Myths and Realities about Easter

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RachelBibleStudent

Guest
#1
i wrote this essay hoping that these rumors and misinformation about easter can finally be definitively put to rest here... that probably won't happen...but i can always dream...

MYTHS AND REALITIES ABOUT EASTER

About the Timing of the Crucifixion

MYTH: Jesus died on a Wednesday, not on Good Friday.
REALITY: Jesus died on a Friday. The day was the Day of Preparation, the day before the Sabbath, according to Mark 15:42 and John 19:14,31,42. It has been claimed that this was the day of preparation for a special "high Sabbath" associated with the Passover festival and not the weekly Saturday Sabbath. However Jesus died on the 15th of Nisan according to the Hebrew calendar, since he had just held the Passover seder the night before, the night of the 14th of Nisan. The two special Passover Sabbaths took place on the first day or the 15th of Nisan, and the seventh day or the 21st of Nisan, according to Exodus 12:16, Leviticus 23:7-8, Numbers 28:17,25 and Deuteronomy 16:8. There was no special Sabbath associated with the Passover feast on the 16th of Nisan, the day after Jesus died. If the 15th of Nisan was a day of preparation for a Sabbath, it could have only been for the weekly Saturday Sabbath which happened to fall on the 16th of Nisan that year.
The real source of this myth is a misunderstanding of what was meant by the "three days and three nights" that Jesus spent in the tomb. In ancient Hebrew idiom, "three days and three nights" did not mean seventy-two hours. In fact seventy-two hours was the upper limit for what could constitute "three days and three nights." A "day and night" simply referred to the twenty-four hour timeframe when something took place, regardless of whether the entire twenty-four hour period was taken up by the action. If Jesus died on Friday, around the ninth hour or 3:00 PM as in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34, and was buried before evening that day as in Matthew 27:57, Mark 15:42, and Luke 23:54, then the remaining few hours of Friday would have been counted as the first "day and night." The second "day and night" was Saturday, and when Jesus rose before dawn on Sunday morning he was already about twelve hours into the third "day and night." Friday, Saturday, and Sunday would have been counted as "three days and nights." If Jesus had died on a Wednesday, ancient Jews would have actually counted that as five days in the tomb!

MYTH: Jesus died at the same time as the Passover lambs were being slaughtered.
REALITY: This is an unbiblical tradition that is popular among some Christians, probably because it just seems so appropriate. In reality Jesus died around the ninth hour or 3:00 PM the day after the Passover seder, when the lambs would have been slaughtered at twilight as commanded in Exodus 12:6 and Deuteronomy 16:6. Although this tradition would seem fitting, it is biblically impossible.

About the Name of Easter

MYTH: Easter is named after the Babylonian goddess Ishtar.
REALITY: Easter and Ishtar only sound alike. There is no etymological relationship between the two. Easter is named for the Germanic month when it takes place, Eosturmonath or "dawn month." Ishtar on the other hand was an Akkadian name meaning "she who waters, " referring to her original role as a sky goddess of rain that produced fertile harvests. Easter and Ishtar have about as much in common as "paraklete" and "parakeet."

MYTH: Easter is named after the Germanic goddess Eostre.
REALITY: It is not certain that a Germanic goddess named Eostre even existed. The only historical reference to this goddess is in Bede's "De Temporum Ratione," where he relates that Eosturmonath was named for a goddess called Eostre. Bede himself admitted that Eostre worship was extinct by his time and that he had personally never witnessed it, getting his information from hearsay instead, so the accuracy of his account is doubtful. In fact the widespread scholarly consensus today is that the name Eosturmonath actually comes from the Old Germanic word "eostarum," meaning "dawn," so that Eosturmonath is the "dawn month."

NOTE: Most cultures that celebrate Jesus' resurrection on this day do not even call it Easter. It is usually referred to as "Pascha" or some variation on that name, which is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew term "Pesach," referring to the Passover.

