Easter- timing thereof

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Mar 8, 2014
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#1
Ever wonder why easter is at a different time each year? Christmas is not, not new years, or any other holiday. They are on the same day each and every year. OK. now then . Easter was originally celebrated by some early churches on whatever day the Passover began, and by others on the Sunday included in the Passover week. The council of Nicaea decided in favor of the Sunday observance and left it to the church at Alexandria to formulate the rule, which is as follows.
Easter is the first Sunday after the 14th day of the moon (nearly the full moon) which occurs on or immediately after March 21st.
Thus if the 14th day of the moon occurs on Sunday, Easter is observed one week later. Unlike Christmas, Easter is a moveable feast because it depends on the moon's phases; its date can range from March 22nd to April 25th.
 

Hizikyah

Senior Member
Aug 25, 2013
11,634
372
0
#2
"The term Easter was derived from the Anglo-Saxon 'Eostre,' the name of the goddess of spring. In her honor sacrifices were offered at the time of the vernal equinox. By the 8th cent. the term came to be applied to the anniversary of Christ's resurrection." (International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, edited by Geoffrey Bromiley, Vol 2 of 4, p.6, article: Easter)
 

And

Banned
Apr 10, 2014
364
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#3
Easter is a pagan festival. If Easter is not at all about Jesus, then what is it about? Today, we see a secular culture celebrating the spring equinox, . However, early Christianity went apostate by acceptance of ancient pagan practises, most of which are a part of easter.
The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life.
The Cybele cult flourished on today's Vatican Hill and its descendants became the roman church. Cybele's lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising to a crescendo after three days, in rejoicing over the resurrection. There was violent conflict on Vatican Hill in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshippers and pagans who quarrelled over whose God was the true, and whose the imitation. What is interesting to note here is that in the ancient world, wherever you had popular resurrected god myths, Christianity found lots of converts. So, eventually Christianity became apostate with the pagan Spring festival. Although we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament, early apostate church fathers celebrated it and left the true faith to form a pagan christian babylon mix., and today many churches are offering "sunrise services" at Easter which have absolutely NOTHING to do with the biblical day of rest and do not have any basis in fact or God's word.
Waester is an obvious – an obvious pagan solar celebration. The date of Easter is not fixed, but instead is governed by the phases of the moon – how pagan is that? totally apostate.

All the things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom, celebrated by many cultures. Hot cross buns are very ancient too. In the Old Testament apostate Jews whom the LORD HATED and PUNISHED angered the Lord by baking sweet buns for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it. The early true christian church clergy also tried to put a stop to sacred cakes being baked at Easter, but, eventually, they all apostatized. In the end, in the face of defiant cake-baking pagan women, they gave up and joined the devil and became the synagogue of satan wearing purple and red and blessed the cake instead.
Easter is a completelya pagan festival which is celebrated with pagan cards, pagan gifts and pagan novelty Easter products, because it's demons work to hypnotize and exhilirate anyone participating with the devils on that day.
the ancient symbolism and partaking of it, causes the holy spirit of love and truth to leave all those who celebrate celebrate celebrate, which is what babylon is all about
celebrate when they should be weeping before the porch and the altar.
 
T

Tintin

Guest
#4
Here we go again. Refuted so many times and the termites just keep coming...
 

Hizikyah

Senior Member
Aug 25, 2013
11,634
372
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#5
Here we go again. Refuted so many times and the termites just keep coming...
If everyone were like you every deception and sinister plot would be perfectly safe... but then again deceptions and sinister plot dont even exist!


