in the same way
that the Apostles did with their
children. It has caused us to grow
closer to Him. In short…it has
changed us. Doing things His way
has changed…me.
May you be blessed on YOUR journey
as you seek to follow Him in
everything that you do.
Jim Staley
Passion for Truth Ministries
www.passion-for-truth.com
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