jygabler@ucdavis.edu (Jason Gabler) (09/11/89)
Atleast Christmas has a decent name ;) .... Isn't the name "Easter" a decendent of the name of the Babylonian god Ishtar? I heard that in my church back home. For that reason we call Easter: "Ressurection Day". Does anyone have any information on the "Ishatar" business? Thanx, Jason Gabler DataCommunications,Computing Services UCDavis, Davis, Ca. ccjason@castor.ucdavis.edu jygabler@ucdavis.edu edu!ucdavis!jygabler [Webster's Collegiate says Easter, ME ester, from OE eastre; akin to OHG ostarun (pl) Easter; both from the the prehistoric WGmc name of a pagan spring festival. akin to OE east east However I think most Christians use the term Easter to mean the day when Jesus was raised. Presumably words mean what they people who use them mean, not what their Old High German roots meant 1000 year ago. --clh]
rock@sun.com (Bill Petro) (09/13/89)
jygabler@ucdavis.edu (Jason Gabler) writes: >Atleast Christmas has a decent name ;) .... >Isn't the name "Easter" a decendent of the name of the Babylonian >god Ishtar? I heard that in my church back home. For that reason we call >Easter: "Ressurection Day". >Does anyone have any information on the "Ishatar" business? EASTER The most joyous of Christian festivals, and one of the first celebrated by the Christians, commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. The English word "Easter" corresponding to the German "Oster", reveals the association of many Easter customs with those of the Teutonic tribes of central Europe. When Christianity reached these people it incorporated many of their heathen rites into the great Christian feast day. Easter month, corresponding to our April, was dedicated to Eostre, or Ostara, goddess of the spring. There was in common the time of spring and the triumph of life over death. The practice of eating eggs on Easter Sunday and giving them as gifts to friends and children probably arose because, in the earlier days of the church, eggs were forbidden food during Lent (the 40 days before Easter) and were therefore always eaten on Easter Sunday. But the custom of coloring eggs goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who practiced this custom during their spring festival. The Easter hare, or bunny, comes from antiquity as well. The hare is associated with the moon in the legends of of ancient Egypt. It belongs to the night when it comes out to feed. It is born with its eyes opened and, like the moon, is "the open-eyed watcher of the skies". Through the fact that the Egyptian word for hare, "un", means also "open" and "period", the hare became associated with the idea of periodicity, both lunar and human, and so became a symbol of fertility and of the renewal of life. As such, the hare became linked with the Easter, or paschal, eggs. In the U.S. the Easter rabbit is fabled to lay the eggs in the nests prepared for it or to hide them for the children to hide. Although Easter was celebrated very early in the church, its date was not established until A.D. 325 when Constantine convened the council at Nicea, where it was decided that it should be observed on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox, to be fixed each year at Alexandria, then the center of astronomical science. This means that its date may vary as much as 35 days! Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian Bill Petro {decwrl,hplabs,ucbvax}!sun!Eng!rock "UNIX for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" Matthew 19:12
conan@oreo.berkeley.edu (09/13/89)
With regards to Easter being descended from a word in German meaning an ancient pagan festival, it is interesting to note that in French, the word for Easter is Paques, which also is used for Passover. However, as I am sure Humpty-Dumpty would agree, words mean what you want them to. Pax et Bonum David Cruz-Uribe, SFO [Is English unique in the Pagan origins for the word? In Russian Easter is Pascha, i.e. Passover. --clh]
mls@cbnewsm.att.com (09/15/89)
> Is English unique in the Pagan origins for the word? In Russian > Easter is Pascha, i.e. Passover. --clh The only other exception I know is German, which of course does the "same" thing English does, Easter is cognate to German Oster. I would guess that some other Germanic languages do the same. But outside of these, I am unaware of any name for the feast that is not derived from Hebrew Pesach. Which itself is an interesting point; maybe only the Germanic tribes HAD any such spring feast for which the Christian celebration could be easily substituted. Certainly there is no Greek or Roman feast that can easily be seen as a "pagan model" for paschal celebration. There is some relationship much further back between the Jewish Pesach and the ancient Mesopotamian New Year festival, so that those who have to have pagan roots for these things can "trace" them there (this may explain the odd identification between Germanic Eostre and Mesopotamian Ishtar, which have no other connection besides a punning association of sound.) Incidentally, the Nicean Easter dating is not pure invention -- it was a compromise position in a battle of when (and what) to celebrate that goes back to at least the middle of the 2nd century (Irenaeus has some remarks on the controversy between Rome and the Asian "quartodecimans.") There were some theological issues in this dispute, but as far as I can see, the main problem was that Rome was unable to understand a lunar calendar and had developed its own dating with only the most tenuous relation to the facts. Rome eventually gave in to demands for a tie- in with the moon, but won its case for celebrating on a Sunday. And as long as I'm rambling on -- most Christian cultures name the first day of the week "The Lord's Day" (Dominica) or something analogous, not with the name of an astral deity. -- Michael L. Siemon I say "You are gods, sons of the cucard!dasys1!mls Most High, all of you; nevertheless att!sfbat!mls you shall die like men, and fall standard disclaimer like any prince." Psalm 82:6-7 [The Russian word for Sunday is literally "resurrection", which is of course liturgically correct: every Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection. --clh]
malton@csri.toronto.edu (Andrew Malton) (09/18/89)
This discussion about words for Easter suffers from a lack of data. Polish is a counter-example: they call Easter `great night'. The Byzantine Catholics do so too, at least it was called that in a English-language Byzantine missal I saw once. We should ask about early Christian communities not missionized by the Romans. Coptic? Ethiopic? Whatever language the Nestorian church used in India? [Any idea what the derivation of "great night" is? Sounds like it might be a reference to the Easter vigil. --clh]