"The term 'Easter' is not of Christian origin. It is another form of Astarte, one of the titles of the Chaldean goddess, the queen of heaven. The festival of Pasch [Passover and the Feast of Unleavens] was a continuation of the Jewish [that is, God's] feast....from this Pasch the pagan festival of 'Easter' was quite distinct and was introduced into the apostate Western religion, as part of the attempt to adapt pagan festivals to Christianity." (W.E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, William White, Jr., Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, article: Easter, p.192)
 

crossnote

Senior Member
Nov 24, 2012
30,704
3,649
113
#6
Ever wonder why easter is at a different time each year? Christmas is not, not new years, or any other holiday. They are on the same day each and every year. OK. now then . Easter was originally celebrated by some early churches on whatever day the Passover began, and by others on the Sunday included in the Passover week. The council of Nicaea decided in favor of the Sunday observance and left it to the church at Alexandria to formulate the rule, which is as follows.
Easter is the first Sunday after the 14th day of the moon (nearly the full moon) which occurs on or immediately after March 21st.
Thus if the 14th day of the moon occurs on Sunday, Easter is observed one week later. Unlike Christmas, Easter is a moveable feast because it depends on the moon's phases; its date can range from March 22nd to April 25th.
The disassociation of the early church grew and grew until they did not want Holy Week associated with Passover.
This whole thing was a sad decision on the Church's part, but it is what it is.
I don't make a federal case out of it because...

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. (Rom 14:5)
 
R

RachelBibleStudent

Guest
#7
"The term Easter was derived from the Anglo-Saxon 'Eostre,' the name of the goddess of spring. In her honor sacrifices were offered at the time of the vernal equinox. By the 8th cent. the term came to be applied to the anniversary of Christ's resurrection." (International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, edited by Geoffrey Bromiley, Vol 2 of 4, p.6, article: Easter)
this claim is basically a repetition of the claim made by the medieval historian bede...bede himself admitted to never having witnessed 'eostre' worship...which by his own account had died out centuries before his time...so his assertion is based solely on hearsay...

in spite of the many archaeological discoveries made since bede's time...not a single shred of evidence has been found to corroborate bede's assertion that there ever existed a pagan goddess named 'eostre'
 
R

RachelBibleStudent

Guest
#8
All the things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom, celebrated by many cultures. Hot cross buns are very ancient too. In the Old Testament apostate Jews whom the LORD HATED and PUNISHED angered the Lord by baking sweet buns for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it. The early true christian church clergy also tried to put a stop to sacred cakes being baked at Easter, but, eventually, they all apostatized. In the end, in the face of defiant cake-baking pagan women, they gave up and joined the devil and became the synagogue of satan wearing purple and red and blessed the cake instead.
Easter is a completelya pagan festival which is celebrated with pagan cards, pagan gifts and pagan novelty Easter products, because it's demons work to hypnotize and exhilirate anyone participating with the devils on that day.
the ancient symbolism and partaking of it, causes the holy spirit of love and truth to leave all those who celebrate celebrate celebrate, which is what babylon is all about
celebrate when they should be weeping before the porch and the altar.
there is literally zero evidence associating eostre with rabbits...bede is the -only- historical attestor to the existence of a pagan goddess named 'eostre'...and even he doesn't say anything about any association between her and rabbits...

the bible indicates that cakes were baked for the 'queen of heaven'...but cakes were also baked for the worship of yahweh...so there is nothing inherently pagan about baking cakes...

the truth is that practically -nothing- about easter has a pagan origin that can be established from history...but unfortunately many people have embraced ignorance and misinformation because it makes them feel superior to those they slander as 'pagan'
 
T

Tintin

Guest
#9
If everyone were like you every deception and sinister plot would be perfectly safe... but then again deceptions and sinister plot dont even exist!


"The term 'Easter' is not of Christian origin. It is another form of Astarte, one of the titles of the Chaldean goddess, the queen of heaven. The festival of Pasch [Passover and the Feast of Unleavens] was a continuation of the Jewish [that is, God's] feast....from this Pasch the pagan festival of 'Easter' was quite distinct and was introduced into the apostate Western religion, as part of the attempt to adapt pagan festivals to Christianity." (W.E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, William White, Jr., Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, article: Easter, p.192)
Believe everything you read on the Internet.
Thus saith the Lord, or some such nonsense. If there were any truth to this, I would make a stand against it (I'm on God's side) but since it's just the usual rubbish made up by people with no discernment and credible information, I pay it no heed.
 
