No, Easter Is Not a Pagan Holiday

[Michie]

There’s a popular image on social media about Easter and Ishtar. Let's put this bad argument to rest.

There’s a popular image that makes its rounds on social media every year, claiming that the Christian celebration of Easter finds its roots in the more ancient celebration of the Germanic goddess Eostre, also known as Ishtar. The text in the graphic reads as follows:

This is Ishtar:

Pronounced “Easter.”

Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Her symbols (like the egg and the bunny) were and still are fertility and sex symbols (or did you actually think eggs and bunnies had anything to do with the resurrection?). After Constantine decided to Christianize the Empire, Easter was changed to represent Jesus. But at its roots, Easter (which is how you pronounce Ishtar) is all about celebrating fertility and sex.

St. Paul tells us, “Test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21). When it comes to this Eostre-Ishtar-Easter claim, we can conceive of a situation where cultural practices are “baptized” by retaining certain elements while letting problematic ones go. If that were the case with Easter, it wouldn’t be a big deal, just as it isn’t a big deal when we find it elsewhere. If the original custom was about celebrating fertility and sex, it is certainly not about that anymore. It’s all about the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Any Catholic will tell you that. So you could simply dismiss claims like these when you encounter them and not worry much about whether they’re true or not.

But some Christian fundamentalists, neopagans, and atheists will use arguments like the one from the viral graphic—albeit in slightly modified ways and for different reasons—as a stick to beat Catholics as we near our most important celebration of the year. I don’t like being beaten with sticks, especially when I know that my assailants are on shaky ground.

The truth is that historians know jack squat about “Eostre.” The only primary source we have in the entire historical record comes from St. Bede, an English Catholic monk. On this topic, he writes,

Continued below.

No, Easter Is Not a Pagan Holiday

There’s a popular image that makes its rounds on social media every year about Easter and Ishtar. Let's put this bad argument to rest.

www.catholic.com

 

[WarriorAngel]

Also the term Easter is just as likely to have come from German, which is to say, Eostereum. I think ... because well spelling.
To mean 'The week of white.' AKA our robes being washed by His Blood.

In fact, interesting that if we even tried to understand OLD English we'd be totally lost. It's not even similar to what we speak today.

Go Here ~~~> https://www.oldenglishtranslator.co.uk/ [single word]
or here ~~> Old English Translator ― LingoJam

 

[WarriorAngel]

In old English.
How are you? =
Tôhwega and indryhto [you
]

 

[prodromos]

There’s a popular image on social media about Easter and Ishtar. Let's put this bad argument to rest.

There’s a popular image that makes its rounds on social media every year, claiming that the Christian celebration of Easter finds its roots in the more ancient celebration of the Germanic goddess Eostre, also known as Ishtar. The text in the graphic reads as follows:

This is Ishtar:

Pronounced “Easter.”

Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Her symbols (like the egg and the bunny) were and still are fertility and sex symbols (or did you actually think eggs and bunnies had anything to do with the resurrection?). After Constantine decided to Christianize the Empire, Easter was changed to represent Jesus. But at its roots, Easter (which is how you pronounce Ishtar) is all about celebrating fertility and sex.

St. Paul tells us, “Test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21). When it comes to this Eostre-Ishtar-Easter claim, we can conceive of a situation where cultural practices are “baptized” by retaining certain elements while letting problematic ones go. If that were the case with Easter, it wouldn’t be a big deal, just as it isn’t a big deal when we find it elsewhere. If the original custom was about celebrating fertility and sex, it is certainly not about that anymore. It’s all about the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Any Catholic will tell you that. So you could simply dismiss claims like these when you encounter them and not worry much about whether they’re true or not.

But some Christian fundamentalists, neopagans, and atheists will use arguments like the one from the viral graphic—albeit in slightly modified ways and for different reasons—as a stick to beat Catholics as we near our most important celebration of the year. I don’t like being beaten with sticks, especially when I know that my assailants are on shaky ground.

The truth is that historians know jack squat about “Eostre.” The only primary source we have in the entire historical record comes from St. Bede, an English Catholic monk. On this topic, he writes,

Continued below.

No, Easter Is Not a Pagan Holiday

There’s a popular image that makes its rounds on social media every year about Easter and Ishtar. Let's put this bad argument to rest.

www.catholic.com

It's far more likely that "Eosturmonath" was named as such because it was the month immediately following the equinox where the sun begins rising (aka "easting") a little bit earlier each day until the peak of summer (in the northern hemisphere).

From my own personal studies, when I had access to a library of old and rare lexicons in Greece, I determined that "Easter" was most likely derived from the Old Teutonic German for "resurrection"

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

There’s a popular image on social media about Easter and Ishtar. Let's put this bad argument to rest.

