Easter Described By The Ill Informed
- Thread starter nhboy
- Start date
Toxick
Splat
Just to clarify....
You're saying that there were, in fact, Easter bunnies and Egg Hunts when Jesus celebrated Easter with His disciples?
Toxick
Splat
ZARA
Registered User
This is because Easter is a pagan holiday which existed before Jesus. It is named after Ester (Oestre / Eastre) who found an injured bird and wanted to save its life. The only way Ester could heal the bird was by changing it into a rabbit. The bird, so grateful for its life laid brightly colored eggs to honor Ester's gift of life. There are other legends associated along this one.
Later the Christians took over the holiday to bring the pagans into their fold.
CrashTest
Well-Known Member
nhboy (still) demonstrates being ill informed
Plus he's always 24 hours behind the "news" cycle. Useful idiot with the emphasis on idiot.
Railroad
Routinely Derailed
I think I remember that something similar applies to Christmas, which is on December 25th, with a Christmas tree - pagan rituals applied to a precious Christian observance. A quick search along these lines revealed some fascinating reading.
She post-dates Christianity by several hundred years, and much of what is "known" about her has been cobbled together from sources that don't name her specifically, over sources ranging several hundred years. We only know about her from one source contemporary to her time. Everything else comes centuries afterward.
About the only thing that really connects her with Easter is the name, because according to the Venerable Bede, they celebrate her month - Eosturmonath - in what we call April.
The church prior to that just referred to it as "pascha" and the timing of its celebration was a major point of contention of churches for the first several centuries.
aps45819
24/7 Single Dad
Ya think?
Safe bet since Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox instead of a set day of the year which would be the anniversary of an event.
Ya think?
Safe bet since Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox instead of a set day of the year which would be the anniversary of an event.
And all this time I just thought I was celebrating my Lord's resurrection.
Who woulda thunk it.
Railroad
Routinely Derailed
Christ's resurrection is linked to "Good" Friday. Good Friday is the day during Passover when Christ was crucified. Passover is timed by the Jewish calendar, which is based on the phases of the moon, thus changes every year by a few days.
There is a plethora of Web sites dealing with the timing and date/day of the week of Christ's Crucifixion.
The version of this timing which I have heard before is at this location: Correlation between Passover and Jesus' crucifixion
Another reference which generally agrees with the first one is here: Biblical Calendar
So in 2013, although we observed Easter on March 31st, the actual Resurrection per the Jewish calendar places it on April 28th.
So no, we aren't observing the actual anniversaries of Christ's Crucifixion, Christ's Resurrection, His birthday, or any of the other days recorded in His lifetime and the many years before, because we aren't observing the Hebrew calendar. The dates assigned for these observances are based on (1) the Gregorian calendar and (2) a desire to have such observances occur close to similar pagan dates in order to make Christianity more appealing, thus increasing the chances of pagan people accepting and embracing Christianity.
The fact that we remember and revere the events so important to Christians is more important to many than being accurate with regard to the calendar. Since time is much more important to mortal people than to immortal and eternal God, that makes sense.
Thus taking offense or squabbling over these things is as silly as arguing about whether the sun rises and sets or the earth rotates and makes it seem like the sun moves. The effect is the same, so the details are less important in some contexts than the events themselves.
There is a plethora of Web sites dealing with the timing and date/day of the week of Christ's Crucifixion.
The version of this timing which I have heard before is at this location: Correlation between Passover and Jesus' crucifixion
Another reference which generally agrees with the first one is here: Biblical Calendar
So in 2013, although we observed Easter on March 31st, the actual Resurrection per the Jewish calendar places it on April 28th.
So no, we aren't observing the actual anniversaries of Christ's Crucifixion, Christ's Resurrection, His birthday, or any of the other days recorded in His lifetime and the many years before, because we aren't observing the Hebrew calendar. The dates assigned for these observances are based on (1) the Gregorian calendar and (2) a desire to have such observances occur close to similar pagan dates in order to make Christianity more appealing, thus increasing the chances of pagan people accepting and embracing Christianity.
The fact that we remember and revere the events so important to Christians is more important to many than being accurate with regard to the calendar. Since time is much more important to mortal people than to immortal and eternal God, that makes sense.
Thus taking offense or squabbling over these things is as silly as arguing about whether the sun rises and sets or the earth rotates and makes it seem like the sun moves. The effect is the same, so the details are less important in some contexts than the events themselves.
nhboy (still) demonstrates being ill informed
Total lie. nhboy is completely uninformed. Don't give it that much credit.
Railroad
Routinely Derailed
Nope - just broiled fish (Luke 24:40). Or did you forget that "Easter" is the day he arose?