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Easter was celebrated April 11

In Sweden and I believe also in other nordic countries easter was celebrated yesterday (the 11th April). Easter is always celebrated the day before the Easter day. I believe this is worth mentioning somewhere. --78.70.129.70 (talk) 16:13, 12 April 2009 (UTC) Easter was also celebrated the 11th here in the United States. I was under the impression that Easter was the second sunday of april... Confusion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.233.84.120 (talk) 03:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

A great deal of confusion on your part. The article is accurate regarding how Easter's date is determined. It is not always the second Sunday in April. Dogface (talk) 14:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposed major change - remove Christian POV

I think this article glosses over Easter's pagan origins as a festival celebrating renewal. It's a very christian-centric article as is. I'm proposing to bring the pagan origins up front and mention that the ealy church appropriated it as a means of streamlining conversion. --Eamonnca1 22:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

That's pseudo-scholarship. Easter is derived from the Jewish Passover. InfernoXV 03:51, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Easter is a Christian festival; that should be the focus of this article. By all means include sections on it being derived from Passover, and even on theories that it was appropriated from a pagan feast. But, this is an encyclopedia which must reflect that Easter is the most important Christian festival. If someone types Easter into the search box, I believe they should be directed to an article on Easter as a Christian concept. Dave 08:45, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Pseudo-scholarship? How do you explain all the pagan traditions such as the decorated eggs, the movable date, and the name that sounds strikingly similar to Eostre, the goddess of spring? I quote from the other Easter article:

According to Bede (c. 672 - 735), writing in De temporum ratione ("On the Reckoning of Time"), Ch. xv, "The English months" [1], the word "Easter" is derived from Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, to whom the month of Eosturmonath, corresponding to our April (Latin: Aprilis), was dedicated:

"15. The English Months.
"In olden time the English people -- for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other nations' observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation's -- calculated their months according to the course of the moon. Hence after the manner of the Hebrews and the Greeks, [the months] take their name from the moon, for the moon is called mona and the month monath.
"The first month, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; Februrary is called Solmonath; March Hrethmonath; April, Eosturmonath; May Thrimilchi;..."
"Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance."

What is secure in Bede's passage is that the lunar month around the month of April in the Julian calendar was called Eostur or similar; In Vita Karoli Magni Einhard tells, that Charlemagne gave the months names in his own language and used 'Ostarmanoth' for April.[1]

Those who question Bede's account of a goddess suggest that "the Anglo-Saxon Eostur-monath meant simply 'the month of opening' or 'the month of beginnings'." [2].