Oct 31, 2011
8,200
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#10
Believe everything you read on the Internet.
Thus saith the Lord, or some such nonsense. If there were any truth to this, I would make a stand against it (I'm on God's side) but since it's just the usual rubbish made up by people with no discernment and credible information, I pay it no heed.
Fifty years ago your post would be about all we knew. Today information has been opened up to us.

I have been interested in the reports of what went on at the Nicene Council including their three year debate about Easter. The Catholic Church has kept the best records of history over the years. I am no Catholic and their site might be slanted to pick out history to report on it that is for their view, but they don't lie. Other historians report on this council, and I check with them, too, to see if they agree. Changing to Passover to Easter began before the Council, but the Council reinforced it. The council gathered the fathers of the church for a three year talk unifying what they thought was right.

From the first, one of the main reasons for replacing Passover with Easter was their decision that God wanted Jews punished, they should have nothing to do with any of Jewishness. Many of todays Christians are of the same opinion.

It is said that Easter is all about Christ, but it was putting Christ into spring festivals from pagan religions already in place. There is scripture that tells us not to do this. That is what the golden calves were, and no one questions that they should not be used to worship God.

I just can't believe that God would not want us to look our worship practices over carefully now. God is in control of our world, God knows this information is available to us now, I don't it is in God's plan for us to ignore it.
 

Nick01

Senior Member
Jul 15, 2013
1,272
26
48
#11
Fifty years ago your post would be about all we knew. Today information has been opened up to us.
This is true, but there is also incorrect information that has been opened up to us as well. I'm sure you can appreciate that.

As usual, if an actual source dating to the relevant period can be produced, then a discussion can be had. If not, it leaves very little room to talk about truth, and instead everyone jumps on their own hobby horse and hollers pointlessly at each other, because everyone's 'text they found on the internet' is as valid as everyone else's. Referring to nameless historians is all well and good, but not all people who call themselves historians or even refer to history are actual historians, and any historian worth their salt actually refers to genuine primary source material anyway, so talking about historians is just a distraction - what matters is the history that they presumably have in evidence.

I'm not going to get into a big discussion about Jews vs Gentile Christians here, because it's not helpful or entirely relevant. Suffice to say, there was a move in the early church to observe the primary day of the Passion (Christ's resurrection) on the day on which he rose (Sunday, the first day of the week), rather than move it to various days of the week as under the Jewish calendar. It was also an attempt to establish a calendar by which the whole church could celebrate Easter in the same way, rather than having people fasting or feasting depending on where they were in the lunar calendar (a fairly decent objective) IMO. There were anti-Jewish sentiments (as there were opposing Judaizing sentiments), but they certainly wasn't the only motivation. A lot of it simply had to do with the Western trend towards a solar, rather than lunar, based mode of measuring time, and a desire to unite a multinational church. Summaries of this discussion can be found in Eusebius.

Now, of course, it didn't actually work out like that, because different churches continued to celebrate Easter at different times (even now, like the Orthodox Church), but that was the aim. It's certainly a red herring to connect Nicea to what seems to be the primary thrust of this thread, which is pagan influence. Paganism wasn't even in view at Nicea on the question of Easter.
 

crossnote

Senior Member
Nov 24, 2012
30,704
3,649
113
#13
It is said that Easter is all about Christ, but it was putting Christ into spring festivals from pagan religions already in place. There is scripture that tells us not to do this.
Take any Jewish Feast Day, they all fall on a week day named after a Greek/Roman Deity.
Does that mean the Jewish Feast Days are pagan?
It's the same ill=logic you are using.
 

Hizikyah

Senior Member
Aug 25, 2013
11,634
372
0
#14
Believe everything you read on the Internet.
Thus saith the Lord, or some such nonsense. If there were any truth to this, I would make a stand against it (I'm on God's side) but since it's just the usual rubbish made up by people with no discernment and credible information, I pay it no heed.
Interesting, so you quoted my quote from a reliable biblical resource and say or imply I believe everything on the internet....
 

