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What is “Easter”?

rizen1

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What is “Easter”?
from Truth or Tradition




Many Christians are aware that the word “Easter” does not occur in the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. As a matter of fact, the only place it can be found in an English version of the Bible is in the King James Version, which reads:

Acts 12:4 (KJV)
And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.


This passage describes Herod’s plan to have Peter put to death “after Easter.” The Greek word for “Easter” is pascha, which refers to the Jewish Passover festival celebrated from the 14th to the 21st of Nisan (Exod. 12:18). In the case of the KJV, it seems that “the Acts of the Apostles had fallen into the hands of a translator who acted on the principle of choosing, not the most correct, but the most familiar equivalents.” [1] In this case, the fact that Easter was familiar to 17th century readers explains how the word got into the KJV, but it does not help us understand that the Passover and Easter are two different things, and that what Acts refers to is the Passover, not “Easter.” Modern versions of the Bible all translate pascha as “Passover.”

What we know today as the Easter festival developed after the New Testament period. The New Testament does not mention a Christian festival in which the death and resurrection of Christ were celebrated, but what we do see is that some of the earliest Christians continued to hold the Passover feast. As late as Paul’s trip to Jerusalem in which he was arrested and jailed, which was in the late 50’s AD, or 30 years after the birth of the Christian Church, many Christians in Jerusalem were proud of the fact that they kept the Law.

Acts 21:20 (NIV)
When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law.


It was common for these “zealous” Christians to maintain their adherence to the Law by observing the Passover feast, which became a feast of commemoration. It was no longer a time of waiting for future atonement with God, but of remembering that He had provided the payment for the sins of His people through Christ. This was a very sensitive topic for early Christians, because not all Jews who converted to Christianity were comfortable with the idea that Christ had fulfilled the law and they no longer were required to keep it. The Church Epistles later given by the Lord to Paul made clear that participating in the Jewish feasts was no longer necessary (Col. 2:16-17). Paul had ruffled a few feathers by teaching things like “circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything” (Gal. 6:15). The charge that Paul was teaching converts to “turn away from Moses” put the whole city of Jerusalem in an uproar and resulted in his arrest (Acts 21:21).

While many Jews who became Christians retained the custom of keeping the Passover feast, it was less likely that the Gentile converts would be attracted to keeping a festival that was not actually required by God. As Christianity began to spread through the ancient world, Gentile Christians began to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ in a less Jewish way. Unfortunately, as was often the case with Jewish-Gentile disputes, many of the forces guiding Christianity were radically opposite of those desiring to maintain the Jewish roots of Christianity. Eventually, the celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ was infused with elements that have little to do with the Jewish feasts or the actual events of Christ’s death.

Date Controversies

For centuries, the date for the celebration of the resurrection of Christ was hotly disputed. The earliest Jewish Christians, primarily those in Israel, Syria, and the East, naturally wanted to celebrate on the 14th of Nisan, the date of the Passover. “Churches in Asia Minor (following the Johannine tradition that the death of Jesus occurred at the time of the slaying of the Passover lambs) celebrated the Christian Pascha on 14/15 Nisan, regardless of the day of the week on which this date might fall.” [2] This practice presented an interesting situation for the Church. Those Christians who maintained the Jewish date looked to the Jews to determine it. “In Judaism, the calendar is lunar. Each month, Nisan included, includes the phases of the moon, and the Passover falls on the 14th day of the month, that is, the full moon.


The word “Easter” was essentially adopted by the Church from paganism.
The determination of this date was a secret process jealously guarded in the Jewish Temple and later, synagogues, and it was according to this calculation that Christ observed the feast.” [3] In order to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ on the actual Passover date for a given year, the Church would have to rely on the Jews, something they were not willing to do. Not only would the Church have to acquire the date from the Jews, but the fact that the 14th of Nisan could be on any day of the week did not appeal to them either.
“The Hebrew Passover falls on any day of the week, and this did not suit the Christians. They wanted a Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday, proceeding to Good Friday and ending on Easter Sunday, commemorating the resurrection.” [4] Those Christians who fought to celebrate Easter on the 14th of Nisan were known as “Quarto-decimanians,” most of whom lived in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. “The Western Christians observed Easter on a Sunday, the Eastern in many cases were Quartodecimanians and preferred the 14th day of the lunar month. It was a foretaste of the schism that was to split the Eastern Orthodox Church from the Roman Catholic.” [5] The date for celebrating the resurrection was thus included amidst the great Christological controversies at the Council of Nicaea in 325. When Jesus Became God, by Richard Rubenstein, describes the atmosphere of the Nicene council.

