White House Bans ‘Religious Symbols’ From Annual Easter Egg Decorating Event

[durangodawood]

Because the Jewish Calendar is based off of lunar cycles.

Hmm. Thats not a very satisfying answer, as Easter is very much about Jesus, who has no place on the Jewish calendar.

 

[AlexB23]

So dont have religious holidays with dates that bounce around from year to year.

What in the world does Christianity have to do with the moon anyway? This sounds totally pagan.

Well, Jewish calendars used the moon's phases to determine when events occur, as shown in the chart below.


Image source: Visual Theology – Teaching biblical truth with beautiful visuals (some website that has a bunch of posters and charts relating to theology)

 

[pgp_protector]

Hmm. Thats not a very satisfying answer, as Easter is very much about Jesus, who has no place on the Jewish calendar.

Jesus, who followed every Jewish Law has No place on the Jewish calendar?
Jesus who died as the King of the Jews has No place on the Jewish calendar?
Jesus who is the Lion of Juda has No place on the Jewish calendar?
Are we talking about the same Jesus?

 

[durangodawood]

Well, Jewish calendars used the moon's phases to determine when events occur, as shown in the chart below.


Image source: Visual Theology – Teaching biblical truth with beautiful visuals (some website that has a bunch of posters and charts relating to theology)
View attachment 345109

Sure, Jewish calendars are appropriate for Jewish events. But Christians for the most part, world wide, dont use that calendar. For example, Christmas is the same date every year - as youd expect for a birthday celebration.

So why not for a re-birthday celebration?

 

[durangodawood]

Jesus, who followed every Jewish Law has No place on the Jewish calendar?
Jesus who died as the King of the Jews has No place on the Jewish calendar?
Jesus who is the Lion of Juda has No place on the Jewish calendar?
Are we talking about the same Jesus?

Easter is on the Jewish religious calendar? I didnt know this.

 

[AlexB23]

Sure, Jewish calendars are appropriate for Jewish events. But Christians for the most part, world wide, dont use that calendar. For example, Christmas is the same date every year - as youd expect for a birthday celebration.

So why not for a re-birthday celebration?

I am not sure, but that is how we celebrate Easter. Biblical scholars estimate that the real Easter happened around April in 33 AD.

 

[Bradskii]

Well, Jewish calendars used the moon's phases to determine when events occur, as shown in the chart below.

This is all new to me. But I found this: 'The Resurrection, then, was observed two days later, on 16 Nisan'.

In any given year, wouldn't 16 Nisan equate to a specific day on the Gregorian calender? So pick a year when He died and you have that date fixed.

 

[Arcangl86]

This is all new to me. But I found this: 'The Resurrection, then, was observed two days later, on 16 Nisan'.

In any given year, wouldn't 16 Nisan equate to a specific day on the Gregorian calender? So pick a year when He died and you have that date fixed.

The problem with that is that a fixed date would only be on a Sunday once every 7 years, and Christ rising on the first day (Sunday) is a central belief.

 

[JSRG]

This is all new to me. But I found this: 'The Resurrection, then, was observed two days later, on 16 Nisan'.

In any given year, wouldn't 16 Nisan equate to a specific day on the Gregorian calender? So pick a year when He died and you have that date fixed.

No date on the Jewish calendar corresponds to a specific date on the Gregorian calendar. Nisan 16 this year corresponds to April 24. Nisan 16 last year was April 7. Nisan 16 the year before that was April 17.

The reason for this is because the calendars work differently. The Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar. It has a straight 365 days, to match the (roughly) 365.25 years in each solar year, and you have leap years every 4 years to make up for the quarter of the day. The Hebrew calendar, however, is a lunisolar calendar. Its months are all 29 or 30 days (it takes about 29.5 days for the new moon to become full and then return to being new, and so by having months of that length it will make it so you have a new moon around the start of each month). But this leaves you about 10 days short of the full 365.25 days in a solar year. A pure lunar calendar like the Islamic calendar therefore has its months never associated with any particular season (e.g. Ramadan cycles throughout the various seasons; it's in March this year, but was in April in 2020, June in 2015, August in 2010, October in 2005, and November in 2000). A lunisolar calendar like the Hebrew calendar solves the issue by having an extra month in some years. Just like how a leap year in the Gregorian calendar adds a day to balance things out, a lunisolar calendar adds a month to make sure the months stay in the same rough seasons of the year.

