The Resurrection of Jesus Christ has been subject to numerous attempts to paint it as the greatest con in history! Some of those just so stories have made Christians ask the question, “Is Easter a pagan holiday? Should I even celebrate it?” And today we are going to do our best to debunk a few of those great hoaxes and we are going to ask if and how should a Christian celebrate Easter.
“We did not follow cunningly devised fables.” 2 Peter 1:16
Is Easter a Pagan Holiday
Some claim that Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar.
Ishtar’s symbols were not the bunny and the egg.
Any similarity between the words “Ishtar” and “Easter” is coincidental
The Monk Bede implied that Easter came from the goddess Eostre.
There is zero evidence outside of Bede that this goddess existed.
Where did we the name “Easter” come from?
The English meaning “from the east or from the rising of the Sun.”
We conclude that it is talking about the resurrection.
Easter finds its root in the German word for the resurrection
How Bible translators translated the Hebrew word Passover. Acts 12:4
In 1384 Wycliffe used the word PASCHAL.
In 1522 Martin Luther chose the word OSTERT.
In 1525 William Tyndale transliterated the German word to ESTER.
The King James Bible uses the word EASTER.
Is the Easter Egg pagan?
Fact: There is no biblical or theological meaning to the Easter Egg.
Eggs and rabbits have nothing to do with the Resurrection.
They came from a longstanding tradition turned into a tall tale.
Lent was a 40 day season of prayer and fasting that ends just before Easter.
At that time, Eggs and meat were forbidden to those who fast.
Hens paid no attention to fasts and laid like crazy.
Hares multiplied like rabbits in the spring.
Eggs and Rabbit were abundant for their Easter Feast.
A tall tale developed about the Easter Bunny and colored eggs.
It is not the object that you use. It is the meaning that you place on it.
Everything God has created is good, and not to be rejected. 1 Tim 4:4,
One person believes he may eat all things, another does not. Rom 14:2-3
Are Unsanctioned Celebrations Pagan?
Christianity is all about celebrating the resurrection!
Baptism is a celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The Lord’s Supper is a celebration of Jesus death and resurrection.
The Gospel is the message of Jesus death and resurrection.
We worship on the Lord’s Day because of the resurrection.
“He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord” Romans 14:5-9
Where there is no prohibition or principle against it, there is permission.
How Should Christians Celebrate the Resurrection?
#1 Be a witness of the Resurrection. Acts 1:8
#2 Preach the Resurrection. Acts 23:6.
#3 Believe in the Resurrection. John 20:25-29
The purpose of this message is that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name! That’s how you celebrate Easter. Believe it. Preach it. And witness to its incredible power. He is risen! That’s no myth!
The headline at the Babylon Bee, read, “Millions Worldwide Cling To Faith That Jesus’s Resurrection Was an Elaborate Hoax.” This Easter weekend, following the time honored tradition of the soldiers at the tomb, millions of people around the world will affirm their sacred belief that the resurrection of Jesus was an elaborate hoax pulled off by a few poor fisherman.
Speaking to reporters, one man explained how his belief that Jesus did not actually rise from the dead is foundational to his life. “At this time of year, my hope lies in my strong faith that the historical narratives and numerous eyewitness accounts of the risen Christ were in fact just part of the largest scam ever pulled off in the history of mankind.”
When pressed about the logic behind his beliefs – how feasible it would be for a few commoners to convince so many others about something so sensational without anyone bothering to fact-check the details or question local eyewitnesses, or how much sense it makes to believe that the disciples would suffer brutal, tortuous deaths and watch others be martyred for a hoax they knew to be false and gained nothing from – he smiled at reporters and replied, “You just have to have faith.”[i]
But the fact is that the Apostle Peter himself testified, in 2 Peter 1:16, “we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”
Listen, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ has been subject to numerous attempts to paint it as a hoax, a scam, a fraud, and the greatest con in all of history! Some of those just so stories have made Christians ask the question, “Is Easter a pagan holiday? Should I even celebrate it?”
When I asked my religious neighbor what he was going to do this Sunday, he responded, “I don’t celebrate Easter!” Surprised, I asked, “what about the resurrection?” “Oh” he said, “of course it’s ok to celebrate the resurrection, just not Easter!” Hmmm. I’m thinking that he had been scammed by one of the many just so stories about Easter.
And today we are going to do our best to debunk a few of those great hoaxes and we are going to ask if and how should a Christian celebrate Easter. Let’s start with this question:
Is Easter a Pagan Holiday
Have you ever seen this meme? “Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Her symbols (like the egg and the bunny) were and still are fertility and sex symbols (or did you actually think eggs and bunnies had anything to do with the resurrection?).
Oooh. I guess we Christians are in trouble. Back in 2013, the official Facebook page of noted atheist Richard Dawkins’ shared this post with their 637,000 fans:[ii] The 2,000+ comments were chock-full of smug remarks about how naïve and stupid Christians are, accompanied by pats on the back for all the atheists smart enough to see through all the religious BS and understand how the evil church had slyly appropriated all kinds of pagan traditions.