--Eamonnca1 17:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Quite simple. The Easter-Eostre connection only exists in English. The name of the festival in almost every other language is Pascha (French 'paques', Italian 'pasqua', greek 'paskha', slavonic 'paskha', and so on). This is derived from the Hebrew name for Passover. To suggest that the rest of Christendom derived its greatest festival from some obscure germanic goddess feast is Anglo-Germanic-centrism and unspeakably silly. InfernoXV 18:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
I thought it was common knowledge that many of the so-called 'Christian' festivals are converted pagan festivals. The Easter egg tradition has no biblical roots, but it ties in neatly with pagan festivals at that time of year that celebrated the rebirth that comes with spring. Just like Christmas is a re-packaging of the pagan festival of Yuletide that previously was a party in the middle of the depressing winter to lift everyone's spirits, so to speak. Decorated trees, turkey dinners, christmas puddings, all of these things have no biblical basis but are derived from pagan rituals that started in Scandinavia and spread throughout Christendom when the church authorities found that it was easier to tweak existing traditions for their own purposes than to eliminate them. To leave that out of an article like this is a bit of a glaring omission IMHO. --Eamonnca1 20:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
It's a common belief, but it's incorrect. There's no actual evidence for it, just a lot of wishful thinking on the part of those who dislike these holy days for one reason or another. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:30, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
The name in most other languages is from the Jewish Pesach/Pescha (Passover). The "movable" nature of the feast is from the Jewish lunar calendar. The decorated eggs? From the Jews. The holiday was an adaptation of Passover LONG before elements from some backwater Germanic nowhere were added to it. Dogface 22:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
[inserted for clarification] Dear 'Dogface', Easter eggs are 100% pagan. Being that I am, in fact, a jewish scholar I take offence to the fact that you would even consider saying that it had anything to do with Jews. Easter took NOTHING from Pasach. NOT the rabbits, NOT the eggs, NOT even the days! The movable date would be from a lunar based calendar, but the fact is, it's not based on anything lunar, it's based on a weekly occurance of Friday-Sunday. Sorry, Easter is NOT in any way jewish, and if you think it is, look closely at the orthodox seder's of the jews. Then look at easter. Nothing in common. Also, it is COMMON KNOWLEDGE that the christians of the 3rd and 4th centuries, and even on into the 5th century, DID IN FACT adapt ALL christian festivals from a pagan source, not the scriptures. The old "Jewish" days were considered "out of date" and too "jewish" by Constantine and his fellows, and the pagan festivals were adapted in christianity to smooth over the transition of the pagans. Doonak 21:09, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
You claim to be a "jewish scholar" (sic). List your degrees and universities, in that case. It looks to me like you are, instead, merely parroting a neopagan and/or hardcore anti-Easter (7th Day Adventist-style) party line, distilled from a lot of tenth-rate pseudo-scholarship that is credulously passed around in the equivalent of the back alleys of "scholarship". YOU are the one who claims that we merely take your word on things on the basis of being a "scholar", so cite your credentials. If you can't do that, then cite the written works upon which you base your claims. Likewise, the idea that Constantine "invented" Easter and all the other Christian festivals smacks entirely of hardcore fringe Christian and neopagan claims, nothing at all claimed by reputable Jewish scholars. I call shenanigans. Dogface 00:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
'Common knowledge' only in the sense of a popular myth. The reason why Christmas, for example, is widely perceived in the Anglo-Gemanic world as a repackaging of Yuletide is because the converted Anglo-Germanic barbarians transferred some of their old festivities to the new holiday, festivities that had nothing to do with the celebration of the holiday in the older, more civilised parts of the Roman Empire. Decorated trees began with Martin Luther. Turkey dinners were certainly not done in any rituals anywhere in the old world, much less Pagan Scandinavia - don't forget turkey only came to the old world after Columbus. Christmas Puddings again are an Anglo-Germanic bit of window dressing. Try to look beyond your cultural millieu. InfernoXV 07:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Dear 'InfernoXV' the christmas tree originated in Babylon, in the worship of Tammuz. The "evergreen tree" was cut down, decorated with silver and gold tinsel, worshiped, and then they sacrificed infants on top of the tree by burning. That is where the tradition of the "cherub" on top of the tree comes from. All of the Yule traditions that have ever been recorded are presently found in christmas. So I would like to know where you got your information, because it is completely false. Doonak 21:14, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I would like to know where you got your "information", because it's a load of second-rate conspiracy theory nonsense Dogface 00:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi. There is a proposed move regarding this (well, a hybrid solution), currently to be discussed at Talk:Easter_(disambiguation)#Requested_move. Please take the discussion there. Many thanks, --Rebroad 10:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The proposed move isn't really actionable until this page has had a formal notice of the proposal, by the way. Doops | talk 19:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

In response to all of the above: this page clearly has nowhere near enough coverage of today's secular Easter holiday; it definitely needs more. On the other hand, the pagan antecedents of Easter, although real and not really open to question, can't really be called "Easter" without the benefit of hindsight -- we can't impose a definitiveness and specificity on things that, although real, are somewhat nebulous. The word "Easter" really can't be taken to refer to anything other than the modern holiday -- that that holiday is only partly religious and that it has some pagan origins (as well as Jewish ones) are important points; but where do they belong? This page. Doops | talk 19:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

No, this is dead wrong. There are no demonstrable pagan roots to Pascha. Not even most of the secular customs can be shown to be pagan as such, except where it employs universal symbols with a very common recognized meaning. (But by that standard, the alphabet is also "pagan".) TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Pascha comes from the Jewish Passover, as Inferno mentioned. As Csernica says, it's not pagan.

agreed. easter was initally a pagan festival. we need a historian of pagan gods and relgions to add facts.