However, since the calendars are operating on fundamentally different principles (solar vs. lunisolar), there is never any particular date on one of the calendars that will every year correspond (or nearly correspond) to the same date on the other calendar.

 

[Bradskii]

The problem with that is that a fixed date would only be on a Sunday once every 7 years, and Christ rising on the first day (Sunday) is a central belief.

I was born on a Saturday but I don't celebrate my birthday on the nearest Saturday to the date. Why does it have to be a Sunday?

 

[Bradskii]

However, since the calendars are operating on fundamentally different principles (solar vs. lunisolar), there is never any particular date on one of the calendars that will every year correspond (or nearly correspond) to the same date on the other calendar.

Yeah, I know that. But if Jesus resurected in year AD 33 then the Jewish date for the resurrection will correlate to a specific Gregorian date in that year. Let's say that in that year 16 nisan was on April 1. Just stick with that date.

 

[JSRG]

Yeah, I know that. But if Jesus resurected in year AD 33 then the Jewish date for the resurrection will correlate to a specific Gregorian date in that year. Let's say that in that year 16 nisan was on April 1. Just stick with that date.

We run into some issues here. The problem is we don't actually know how the Passover dates in the 30's AD (assuming we could narrow it down to to a specific year) correspond to the Gregorian calendar. Whether the Jews added in the extra month on the calendar is simply unknown to us. One can easily find charts online of when Passover (and therefore Easter) would have been in the possible years for the Resurrection, but those are based on astronomical calculations as far as I can tell, and we don't know if the calculations back in the first century would have been what we have now--or, for that matter, if they might have added an extra month in even if it wasn't strictly necessary, because they didn't think the year felt enough like spring, even if Passover would technically be after the solstice. If we don't know the exact dates for Passover, then we won't know the date the Julian/Gregorian calendar corresponds to.

There is an additional consideration. It seems Christians saw Easter as a Christian continuation of the Jewish Passover. The Greek (and Latin) word for Easter is actually the same as that for Passover. Regrettably English's usage of Easter instead of a word derived from Pascha/Passover obscures this fact (it does retain the word "paschal" though), though the correspondence is found in various other languages where the words for Passover and Easter look similar, even if not identical as in Greek and Latin. So clearly a connection to the timing of Passover was desired.

Indeed, the practice for several centuries was to just have it be the Sunday after whenever the Jews celebrated their Passover, though this later came under criticism due to dislike of having the timing of an important holiday decided by those who didn't believe in it, plus accusations the Jews were messing up the timing and having Passover too early, which is why Christians moved to independent calculations designed to try to give them the same time as the Sunday after the true date of Passover (Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, meant to approximate the timing of putting it the Sunday after Passover (which is supposed to fall under the full moon after the spring equinox, though nowadays due to drift in the Hebrew calendar, Passover in some years is the second full moon after the spring equinox)).

 

[SimplyMe]

No date on the Jewish calendar corresponds to a specific date on the Gregorian calendar. Nisan 16 this year corresponds to April 24. Nisan 16 last year was April 7. Nisan 16 the year before that was April 17.

The reason for this is because the calendars work differently. The Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar. It has a straight 365 days, to match the (roughly) 365.25 years in each solar year, and you have leap years every 4 years to make up for the quarter of the day. The Hebrew calendar, however, is a lunisolar calendar. Its months are all 29 or 30 days (it takes about 29.5 days for the new moon to become full and then return to being new, and so by having months of that length it will make it so you have a new moon around the start of each month). But this leaves you about 10 days short of the full 365.25 days in a solar year. A pure lunar calendar like the Islamic calendar therefore has its months never associated with any particular season (e.g. Ramadan cycles throughout the various seasons; it's in March this year, but was in April in 2020, June in 2015, August in 2010, October in 2005, and November in 2000). A lunisolar calendar like the Hebrew calendar solves the issue by having an extra month in some years. Just like how a leap year in the Gregorian calendar adds a day to balance things out, a lunisolar calendar adds a month to make sure the months stay in the same rough seasons of the year.

However, since the calendars are operating on fundamentally different principles (solar vs. lunisolar), there is never any particular date on one of the calendars that will every year correspond (or nearly correspond) to the same date on the other calendar.

OTOH, we are petty sure Christ wasn't born in December -- for example, that isn't a time of year that shepherd's would be out with their flocks. They could have easily picked a date, or even a particular Sunday in March or April, and left it that date. Instead, we end up with Easter floating around and, in many years, even before Passover. For example, the Passover seder (allegedly the night of The Last Supper) is April 24 this year -- meaning Easter should likely have been celebrated April 28 this year.