“One underlying question was this: To what extent were the values and customs of the ancient world still valid guides to thinking and action in a Christian empire? Some Christians, among them were Arius and Eusebius of Nicodemia, had a stronger sense of historical continuity than others…By contrast, the strongest anti-Arians experienced their present as a sharp break with the past. It was they who demanded, in effect, that Christianity be ‘updated’ by blurring or even obliterating the long-accepted distinction between the Father and the Son.” [6]

In the same spirit of breaking with the past, the council unanimously decided that the Resurrection celebration would not be on the Jewish date, but would fall on the Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox. Interestingly, the Sunday celebration actually still allowed for the possibility that the Church would celebrate on the same day as the Jews. Once again, the East and the West handled the situation differently. The West established a rule that if the date matched the Jewish Passover, the Church would wait another week to celebrate. Conversely, the East continued to celebrate even if the day coincided with Passover.

To this day there is still disagreement concerning the date of the Easter celebration. The Protestant and Roman Catholic dates of Easter coincide, but, due to a different method of calculation, the Eastern Orthodox Church’s observance can be up to five weeks different than the Western churches. Desire for Christian unity has in recent years brought forth the idea of a universal fixed date for all Christian churches.

Pagan Elements

It is no secret that much of the modern Easter celebration has developed from pagan sources. The word “Easter” itself was essentially adopted by the Church from paganism.

The English word Easter and the German Ostern come from a common origin (Eostur, Eastur, Ostara, Ostar), which to the Norsemen meant the season of the rising (growing) sun, the season of new birth. The word was used by our ancestors to designate the Feast of New Life in the spring. The same root is found in the name for the place where the sun rises (East, Ost). The word Easter, then, originally meant the celebration of the spring sun, which had its birth in the East and brought new life upon earth. This symbolism was transferred to the supernatural meaning of our Easter…” [7]

Another common view taught by Bede, the English historian of the early 8th century, is that the word derives from “Eastre,” a Teutonic goddess of Spring who received offerings in the month of April. While both explanations are plausible, it is clear that the word “Easter” is anything but biblical.

The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion states that the custom of Easter eggs may be based upon ancient fertility cults (Indo-European), the Persian association of eggs and spring, or the fact that some early Christians abstained from eggs during Lent. [8] It is not hard to see how Christians could have adopted the egg as a symbol of the tomb of Christ, or even their new life in him. Further, the rabbit is pre-Christian and represents fertility due to its rapid rate of reproduction. The rabbit has not actually been adopted as a part of the “Christian” celebration of Easter, but it has become a common symbol of the day in many cultures. Much like Christmas, the celebration of Easter has diverged greatly from the original remembrance of our Lord’s death on the 14th of Nisan.

Balance

As modern Christians, we must decide how to engage a world that has lost interest in the true origins of our faith. Should we condemn modern holidays as pagan abominations? Or should we wholeheartedly accept our culture with an attitude of concession? As with so much in our modern world, we are to find a balance that allows us to exercise true spirituality and yet still engage the culture in which we find ourselves.

Imagine telling your loved ones at Christmas, “I’m sorry, I don’t give gifts because I’m a Christian.” Or on Easter, “I don’t celebrate the resurrection of the Lord on Easter because I’m not a pagan.” Clearly, there is some level of absurdity that can be reached by trying to avoid all the non-Christian elements of our culture. For example, in an article published by The Restored Church of God titled “The True Origin of Easter,” the author correctly identifies the pagan elements of the modern Easter celebration, but we believe he goes too far in his zeal to avoid them. Concerning sunrise services, he states, “Observing sunrise services is serious to God! He so hates this vile practice that he will ultimately destroy all who persist in it (Ezek. 9)!” [9] Can this be the same God who inspired the following scripture?

