When Is Passover Celebrated For The Christian?


[h=2]The Term Easter[/h] Some Orthodox Christians discourage the use of the word Easter, believing that the term has roots in pagan rites of the spring equinox and overtones of fertility. Most English speakers are unaware of the etymological origins of Easter, however, and use it without any sense of pagan connotations, and so Easter is also used by many Orthodox English speakers.
The origin of the term Easter comes from the Germanic name for the month in which the Christian feast usually fell, and so, just as the American civic holiday of the Fourth of July has nothing to do with Julius Caesar for whom July was named, neither does Easter have anything to do with the pagan goddess Eostre, the namesake of the month in which Pascha fell. This potential difficulty only exists for speakers of Germanic languages, however. Most languages in the world use a cognate form of the Greek term Pascha and so are free of any pagan connotations for the name of the feast.
According to Bede, writing in De Tempore Rationum ("On the Reckoning of Time"), Ch. xv, "The English months," the word is derived from Eostre, a festival. Bede connects it with an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, to whom the month answering to our April, and called Eostur-monath, was dedicated. The connection is often assumed, without quoting Bede himself, who says,
In olden times the English people— for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other nations' observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation's— calculated their months according to the course of the Moon. Hence, after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans, [the months] take their name from the Moon, for the moon is called mona and each month monath. The first month, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; February is called Solmonath; March Hrethmonath; April, Eosturmonath[...etc.] Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Pascha#The_Term_Easter
 
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Watching protestants discuss such things reminds me of the occasions when I've heard housewives argue with their daughters about whether Matt Smith or David Tennant was a better Doctor.
One of those situations where there's just too much to unpack, and I realize there's really not much point in trying.
 
That is a ridiculous lie but the etymology is correct.
The cult of Ishtar was common throughout the Mediterranean world, Esther was renamed after Ishtar by the king her original name was Hadassah.

Still wrong. See my previous post.
 
Watching protestants discuss such things reminds me of the occasions when I've heard housewives argue with their daughters about whether Matt Smith or David Tennant was a better Doctor.
One of those situations where there's just too much to unpack, and I realize there's really not much point in trying.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to fisharmor again
LOLOL :D
 
Annnnd, still none of those are Easter. Eostre is an unrelated pagan festival. Easter is the Western equivalent of Pascha. Period. End of story.

If you are saying that we stole the name and aren't having the same pagan festival I agree (at least most of us aren't) but originally Easter (or however the local language spelled it) was a pagan festival and Pascha or Passover is what Jews or Christians celebrated, a number of Christian celebrations were tweaked to replace pagan festivals that took place at a similar time of year in order to assimilate ex-pagans by minimizing their cultural and social disruption after Christianity converted them or was imposed on them as the case may be.
 
Most of Christianity call it Pascha or some variant of Passover (as HB has already said.) Easter is unique to English speaking Christians on the Roman Catholic side of the Great Schism. English speaking Orthodox call it Pascha. Also Ishtar was a Middle Eastern Goddess that has nothing to do with the Germanic word Eostre except in the minds of a few who trot this out once a year in hopes that we'll get tired of pointing this out.


ETA: I feel odd defending Western Christendom in this post.
 
Also, I have yet to see any English speaking Christians (Protestants or Roman Catholics) who calls this day Easter, involving eggs or bunnies in a worship service. These are local customs and have noting to do with liturgical worship, that I am aware of.
 
Also, I have yet to see any English speaking Christians (Protestants or Roman Catholics) who calls this day Easter, involving eggs or bunnies in a worship service. These are local customs and have noting to do with liturgical worship, that I am aware of.

They were local pagan customs that were sanitized as cultural holdovers, eggs and rabbits are both fertility symbols, however their present incarnation is innocuous.
You are correct that they have no religious relationship to "Easter Sunday".
 
They were local pagan customs that were sanitized as cultural holdovers, eggs and rabbits are both fertility symbols, however their present incarnation is innocuous.
You are correct that they have no religious relationship to "Easter Sunday".

FYI, you don't need scare quotes around "Easter Sunday" here, as it's not used as technical jargon or anything esoteric. y/w ~hugs~
 
FYI, you don't need scare quotes around "Easter Sunday" here, as it's not used as technical jargon or anything esoteric. y/w ~hugs~

I used the quotes since Easter is in dispute in this thread but the day is commonly referred to that way.
 
Donna, you are painting with a pretty broad brush there as if it was all one and the same. We practice an orthodox liturgy that has been around for centuries that has nothing to do with rabbits and eggs. Our practice is a faithful one.
 
