The pagan roots of Easter

[Joanne98]

From Ishtar to Eostre, the roots of the resurrection story go deep. We should embrace the pagan symbolism of Easter.

Easter is a pagan festival. If Easter isn't really about Jesus, then what is it about? Today, we see a secular culture celebrating the spring equinox, whilst religious culture celebrates the resurrection. However, early Christianity made a pragmatic acceptance of ancient pagan practises, most of which we enjoy today at Easter. The general symbolic story of the death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well worn story in the ancient world. There were plenty of parallel, rival resurrected saviours too.

The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life.

In an ironic twist, the Cybele cult flourished on today's Vatican Hill. Cybele's lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising to a crescendo after three days, in rejoicing over the resurrection. There was violent conflict on Vatican Hill in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshippers and pagans who quarrelled over whose God was the true, and whose the imitation. What is interesting to note here is that in the ancient world, wherever you had popular resurrected god myths, Christianity found lots of converts. So, eventually Christianity came to an accommodation with the pagan Spring festival. Although we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament, early church fathers celebrated it, and today many churches are offering "sunrise services" at Easter – an obvious pagan solar celebration. The date of Easter is not fixed, but instead is governed by the phases of the moon – how pagan is that?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/03/easter-pagan-symbolism

[GameChanger]

1. I tried to explain this to a "Christian" co-worker who attacked my Halloween deco once...

I once worked in an office that allowed people to "decorate" their areas for holidays - Easter, Halloween, Christmas, etc.

This one co-worker went nuts about a couple of Halloween decorations on my desk. Claiming they were pagan and evil. I proceeded to educate her on the pagan symbols of Christmas and Easter and to also explain the holiday dates were themselves based on pagan celebrations. She couldn't handle the facts. Totally freaked out.

Long story short, changes were made in office rules and seasonal decorations banned.

Wishing everyone a happy Easter as you enjoy your pagan fertility symbols of bunnies and eggs.

:party: :bounce: :hi:

[verges]

6. Oddly enough...

I first learned about a lot of this from a Fundie Christian. He didn't approve of Halloween, but he had no problem with the Easter and Christmas symbols.

[ShockediSay]

2. And what do you think the Easter Bunnies are doing? nt

[rurallib]

7. just erections, not resurrections?

[ORDagnabbit]

3. and if you want more about the pagan origins of the christ myth heres a great site

http://www.pocm.info/

[elfin]

4. Thanks for the site!

A nice summary to send to like-minded fam and friends.

Bite a chocolate bunny tomorrow!

[dccrossman]

5. Historical Context

Sometimes difficult to swallow...

[TransitJohn]

8. A springtime rebirth/renewal/fertility festival

when the day becomes longer than the night following the equinox? Seems pretty damn obvious....rabbits and eggs...sheesh.

[Igel]

9. Some of this is clear. Some is less clear.

Sol invictus and Xmas, for instance. Maybe with a touch of Mithras. Yule and Xmas trees.

Eostre and eggs and rabbits. Or Easter rites and nearly any spring-fertility celebration.

Ishtar and Easter's a bit harder. It's convenient to say, "Ishtar was portrayed by the Sumerians and therefore the early 1st Millennium Jews and gentiles picked up on that." It's harder to actually show that the Jews and gentiles were reading the cuneiform tablets. I haven't heard anybody actually say, much less produce evidence, that Ishtar-worship survived the Sumerians by very much, or the Babylonians, or the Assyrians. Or that Ishtar was widespread enough be a model for emulation.

On the other hand, it is exactly the stuff of that notorious anti-papist screed by Alexander Hislop, "The Two Babylons." Although to even mention it with its humorous lyngwysdyx--let's not dignify it with the conventional spelling of the term--makes me remember I haven't showered today. Still, it's worth remembering that he baldfacedly asserted that Xmas trees resulted from Tammuz worship, without bothering with things like actual evidence or plausibility of cultural transmission.

[struggle4progress]

10. If anyone wants Sumerian texts on Inana, here's a site:

http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/#

As far as I can tell, Ishtar and Inana were goddesses in different cultures, with some overlapping mythology: in such cases, sorting out the actual notions of any particular time and place can be laborious and confusing

[struggle4progress]

11. Ancient calendrical ideas can be quite confusing. Ancient Egypt predates

the Roman republic by millennia, and the ancient Egyptians used multiple calendars. The 365 day year, of course, slipped a day or so every four years, so an epagomenal day dedicated to Horus need not generally have fallen anywhere near the winter solstice. This problem was corrected during the period of Roman rule, but the situation with the Roman calendar seems to have been quite dreadful around that time also, according to Wikipedia:

... a 27-day intercalary month .. was sometimes inserted between February and March. This intercalary month was formed by inserting 22 days after the first 23 or 24 days of February; the last five days of February, which counted down toward the start of March, become the last five days of Intercalaris. The net effect was to add 22 or 23 days to the year, forming an intercalary year of 377 or 378 days .... since the Pontifices were often politicians, and because a Roman magistrate's term of office corresponded with a calendar year, this power was prone to abuse: a Pontifex could lengthen a year in which he or one of his political allies was in office, or refuse to lengthen one in which his opponents were in power ... Caesar crossed the Rubicon on January 10, 49 BC of the official calendar, but the official calendar had drifted so far away from the seasons that it was actually mid-autumn .... The first step of the reform was to realign the start of the calendar year .. to the tropical year by making 46 BC 445 days long .... the pontifices apparently misunderstood the algorithm for leap years. They added a leap day every three years, instead of every four years .... Augustus remedied this discrepancy after 36 years by restoring the correct frequency. He also skipped several leap days in order to realign the year ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar

The Julian effort to define the solstice as December 25, of course, is interesting; and I suppose it's entirely possible that Roman rule in the time of Augustus finally enforced an occasional sixth epagomenal, rationalizing one of the Egyptian calendars. But, of course, the epagomenals did not occur near the end of the Roman year:

... According to Roman writer Censorinus, the Egyptian New Year's Day fell on July 20 in the Julian Calendar in AD 139, which was a heliacal rising of Sirius in Egypt ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_calendar

So at the beginning of the Christian era, the Horus epagomenal day seems to have been a summer event, not a winter solstice event