The Easter Story
Steve Winter
EASTER: THE GODDESS OF SPRING
The name of this festival, itself, show its heathen origin.
"Easter" is derived from Eastre, or Eostre, the anglo-Saxon Goddess of
spring and dawn. There also is some historical connection existing
between the words "Easter" and "East," where the sun rises. The
festival of Eostre was celebrated on the day of the Vernal Equinox
(spring). Traditions associated with the festival of the Teutonic
fertility Goddess survive in the Easter rabbit and colored eggs.
Spring is the season of new life and revival, when, from ancient
times, the pagan peoples of Europe and Asia held their spring festivals,
re-enacting ancient regeneration myths and performing magical and
religious ceremonies to make the crops grow and proper.
From "The American Book of Days," by George William Douglas we read:
"As the festival of Eostre was a 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. There is no doubt that the Church (of Rome) in its
early days adopted the old pagan customs and gave a "Christian" meaning
to them.
From "Easter: its Story and Meaning," by Alan W. Watts is found:
"The story of Easter is not simply a Christian story. Not only is the
very name "Easter" the name of an ancient and non-Christian deity; the
season itself has also, from time immemorial, been the occasion of rites
and observances having to do with the mystery of death and resurrection
among peoples differing widely in race and religion."
From "Easter and its customs," by Christina Hole is found: "Vernal
Mysteries (spring heathen rites) like those of Tammuz, and Osiris and
Adonis flourished in the Mediterranean world and farther north and east
there were others. Some of their rites and symbols were carried forward
into Easter customs. Many of them have survived into our own day,
unchanged yet subtly altered in their new surroundings to bear a
"Christian" significance."
TAMMUZ AND THE VERNAL MYSTERIES
The rites connected with the death and resurrection of the gods
Tammuz, Osiris, and Adonis are the Forerunners of the "Christian"
Easter; they are the first East services.
Let us look in the Word of God in Ezekiel 8:13-16
(13) He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt
see greater abominations that they do. (14) Then he brought me
to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the
north; and behold, there sat women WEEPING FOR TAMMUZ (15) Then
said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee
yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these
(16) And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house,
and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the
porch and the alter, were about five and twenty men, with their
backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the
EAST; and they WORSHIPPED THE SUN toward the EAST.
Here the people of God, Israel, had back-slid into idolatry.
Tammuz was a Babylonian god. Like Christ Mass and New Year's, Easter,
too, began in Babylon. Let us look into the Mythologies of the death
and resurrection gods, such as Tammuz from "Easter: its Story and
Meaning."
"Wife and beloved of Tammuz was the goddess Inanna, or Ishtar,
in whose person is represented she whom we now call Mother
Nature of Mother Earth -- she who, when refreshed with the
spring rains, with the water from heaven, brings forth the
fruits of life. We are told that when Tammuz died, Inanna was
so stricken with grief that she followed him to the underworld,
to the realm of Eresh-Kigal, Queen of the Dead, a "land from
which there is no returning, a house of darkness, where dust
lies on door and bolt." In her absence the earth was deprived
of its fertility; crops would not grow; animals would not mate;
life was in danger of coming to an end.
"O my child!" at his vanishing always she lifts up a
lament;
"My Damu!" at his vanishing away she lifts up a lament;
"My enchanter and priest!" at his vanishing away she
lifts up a lament,
At the shining cedar, rooted in a spacious place,
In Eanna, above and below, she lifts up a lament.
This ancient text is called "The Lament of the Flutes for Tammuz."
He had gone away to the underworld, and this was why there was winter.
"The Lament of the Flutes for Tammuz" describes the grief which moved
Ea, god of water and wisdom, to send a heavenly messenger to the
underworld to rescue the goddess whose absence was removing life from
the earth. Assenting reluctantly to his supreme will, Eresh-Kigal
allowed the messenger to sprinkle Inanna and Tammuz with water of
life--a potion which gave them power to return into the light of the sun
for six months of the year. But for the other six months, Tammuz must
again return to the land of death, whither Inanna would again pursue
him, and once more with her lamentations move Ea to give the water of
life so that year after year the miracle of resurrection and spring would
recur."