About Easter Customs

MYTH: The egg was a symbol of Ishtar, so Easter eggs have pagan origins.
REALITY: The egg was not a Babylonian symbol of Ishtar at all. Ishtar was represented by lions (for example on the Ishtar Gate in Babylon) and by eight-pointed stars representing the planet Venus. In reality the association of eggs with Easter comes from the fact that eggs were not eaten during the Lenten fast. Eggs were part of the celebration of Easter because they were naturally in surplus when the fast ended and it was permitted to eat them again. In this way Easter was like a reverse Shrove Tuesday. Over time the egg was given another meaning as a symbol of new life given by Jesus' resurrection.

MYTH: The rabbit was a symbol of Ishtar/Tammuz, so the Easter bunny has pagan origins.
REALITY: It is mistakenly assumed that because rabbits breed quickly they must be symbols of Ishtar, a fertility goddess. In fact neither Ishtar nor Tammuz were symbolized by rabbits in Babylonian culture. I have already mentioned the real symbols of Ishtar, and Tammuz was represented by sheep, fish, and birds with broken wings. The association between rabbits and eggs in springtime actually did not appear until the 1600s in the Protestant regions of Europe, starting with a case of mistaken identity. Plover birds commonly take over the nests of hares, and the discovery of plover eggs in hares' nests led to the tradition of a hare leaving behind eggs around Easter time.

MYTH: Eggs were dyed red in the blood of babies sacrificed to Ishtar, so painting Easter eggs has particularly wicked pagan origins.
REALITY: I have already shown that the egg was not a symbol of Ishtar. Furthermore as a fertility goddess Ishtar was worshipped through rites involving sexual intercourse, not human sacrifice. This is actually a very recent rumor, first appearing in 2001 in "The Mystery of Iniquity," a short book written by false teacher and self-proclaimed Messianic Jewish rabbi Michael Rood (on what can be called the "dark side" of the Hebrew Roots movement). Rood provides no citation for this claim and it is apparent that he just made it up. This misinformation found its way onto the Internet around 2005, and had begun to spread slowly by 2007, with the propagation of the rumor picking up dramatically in the past two or three years. The notion that Ishtar worship involved ritual human sacrifice seems to derive from a 1960s horror movie called "Blood Feast," where a psychopath sacrifices his victims to Ishtar, whom the filmmakers had clearly confused with the bloodthirsty Egyptian goddess Sekhmet.
In reality it is likely that the practice of dying Easter eggs red was a reference to the blood of Jesus. Several Christian traditions suggest miraculous origins for the red-colored eggs, but none of these are particularly credible.

About Nimrod and "Semiramis," often Mentioned in Debates about Easter's Origins

MYTH: Nimrod had a wife named Semiramis and a son named Tammuz, and all pagan practices originate from this family.
REALITY: There is no mention of Nimrod in any historical records outside of the Bible. Anything beyond what Scripture says about Nimrod is fiction or wild speculation.
Around 400 BC a Persian writer named Ctesias of Cnidus described a Babylonian king named Ninus and his wife Semiramis and their exploits about 1,800 years before his own time. (Ninus himself was a mythical king who is not mentioned in any of the exhaustive Mesopotamian king lists.) Ctesias' legend of Ninus was repeated and embellished by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st Century BC. Later a forger writing in the name of Pope Clement of Rome mistakenly identified the nonexistent king Ninus with the Biblical Nimrod and further embellished the tale with the claim that he had taught the Persians to worship fire. These notions were then collected and very greatly embellished by Alexander Hislop in his extremely inaccurate book "The Two Babylons." Hislop also claimed that Nimrod and Semiramis had a son named Tammuz. That claim is a total fabrication, since the son of Ninus and Semiramis was said to have been called Ninyas, not Tammuz, and since the mythological Tammuz was probably based on a semi-legendary king named Dumuzid, who had completely different origins from what Hislop claimed. Practically all of the rumors in circulation about Nimrod, Semiramis, Tammuz, and their supposed role in the origin of paganism can be traced back to Hislop's false speculations and imaginings.
The real "Semiramis" was the queen Shammuramat, wife of king Shamshi-Adad V of Assyria. She lived in the 9th Century BC, about 1,500 years too late to have had anything to do with Nimrod or the origins of paganism.

