Found this video saying Easter is Pagan, is this really true?

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

www.baer-linguistik.de... (German)
rough translation of the points 1-4

I put it in quote tags:

Where does the term "Ostern" (easter) originate from? Well, there are several theories:

1) Jacob Grimm [sic: 1785-1863], one of the founding fathers of german philosphy concluded there was a germanic spring-goddess named Ostara. Today this point of view is not acknowledged as in the past, because evidence for a germanic spring-godess is not present.

2) "Ostern" is connected to the word "Osten" [sic: osten = east]. Osten pools with the greek word "Eos"/lating word "Aurora" ("morning red"), oldslavic "zaustra" (means "morning") and latin "auster" (means "south-wind"). According to that, Eastern would be considered "the Fest of the morning" or "the Fest of the sunrise". Theological, this is not correct because in Christianity, eastern is about the resurrection of Christ, where the night has more meaning than the start of a new day.

3) Communication-Scientist Jürgen Udolph suggest to connect the old-nordic word "ausa" (means "get water") and "austr" (means "over pour"). According to that, eastern could be more strongly connected to the act of baptism. Many Baptisms were done at or around eastern, sometimes as "mass baptisms" where mass means a few, but more than one.

Easter celebrates the reselection of Jesus, so is a Christian occasion.

The dating of Easter is a bit more complicated and was originally based on the next full moon following the (March) equinox. This may, or may not have had a opportunity or coincidental link with a pagan festival. It probably did, but does it matter? From a Christian perspective it's about a tradition and an annual celebration. Just like Christmas.

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
a reply to: BStoltman
...see for yourself how weak is the case for pagan origins for Easter.

The Origin of Easter

The name Easter, used in many lands, is not found in the Bible. The book Medieval Holidays and Festivals tells us that “the holiday is named after the pagan Goddess of the Dawn and of Spring, Eostre.” And who was this goddess? “Eostre it was who, according to the legend, opened the portals of Valhalla to receive Baldur, called the White God, because of his purity and also the Sun God, because his brow supplied light to mankind,” answers The American Book of Days. It adds: “There is no doubt that the Church in its early days adopted the old pagan customs and gave a Christian meaning to them. As the festival of Eostre was in celebration of the renewal of life in the spring it was easy to make it a celebration of the resurrection from the dead of Jesus, whose gospel they preached.”

This adoption explains how in certain lands the Easter customs, such as Easter eggs, the Easter rabbit, and hot cross buns, came about. Concerning the custom of making hot cross buns, “with their shiny brown tops marked by a . . . cross,” the book Easter and Its Customs states: “The cross was a pagan symbol long before it acquired everlasting significance from the events of the first Good Friday, and bread and cakes were sometimes marked with it in pre-Christian times.”

Nowhere in Scripture do we find mention of these things, nor is there any evidence that the early disciples of Jesus gave them any credence. In fact, the apostle Peter tells us to “form a longing for the unadulterated milk belonging to the word, that through it [we] may grow to salvation.” (1 Peter 2:2) So why did the churches of Christendom adopt such obviously pagan symbols into their beliefs and practices?

The book Curiosities of Popular Customs answers: “It was the invariable policy of the early Church to give a Christian significance to such of the extant pagan ceremonies as could not be rooted out. In the case of Easter the conversion was peculiarly easy. Joy at the rising of the natural sun, and at the awakening of nature from the death of winter, became joy at the rising of the Sun of righteousness, at the resurrection of Christ from the grave. Some of the pagan observances which took place about the 1st of May were also shifted to correspond with the celebration of Easter.” Rather than steer clear of popular pagan customs and magical rites, the religious leaders condoned them and gave them “Christian significance.”