In the course of centuries, the story and the yearly rites
connected with the death and resurrection of Tammuz moved westward to
Phoenicia and Syria on the extreme east of the Mediterranean. Here the
name of Tammuz was changed to Adon or Adonai, and the name of Inanna to
Astarte. In Greece the two names are Adonis and Aphrodite.
The myth underwent some changes in passing from Sumeria to Syria.
A Greek myth tells of Demeter, like Inanna, the goddess of the
earth, and her daughter, Kore (Persephone). The girl was abducted by
Pluto, the ruler of the underworld, and her absence brought about a
famine on earth through the failure of the crops. Pluto was therefore
moved to restored Kore to her mother, but because she had eaten a
pomegranate in the underworld she was bound to return to Pluto for as
many months of each year as there were seeds of the pomegranate caught
in her mouth. In joy at her annual return, the earth (Demeter) brings
forth her fruits and flowers.
Adonis (Greek god) was the child of Myrrha, the myrtle tree. (It
seems that almost all the gods of death and resurrection are associated
with a tree.) When the infant Adonis was born, Aphrodite was so charmed
with his beauty that she adopted him and concealed him in a chest, which
she gave for safekeeping to Persephone--the counterpart of Eresh-Kigal,
the Babylonian Queen of the Dead. In the underworld Persephone opened
the chest, and was herself so enchanted with the babe that she decided
to keep him. This led to a dispute between Aphrodite and Persephone,
between love and death, in which Zeus (taking the place of the
Babylonian Ea) had to intervene. Zeus decreed that for four months of
the year Adonis should belong to Aphrodite, for four to Persephone, and
for the remaining four he should do as he wished--Adonis chose to spend
them with Aphrodite.
When he had grown to young manhood, Adonis roused the envy of
ARtemis, the forest goddess of the hunt, or according to another
account, or Ares, the god of war. Thus, while he was out hunting,
Artemis slew Adonis with an arrow--the arrows of ARtemis being the cause
to which sudden death was generally ascribed--or in the version, he was
gored by Ares in the form of a wild boar. He died, and where the earth
had received his blood, Aphrodite sprinkled the ground with nectar, so
that the blood turned into anemones and other flowers of the field. But
the grief of Aphrodite was so piteous that the gods of the underworld
allowed Adonis to return to her every spring for six months of the year.
In Asia Minor the Phrygians believed that their omnipotent deity
went to sleep at the time of the winter solstice and they performed
ceremonies with music and dancing at the spring equinox to awaken him.
Of the same essential pattern is the great Egyptian myth of Osiris.
The common elements in all these stories are so apparent that one may
think of them as a single drama performed again and again by different
actors.
It would be tedious to describe in detail all that has been handed
down to us about the various rites of Tammuz, Adonis, Kire, and many
others. Their rites had many basic elements in common. Their universal
theme--the drama of death and resurrection--makes them the forerunners
of the "Christian" Easter, and thus the first easter services. Many of
the customs and ceremonies of the "Christian" Easter resemble these
former rites,s for instance, the present day "Sun Rise SErvices."
Easter descended from pagan sun worship. Catholic Doctrine simply
paralleled the pagan death and resurrection myths of the gods with the
story of Christ's crucifixion and Ascension. Christ now rises from the
dead with the ascending sun at the time of the Vernal Equinox when plant
life and all forms of vegetation appear again on the earth, and is
celebrated with the same customs as that of the Heathen rites namely,
rabbits, chickens, and colored eggs!
COLORED EGGS
The Easter egg takes us back to some of the oldest known
civilizations on earth where the symbol of an egg played an important
part in mythical accounts of the creation of the world. According to
this tale heaven and earth were formed from the two halves of a
mysterious World-Egg. The Easter egg is associated with this World-Egg,
the original germ from which all life proceeds, and whose shell is the
firmament. So there is a heathen connection between the egg a nd the
ideas or feelings of birth, new life, and creation.
Easter eggs do have a very long ancestry. In their modern
chocolate or cardboard form they date only from the later years of the
last century, but giving real eggs, colored or gilded at Easter and
also at the pre-Christian spring celebrations are infinitely older.