1 Corinthians 8:7 and 8 (NIV)
“…Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.


God has revealed that it is not an outward demonstration that He requires, but the inward dedication of the heart. We know that God did not raise Jesus from the dead on Sunday morning (it was actually Saturday between 3pm and sunset), but does God not honor the hearts of people who trouble themselves to get up in the dark on Easter Sunday, get dressed, and go to a gathering place to pray, sing, and affirm the resurrection of the Lord? We believe He does.

The Bible uses an interesting word to refer to our ability to relate to things it does not specifically mention—freedom (1 Cor. 8:9)! Remember, with freedom comes responsibility. It is not a sin to have a Christmas tree, or to hide some eggs out in the back yard for the children to find. Please understand, we are not saying that knowing the truth is not valuable, but we feel you can know the truth and still celebrate many modern customs. For example, a Christian can know that Christ was not born in December and that no early Christians had Christmas trees, and still have a Christmas tree of his own. He can know that Christ was crucified on the Jewish Passover but still show his devotion to the Lord in a Sunrise Service. What we as Christians must do is to teach ourselves and others the true freedom that Christ has given us. Many Christians are very blessed to take the opportunity that Easter provides to honor the Lord and his resurrection, and we think that is just fine with God (and the Lord Jesus).

As we consider what honoring the Lord will look like this season, it may be helpful to remember the words of Paul in Romans.

Romans 14:5 and 6 (NIV)
One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord.

God has given us freedom from all kinds of bondage. Do not let the true meaning of this Easter season be lost to you in a secular sea of eggs and rabbits (and chocolate—which early Christians did not have), but remember that much of the true meaning of the death and resurrection of the Lord is about the freedom we now have to celebrate that from our hearts, and pray and sing to bless and honor him, even if we do it on a day that is not actually “Passover.” May we praise the Lord every day, forever and ever.
 
The King Jimmy and Bishops 1568 translations use the word Easter the rest (15 or so I checked) use the word Passover.
Either way let us truly focus on the beautiful thing that is the resurrection of our Lord.
 
I hate the word "easter"!!!

It is only in English speaking countries that the (Christian) passover is called "easter". In other European countries it is called the equivalent of passover.

Easter was a pagan, fertility celebratrion celebrated at the spring equinox. We get the word estrogen form the word easter; estrogen being a (predominantly female) sex hormone.

I wish that all Christians would call "easter" the Passion weekend, or just Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday.

As for the comment made that: "The New Testament does not mention a Christian festival in which the death and resurrection of Christ were celebrated". This is incorrect. Jesus told us to observe the passover in the form of the Lord's Supper (Communion). Unfortunately most modern churches have simplified and stylised this festival so that it is no longer a feast, but a simple ritual. See Matthew 26:26ff; 1 Corinthians 11:23ff; etc.

:love:
evangeline
 
How about asking, What Does Easter Mean to God? Consider just a few facts I dug up!

Easter was "originally the spring festival in honor of the Teutonic goddess of light and spring known in Anglo-Saxon as Easter." (The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible)
The rabbit "was the escort of the Germanic goddess Ostara." (Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend)
The Easter eggs "were said to be dyed and eaten at the spring festivals in ancient Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome." (the book, Celebrations)
The Easter bonnet originally "was a wreath of flowers or leaves. The circle or crown expressed the round sun and its course in the heavens which brought the return of spring." The new Easter outfit developed because "it was considered discourteous and therefore bad luck to greet the Scandinavian goddess of Spring, or Easter, in anything but fresh garb, since the goddess was bestowing one on the earth." (The Giant Book of Superstitions)
The Hot cross buns: "Like the Greeks, the Romans ate bread marked with a cross at public sacrifices." They were eaten by pagan Saxons in honor of Easter. (Encyclopedia Britannica)
"There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament." (Encyclopedia Britannica)

To quote a saying you can dress up a pig all you like, but it is still a pig! Man can come up with all sorts of ways around the in's and out's of Easter, but what does God have to say in the Bible? Consider just a few quotes from the Bible.

