(Oxford English Dictionary) Easter – The most important and oldest festival of the Christian Church, celebrating the resurrection of Christ and held (in the Western Church) between 21 March and 25 April, on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the northern spring equinox.
Easter embodies many ancient traditions and festivals.
Such festivals, and the stories and legends that explain their origin, were common in ancient religions long before the birth of Jesus Christ.
Since the 8th century A.D., Easter has become the generic name used to denote any-and-all gentile pagan vernal equinox festivals celebrated by various cultures. The origin of its name is unknown. However, Scholars accepting the derivation proposed by the 8th-century English scholar St. Bede, believe that Easter probably comes from Ēastre, the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility, to whom was dedicated an entire month corresponding to April.
Her festival begins on the day of the vernal equinox. Traditions associated with her festival survive today in the form of the Easter rabbit (a symbol of fertility), and in colored Easter eggs. The eggs were painted with bright colors to represent the sunlight of spring, and used in Easter-egg rolling contests or given as gifts. In the 1800s, the United States Pennsylvania Dutch introduced Easter Egg Hunting.
One Greek legend tells of the return of Persephone, daughter of Demeter, goddess of the earth, from the underworld to the light of day. To the ancient Greeks, her return symbolized the resurrection of life in the spring after the desolation of winter.
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 vernal equinox to awaken him.
In ancient Rome, which is most likely the vernal equinox festival celebrated by Herod at the time of Jesus Christ, they called it Hilaria Matris Deûm; a 13-day event. This festival is in honor of Cybele, the mother of the gods. The festival began with a solemn procession, in which the statue of the goddess was carried, followed by games in her honor.
Many ancient cultures shared similar legends.
Passover is NOT Easter …
The word Passover occurs 44 times in Scripture; 35 times to Israel in their Masoretic Text Old Testament, 8 times to Israel in their Koine Greek Old Testament, and once to the Body of Christ. … But there is only one mention of Easter in all of Scripture, and it has nothing to do with Passover or the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Acts 12:1-4 Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. (2) And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. (3) And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) (4)And when he had apprehended him, 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.
Verse 3 does mention that Peter was arrested during “the days of unleavened bread”, which would be during Israel’s Passover Feast, but, verse 4 states that Herod wasn’t going to kill Peter until after Easter … two separate festivals. Passover is a 7-day festival, and Easter (Hilaria Matris Deûm) is a 13-day festival … they are not the same.
So, IF both festivals started on the same day, Peter was not scheduled to be killed until 6-days after the Passover festival had concluded.
So, how does Easter tie into the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
IT DOESN’T!
According to Scripture, Christ was crucified on the eve of Passover (a 7-day festival), and 3-days later (mid-Passover) He rose from the dead.
So … in Israel’s calendar, Christ was crucified on Friday, the 14th of Nisan (Abib) at 1500 hrs., and rose again early on Sunday morning, the 16th. In the Gregorian Calendar, that would be Friday, April 14th at 3pm, and rose again on Sunday morning, the 16th.
However, there is no Scriptural evidence that anyone in Bible-times EVER celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Scripture, there is never any celebration or observance for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, it wasn’t until about 300 A.D. that the modern-Christian festival of Easter was introduced by the Catholic Church, aka Christianity, in order to assimilate the various gentile religions into their religion; Christianity. The Christian Easter ritual embodies several pagan traditions, but now they claim that Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Christ.
The various pagan celebrations of Easter cover various time-frames between the middle and end of March, the entire month of April, to a window of various lengths that begin on the vernal equinox, which occurs on different calendar days each year, and even on different days of the same year according to specific geographical locations.
The fact that Easter has nothing to with Passover was obvious to the Christian zealot and Roman Emperor Constantine I, who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.
The council unanimously ruled that “… the Easter festival should be celebrated throughout the Christian world on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. And that if the full moon should occur on a Sunday, and thereby coincide with the Jewish Passover festival, Easter should be commemorated on the Sunday following.” … “And first of all it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast [Easter] we should follow the practice of the Jews [Passover], who have impiously defiled their hand with enormous sin…” Thereby, the coincidence of the feasts of Easter and Passover was thus avoided.
But this created another problem. It put the Christian Easter celebrations on different dates in different parts of the world.
In 387 A.D., for example, the dates of Easter in France and Easter in Egypt were 35 days apart.
So, about 465 A.D., the Catholic Church adopted a system of calculation proposed by astronomer Victorinus, who had been commissioned by Pope Hilarius (r. 461–68) to reform the calendar and fix the date of Easter.
In the 7th century, the refusal of the British and Celtic Christian Churches to adopt the proposed changes led to a bitter dispute between them and “the Holy Mother Church”.
Reform of the Julian calendar occurred in 1582 A.D. by Pope Gregory XIII. Through adoption of the Gregorian calendar, it eliminated much of the difficulty in fixing the date of Easter, and in arranging the ‘Christian’ ecclesiastical year.
Since 1752, when the Gregorian calendar was also adopted in Great Britain and Ireland, Easter has been celebrated on the same day in the Western part of the modern Christian world. The Eastern churches however, which did not adopt the Gregorian calendar, commemorate Easter on a Sunday either preceding or following the date observed in the West. Occasionally the dates coincide; the most recent times were in 1865 and 1963.
Because the modern Christian Easter holiday affects a varied number of secular affairs in many countries, it has long been urged, as a matter of convenience, that the movable dates of the festival either be narrowed in range or replaced by a fixed date, as in the manner of their Christmas holiday.
In 1923 the problem was referred to the Holy See of the Catholic Church, which has found no canonical objection to the proposed reform.
In 1928 the British Parliament enacted a measure allowing the Church of England to commemorate Easter on the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April. Despite these steps toward reform, Easter continues to be a movable event for modern-Christians.
So, what is the bottom-line … According to Scripture?
Easter has nothing to do with God, Jesus Christ, or the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter is simply the modern generic-name for all of the various ancient pagan religious festivals, which includes the teachings of the Catholic Church, aka Christianity.
The false teaching of the Catholic Church (aka Christianity), that commingles Easter and their invented celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is designed solely for the purpose of the assimilation of the masses into their religion … without regard for God and Scripture.
Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Colossians 2:16-17 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: (17) Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.