One little problem: The image is rife with misinformation. Yes, Ishtar was associated with fertility and sex. However, her symbols were not the bunny and the egg. Instead they were the lion, the owl and the eight-pointed star; I can’t find any evidence of eggs or rabbits symbolically belonging to her. And Easter has nothing to do with her.
PS: Not too long after posting it, it was quietly removed from The Richard Dawkins’ Foundation for Science and Reason’s FB page.[iii] I assume, because they knew it was a hoax. But the damage had been done.
This is not just an atheist problem. I don’t know about you, but all I have to do is mention Easter, or Easter eggs in mixed religious company, and there are inevitably gasps from some or other corner of the room. Where did Christians get the idea that Easter came from Ishtar?
It was popularized by Alexander Hislop in a book called “The Two Babylons, published in 1959. He was a minister in the Free Church of Scotland. He was a vigorous critic of Catholicism and became convinced that anything they did was tied to the ancient Babylonian mystery cult of Nimrod. [iv]
This information was further popularized by Ralph Woodrow, in the book, Babylon Mystery Religion: Ancient and Modern published in 1966. But several years after publishing his book, Woodrow changed his position on many of the claims he had once championed, realizing they were untrue. But the damage had been done. [v]
From all the studies I have done, every linguist I can find says that any similarity between the way “Ishtar” and “Easter” sound is purely co-incidental, and completely unrelated linguistically. Myth busted. There is no connection between Ishtar and Easter.
Aha! But there is another possibility. The venerable Monk Bede, who lived in the late first century, once wrote that the name and practice of Easter comes from the goddess Eostre, who is the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility and spring. Bede states that pagans once held feasts in Eostre’s honor during April, but that this tradition had died out by his time, replaced by the Christian Paschal month, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus.
One problem with the venerable Monk Bede. He’s the only one anywhere, and any time in history, who has ever said anything at all about a goddess named Eostre. There have never been any temples discovered to her, no ruins dug up, no pottery, no coins, no scrolls uncovered that mention her or any other evidence whatsoever, besides his one obscure reference, that such a goddess even existed! It’s like he made her up out of thin air. Many scholars have called Eostre an invention of Bede and discount the connection.
Sorry to tell you conspiracy minded Christians, but the evidence is so paper thin for the existence of an Easter goddess, and the deeper you look the more it looks like a hoax.
So where did we get the name Easter from anyway? The English word Easter literally means, “from the east, eastern, or from the rising of the Sun.” And thus “The resurrection.” But there is more to it than that.
Easter finds its root in the German word for resurrection—auferstehung, which corresponds to the Hebrew pesach, or our English word Passover
When Wycliffe translated the Bible into English in 1384 he used the word Paschal to refer to the Passover. And we all know that Jesus was crucified at Passover and was our Passover lamb.
When Martin Luther translated the Bible into German New Testament in 1522, he chose the word Ostert to refer to the Passover and called it Osterfest. Oster, almost sounds like Easter.
When William Tyndale translated the Bible into English in 1525, He borrowed the German word and used the word ester to refer to the Passover. He took the German word for Passover and transliterated it into English. In fact, we owe our English word Passover to Tyndale. [vi]
And in fact, did you know that the word Easter is in your Bible. At least it is in the King James Bible. In Acts 12:4, it says: And when he had apprehended Jesus, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.
So that’s how we got the word Easter! It’s a word which means, paschal or Passover lamb, and by extension as we use it today, it’s speaking of Jesus the Passover lamb who died for our sins and rose from the Grave and is coming again!
Myth busted! Easter is not a pagan holiday. We did not appropriate the day from the goddess, we appropriated it from the Jewish Passover. And its name did not come from the goddess it came from a word which in English means sunrise, but in Hebrew which means Passover.
But what about the bunny rabbit and the eggs?
Is the Easter Egg pagan?
That poor little Easter bunny, I’m sure that he isn’t a pagan Easter bunny! Let me tell you the biblical, theological, eschatological, religious, scriptural, doctrinal meaning of the Easter Bunny and the Easter Egg. Are you ready? There is none.
You can do eggs, or not do eggs, and it really doesn’t matter. Seriously. Eggs and rabbits have nothing to do with the Resurrection. Given that no eggs or rabbits appear in any of the resurrection narratives, many Christians have conclude that they must have pagan origins. So how did Eggs and bunnies sneak into our celebrations?
Well, they didn’t come from the goddesses. [vii] [viii] But they did come from a longstanding tradition that got turned into a tall tale that became inseparably linked to Easter, that took fun and commercialized it money.
Here’s the story as I understand it. In the Early Church, the Roman Catholics instituted the celebration of Lent, a 40 day season of prayer, fasting and charitable giving that ends just before Easter. It is modeled after Jesus 40 days in the wilderness and is meant to prepare the heart through prayer and reflection for the Holy season.