In 1 Corinthians 6:14, Paul asks the question, "for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" (KJV)
In James 1:27, he wrote, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (KJV) Unspotted or unsoiled or unpolluted by the pagan rituals that seam fun and harmless, but the only religion acceptable to God is one that is not soiled by these pagan rituals.
Paul also wrote in Romans 12:2, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (KJV) Barns notes, comments: The word rendered conformed properly means, to put on the form, fashion, or appearance of another. It may refer to anything pertaining to the habit, manner, dress, style of living, etc., of others.

So it seams clear to me what God has to say about Easter!
 
Actually, Scripture does give testimony to Easter. In Acts 19:24-41, the people in Ephesus were wroshippers of the Greek God Diana, who was also know to the Romans as Artemis and also know to others as Astarte or Istarte, which the word Easter is derived. It even hints at the practice of 'Easter Eggs' in verse35 in saying this, ".....a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?" According to the tradition, something fell out of the sky in the shape of an egg and out of this egg Venus appeared (also known as Ishtar, Artemis, Diana, etc...).

It was off of these practices and beliefs, which dated before the time of Christ, that our modern, well-known festivals are founded.

The thing which gets me is that anyone who follows the Christ would ever have ANYTHING to do with performing or participating in any of these things when they are clearly in violation of the Lord's commands and ways.
 
more eggs = more hens

Actually, Scripture does give testimony to Easter. In Acts 19:24-41, the people in Ephesus were wroshippers of the Greek God Diana, who was also know to the Romans as Artemis and also know to others as Astarte or Istarte, which the word Easter is derived. It even hints at the practice of 'Easter Eggs' in verse35 in saying this, ".....a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?" According to the tradition, something fell out of the sky in the shape of an egg and out of this egg Venus appeared (also known as Ishtar, Artemis, Diana, etc...).

It was off of these practices and beliefs, which dated before the time of Christ, that our modern, well-known festivals are founded.

The thing which gets me is that anyone who follows the Christ would ever have ANYTHING to do with performing or participating in any of these things when they are clearly in violation of the Lord's commands and ways.

more of them eggs
you know what that means
more clucking hens!

I might be wrong but isn't easter a Catholic thing?
I'm not Catholic so I can't see much point to it all

it appears more and more to be a sacrilegious party than anything else and just because it is said to be about Jesus doesn't mean it is any good at all
interesting word that: sacrilegious
notice the i and the e are swapped around in what might say sac-religious - almost like turning something sacred un-sacred if it were possible

we need to be sure to not defile the Lord's sacred covenant with such dirty pagan and catholic filth
 
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Seems to me that a lot of this is missing the point. The Gospels and New Testament letters were written by men who grew up as devout Jews. The Passover would have been an important and treasured part of their heritage. One of the foundational element of their faith was that they were a saved people - saved by God from the tyranny of Pharaoh.

Read the accounts of the last supper. Jesus very clearly rearranges the meaning of the Passover around himself (Do this in remembrance of me). God has something greater even than the rescue from Egypt.

Is is surely right to continue to mark God's saving work - regardless of disagreement about dates or names such as Easter. It's not just the minions of death represented by Pharaoh that have been overcome. It is death itself.
 
I hear what you are saying

how about seeing it from another angle:
about the only thing we (Christians) were told to do as a 'religious' act was to take and break and drink in remembrance of Jesus and His death
add to this that the Body broken and the Blood shed is nothing to play around with or make light of
by having one day set apart as if more special and more holy or honorable than all the other times that bread is broken and the cup shared makes the other times to be lesser and therefore trashes them as insignificant compared to the 'holy' time of Easter.

Ir we were doing a Jewish thing then maybe a one off remembrance day per year could be lined up with Easter for convenience sake but that defiles the whole sacredness of it.
 