HAPPY EASTER! :)
 

loveme1

Senior Member
Oct 30, 2011
8,083
190
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#2
Do you know what the word myth means?

Because you have just confirmed, where you were trying to deny.
 

loveme1

Senior Member
Oct 30, 2011
8,083
190
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#3
Yahshua the Messiah was the pass over Lamb!

If you read the Bible front to back, you will see that the Jewish people offered Yahshua as pass over Lamb for a sin offering, without even realising it.
 

dscherck

Banned [Reason: persistent, ongoing Catholic heres
Aug 3, 2009
1,272
3
0
#4
Yahshua the Messiah was the pass over Lamb!

If you read the Bible front to back, you will see that the Jewish people offered Yahshua as pass over Lamb for a sin offering, without even realising it.
And you'll note that He is the perfect Paschal lamb. And that in order to be passed over, you needed to eat said lamb. Just like how we partake of the Holy Eucharist and do as Our Lord says, "Take, eat, this is my body...."
 

loveme1

Senior Member
Oct 30, 2011
8,083
190
63
#5
And you'll note that He is the perfect Paschal lamb. And that in order to be passed over, you needed to eat said lamb. Just like how we partake of the Holy Eucharist and do as Our Lord says, "Take, eat, this is my body...."
He was symbolizing what his death meant, he is giving life to those that believe.

You do not have to eat a piece of Lamb literally to be passed over.....................
 
T

Tombo

Guest
#7
i wrote this essay hoping that these rumors and misinformation about easter can finally be definitively put to rest here... that probably won't happen...but i can always dream...

MYTHS AND REALITIES ABOUT EASTER

About the Timing of the Crucifixion

MYTH: Jesus died on a Wednesday, not on Good Friday.
REALITY: Jesus died on a Friday. The day was the Day of Preparation, the day before the Sabbath, according to Mark 15:42 and John 19:14,31,42. It has been claimed that this was the day of preparation for a special "high Sabbath" associated with the Passover festival and not the weekly Saturday Sabbath. However Jesus died on the 15th of Nisan according to the Hebrew calendar, since he had just held the Passover seder the night before, the night of the 14th of Nisan. The two special Passover Sabbaths took place on the first day or the 15th of Nisan, and the seventh day or the 21st of Nisan, according to Exodus 12:16, Leviticus 23:7-8, Numbers 28:17,25 and Deuteronomy 16:8. There was no special Sabbath associated with the Passover feast on the 16th of Nisan, the day after Jesus died. If the 15th of Nisan was a day of preparation for a Sabbath, it could have only been for the weekly Saturday Sabbath which happened to fall on the 16th of Nisan that year.
The real source of this myth is a misunderstanding of what was meant by the "three days and three nights" that Jesus spent in the tomb. In ancient Hebrew idiom, "three days and three nights" did not mean seventy-two hours. In fact seventy-two hours was the upper limit for what could constitute "three days and three nights." A "day and night" simply referred to the twenty-four hour timeframe when something took place, regardless of whether the entire twenty-four hour period was taken up by the action. If Jesus died on Friday, around the ninth hour or 3:00 PM as in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34, and was buried before evening that day as in Matthew 27:57, Mark 15:42, and Luke 23:54, then the remaining few hours of Friday would have been counted as the first "day and night." The second "day and night" was Saturday, and when Jesus rose before dawn on Sunday morning he was already about twelve hours into the third "day and night." Friday, Saturday, and Sunday would have been counted as "three days and nights." If Jesus had died on a Wednesday, ancient Jews would have actually counted that as five days in the tomb!

MYTH: Jesus died at the same time as the Passover lambs were being slaughtered.
REALITY: This is an unbiblical tradition that is popular among some Christians, probably because it just seems so appropriate. In reality Jesus died around the ninth hour or 3:00 PM the day after the Passover seder, when the lambs would have been slaughtered at twilight as commanded in Exodus 12:6 and Deuteronomy 16:6. Although this tradition would seem fitting, it is biblically impossible.