‘But is there any harm in that?’ you may wonder. Some think not. “When a religion such as Christianity comes to a people from outside, it adopts and ‘baptizes’ some of the folk customs which derive from older religions,” said Alan W. Watts, an Episcopal chaplain, in his book Easter—Its Story and Meaning. “It selects and weaves into the liturgy folk observances which seem to signify the same eternal principles taught by the Church.” To many, the fact that their church sanctioned these observances and treated them as holy is reason enough to accept them. But important questions are being overlooked. How does God feel about these customs? Has he given us any guidelines to follow in the matter?

Getting God’s Viewpoint
...

I highly recommend the earlier link for all who are curious about God's viewpoint, especially those who claim to believe in, be able to explain or worship God (and his viewpoint or follow his teachings). Or who want to refer to themselves as Christians.

Matthew 7 (Jesus speaking and teaching about his God):

13 “Go in through the narrow gate, because broad is the gate and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are going in through it; 14 whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are finding it.

15 “Be on the watch for the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s covering, but inside they are ravenous wolves. 16 By their fruits you will recognize them. Never do people gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they? 17 Likewise, every good tree produces fine fruit, but every rotten tree produces worthless fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear worthless fruit, nor can a rotten tree produce fine fruit. 19 Every tree not producing fine fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Really, then, by their fruits you will recognize those men.

21 “Not everyone saying to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of the heavens, but only the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will.

"is", right at the moment that Jesus is saying that on earth, his God is in the heavens. And it is His will that Jesus is speaking about.

a reply to: Byrd


Yea... the date for Easter was set BASED ON the date for the Jewish Passover (although Passover is SUPPOSED to be a Christian Holiday too). And Passover was set based upon the full moon closest to the vernal equinox. And care to guess who set their celebration based upon the vernal equinox full moon? Yup, the Sumerians and the Ishtar/underworld story I posted earlier. It all goes back to pagan holidays.

a reply to: BStoltman

I hate to be the bringer of bad news but most if not all of christianity is based on pagan beliefs !

Sure, a lot of religious holidays used to be Pagan holidays that were "taken over" by Christianity. On purpose. It's a pretty genius move really.

I'll just say this,

Tomorrow is the day after the 7 day Feast of unleavened bread. So the actual resurrection day is Wednesday April 19th which is the first day of the week of the Jewish Religious calendar. Many have forgotten the Bible is using the Jewish religious Calendar and not the one we in the States are using.

So now what was that about Easter being pagan?

Roman Catholicism is the perpetrator of the Easter being the resurrection day. It is all about bringing together all the world religions into one just as the Alexandrian Library was set up for. That is where the roots of Roman Catholicism started at Alexandria Egypt.

There are a lot of holidays scheduled around equinoxes and solstices.
There was one around the Spring Solstice for the Hebrew Goddess Asherah.

Thank you everyone for the great input, I never expected so much interesting information, to all be revolved around Easter!

a reply to: verschickter

Either way, no roof of such a pagan deity. There is some pagan influence in some churches, of course, and I wonder of this isn't a distraction from that!

a reply to: whereislogic

Easter isn't pagan. Plenty of evidence to the contrary, as far as that goes. Perhaps later, I can post some. Right now, time for some DVD binging.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
There are a lot of holidays scheduled around equinoxes and solstices.
There was one around the Spring Solstice for the Hebrew Goddess Asherah.

She was actually a Canaanite godess, of whom when the Jews did not expel all the people out of land as told to, were led astray by those who remained. Worship of her included temple prostitutes, sex is always a draw for big crowds and followings.

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
a reply to: whereislogic

Easter isn't pagan. Plenty of evidence to the contrary, as far as that goes. Perhaps later, I can post some. Right now, time for some DVD binging.

No. Easter, per se, is a Christian invention. However, as has been pointed out repeatedly, both Christmas and Easter were overlayed on pre-existing pagan holidays that celebrated the solstices. Christmas caroling, for example, comes from a pagan activity that was intended to drive the demons away that stole the sun. Read the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh if you'd like to learn where pretty much the entire bible story originated.

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes
There definitly is influence. My grandmother told me about "heidnische bräuche in der kirche" "pagan rituals in church" when I was young, probably around the time I received "communion".