Unfortunately King James version translates Passover as Easter. Why? The King James was written by the divorce-approving Church of England for its own purposes, as commanded by King James. Easter and Christmas, two pagan festivals "Christianized" by the Catholics and carried over into Anglicanism and all the mother hen's protestant children..why should their own bible version not support it? This is a classic case of man changing the words of scripture to suit their own particular doctrine/beliefs.

Other cases is Matt 19:9 "And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery."

KJV changed what other versions render as "divorce" , into "putting away", which is softer and something different. Putting away is sending away your wife , not divorcing.
Because Church of England approved of divorce, it did not want divorce to be seen as prohibited in the bible.

Again, the KJV translates divorce into 'putting away' in Mal 2:16: For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.


There are more Churches and Christians interested in keeping the pagan-Christian festivals of Easter and Christmas than obeying clear and written biblical commands such as to desire prophecy (1 Cor 14:5).

Some say we need Easter and Christmas to remember what Christ did for us.. but actually we are supposed to remember this every Sunday, that's the purpose of the communion, eucharist, mass, Lord's table, whatever you want to call it.

So on Easter I like to buy some eggs or bunny rabbit and eat it all day lol its nice chocolate.

Accept Easter for what it is.. a Roman Catholic instituted tradition of man in order to win the hearts and minds of pagans and not upset them too much. But don't think it will score you any extra points in heaven by celebrating it or feel religiously burdened to keep it, there is no such command from the Lord.
 
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The Easter Bunny has noting to do with the Catholic Church
or any other church. At this time of year the Easter bunny
delivers chocolate eggs. You all stand corrected.
In fact I have witnessed the Easter bunny in a shopping centre.
He does exist and is secular by the way since he is only a magic
bunny.
 
Easter bunny is catholic tradition, it symbolises the pure Virgin Mary and the egg she lays is supposedly Christ.
 
evangeline,

re: "I wish that all Christians would call 'easter' the Passion weekend, or just Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday."


Shouldn't that be "Good Thursday" so as to include the third night?
 
Acts 12:4 (KJV)
And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after
Easter to bring him forth to the people.
You may be surprised to know that the word "passover" did not even exist before William Tyndale coined it for his version of 1526-31. His was also the first English Bible to use "Easter." Previosly the Hebrew and Greek were left untranslated. For example, in Wycliffe's Bible, which was based on the Latin, we find pask or paske.

An article which appeared in the Trinitarian Bible Society Quarterly Record states:

When Tyndale applied his talents to the translation of the New Testament from Greek into English, he was not satisfied with the use of a completely foreign word, and decided to take into acount the fact that the season for the passover was known generally to English people as "Easter"...Tyndale has ester or easter fourteen times, ester-lambe eleven times, esterfest once, and paschall lambe three times.

When he began his translation of the Pentateuch, he was again faced with the problem in Exodus 12:11 and twenty-one other places, and no doubt recognising that easter in this context would be an anachronism, he coined a new word, passover and used it consistently in all twenty-two places. It is, therefore, to Tyndale that our language is indebted for this meaningful and appropriate word (date of article unknown).


The English versions after Tyndale followed his example in the Old Testament and increasingly replaced "Easter" with "Passover" in the New Testament. When we come to the Authorized Version, there remained but one instance of the word "Easter" -- Acts 12:4.

It is precisely in this one passge that "Easter" must be used, and the translation "Passover" would have conflicted with the immediate context. In their rush to accuse the Authorized Version of error, many have not taken the time to consider what the passage actually says:

...(Then were the days of unleavened bread.)...intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.

To begin with, the Passover occured before the feast of unleavened bread, not after!

And in the fourteenth day of the first month is the passover of the Lord. And in the fifteenth day of this month is the feast: seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten. (Numbers 28"16-17). See also Mark 14:12, i Cor. 5:7-8, etc.

Herod put Peter in prison during the days of unleavened bread , and therefore after the Passover. The argument that the translation "Passover" should have been used as it is intended to refer to the entire period, is ruled out by the inclusion of "these were the days of unleavened bread." Scripture does not use the word "Passover" to refer to the entire period.