About the Name of Easter

MYTH: Easter is named after the Babylonian goddess Ishtar.
REALITY: Easter and Ishtar only sound alike. There is no etymological relationship between the two. Easter is named for the Germanic month when it takes place, Eosturmonath or "dawn month." Ishtar on the other hand was an Akkadian name meaning "she who waters, " referring to her original role as a sky goddess of rain that produced fertile harvests. Easter and Ishtar have about as much in common as "paraklete" and "parakeet."

MYTH: Easter is named after the Germanic goddess Eostre.
REALITY: It is not certain that a Germanic goddess named Eostre even existed. The only historical reference to this goddess is in Bede's "De Temporum Ratione," where he relates that Eosturmonath was named for a goddess called Eostre. Bede himself admitted that Eostre worship was extinct by his time and that he had personally never witnessed it, getting his information from hearsay instead, so the accuracy of his account is doubtful. In fact the widespread scholarly consensus today is that the name Eosturmonath actually comes from the Old Germanic word "eostarum," meaning "dawn," so that Eosturmonath is the "dawn month."

NOTE: Most cultures that celebrate Jesus' resurrection on this day do not even call it Easter. It is usually referred to as "Pascha" or some variation on that name, which is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew term "Pesach," referring to the Passover.

About Easter Customs

MYTH: The egg was a symbol of Ishtar, so Easter eggs have pagan origins.
REALITY: The egg was not a Babylonian symbol of Ishtar at all. Ishtar was represented by lions (for example on the Ishtar Gate in Babylon) and by eight-pointed stars representing the planet Venus. In reality the association of eggs with Easter comes from the fact that eggs were not eaten during the Lenten fast. Eggs were part of the celebration of Easter because they were naturally in surplus when the fast ended and it was permitted to eat them again. In this way Easter was like a reverse Shrove Tuesday. Over time the egg was given another meaning as a symbol of new life given by Jesus' resurrection.

MYTH: The rabbit was a symbol of Ishtar/Tammuz, so the Easter bunny has pagan origins.
REALITY: It is mistakenly assumed that because rabbits breed quickly they must be symbols of Ishtar, a fertility goddess. In fact neither Ishtar nor Tammuz were symbolized by rabbits in Babylonian culture. I have already mentioned the real symbols of Ishtar, and Tammuz was represented by sheep, fish, and birds with broken wings. The association between rabbits and eggs in springtime actually did not appear until the 1600s in the Protestant regions of Europe, starting with a case of mistaken identity. Plover birds commonly take over the nests of hares, and the discovery of plover eggs in hares' nests led to the tradition of a hare leaving behind eggs around Easter time.

MYTH: Eggs were dyed red in the blood of babies sacrificed to Ishtar, so painting Easter eggs has particularly wicked pagan origins.
REALITY: I have already shown that the egg was not a symbol of Ishtar. Furthermore as a fertility goddess Ishtar was worshipped through rites involving sexual intercourse, not human sacrifice. This is actually a very recent rumor, first appearing in 2001 in "The Mystery of Iniquity," a short book written by false teacher and self-proclaimed Messianic Jewish rabbi Michael Rood (on what can be called the "dark side" of the Hebrew Roots movement). Rood provides no citation for this claim and it is apparent that he just made it up. This misinformation found its way onto the Internet around 2005, and had begun to spread slowly by 2007, with the propagation of the rumor picking up dramatically in the past two or three years. The notion that Ishtar worship involved ritual human sacrifice seems to derive from a 1960s horror movie called "Blood Feast," where a psychopath sacrifices his victims to Ishtar, whom the filmmakers had clearly confused with the bloodthirsty Egyptian goddess Sekhmet.
In reality it is likely that the practice of dying Easter eggs red was a reference to the blood of Jesus. Several Christian traditions suggest miraculous origins for the red-colored eggs, but none of these are particularly credible.

