Friday, April 06, 2012

Easter Through the Ages

Easter is not a Christian holiday, in fact it is the most non-Christian holiday on the liturgical calendar.

Passover
The Last Supper was a Passover Seder, everybody knows that (or should). Jews celebrated Passover for over a thousand years before the Christian religion was invented. For their first hundred years Christians continued celebrating Passover unchanged.

Ishtar & Eostre
As the Christian religion was absorbed by the pagan beliefs of invading tribes the church in Rome changed the celebration radically. Gone was the unleavening of bread and the fasting of the first born. In was the resurrection of a god story taken from a Persian cult popular in Rome at the time and the fertility rituals of German goddess Eostre.

Puritanism
Puritans waged war on Easter. And Christmas. The above notice is from early New England announcing the punishment for anyone found celebrating the "Satanical Practices" of Christmas. They were equally contemptuous of Easter frou-frou.

Egg Laying Bunnies
Such a religion. Rabbits that lay brightly colored chocolate eggs and, if you are into that sort of thing, Jesus snuff porn. Bunnies and bleeding deities. It's a pagan fertility festival mixed with Persian blood sacrifice.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just take your pick of silly, made-up stuff that normal, seemingly logical people fall for.

1:38 PM
Unknown said...

I wrote a paper last semester that touched on this.

At the Council of Nicaea in 325, the bishop of Alexandria was put in charge of determining when Easter was and transmitting his decision to the rest of Christendom.

Basically, the Christians didn't believe that the Jews were calculating the date right.

The thing is, even after this change, there were still complaints that the Alexandrian bishop wasn't figuring the date correctly.

Religion is always fun...

9:31 PM

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