Peloubet's Bible Dictionary says:

Strictly speaking the Passover only applied to the paschal supper and the feast of unleavened bread followed (p. 486).

Therrefore, as the Pasover had already been observed, and the days of unleavened bread were in progress, and yet Herod was still waiting for "after pascha;" we can only conclude that the word must be taken in a broader sense. History in fact does indicate a pagan and Christian interchange with the word through the translation "Easter."

A. W. Watts writes:

The Latin and Greek word for Easter is pascha, whic his simply a form of the Hebrew word for passover -- pesach (Easter - Its Story and Meaning, p. 36).

Thus, the word came to be associated with both Christian and pagan observance. And it was to this latter that Herod was referring.

In an excellent study, from which some of the above has been drawn, Raymond Blanton explains (in quotations from Alexander Hislop) that Easter is Ishtar, the queen of heaven and goddess of spring:

The "pascha" that Herod was waiting for was evidently the celebration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, the Sun god. The sunrise services today are a continuation of that pagan worship.

"...the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing and which, in many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival, being observed in Palestine and Assyria in June. To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by complicated but skillful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity - to shake hands." (Alexander Hislop, "The Two Babylons," p. 105).


Continuing his quotation from Hislop, Blanton shows:

The term Easter is of pagan origin -

"It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven" (p. 103).

The connection between the word Easter and Tammuz is thus -

The wife of Tammuz was Ishtar (Astarte), who is called Mother Nature, who being refreshed by spring rains brings life. When Tammuz died she followed him into the underworld or realm of Eresh-Kigal, queen of the dead. In her deep grief Astarte persuaded Eresh-Kigal to allow her messenger to sprinkle Astarte and Tammuz with the water of life. By this sprinkling they had power to return into the light of the sun for six months. After which the same cycle must be repeated.

Thus, the goddess of spring or the dawn goddess is resoponsible for the resurrection of Tammuz. Easter is a joint worship of the two. This Satanic myth is interwoven with the sun's cycle of vernal equanox (dawn) and autumn equanox (sunset). (From "The Flaming Torch" Jan. Feb. Mar. 1987).


Dake's Bible adds:

Easter...is derived from Ishtar, one of the Babylonian titles of an idol goddess, the Queen of Heaven. The Saxon goddess Eastre is the same as the Astarte, the Syrian Venus, called Ashtoreth in the O. T. It was the worship of this woman by Israel that was such an abomination to God. (I Sam 7:3l I Ki 11:5, 33 II Ki 23:13; Jer 7:18; 44:18) (p. 137 N. T.).

This was the "pascha" that Herod was waiting for before releasing Peter. As an Edomite, he and his people had a long association with Babylon and her mystery religion (cf. Gen 14:1-4).
 
There is no evidence that Christians in the time of Herod observed an annual commemoration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, or any commemoration other than on the first day of each week.

To be truly "biblical" and "scriptural", is to not commemorate the resurrection of Christ at all. Those who say we should, if you could please provide the scripture or historical evidence that would be appreciated.
 
There is no evidence that Christians in the time of Herod observed an annual commemoration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, or any commemoration other than on the first day of each week.
Passover and Easter: two distinct and different events.

As I documented above, for the born again believers, it was about remembering the Passover, and the "benefits" of Christ's blood covering that were inferred on those who 'lived, moved, and had their being in Christ.'

Conversely, for the unbelieving pagans, it was about celebrating Easter, and the "benefits" of the commercial world that were inferred on those who 'lived, moved, and had their being' in the world.

We have our One True God. The pagans have their gods.

To be truly "biblical" and "scriptural", is to not commemorate the resurrection of Christ at all. Those who say we should, if you could please provide the scripture or historical evidence that would be appreciated.
This line of reasoning would also hold for one's physical nativity date i.e. birthday celebration, and other periodic rituals (e.g. Christmas, New Year's Eve, ad nauseum).

 
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