About Nimrod and "Semiramis," often Mentioned in Debates about Easter's Origins

MYTH: Nimrod had a wife named Semiramis and a son named Tammuz, and all pagan practices originate from this family.
REALITY: There is no mention of Nimrod in any historical records outside of the Bible. Anything beyond what Scripture says about Nimrod is fiction or wild speculation.
Around 400 BC a Persian writer named Ctesias of Cnidus described a Babylonian king named Ninus and his wife Semiramis and their exploits about 1,800 years before his own time. (Ninus himself was a mythical king who is not mentioned in any of the exhaustive Mesopotamian king lists.) Ctesias' legend of Ninus was repeated and embellished by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st Century BC. Later a forger writing in the name of Pope Clement of Rome mistakenly identified the nonexistent king Ninus with the Biblical Nimrod and further embellished the tale with the claim that he had taught the Persians to worship fire. These notions were then collected and very greatly embellished by Alexander Hislop in his extremely inaccurate book "The Two Babylons." Hislop also claimed that Nimrod and Semiramis had a son named Tammuz. That claim is a total fabrication, since the son of Ninus and Semiramis was said to have been called Ninyas, not Tammuz, and since the mythological Tammuz was probably based on a semi-legendary king named Dumuzid, who had completely different origins from what Hislop claimed. Practically all of the rumors in circulation about Nimrod, Semiramis, Tammuz, and their supposed role in the origin of paganism can be traced back to Hislop's false speculations and imaginings.
The real "Semiramis" was the queen Shammuramat, wife of king Shamshi-Adad V of Assyria. She lived in the 9th Century BC, about 1,500 years too late to have had anything to do with Nimrod or the origins of paganism.

HAPPY EASTER! :)
That's very good, I appreciate the time it must have taken you to put that all together. I really hadn't heard many of the myths you spoke of except for Easter being named after a German goddess. So it turns out it was only the spring month (april) it was named after.
Very interesting. Thanks for compiling and sharing that.
God bless.

Tom
 

loveme1

Senior Member
Oct 30, 2011
8,083
190
63
#8
nice, none of this did i know before reading this.

Stick to the Bible, some people seem to make it their mission to support something non Biblical.


How they think it Glorify's Almighty Yahvah God is beyond belief.
 
May 18, 2010
931
15
18
#9
i see you already got some that disagree though they miss the point given.
 
T

Tombo

Guest
#10
Stick to the Bible, some people seem to make it their mission to support something non Biblical.


How they think it Glorify's Almighty Yahvah God is beyond belief.
What's wrong with trying to trace the origins of something? She was simply sharing what she's found about many of the myths surrounding Easter.


Tom
 

loveme1

Senior Member
Oct 30, 2011
8,083
190
63
#11
That's very good, I appreciate the time it must have taken you to put that all together. I really hadn't heard many of the myths you spoke of except for Easter being named after a German goddess. So it turns out it was only the spring month (april) it was named after.
Very interesting. Thanks for compiling and sharing that.
God bless.

Tom

Why do you use that pagan symbol?
 

loveme1

Senior Member
Oct 30, 2011
8,083
190
63
#12
What's wrong with trying to trace the origins of something? She was simply sharing what she's found about many of the myths surrounding Easter.


Tom
Very wrong if it is not in the Bible.

The writers intention was to convince everyone to accept her view, yet no Biblical support was offered.
 

dscherck

Banned [Reason: persistent, ongoing Catholic heres
Aug 3, 2009
1,272
3
0
#13
He was symbolizing what his death meant, he is giving life to those that believe.

You do not have to eat a piece of Lamb literally to be passed over.....................
They sure didn't seem to react as if He was speaking symbolically.
 

loveme1

Senior Member
Oct 30, 2011
8,083
190
63
#14
They sure didn't seem to react as if He was speaking symbolically.

They were being taught what his death meant, they were to teach/witness the Gospel.

He never gave instruction, to make sure all ate a piece of lamb and drink red wine to be saved.

Only those of the flesh would believe it had to be literally.
 