Hizikyah

Senior Member
Aug 25, 2013
11,634
372
0
#15
Yahweh's Feast days and Yahshua's Memorial have their origin from Yahweh, all other Holidays DO NOT. To me its a case closed. When the fact that these other holidays are of pagan origin....
 

crossnote

Senior Member
Nov 24, 2012
30,704
3,649
113
#16
Yahweh's Feast days and Yahshua's Memorial have their origin from Yahweh, all other Holidays DO NOT. To me its a case closed. When the fact that these other holidays are of pagan origin....
Again, celebrating the birth, death and resurrection of Christ is not of pagan origin no matter what (pagan) day it may fall on.
 

Hizikyah

Senior Member
Aug 25, 2013
11,634
372
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#17
Again, celebrating the birth, death and resurrection of Christ is not of pagan origin no matter what (pagan) day it may fall on.
What you say is true*

*If that is what is celebrated, but as soon as eggs, bunnies, easter come in pagan customs have then been mixed in.

I choose to celebrate Passover which is the time Messiah was Sacrificed

and

Firstfruits which is when the Messiah presented Himself to Yahweh after resurrecting.

Since both of the are commanded in Leviticus 23 and are prophetic shadow pictures of this work by Messiah I am within Yahweh's gates/system, the same can not be said for easter and christmas...
 
Oct 31, 2011
8,200
182
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#19
This is true, but there is also incorrect information that has been opened up to us as well. I'm sure you can appreciate that.

As usual, if an actual source dating to the relevant period can be produced, then a discussion can be had. If not, it leaves very little room to talk about truth, and instead everyone jumps on their own hobby horse and hollers pointlessly at each other, because everyone's 'text they found on the internet' is as valid as everyone else's. Referring to nameless historians is all well and good, but not all people who call themselves historians or even refer to history are actual historians, and any historian worth their salt actually refers to genuine primary source material anyway, so talking about historians is just a distraction - what matters is the history that they presumably have in evidence.

I'm not going to get into a big discussion about Jews vs Gentile Christians here, because it's not helpful or entirely relevant. Suffice to say, there was a move in the early church to observe the primary day of the Passion (Christ's resurrection) on the day on which he rose (Sunday, the first day of the week), rather than move it to various days of the week as under the Jewish calendar. It was also an attempt to establish a calendar by which the whole church could celebrate Easter in the same way, rather than having people fasting or feasting depending on where they were in the lunar calendar (a fairly decent objective) IMO. There were anti-Jewish sentiments (as there were opposing Judaizing sentiments), but they certainly wasn't the only motivation. A lot of it simply had to do with the Western trend towards a solar, rather than lunar, based mode of measuring time, and a desire to unite a multinational church. Summaries of this discussion can be found in Eusebius.

Now, of course, it didn't actually work out like that, because different churches continued to celebrate Easter at different times (even now, like the Orthodox Church), but that was the aim. It's certainly a red herring to connect Nicea to what seems to be the primary thrust of this thread, which is pagan influence. Paganism wasn't even in view at Nicea on the question of Easter.
We are thinking along the same lines and coming to different conclusions. I am not throwing out all history because there is misinformation, I am doing my level best to collect from different sources and check where the source came from. I find that there are actually writings preserved by history.

You feel the Nicene Council is not a good source and I do because it was a three year gathering of the best Christian minds debating to unite the varying ideas of Christianity that had collected over 300 years.

You feel it isn't important to gather every scrap of information we can about how God looks at the difference and sameness of gentile and Jew, and I feel it is central to our learning of God. It was the determining factor in the decision to use Easter rather than Passover in celebrating Christ.

Eusebius is a good source of information, but he also had an axe to grind, he was promoting Constantine. I discovered that the Catholic Church is sitting on many old papers and will share them on their site. All histories are slanted, all must be read in light of their slant. They can't report everything they read, they must choose, and even in the choice it is somewhat slanted. If you don't read widely and carefully, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
 
Mar 8, 2014
273
3
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#20
Here we go again. Refuted so many times and the termites just keep coming...
Go back to sleep and dream about your world, where everything is warm and fuzzy.