Easter & The Resurrection, Debunking Novel Speculations

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The Resurrection, A Historical Fact

As we approach Easter 2011 as always we are confronted with individuals, some believers and some non-believers who assert that the Christian celebration of Easter is nothing more than an extension and reproduction of pagan festivals and ritualism of ancient times. While there are some pagan elements within almost every secular/Christian celebration that occurs today, the facts are that the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus doesn't reproduce, imitate or infringe upon paganism.

The Name Easter

One of the first myths to dispel is the name and the origin of the name that we use for Easter. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, in Latin, Easter is Festa Paschalia (plural because it is a seven-day feast), The 7 day feast to which the Latin word refers is the Pascha or Passover as it was known in New Testament times. This Latin phrase, not the related and associated German phrase, became the basis for the French Pâques, the Italian Pasqua, and the Spanish Pascua. Also related are the Scottish Pask, the Dutch Paschen, the Danish Paaske, and the Swedish Pask

{Special note regarding the German phrase: Another idea involves the history of the Frankish church (Germans who settled in Rome during the fifth century). Their celebration of Christ's resurrection included the word "alba", which means white (the color of the robes worn during the resurrection festival). Alba also meant sunrise. So when the name of the festival was translated into German, the sunrise meaning, ostern, was selected, likely in error. One theory is that Ostern is the origin of the word Easter.}

What's more is that the pagan celebration of the Great Mother goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe was known as "Easter" was named after goddess Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). However this practice was was a product of anglo-saxon descent and a development far too late to have any biblical significance. In

fact some of the best information that can be gathered about the name Easter as we have adopted in our modern language from it's German, not Latin roots is as follows:

"Eostre is a very obscure Goddess, and uniquely Anglo-Saxon Pagan. She is not mentioned at all in the Norse corpus and only fleetingly in the Old English by Bede in De Temporum Rationale. Her material is so scant that some scholars have speculated she was not a Goddess at all, but that Eostre was merely a name for the holiday. Her name is connected for words for "east" and "shining." It is therefore related to the Greek godname Eos, Goddess of the dawn in their pantheon. Finding place names indicating her worship are difficult due to this relation to the word east. Her name survived in the German name of the Christian holy tide as Ostara, therefore if she was a Goddess, she was worshipped there as well." ~ Wednesbury Shire History of Anglo-Saxon Paganism 

Interestingly enough, people seem to go from this late dating and attribution of Easter to Anglo-Saxon paganism of an obscure goddess to, early myths that predate Christianity and that run parallel to Judaism. This is called parallelomania (Reinventing Jesus ~ Ed. KomoKonoszewski, James Sawyer, Daniel Wallace) Contrary to most conspiracists in modern times, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus within Christianity has a fairly deep and secure root and can be traced back and placed solidly within 1st century by most historical accounts. 

The debated question has been when the celebration was to take place and how the celebration correlated within Christian circles to the Paschal or Passover celebration that the Jews held traditionally within Judaism. 

Easter...When?

Over time the debate regarding the celebration of Pesach or Passover aka: The Feast of Unleavened Bread, (the 15th day of the Jewish Month Nissan), which has come to be known as the time of Easter by many within Christian circles, was originally called the debate over Quartodecimanism. Quartodecimanism is the Latin term for the practice of fixing the celebration of Passover for Christians on the fourteenth (Latin quarta decima) day of Nissan in the Old Testament's Hebrew Calendar. The problem stemmed from two things: 1- Christians held to Sunday or the first day of the week as being the time of resurrection according to scripture and 2- the actual celebration of Passover could be on any day of the week, was associated with the new moon and was not related to the first day of the week celebration of resurrection within Christian tradition. Please note that the first day of the week controversy was BEFORE the Gregorian calendar and naming of the days of the week after pagan gods...PLEASE!!!

Back to the subject...

Example, in 2011 the Passover actually begins Monday April 19th in Judaism, however Easter in Western Christianity is celebrated April 24th and "Pesach" on the same date for Eastern Orthodox believers. The question is whether the bible command to observe Passover according to Judaism, in a perpetual sense, is still in effect, or can the celebration be adjusted to become commensurate with the Christian tradition of the celebration of the resurrection of Christ on a Sunday. It is noted that the first and early second century church seemed to celebrate the resurrection event every Sunday as opposed to annually. The importance of the question is understood as we read in Eusebius (Church History V.23):

"A question of no small importance arose at that time [i.e. the time of Pope Victor, about A.D. 190]. The dioceses of all Asia, as from an older tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon, on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should always be observed as the feast of the life-giving pasch [epi tes tou soteriou Pascha heortes], contending that the fast ought to end on that day, whatever day of the week it might happen to be. However it was not the custom of the churches in the rest of the world to end it at this point, as they observed the practice, which from Apostolic tradition has prevailed to the present time, of terminating the fast on no other day than on that of the Resurrection of our Saviour. Synods and assemblies of bishops were held on this account, and all with one consent through mutual correspondence drew up an ecclesiastical decree that the mystery of the Resurrection of the Lord should be celebrated on no other day but the Sunday and that we should observe the close of the paschal fast on that day only."