Long before the Christian era, eggs were regarded as symbols of
continuing life and resurrection. The ancient Persians and Greeks
exchanged them at their spring festivals when all things in nature
revived after the winter. To the early pagans converted to
"Christianity" under Emperor Constantine's rule, eggs seemed the obvious
symbols of the Lord's resurrection and were therefore considered "holy"
and appropriate gifts at Easter time. Pope Paul V appointed a prayer in
which the eggs were "blessed." The eggs could then be eaten in
thankfulness to God on account of the resurrection of the Lord. The
custom of coloring eggs at Easter continued from paganism with only a
change of dedication. These eggs are often red. Scarlet eggs were
given in the spring by pagan peoples centuries before the birth of
Christ. It is probably the favorite color because, like the egg itself,
it is an emblem of life.
THE EASTER RABBIT
The hare is the true Easter beast, not the rabbit. He was sacred
to the Spring-Goddess, Eostre. Hares were sacrificed to her. The hare
was an emblem of fertility, renewal, and return of spring to the heathen.
The egg, in modern American folklore, is the production of the rabbit or
the hare. The story is that this hare was once a bird whom Eostre
changed into a four-footed creature.
HOT-CROSS BUNS
Eating hot-cross buns is one of the Good Friday customs that has
taken root in America. They are pagan in origin, for the Anglo-Saxon
savages consumed cakes as part of the jollity that attended the
welcoming of spring. Early missionaries from Rome despaired of breaking
them of the habit, and got around the difficulty by blessing the cakes,
drawing a cross upon them. but the cross was a pagan symbol long before
the crucifixion. Bread and cakes were sometimes marked with it in
pre-Christian times. Two small loaves each with a cross on them were
discovered under the ruins of Herculaneum, a city overwhelmed by
volcanic ash in A.D. 79. It is probable that the crosses here had a
pagan meaning like those which appeared on cakes associated with the
worship of Diana.
There are other pagan customs associated with Easter, but we have
discussed the most common ones.
Information for writing this chapter was obtained from: "Easter:
its Story and meaning," by Alan W. Watts; "The American Book of Days,"
by George William Dougolas; "Easter and its cutsoms,": by Christina
Hole; "The Book of Religious Holidays and Celebrations," by Marguerite
Ickis; "Funk & Wagnall's New Encyclopedia."
Chapter III from HEATHEN HOLIDAYS by Sister Denise Snodgrass.
Rev. Steve Winter SysOp=> PreRapture BBS 919-286-3606 3-33600
--
This information presented by me should be considered on the basis of
its factual content rather than any initial impression. For additional info:
-={ PreRapture BBS 919-286-2100 33600bps / Telnet to PRIME.ORG }=-
http://www.prime.org Home of the PRIME Christian Network
Are the false christians pitching fits because I call them names,
or because I am proving my allegations from their own Bibles?
Rynne McCoy
just chop off the silly accusations that *We* are responsible for the
hideous American custom of turning every semi-religious holiday into a
commercialized circus because of the eggs and bunnies! And thanks for
the lovely treatise on the *BEAUTIFUL* and *POETIC* and *ETERNAL*
spiritual Traditions of the World, which do not partake of the "WE ARE
THE ONLY ONE TRUE WAY (TM)" spirit ...
--SHEDONA--
David Binette
Woodbury(news)) wrote:
>Of course, Steve neglects to mention that it is only in English that the
>holiday is referred to as "Easter." In the rest of the Christian world
>the holiday's name is some derivative of "Pesach" or Passover, in honor
>of the relationship between the Jewish Celebration.
>
>Furthermore, it is well known that the growth of religions depend on the
>conversion of pre-existing holidays.
>
>Wolfe
nonsense, the german word for Easter is 'Oster'
Besides all of this date specific easter celebration is a result of some old
roman town mayor deciding it was better to have the pagan fertility
celebrations and the christian resurrection cleebrations happen at the same
time.
He must have been a *party animal*
bag...@tigullio.liguria.it
What are you guys saying?
First come the spring feast as in all the agricultural society. Then
hebrew people changed it with a new meaning.
It was always on the first moon of the spring, but now his meaning is
no more the passing from winter to spring, but it's the passover from
slaverny to the freedom of promise land.
Christ then gave a new meaning, the last: this pesach, this passover
is from the death of sin to the eternal life. From death to life as he
did himself...