There’s a popular image that makes its rounds on social media every year, claiming that the Christian celebration of Easter finds its roots in the more ancient celebration of the Germanic goddess Eostre, also known as Ishtar. The text in the graphic reads as follows:

This is Ishtar:

Pronounced “Easter.”

Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Her symbols (like the egg and the bunny) were and still are fertility and sex symbols (or did you actually think eggs and bunnies had anything to do with the resurrection?). After Constantine decided to Christianize the Empire, Easter was changed to represent Jesus. But at its roots, Easter (which is how you pronounce Ishtar) is all about celebrating fertility and sex.

St. Paul tells us, “Test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21). When it comes to this Eostre-Ishtar-Easter claim, we can conceive of a situation where cultural practices are “baptized” by retaining certain elements while letting problematic ones go. If that were the case with Easter, it wouldn’t be a big deal, just as it isn’t a big deal when we find it elsewhere. If the original custom was about celebrating fertility and sex, it is certainly not about that anymore. It’s all about the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Any Catholic will tell you that. So you could simply dismiss claims like these when you encounter them and not worry much about whether they’re true or not.

But some Christian fundamentalists, neopagans, and atheists will use arguments like the one from the viral graphic—albeit in slightly modified ways and for different reasons—as a stick to beat Catholics as we near our most important celebration of the year. I don’t like being beaten with sticks, especially when I know that my assailants are on shaky ground.

The truth is that historians know jack squat about “Eostre.” The only primary source we have in the entire historical record comes from St. Bede, an English Catholic monk. On this topic, he writes,

Continued below.

No, Easter Is Not a Pagan Holiday

There’s a popular image that makes its rounds on social media every year about Easter and Ishtar. Let's put this bad argument to rest.

www.catholic.com

Agreed, Easter is not pagan and does not have pagan roots.

 

[SashaMaria]

I think this is Lutheran satire video is funny:

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

I was wondering if LutheranSatire was going to do an Easter one to accompany Horus Ruins Christmas. Glad that Horus made an appearance. Although dang, Ishtar does have a nice rack and gams

 

[Michie]

I think this is Lutheran satire video is funny:

Hahaha! Great video!

 

[prodromos]

I think this is Lutheran satire video is funny:

Creepy Easter Bunny pics near the end

 

[JSRG]

It's far more likely that "Eosturmonath" was named as such because it was the month immediately following the equinox where the sun begins rising (aka "easting") a little bit earlier each day until the peak of summer (in the northern hemisphere).

From my own personal studies, when I had access to a library of old and rare lexicons in Greece, I determined that "Easter" was most likely derived from the Old Teutonic German for "resurrection"

Hrm... the word coming from resurrection seems dubious to me. Whether Bede was right or not about Eosturmonath being named after Eostre, it's hard to believe he'd get the name of the month itself wrong, given he was giving the names of the months of his own English calendar. And if Easter falls into Eosturmonath, it's hard to believe that the origin of the word Easter comes from anywhere other than the month whose name clearly matches it... unless you're saying the month's name itself derives from a word for resurrection?

I'm undecided on whether Bede was right about Eostre being the origin of the month's name or not. The fact we have no real evidence of Eostre's existence outside of his brief mention of her is reasonable evidence against the claim, and this is added to the fact that the previous month's name was supposedly named after Hreth, another goddess we have no evidence of. Bede could have simply been in error about the origin of their names; there are plenty of popular but false etymologies that are widely believed in, he might have just fallen prey to something like that. After all, him discussing the origins of the names of the English months was a brief aside in a work, not his main focus, and therefore possibly something he did not do detailed research onto.

On the other hand, we've lost a whole lot of historical documents and relics. Perhaps among them were things that attested to the existence of Eostre. And apparently some have argued for Eostre's existence via finding names (of places and people) that seem to possibly trace back to her, though I haven't had a chance to look into the arguments myself yet.

The "Ishtar" claims are nonsense no matter which way you slice it, though. One of the easiest ways to know someone simply does not know what they are talking about is if they ever try making that claim.

I do wish that in English, they had simply done what most of the rest of Europe did, and use the Greek/Latin word pascha or a variant of it as the word for the holiday, because then we would've avoided this issue. Heck, I think the Eastern Orthodox in English-speaking countries usually still use Pascha (at least the church formally does, the laity perhaps not so much), though part of that may be to try to differentiate it from the time Catholics/Protestants celebrate it, as it can differ in some years due to it being decided via different calendars.

 

[prodromos]

Hrm... the word coming from resurrection seems dubious to me. Whether Bede was right or not about Eosturmonath being named after Eostre, it's hard to believe he'd get the name of the month itself wrong, given he was giving the names of the months of his own English calendar. And if Easter falls into Eosturmonath, it's hard to believe that the origin of the word Easter comes from anywhere other than the month whose name clearly matches it... unless you're saying the month's name itself derives from a word for resurrection?

They all share the same root, the word "east" (or more correctly, the German "ost") which in many languages is synonymous with "rise"