Thursday, April 20, 2006

The Origin of Easter

The word Easter comes from the word Ishtar the Assyrian goddess of love and fertility. Ishtar was the symbol of love (of nature and mankind). During The Akitu festival, (which means building life on earth), the Assyrian king would initiate the union between Ishtar and Tamuz in temple ritual, signifying the coming together of two energies to give life. The Akitu ushered in the Ishtar Festival, celebrated by the Assyrians to signify fertility and fruitfulness, and the resurrection and renewal of nature.
During the Ishtar Festival, Assyrians would dye eggs in various colors and hang them on the temple walls to symbolize fertility and birth. They would also light candles in the temple and pray for a fruitful Assyrian nation. Assyrians would bake sweet breads in honor of Ishtar and to show the fruits of their harvest. They used barley and wheat to bake these sweet breads because those two plants ripened first.


Centuries later, the Celtic Hittites leaving Assyria and settling in Europe, took with them these traditions. They called the Spring goddess Estarte, and the fertility celebration as the Festival of Estarte. This festival spread to other European regions and the name of this festival became known as Easter.
Around the 7th century BC, the Jews started to commemorate the Passover pascha, a Jewish Holiday beginning on the 15th of Nissan. There is no doubt as to wherein lie this Jewish tradition, but for some reason it later came to be known as the day the Jews left Egyptian bondage, (which we realize now an exodus of the Jews out of Egypt never took place.)



Many, perhaps most, Pre-Christian religions in the Mediterranean area had a major seasonal day of religious celebration at or following the Spring Equinox. Cybele, the Phrygian fertility goddess, had a fictional consort who was believed to have been born via a virgin birth. He was Attis, who was believed to have died and been resurrected each year during the period MAR-22 to MAR-25. "About 200 B.C. mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican hill ...Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was reborn annually. The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection.
Wherever Christian worship of Jesus and Pagan worship of Attis were active in the same geographical area in ancient times, Christians "used to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus on the same date.
Around the second century A.D., Christian missionaries seeking to convert the tribes of northern Europe noticed that the Christian holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus roughly coincided with the Teutonic springtime celebrations, which emphasized the triumph of life over death. Christian Easter gradually absorbed the traditional symbols.