....oh and there's a bunny. And colored eggs too.
What?
Somewhere along the lines information just got skewed. So now we celebrate a zombie by painting eggs and watching a creepy guy in a giant bunny costume encourage children to eat chocolate.
It wants to eat your soul.So where did it all come from? Why is there a bunny? What the hell is with the unnatural eggs? What does this have to do with Jesus? And why is it called Easter?
Lets start with cutting the crap.
The original date of Easter can be traced all the way back to pre-christian origins, in old Germany. Anglo-Saxon tribes would celebrate the vernal equinox (also known as the spring equinox, which this year, is only four days before Easter) by placing seeds on an altar and having feasts. This was to praise the goddess, Eostre.
"Woah woah woah" say my Christian friends, "I know this one."
Staying true to their roots, some modern Christians, determined to show how terrifying pre-christian religions are, know this tale about Eostre.
"The bare-breasted goddess Eostre is fabled to have descended from a painted eggshell. She was the goddess of fertility. Her symbol, the rabbit.
She required the sacrifice of infants. The people who worshiped her killed babies and dunked white eggshells in their blood. This is where we get painting eggs from. So when you paint your little eggs, you're symbolizing slaying children."
...not quite. Lets break down some facts and some fiction.
All that we know about Eostre is from Temporum Ratione or The Reckoning of Time by the Northumbrian monk and scholar the Venerable Bede (673-735). In it, all we find is that Eostre is the spring fertility goddess that was celebrated during this time of year (in fact the month was called "Eostremonat" or Eostre's month), and that feasts were held for her on the vernal equinox.
Thats it.
There's no descending from an eggshell, no rabbits, and certainly no killing of babies to dye eggs.
In fact there's no bunnies or eggs at all.
Unfortunately, there's as much anti-Eostre+bunnies and eggs as there is pro-Eostre+bunnies and eggs. So if you look up Eostre, most likely you'll get some cutesy tale about the rabbit being Eostre's familiar, and that her rabbits delivered eggs to the poor animals that couldn't reproduce. But that's not based in historical stories either.
So where did the bunnies and eggs come from?
Much like Eostre, everything celebrated in the spring represented fertility. People wanted lots of crops, lots of food, and lots of babies.
Just so they could grow up to be haunted by the Easter bunny. The plastic ones already have terror in their eyes.
The egg is fairly similar. Eggs symbolized new life and fertility, not only for the Anglo-Saxons, but also for the Egyptians, Persians, and Romans.
So isn't there anything Christian about Easter origins?
Actually, yeah. Lets go back to the egg. In Medieval Europe, eggs were forbidden during lent. Eggs laid during that time were either boiled or preserved. So once that was over, eggs became the main part of the meal. And of course Lent gets over on - Easter.
So to get things straight, in order to assimilate Pagans into the Christian faith and to be able to keep celebrating the holiday that they knew and loved, the took Eostre's name, changed it to Easter, kept the rabbits and eggs, and managed to also place it on the end of Pesach.
And now we understand.
Lets start with cutting the crap.
The original date of Easter can be traced all the way back to pre-christian origins, in old Germany. Anglo-Saxon tribes would celebrate the vernal equinox (also known as the spring equinox, which this year, is only four days before Easter) by placing seeds on an altar and having feasts. This was to praise the goddess, Eostre.
"Woah woah woah" say my Christian friends, "I know this one."
Staying true to their roots, some modern Christians, determined to show how terrifying pre-christian religions are, know this tale about Eostre.
"The bare-breasted goddess Eostre is fabled to have descended from a painted eggshell. She was the goddess of fertility. Her symbol, the rabbit.
She required the sacrifice of infants. The people who worshiped her killed babies and dunked white eggshells in their blood. This is where we get painting eggs from. So when you paint your little eggs, you're symbolizing slaying children."
...not quite. Lets break down some facts and some fiction.
All that we know about Eostre is from Temporum Ratione or The Reckoning of Time by the Northumbrian monk and scholar the Venerable Bede (673-735). In it, all we find is that Eostre is the spring fertility goddess that was celebrated during this time of year (in fact the month was called "Eostremonat" or Eostre's month), and that feasts were held for her on the vernal equinox.
Thats it.
There's no descending from an eggshell, no rabbits, and certainly no killing of babies to dye eggs.
In fact there's no bunnies or eggs at all.
Unfortunately, there's as much anti-Eostre+bunnies and eggs as there is pro-Eostre+bunnies and eggs. So if you look up Eostre, most likely you'll get some cutesy tale about the rabbit being Eostre's familiar, and that her rabbits delivered eggs to the poor animals that couldn't reproduce. But that's not based in historical stories either.
So where did the bunnies and eggs come from?
Much like Eostre, everything celebrated in the spring represented fertility. People wanted lots of crops, lots of food, and lots of babies.
Just so they could grow up to be haunted by the Easter bunny. The plastic ones already have terror in their eyes.So when thinking of something to symbolize such *ahem* productivity, the first symbol that came to mind was, you guessed it, the rabbit. Because well, the saying does go "breed like rabbits". So our first springtime symbol is the rabbit.
The egg is fairly similar. Eggs symbolized new life and fertility, not only for the Anglo-Saxons, but also for the Egyptians, Persians, and Romans.
So isn't there anything Christian about Easter origins?
Actually, yeah. Lets go back to the egg. In Medieval Europe, eggs were forbidden during lent. Eggs laid during that time were either boiled or preserved. So once that was over, eggs became the main part of the meal. And of course Lent gets over on - Easter.
So to get things straight, in order to assimilate Pagans into the Christian faith and to be able to keep celebrating the holiday that they knew and loved, the took Eostre's name, changed it to Easter, kept the rabbits and eggs, and managed to also place it on the end of Pesach.
And now we understand.