The date was in all 3 the first fullmoon of spring.
Now for catolich is the first sunday after the first fullmoon of
spring...
Fr. John W. Morris +
>
> Besides all of this date specific easter celebration is a result of some old
> roman town mayor deciding it was better to have the pagan fertility
> celebrations and the christian resurrection cleebrations happen at the same
> time.
> Fr. John W. Morris responds:
The date of Pascha or Easter has nothing to do with a pagan festival. Pascha
takes place when it does because of the date of the Jewish Passover.
Christians believe that Christ is the new passover. Christ was crucified when
they were slaying the passover lambs. Christ is the lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world. Christ rose from the dead on Sunday, the
beginning a new week, because Christ begins a new relationship between
humanity and God.
However, in a sense the pagan fertility festival that celebrates the
resurrection of life following the death of winter is a foreshadowing of the
resurrection of Christ and those who follow Christ from death.
Christians believe that God has revealed Himself through His creation.
Therefore pagan religions reflected that revelation with the theme of death
and resurrection.
Fr. John +
Patrick Crumhorn
> However, in a sense the pagan fertility festival that celebrates the
> resurrection of life following the death of winter is a foreshadowing of the
> resurrection of Christ and those who follow Christ from death.
> Christians believe that God has revealed Himself through His creation.
> Therefore pagan religions reflected that revelation with the theme of death
> and resurrection.
ROFL. So rather than stealing/assimilating the pagan spring
festival, Christianity actually *invented* it, ex post facto?
That would explain the uncanny similarities between the myth of Dionysius
and the myth of Jesus. Sheesh...
--
Patrick Crumhorn pat...@io.com
http://www.io.com/~patrik
"If you're not living on the edge,
you're taking up too much space." -- Bryan Estes
Rynne McCoy
: Fr. John W. Morris + (jrj...@cannet.com) wrote:
:
: > However, in a sense the pagan fertility festival that celebrates the
: > resurrection of life following the death of winter is a foreshadowing of the
: > resurrection of Christ and those who follow Christ from death.
: > Christians believe that God has revealed Himself through His creation.
: > Therefore pagan religions reflected that revelation with the theme of death
: > and resurrection.
:
: ROFL. So rather than stealing/assimilating the pagan spring
: festival, Christianity actually *invented* it, ex post facto?
: That would explain the uncanny similarities between the myth of Dionysius
: and the myth of Jesus. Sheesh...
But of course, Pat ... dintcha know that Xtianity is the One Only True
Religion (tm) of which all other religions are mere shadows? Or the fact
that since Satan-Cannot-Create-But-Only-Alter-Things, that He knew all
about what God had planned, so He plotted a sneak attack ... pagan
religions foreshadowing the coming of the Christ! ... now He could get
all the peoples of the world deceived at last ... mwahhahahah!
(SARCASM INTENTIONAL)
Seriously, though -- good point. This point should be copied and
distributed to fundie nonthinkers everywhere.
--
BABALON 156 *** SHEDONA 435 | she...@intrepid.net
"I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing
Till they got ahold of me ..." --Alice Cooper
FOLLOWUPS TRIMMED -- DON'T BLAME ME IF IT DIDN'T WORK -- I DON'T WANT TO
HEAR YOUR GODDAMNED WHINING OR IDIOTIC, GRANDIOSE DELUSIONS OF BEING
SUPREME COP O' THE NET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ahti Eric Rovainen
: > However, in a sense the pagan fertility festival that celebrates the
: > resurrection of life following the death of winter is a foreshadowing of the
: > resurrection of Christ and those who follow Christ from death.
: > Christians believe that God has revealed Himself through His creation.
: > Therefore pagan religions reflected that revelation with the theme of death
: > and resurrection.
: ROFL. So rather than stealing/assimilating the pagan spring
: festival, Christianity actually *invented* it, ex post facto?
: That would explain the uncanny similarities between the myth of Dionysius
: and the myth of Jesus. Sheesh...
It's a good thing they don't celebrate the birth of Christ around his
literal birth date (spring). They have Xmas when they do in place of a
pagan winter solstice festival, but Jesus was actually born in the spring.
From a commercial standpoint, a December Xmas is beneficial.