During that time Eggs and milk were forbidden to those who fast, as is the eating of farm animals and most meat. [ix] And since hens would be paying no attention to any fasts and still laying like crazy through Lent, there would have been plenty of eggs on hand to eat on Easter Sunday morning. In fact, eggs gathered in the weeks ahead of Easter would have been stored or hard boiled in preparation for Easter Sunday morning, when they would have been quite a treat to peasants who had just endured over a month on a diet of bread, vegetables and some fish. [x]
And Hares which in early spring become social as part of their mating behavior would be seen in groups in the fields “boxing” – with males competing for mates, and multiplying like rabbits, so there would have been plenty of bunnies to hunt and eat.
You put the bunnies and the eggs together in the country of Beer drinking and ale (Germany) and guess what you get? A tall tale about how if you are a good little boy or girl, the Easter Bunny will bring you a basket of hard boiled eggs for a treat. And by the way to make it more fun, let’s color them. [xi]
I am as serious as a heart attack. This is how a longstanding tradition got turned into a tall tale that became linked to Easter.
Should Christians hunt Easter eggs? Let’s take the worse case scenario and say that eggs and rabbits are from goddess worship. If Christians should not use things that the pagans use in their pagan rituals, then we should not use fires, or trees, or buildings, or water, or eat meat, or bread, or drink wine, or sing, or for that matter, wear clothes. Because the pagans use all these things in their ceremonies!
It is not the object that you use. It is the meaning that you place on the things you use. 1 Timothy 4:4 says, “Everything God has created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”
And Romans 14:2-3 says, “For one person believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. 3 Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him.”
Are Unsanctioned Celebrations Pagan?
But some will say, listen, the New Testament nowhere tells us to celebrate Easter or Christmas, for that matter, so we shouldn’t celebrate it.
I’m going to make this quick. As you saw from the Scripture reading videos we watched earlier, Baptism is a sort of celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus, sanctioned by the Word of God. Not only that the Lord’s supper is a celebration in memory of Jesus death, resurrection and promised return. And the Gospel is the message of Jesus death and resurrection. Not to mention that our worship on the Lord’s Day is a direct result of the resurrection. We celebrate every resurrection day.
Romans 14:5-9 speaks directly to this issue. “One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. 7 For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”
No there is no prohibition for celebrating Easter, instead there is permission to set aside any day that you want to in celebration of the goodness of God! And every day ought to be celebrated to the Lord.
How Should Christians Celebrate the Resurrection?
Three things:
#1 Today, you be a witness of the Resurrection. Did you know that one of the requirements of an apostle was that he had to be an eyewitness of the resurrection? That’s why there are no more apostles. Acts 1:22 states that requirement. While none of us are eyewitnesses, we can all witness to others of the powerful impact of the resurrection. In fact a few verses earlier in Acts 1:8 we are told, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses to in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Witness to the resurrection.
#2 Preach the Resurrection. Over and over in the book of Acts, the Apostles preached the Resurrection. It’s what got them in trouble with the Sanhedrin. In fact Jesus resurrection is mentioned over 100 times in the New Testament. That makes it pretty important. And at one point Paul stood up to defend himself and shouted, “I stand here before you because of the resurrection!” Acts 23:6.
#3 Believe in the Resurrection. It is not a hoax. It’s not scam. It’s not a trick. It’s not a fraud or a con. It’s the real thing. One of the greatest skeptics of the resurrection was the disciple Thomas. He said, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” John 20:25
And when he finally saw Jesus, he fell at his feet and cried out, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” John 20:28-29
These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name! That’s how you celebrate Easter. That’s what today is meant to be. Believe it. Preach it. And witness to its incredible power. He is Risen! That’s no myth! Is the resurrection a great Hoax or your great Hope?
[i] https://babylonbee.com/news/millions-worldwide-cling-faith-jesuss-resurrection-elaborate-hoax
[ii][ii] https://bellejar.ca/2013/03/28/easter-is-not-named-after-ishtar-and-other-truths-i-have-to-tell-you/
[iii] https://bellejar.ca/2013/03/28/easter-is-not-named-after-ishtar-and-other-truths-i-have-to-tell-you/
[iv] https://answersingenesis.org/holidays/easter/are-the-symbols-and-customs-of-easter-of-pagan-origin/
[v] https://answersingenesis.org/holidays/easter/is-the-name-easter-of-pagan-origin/
[vi] https://answersingenesis.org/holidays/easter/is-the-name-easter-of-pagan-origin/
[vii] https://marketingwhirlwind.medium.com/stop-saying-ishtar-is-the-source-of-easter-8492e91cae5d
[viii] https://historyforatheists.com/2017/04/easter-ishtar-eostre-and-eggs/
[ix] https://historyforatheists.com/2017/04/easter-ishtar-eostre-and-eggs/
[x] https://historyforatheists.com/2017/04/easter-ishtar-eostre-and-eggs/
[xi] https://historyforatheists.com/2017/04/easter-ishtar-eostre-and-eggs/