Last edited:
May 18, 2011
1,815
10
0
#15
REALITY: Jesus died on a Friday. The day was the Day of Preparation, the day before the Sabbath, according to Mark 15:42 and John 19:14,31,42. It has been claimed that this was the day of preparation for a special "high Sabbath" associated with the Passover festival and not the weekly Saturday Sabbath.As you have here, in John 19:31 makes clear that it was a High Sabbath preperation day not a weekly Sabbath preperation. Just as Torah states in Exodus 12. Yeshua did not die on Friday but wednesday.

However Jesus died on the 15th of Nisan according to the Hebrew calendar, since he had just held the Passover seder the night before, the night of the 14th of Nisan.Yeshua did not hold the seder meal the night before, He had the last supper with the disciples,besides, He couldn't have had the seder meal the night before, because scripture says He became the passover Lamb for us. So that doesn't work, and was arrested that night after sundown, the beginning of Aviv 14. The 15th was the first day of Unleavened Bread which is a High Sabbath.
The two special Passover Sabbaths took place on the first day or the 15th of Nisan, and the seventh day or the 21st of Nisan, according to Exodus 12:16, Leviticus 23:7-8, Numbers 28:17,25 and Deuteronomy 16:8. There was no special Sabbath associated with the Passover feast on the 16th of Nisan, the day after Jesus died. If the 15th of Nisan was a day of preparation for a Sabbath, it could have only been for the weekly Saturday Sabbath which happened to fall on the 16th of Nisan that year.How do you claim this when scripture clearly says different?

The real source of this myth is a misunderstanding of what was meant by the "three days and three nights" that Jesus spent in the tomb. In ancient Hebrew idiom, "three days and three nights" did not mean seventy-two hours. In fact seventy-two hours was the upper limit for what could constitute "three days and three nights." A "day and night" simply referred to the twenty-four hour timeframe when something took place, regardless of whether the entire twenty-four hour period was taken up by the action.There is no evidence of this claim. Can you provide proof of this that the Bible isn't saying what it's saying?

If Jesus died on Friday, around the ninth hour or 3:00 PM as in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34, and was buried before evening that day as in Matthew 27:57, Mark 15:42, and Luke 23:54, then the remaining few hours of Friday would have been counted as the first "day and night.Where do you get night time for friday? Because the night for friday was the night prior, which was before He was put on the cross according to what you're saying. " The second "day and night" was Saturday,Where do you get night time for sat. especially since sundown is the beginning of a new day. and when Jesus rose before dawn on Sunday morning he was already about twelve hours into the third "day and night." Friday, Saturday, and Sunday would have been counted as "three days and nights.There is no logic in this, that Yeshua died late friday, and not even 36 hrs. later He rose from the dead. You don't even have 2 actual days in between those hrs.

" If Jesus had died on a Wednesday, ancient Jews would have actually counted that as five days in the tomb!Do you have any historical evidence to back this?
The fact that one verse clearly states that it was the day of preperation before a high Sabbath John 19:31, and one verse that tells us, specifically for a reason that it was 3 days and nights as Jonah was in the fish, also proves the lay out of it all. I don't understand why anyone has such a hard time believing just what it says, or why anyone doesn't want to accept it for what it says. I am truly baffled at this.

Just another note, since scripture is clear that a day starts at sundown, if Yeshua was buried just before sundown on friday, then you have one full day of saturday, and on sunday at night Yeshua arose, you don't even have 2 days out of it. Not to mention that Yeshua wasn't even in the tomb a the breaking of dawn, so we have no idea how soon after sundown sat. that He arose and left the tomb. Which makes this fri. to sun. theory even more illogical.

As for easter, whether pagan or not, has not and never was about Yeshua in any way shape or form. So for the most part is irrelevent. The true name of the day of Resurrection is First Fruits.

When these annual Feast Sabbaths were celebrated, it could well happen that there would be TWO Sabbaths in that certain week - the annual Sabbath. which could fall on any day of the week, and the weekly Sabbath -These, two Sabbaths, in certain years of course, could coincide - but otherwise, the weekly Sabbath (Saturday), was never called a ‘High Day’.- neither was it called a ‘Feast Day’, unless it coincided with the annual Chag or Feast Day.

The fact that there were two Sabbaths in the Crucifixion week is wonderfully proven by two apparently contradictory verses in the Bible.