Donna, you are painting with a pretty broad brush there as if it was all one and the same. We practice an orthodox liturgy that has been around for centuries that has nothing to do with rabbits and eggs. Our practice is a faithful one.

I am not judging anyone, Euphemia. The commercialization of Easter is the problem and why so many children, IMHO, turn away from God as adults. The lies and deception are taught to them, as traditions, early in life by those who find no problem with celebrating paganism.

This is a good example where the Tradition of men make void the Word of God.
 
Easter = Ishtar

That's fake news. The word Easter is not in any way related to the goddess Ishtar. Notice that your own copy and pasted quote doesn't even support your claim. It says that the name is derived from a Germanic root, as I said. They neglect to mention that it was a name used for a month (although it was). But, as they say, it was associated with the time of the Spring Equinox, just like Passover.

Yes, it's true that old pagan religions had their own holidays around the Spring equinox, and made their own associations between these events and their pagan gods and goddesses, while Christians know that it's really the true God of the Bible to whom they bear witness. But their doing that doesn't take anything away from Christians celebration of Jesus's resurrection, which took place at that same time.

Christians are well aware that, while bunnies and eggs might be fun for kids, they have no biblical basis and are not an essential part of Easter, which, as a Christian holiday, is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. In God's providential design of the world, it's appropriate that this new life and new age of the world would coincide with the beginning of Spring, and that the heavens would bear witness to this perfect plan of his in ways that even pagans could see glimpses of.
 
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That is a ridiculous lie but the etymology is correct.
The cult of Ishtar was common throughout the Mediterranean world, Esther was renamed after Ishtar by the king, her original name was Hadassah.

Yes, there was a Middle-Eastern goddess Ishtar.

But the claim of a connection between her and Easter is 100% false. There is absolutely no connection between Ishtar and Easter.
 
That's fake news. The word Easter is not in any way related to the goddess Ishtar. Notice that your own copy and pasted quote doesn't even support your claim. It says that the name is derived from a Germanic root, as I said. They neglect to mention that it was a name used for a month (although it was). But, as they say, it was associated with the time of the Spring Equinox, just like Passover.

Yes, it's true that old pagan religions had their own holidays around the Spring equinox, and made their own associations between these events and their pagan gods and goddesses, while Christians know that it's really the true God of the Bible to whom they bear witness. But their doing that doesn't take anything away from Christians celebration of Jesus's resurrection, which took place at that same time.

Christians are well aware that, while bunnies and eggs might be fun for kids, they have no biblical basis and are not an essential part of Easter, which, as a Christian holiday, is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. In God's providential design of the world, it's appropriate that this new life and new age of the world would coincide with the beginning of Spring, and that the heavens would bear witness to this perfect plan of his in ways that even pagans could see glimpses of.

LOL! Where do you think the tradition of eggs and rabbits came from?

Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of love, procreation, and war, was the daughter and consort of the air god Anu. She was known for destroying her lovers, including a lion, stallion, and shepherd. When the love of her life, the farm god Tammuz, died, she followed him to the Underworld, but she was unable to retrieve him. Ishtar was the heir to the Sumerian goddess Inanna but was more promiscuous. She is called the Cow of Sin (a moon god). She was the wife of a human king, Sargon of Agade.

"In From Ishtar to Aphrodite," Miroslav Marcovich; Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 30, No. 2, (Summer, 1996), pp. 43-59, Marcovich argues that since Ishtar was the wife of an Assyrian king and since warfare was the main occupation of such kings, Ishtar felt it was his marital duty to become a war goddess, so she went with her husband on his military adventures to assure their success. Marcovich also argues that Ishtar is​ queen of heaven and associated with the planet Venus.

Babal means confusion in Hebrew. Is it any wonder?
 
LOL! Where do you think the tradition of eggs and rabbits came from?

I don't see why it matters, since eggs and rabbits aren't what Christians believe Easter is about.

But ultimately, where do they come from? They come from the same God who created everything, who designed the world, who gave us the Sun, Moon, and stars, as signs in the heavens, including the Spring equinox, and who revealed himself to us chiefly through the incarnation of his Son Jesus, who died and rose again. Christians should be able to see how all things, including rabbits and eggs, point to this Creator and his plan of redemption of creation.


Babal means confusion in Hebrew. Is it any wonder?

Unless the whole point of this is to agree with me that Easter has nothing to do with Ishtar, I'm not sure what you're saying.
 
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