What I find amusing is that some members (not only in this thread), try to mock on christians because of pagan rituals. I find it amusing because most christians know this (at least those I know) since childhood and many of the mocking ones, justs found out recently and even get it awfully wrong. Or they think it bothers most of "us" in any way.

I was raised rural german catholic. Church at least two times a week. The full package and I hated it. I didn´t enjoy it. Shortly before I left school I found out about the recent crimes supported by the catholic church, connected to WW2. I turned my back on religion completely, but not god. For me religion is a tool to teach morality and build a common thing inside a community.

If I were God, I would not want big mumbo jumbo around the religion, but for the people to love each others or at least treat them like you would yourself. One reason why my kids are baptised is because I trust in the old godfather system. You choose a godfather and godmother for your child so they will care for it until adult, if both parents die before the child is grown up. It´s a cultural thing and of course you need to choose the person wise and the person has to agree of course. The bond between a godfather/godmother and their protege-child is naturally very strong.

It´s all about the community, because only a helping community could guaranty protection of the single individum.

When Christianity became the state religion of what was left of the Roman Empire under Constantine, they carried on the ancient Roman tradition of adopting local customs and religious practice into their own as opposed to stamping them out.

The Romans found early on that stamping out local customs that may have seemed strange to Roman sensibilities was bad for business.

At Bath, in England, for example is an inscription dedicated to 'Sulis Minerva.' Sulis was a local goddess worshipped by the Celtic people while Minerva was a roughly comperable goddess from the Roman pantheon. Just one example of many foreign gods and goddesses added to the Roman belief system.

The Romans get a lot of flak for being brutal overlords and just brutal in general, and in a way they were, they had to be given the age, but they were forward thinking in a lot of ways. They had no issue with sending people to their death as sport in the arena, but one local custom that they abhorred and stamped out where they found it was human sacrifice. The pre Roman religion of the Britons was pretty big on human sacrifice, the Romans wouldn't abide by it and their disdain for the practice factored into their massacre of the Druids around the time of Bouddica's rebellion.

And so Christianity under the Romans carried on this practice of incorporating local tradition, in a way. I think you'll find a notable lack of bunnies and eggs and other fertility symbols in the Gospels, but those were exactly the kind of things an ancient Pagan would have associated with the spring time. It's the same with bringing in an evergreen during Christmas time, ancient Pagans did the same.

They also had a policy of rather than destroying local temples and altars to local gods, instead converting them to Churches and shrines. Chistanity wouldn't have spread the way it did without this smart way of going about it.

Tldr: Easter is a Christian holiday with pagan elements. Incorporating those pagan elements made it easier to convert the pagan people during the early spread of Christianity in Europe. You'll find similar pagan elements in other Christian holidays as well. Christmas is full of them.

It would have been an utterly foreign, eastern religion at the time to western pagans so without the familiarity of some of the old customs they wouldn't have taken to it.

In pre Roman Britain, the Celtics tribes had a tradition of leaving an offering of something valuable when crossing a body of water. They used the same track ways for thousands of years and offerings have been found from as late as the 14th century AD, at a time when England was well and truly Christianized. It's fun to think that such an ancient tradition could have carried on under the nose of the early Church.

Well looks like I've gone and written an essay, and honestly I could write twice as much. This is a subject that's very exciting to me, finding those threads that connect us back to the ancients in unexpected ways.

I don't understand why anybody would deny that obvious pagan influences on Christianity, it my eyes it doesn't take anything away from the Christian faith, indeed adopting the symbols and practices only added to it.

In my view there's more than enough evidence to suggest that there was a historical Jesus who was put to death in Palestine under the Romans.