 

[Bradskii]

OTOH, we are petty sure Christ wasn't born in December...

I thought that was why there was no room at the inn. It being Xmas and all. Busy time of the year.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Daily Caller retracts story.

 

[JSRG]

OTOH, we are petty sure Christ wasn't born in December -- for example, that isn't a time of year that shepherd's would be out with their flocks.

Without any hard information on when Jesus was born, one day is about as good as another., and that's just the date that got picked. That said, compared to places like Europe and the United States, Israel has much more moderate winters. It's not impossible they were out.

They could have easily picked a date, or even a particular Sunday in March or April, and left it that date. Instead, we end up with Easter floating around and, in many years, even before Passover. For example, the Passover seder (allegedly the night of The Last Supper) is April 24 this year -- meaning Easter should likely have been celebrated April 28 this year.

I covered these points in a post after the one you were quoting (in fact, it was the very post prior to your post), over here. As I said:

There is an additional consideration. It seems Christians saw Easter as a Christian continuation of the Jewish Passover. The Greek (and Latin) word for Easter is actually the same as that for Passover. Regrettably English's usage of Easter instead of a word derived from Pascha/Passover obscures this fact (it does retain the word "paschal" though), though the correspondence is found in various other languages where the words for Passover and Easter look similar, even if not identical as in Greek and Latin. So clearly a connection to the timing of Passover was desired.

Indeed, the practice for several centuries was to just have it be the Sunday after whenever the Jews celebrated their Passover, though this later came under criticism due to dislike of having the timing of an important holiday decided by those who didn't believe in it, plus accusations the Jews were messing up the timing and having Passover too early, which is why Christians moved to independent calculations designed to try to give them the same time as the Sunday after the true date of Passover (Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, meant to approximate the timing of putting it the Sunday after Passover (which is supposed to fall under the full moon after the spring equinox, though nowadays due to drift in the Hebrew calendar, Passover in some years is the second full moon after the spring equinox)).

To go into more detail on the Hebrew calendar, it's facing the same problem as the Julian calendar did, in that there's too many leap years which is causing it to drift forward, and over the course of centuries that drift starts to add up (note that while in the Julian/Gregorian calendar a leap year is an extra day, in the Hebrew calendar it's an extra month; as noted earlier, the Hebrew calendar is about 10 days short of a solar year). This makes it so that some years, when you don't need to do a leap year, it ends up happening anyway and thus Passover is a month later than it needs to be in those years. This is a known issue with the calendar. If left uncorrected, Passover will eventually turn into a summer festival, though it'll take thousands of years for it to get that extreme.

 

[Mockingbird0]

The midwinter date for Christmas originates with Christian storytellers of the 2nd century. They told the tale that Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, was not only a priest, but the high priest, and that his vision of the angel Gabriel (Luke 1.11) was on the Day of Atonement, around the time of the Fall equinox. This, together with the six-month difference between Jesus' and John the Baptist's ages (Luke 1.26) locked in a midsummer date for John the Baptist's birth and a midwinter date for Jesus' birth.

JSRG is right about the solar drift in the Rabbinic Jewish calendar. A proposal has been made to fix this: Rectified Hebrew Calendar

 

[BNR32FAN]

Note the White House issued a proclamation declaring tomorrow, Easter, as a ‘Trans Day of Visibility’” but bans religious symbols from the Easter egg hunt. They know full well what they are doing, replacing Easter with an anti-Christian message. They have had it with Christians and others who worship God.

Actually that’s not correct. Transgender visibility day has been on March 31 since 2009 and Easter is a floating holiday that doesn’t occur on a specific date. So it’s just a coincidence that they just happened to fall on the same day this year.

 

[Valletta]

Actually that’s not correct. Transgender visibility day has been on March 31 since 2009 and Easter is a floating holiday that doesn’t occur on a specific date. So it’s just a coincidence that they just happened to fall on the same day this year.

Joe didn't have to make the proclamation.

 

[dogs4thewin]

Mod hat

Remember part of the flaming rule is

• Offensive derogatory nicknames and egregious inflammatory comments about public figures may be considered goading.

Also saying that people who claim to be Christians are not ( to include claiming a group ( such as Catholics) are not Christians is also not permitted

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