The 1st of these is found in Mark 16:1 :

"When the Sabbath was OVER, Mary (and others) .... bought spices with which to go and anoint Him".

The 2nd is found in Luke 23:56:

After His body had been laid to the tomb. "....they returned and prepared spices and ointments, and rested the Sabbath day according to the Commandment".

We shall firstly apply these statements to the commonly accepted theory of Friday Crucifixion and Sunday-Resurrection, to see if it fits the picture. If Messiah was crucified on Friday, then according to the first verse, the women should have bought the spices on Saturday evening (i.e. 'after the Sabbath'). This would enable them to prepare it and go to the grave before sunrise on Sunday morning. But... read the 2nd verse! This states that, after they had prepared the spices, they rested on the Sabbath according to the Law! This would mean that the following day (Sunday) was also a Sabbath, so that they could not have gone to the grave until after Sunday. But Luke 24:1 explicitly states that the women went to the grave 'on the first day of the week' (Sunday), before dawn! So this theory does NOT fit.


I know we've had some rough discussions in the past, I was rude to you then. Just want you to know that I'm not attacking or coming at you, just discussing and asking where you get this info. Shalom
 
T

Tombo

Guest
#16
Very wrong if it is not in the Bible.

The writers intention was to convince everyone to accept her view, yet no Biblical support was offered.
And just what is her "view"? I didn't see her advocating anything one way or another in her post.


Tom
 

loveme1

Senior Member
Oct 30, 2011
8,083
190
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#17
And just what is her "view"? I didn't see her advocating anything one way or another in her post.


Tom



"i wrote this essay hoping that these rumors and misinformation about easter can finally be definitively put to rest here... that probably won't happen...but i can always dream..."



Did you miss this part?
 
T

Tombo

Guest
#18
"i wrote this essay hoping that these rumors and misinformation about easter can finally be definitively put to rest here... that probably won't happen...but i can always dream..."



Did you miss this part?
Are you saying that we shouldn't celebrate our Lord's resurrection, or that you just don't think it should be called easter???

Tom
 

loveme1

Senior Member
Oct 30, 2011
8,083
190
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#19
Are you saying that we shouldn't celebrate our Lord's resurrection, or that you just don't think it should be called easter???

Tom

We should humble ourselves and be gracious.

The pagans are deceiving the sheep, whether a lost sheep comes out and supports her captives or not.

I think people need to understand why it was called "easter" and where all the rituals have come from, it is not Biblical.
It is to do with the spring equinox etc....


When people question this, they may be lead to more truth....
 

loveme1

Senior Member
Oct 30, 2011
8,083
190
63
#20
Ostara, Eostre, and Easter:


Currently, modern Wiccans and neo-pagans celebrate “Ostara,” a lesser Saabbat on the vernal equinox. Other names for this celebration include Eostre and Oestara and they are derived from the Anglo-Saxon lunar Goddess, Eostre. Some believe that this name is ultimately a variation on the names of other prominent goddesses, like Ishtar, Astarte, and Isis, usually a consort of the gods Osiris or Dionysus, who are depicted as dying and being reborn.
Pagan Elements of Modern Easter Celebrations:


As you might be able to tell, the name “Easter” was likely derived from Eostre, the name of the Anglo-Saxon lunar goddess, as was as the name for the female hormone estrogen. Eostre’s feast day was held on the first full moon following the vernal equinox — a similar calculation as is used for Easter among Western Christians. On this date the goddess Eostre is believed by her followers to mate with the solar god, conceiving a child who would be born 9 months later on Yule, the winter solstice which falls on December 21st.
Two of Eostre’s most important symbols were the hare (both because of its fertility and because ancient people saw a hare in the full moon) and the egg, which symbolized the growing possibility of new life. Each of these symbols continues to play an important role in modern celebrations of Easter. Curiously, they are also symbols which Christianity has not fully incorporated into its own mythology. Other symbols from other holidays have been given new Christian meanings, but attempts to do the same here have failed.

Here is about.com giving some information.