My favorite piece of early evidence of Christian worship is the Alexamenos graffito. It's a crude drawing carved into plaster of a man worshipping at the feet of a crucified figure with the head of a donkey, alongside the words (in Greek, which was actually more commonly spoken in the Roman Empire than Latin) 'Alexamenos worshipping his god.' Jesus is said to have ridden into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on the back of a donkey in a display of humility, the Romans either misunderstood or simply mocked early Christians for it. There's another inscription found near it, by a different person (and in Latin) saying 'Alexamenos is faithful,' which I like to think is a reply to the mockery. These graffiti were found in Rome and would never have survived except that the walls they were inscribed on were themselves walled in during expansions to the buildings around them in the 3rd or 4th century, meaning that the inscriptions were at least earlier than that, possibly as early as the 2nd century. That would make the blasphemous Alexamenos Graffito the earliest depiction of Jesus on the cross currently known, that's a pretty sweet thought - some ancient troll's attempt to mock an early Christian for his faith serves to affirm the faith of Christians today

Whether this historical Jesus was the son of God is more doubtful to me, but I think he existed and had a lot of interesting things to say. His words and actions got enough people interested that at least some of his teachings survive today thousands of years later.

originally posted by: jtma508

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
a reply to: whereislogic

Easter isn't pagan. Plenty of evidence to the contrary, as far as that goes. Perhaps later, I can post some. Right now, time for some DVD binging.

No. Easter, per se, is a Christian invention. However, as has been pointed out repeatedly, both Christmas and Easter were overlayed on pre-existing pagan holidays that celebrated the solstices. Christmas caroling, for example, comes from a pagan activity that was intended to drive the demons away that stole the sun. Read the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh if you'd like to learn where pretty much the entire bible story originated.

Heard all of this before, and it's simply not sound scholarship. That something happens at a similar time does not prove a connection. As for Gilgamesh, there are many such tales. All from the same source, which is Noah. Who has the oldest piece of paper doesn't decide what is truth.

a reply to: verschickter

Ah, yes, and you mention the group I'd name first for such influences! There is indeed a lot of that in the Catholic church, and it's refreshing to see someone actually admit that, who grew up in it! Some of it is downright scary, to be honest. What I know, I have learned mostly from former Catholics, and some from reading and discussing online, I am not Catholic myself, as far as that goes, but would be glad to further discuss the issues and things that you saw. I was rased Baptist myself, and even there, there are some problems. Drinking alcohol, for example - never forbidden in the Bible save for pastors, but that's not the standard Baptist position! Some churches are weird about music, too, or dancing. There are reasons I don't attend often.

I agree; it should be about belief, not about "religion", which is more practices than faith.

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
a reply to: verschickter

I really don't understand the protestant die-hard's unease with Catholicism. It seems like some people have big ideas in their heads about what Catholicism is all about without knowing much of anything about it beyond what their pastor or Sunday school teacher has said.

You have Baptists who handle snakes and drink poison, Pentecostals who roll around on the floor babbling in tongues like fools. I somehow doubt the Angelic language is spoken flailing on the floor going 'habalabulalululballgaga' with a distinct Southern accent.

What's so scary about Catholicism? Have you attested Catholic service? Boring? Yes. Scary? Not by a long shot.

originally posted by: ChesterJohn
She was actually a Canaanite godess, of whom when the Jews did not expel all the people out of land as told to, were led astray by those who remained. Worship of her included temple prostitutes, sex is always a draw for big crowds and followings.

She also had a "cameo" in Genesis in the Old Testament. She plays Satan. Her symbol, a snake in a tree, would have been recognized by the people of the time.

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes


So what your 'sound scholarship' tells you is that the epic of Gilgamesh --- taken from some of the earliest writings ever found --- actually came from Noah who, by extension, would have had to have lived prior to the Sumerians. So Noah was part of some culture/civilization that existed prior to the Sumerians (in order for Noah's account to have been handed 'down' to the Sumerians) but for whom there is absolutely no evidence or any kind? Is that how it works? That makes more sense from a 'sound scholarship' standpoint than the possibility that Christianity re-worked pre-existing folklore into their story?