Is Easter Christian?

Ishtar, the Pagan Goddess
What is the meaning of the name "Easter"? Many think the word means resurrection of Christ. The name Easter is merely the slightly changed English spelling of the name of the ancient Assyrian goddess Ishtar, pronounced by the Assyrians exactly as we pronounce Easter. The Babylonian name of this goddess was Astarte, consort of Baal, the Sun-god, whose worship is denounced by the Almighty in the Bible as the most abominable of all pagan idolatry.

Look up the word Easter in most dictionaries and you'll see it is the name of an ancient fertility goddess of spring. In the large 5-volume Hastings Bible Dictionary, only six brief lines are given to the name Easter, because it occurs only once in the Bible. Says Hastings: "Easter, used in Authorized Version as the translation of 'Pascha' in Acts 12:4, 'intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.' Revised Version has substituted correctly 'the Passover'."

Apostles Observed Passover
The World Almanac, 1950 edition, page 704, says: "In the second century, A.D., Easter Day was, among Christians in Asia Minor the 14th of Nisan, the seventh month of the [civil] Jewish calendar." In other words, the 14th day of the first month of the sacred calendar, and it was not then called by the name of the pagan goddess Easter, but by the Bible name, Passover.

The Passover [a.k.a. the Lord's Supper], Days of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and all of the other annual feasts of God had been ordained to be kept forever (Lev. 23:14, 21, 31, 41), and were observed by Jesus, the early apostles, including all Jewish & Gentile converts (Acts 2:1; 12:3; 20:6, 16; I Cor. 5:7-8; 16:8).

How, then, did this pagan festival enter into and fasten itself upon professing Christianity? That is a surprising story, but first let's consider the true origin and nature of Easter.

Its Chaldean Origin
Easter, as Alexander Hislop says, in The Two Babylons, "bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the 'queen of heaven,' whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country."

The ancient gods of the pagans had many different names. While this goddess was called Astarte in Babylon, it appears on Assyrian monuments found by Layard in excavations at Nineveh as "Ishtar" (Layard's, Nineveh and Babylon, pg. 629). Both were pronounced just like our Easter. Likewise, Beltis, or Bel (referred to in the Old Testament) also was called Moloch. It was because of Israel's involvement with sacrificing to Moloch (I Kings 11:1-11, especially verse 7, where Moloch is called an abomination) and other pagan gods that the Eternal condemned Solomon, and rended away the Kingdom of Israel from his son.

In ancient Chaldean sun-worship, Baal was the sun god, Astarte his consort, or wife. And Astarte is the same as Ishtar, or Easter. Says Hislop: "The festival, of which we read in church history, under the name of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish (and Protestant) church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter. It was called Passover, and was very early observed by Christians...That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when Christ was crucified."

Hot Cross Buns and Dyed Eggs
But did you know that hot cross buns, and dyed Easter eggs also figured in the idolatrous Chaldean rites, just as they do in Easter observances today? Yes, these are pagan, too.

The "buns," known by that identical name, were used in the worship of the "queen of heaven," the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens, 1500 years before Christ (The Two Babylons, pp. 107-108). "One species of sacred bread," says Bryant, in Mythology, Vol. 1, p. 373, "which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun."

Read the entire 7th chapter of Jeremiah. Also notice especially verses 17-20: "Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven...that they may provoke me to anger...Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, upon beast...and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched!"

The Hebrew word for "cakes" (v.18) as Jeremiah originally wrote it is "kavvan," and really means "buns." The word "bun" seems, says Hislop, to have been derived from this word. This Hebrew word is used nowhere else in the Bible, except Jer. 44:19, where again the same idolatrous worship to the queen of heaven by these hot cross buns is mentioned. Every other place in the Bible where the English word "cakes" is used, a different Hebrew word was used in the original.

The origin of the Easter egg is just as clear. It is recorded in Davies' Druids, p. 208, that the ancient Druids bore an egg as the sacred emblem of their idolatrous order. On p. 207, it is recorded that in the mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, part of the idolatrous ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. Many cultures, both ancient and modern, include eggs in their religous cults.

Why do so many who profess themselves to be Christians dye eggs at Easter? Do they suppose the Bible commands this heathen custom? Because there isn't a single word of it commanded in the New Testament.

Jesus Christ never started or observed it. Neither did any of the apostles or other early Christians.

How Easter Crept into the Church

How, then, was this pagan festival injected into the professing Christian religion, as a substitute for an ordinance of God? Here is the quick, brief history of it, from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, article on "EASTER":

"There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers...The first Christians continued to observe the jewish festivals, though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed. Thus the Passover, with a new conception added to it, of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb and the first fruits from the dead, continued to be observed."

"Although the observance of Easter was at a very early period in the practice of the Christian Church, a serious difference as to the day for its observance soon arose between the Christians of Jewish and those of Gentile descent, which led to a long and bitter controversy. With the Jewish Christians...the fast ended...on the 14th day of the moon at evening...without regard to the day of the week. The Gentile Christians on the other hand [the beginning of the Catholic church]...identified the first day of the week with the resurrection, and kept the preceding Friday as the commemoration of the crucifixion, irrespective of the day of the month."

"Generally speaking, the Western Churches [Catholic] kept Easter on the 1st day of the week, while the Eastern Churches followed the Jewish rule." [i.e. observing Passover on the 14th of the first sacred month instead of the pagan Easter]

"A final settlement of the dispute was one among the other reasons which led Constantine to summon the council at Nicaea in 325. At that time the Syrians and Antiochenes were the solitary champions of the observance of the 14th day. The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday, and on the same Sunday throughout the world, and that 'none hereafter should follow the blindness of the Jews'." [The Catholic church now decreed that none should be allowed to follow the ways of Jesus Christ, and of the early Christian Church!]

"The few who afterwards separated themselves from the unity of the [Roman] church, and continued to keep the 14th day, were named 'Quarto-decimani,' and the dispute itself is known as the 'Quartodeciman controversy.'"

Thus you see how the politically organized church at Rome grew to great size and power by adopting popular pagan practices; how she gradually stamped out the true teachings, doctrines, and practices of Christ, and the true Church, so far as any collective practice is concerned. It was only by violence and bloodshed, at last, says Hislop (The Two Babylons, p. 107), that the idolatrous festival of the Chaldean goddess Easter came to supersede that which God had ordained to be observed forever!

True Christians Kept Passover

The New Testament reveals that Jesus, the apostles, and everyone in the early Christian Church (both Jew and Gentile) observed God's weekly Sabbaths, and all of His annual festivals as well! Take your Bible and carefully read Acts 2:1; 18:21; 20:6, 16; 1Cor.5:7-8; 11:23-26; & etc..

Eusebius, historian of the early centuries of the Church, speaks of the true Christians observing Passover [Lord's Supper] on the 14th of Nisan, first month of the sacred calendar.

The historian Gieseler wrote that "the Gentile Christians observed also the Sabbath and the Passover," during the latter half of the first century. But as the false paganized Church grew in size and political power, decrees were passed by A.D. 363, imposing the death sentence upon Christians found keeping God's Sabbath, or His festivals. Finally, in order to keep the true way of God, some of the true Christians fled the persecution in search of a safe place to worship their God. Another large portion of the true Church of God paid with their lives in martyrdom. They loved obedience to God more than their lives.

This world's ways have brought only sorrow, suffering, chaos, and death. God's ways are the only ways that lead to peace, lasting prosperity, happiness, joy, and eternal life.

Which way do you want for yourself?