A second attempt to address the issue was at the Council Of Nicea in 325 AD. The council set to establish a uniform date of the celebration making it independent of the New Moon observances and reconciliation of the Jewish Passover. From there a third and even fourth attempt to set forth a uniform and standard date for Easter occurred. Research can be done on this for greater detail, but the fact remains that the celebration of the resurrection wasn't in question even if the timing of it was.

Novel & Radical Speculations On Easter

Since we have established that most of the modern controversy over Easter is either too late or is based on linguistic issues and translations from German rather than from Latin into English, most of the controversy and misinformation regarding this has already been settled. However, many of these radical speculations and myth theories continue to be of the most complex questions regarding the Christian celebration of Easter. 

Let's look at two of the most common theories.

1- Easter is in fact the celebration of Ishtar which was a pagan festival of the sun.

As stated above, this myth seems to be an attribution of late pagan/goddess theory to early biblical history, attributing the later development of non biblical myths to earlier myths and layering one on top of the other at various times. From best historical discoveries found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, this particular myth seems to be  associated with the Fall of Sophia and the descent of Inanna/Ishtar. (two different female deities) 

To be specific, it is said that Inanna/Ishtar came to raise Dumuzi/Tammuz (corresponding two deities) from the dead. This is where many stop and claim that Christians have either borrowed the tradition of the resurrection of Jesus, or that the tradition is tainted when it comes to celebrating the resurrection in general.

This means that based on evidence, that although Ishtar was a pagan goddess and worship was given to her, there is no record that Ishtar had a stake or interest in bringing about the resurrection of Tammuz and furtherm that Tammuz was brought back to life to reign as god or for that matter reign in a permanent fashion.

However, the best textual evidence affirms that the raising of Damuzi/Tammuz from the dead was an assumption and imposition upon the story without warrant or evidence. The book, "The Death of Dumuzi", discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt proves that in the legend, Inanna/Ishtar did not descend to the Underworld to resurrect her consort, but instead sent him there as her substitute. The only textual evidence to suggest that Dumuzi was raised from the dead is a fragmentary text which implies that his sister Geshtinanna took his place as a substitute for half the year.  ~ ["Mythologies of the Ancient World," By S. N. Kramer, Doubleday, New York (1961) 110-115; S. N. Kramer, The Sumerians, University of Chicago Press (1963) 156-160; T. Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz, University Press, Cambridge (1970).] 

2- The celebration of the resurrection was associated with Adonis, Attis, and the Mithras, and is therefore simply a redevelopment of pagan concepts.

Once again, this type of theory is froth with problems. The first being that the development of the myths are again either after or during second century CE. This is well after the celebration of the resurrection had gone from every Sunday weekly to at least annually in conjunction with the Jewish Passover or Pesach celebration. The fact is that these myths and other like them which are of late date seem to be a developments of Greeks and pagans in response to the Christian teaching of the resurrection of Jesus and the success that Christianity was experiencing. 

Quoting New Testament scholar and historian, Michael Licona, Lee Strobel in his book, The Case For The Real Jesus writes the following:

"Second, T.N.D. Mettinger- a senior Swedish scholar, professor at Lund University, and member of the Royal Academy of Letters, History, and Antiquities of Stockholm- wrote one of teh most recent academic treatments of dying and rising gods in antiquity. He admitted in his book Riddle Of The Resurrection that the consensus among modern scholars-nearly universal-is that there were no dying and rising gods that proceeded Christianity. They all post-dated the first century" ~ [The Case For The Real Jesus, Strobel, Zondervan 2007 pg. 160] 

Lee then goes on to state that although Mettinger joins the scant numbers of scholars who believe that some pagan rising and dying god myths can be found that predate Christianity, he yet affirms that none of the myths that he is aware of offer anything that is either borrowed or paralleled within Christianity especially as it pertains to the resurrection of Jesus. 

Even though Mithras was a Persian cult dating as far back at 14th century BCE, it was also a secret cult and it wasn't mentioned the Western world (which includes Rome) until 66AD and was not introduced in practice to the Western world until about 90AD and was not further developed until 138-161 AD.   

The myths of Attis, Adonis and even Osiris in their current form, are after 2nd Century or are not parallel to the resurrection account found within the bible and are limited in nature to a seasonal harvest and seasons associated with farming. 

So the kind of parallels to make a connection to the biblical Jesus and his resurrection simply do not exist. 

Conclusion

It seems that the only controversy in the early Christian church was over how the date and time of the celebration of resurrection would be honored by those accepting the scriptures and also accepting Jesus as Lord. Remarkably enough it also seems from ample evidence, that the resurrection itself was never called into question, further affirming the fact that the celebration of the resurrection was an early church tradition and that tradition was based on the person of a resurrected Jesus himself.

It also holds that the very name of the Easter festival didn't have it's origins in the Anglo-Saxon fertility mother-goddess Eostre, but in the foundation of the biblical celebration translated from the Latin term  Festa Paschalia which is plural for the Paschal Celebration or Passover. 

In addition it seems that all historic attempts to place second century reinterpretations of rising and dying deities into the first century roots of Christianity fail. In any case, it seems that the substance of the celebration of resurrection itself was not in question, and that speculations regarding Easter being originally a pagan festival or worship of rising and dying gods and goddesses are unfounded and unsupportable by the evidence that exists.

Blessed!