The history of the Christian festival of Easter is quite clear: it is the continuation of the Jewish Passover with focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is true that various pre-Christian spring/fertility customs became attached to the celebration of Easter, but, for Christians, the focus of celebration has remained unchanged for two millennia. Neo-Pagans have attempted to revive a number of documented pre-Christian customs and celebrate them, but they specifically are not celebrating Easter. Secular Europeans and North Amercians are basically left with celebrating some of the pre-Christian customs attached to Easter while rejected the central theme of the festival. I don't think this latter situation can adequately be summed up in the phrase 'Easter is pagan'. — Gareth Hughes 19:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I would oppose this proposition. Easter as a Christian celebration is totally independent in nature, origin, and observance from pagan traditions. I believe it is accepted scholarship that as the Roman Empire sought conversion of pagans to Christianity following Constantine, the Church incorporated some elements of pagan vernal equinox holidays into Easter (much as Christmas Trees were incorporated into Christmas) to make Christianity more palatable. This is, however, not Easter having its origins in Pagan traditions, but Easter coopting those traditions and bending them to the overall celebration of the Resurrection of Christ.66.57.229.78 16:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

This article should remain Christian centric as the word "easter" in its most common usage, refers to the celebration of Christian idea of the Resurrection of Christ. 66.57.229.78 16:36, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Eostre was a Germanic goddess. It is the root from which 'Easter' is derived. -- Easter is not exclusively a Christian holiday, and should not be treated as such. -- Wikipedia is about fact, not feelings.

Given that old (no longer celebrated) religious celebrations have Wikipedia entries, the full truth about Easter should be given. It should not be removed simply for fear of offending the religious, or God himself. 22:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


I agree. Wikipedia is supposed to be informative, and leaving out a good chunk of a holiday's origin and history simply to satisfy a specific religious group should not be tolerated. All entries should be from a third party point of view, not one-sided or based on opinion. With that said, I completely agree that the Pagan history of Easter needs to be included. Whether it is offensive to the christians or not, it is truth, and we all deserve to know the truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Only Seeking Shade (talk • contribs) 17:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

You could at least read the article. Easter certainly does not derive from a Celtic celebration, and there may never have BEEN any goddess named "Eostre." Such a goddess is mentioned in ONE ancient source, at least a hundred years after any such cult allegedly existed. Carlo (talk) 18:53, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I second Carlo. Check out: http://methodius.blogspot.com/2007/09/easter-christian-or-pagan.html http://methodius.blogspot.com/2009/04/eostre-making-of-myth.html A pagan weighs in - http://reallivepreacher.com/node/1422#comment-3901 Pennycake (talk) 19:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

"Christian theological significance" misplaced and misleading

The whole paragraph looks misleading to me. It does NOT discuss the significance of Easter in the Christian theology but a mere aspect of the Easter tradition namely passover and the death thus the whole paragraph looks more Good Friday than Easter. As it stands it debates a side aspect and therefore should really not be in the beginning of the article. Any of the authors around who could say in a nutshell why he wanted this paragraph here? --Kipala (talk) 14:05, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and deleted the whole thing. There is already far too much information on (for example) the calendar calculation, which really ought to go somewhere else. The Passover connection should go in the section on ancient Christianity.
By the way, I've changed the beginning to make it not so exclusively Christian, and made a lot of cuts. Cuts are important, because I feel the reader is in danger of drowning amidst "too much information." To the poster who doesn't like the Easter Bunny--well, like him or not he does seem to be one of the most recognizeable symbols. And no, I don't mean for him to displace Jesus, whose icon is below (though I wish I could find a better way to balance the two images). Er, isn't that the resurrection of the dead and the final judgement, rather than Christ's descent into hell?Dawud (talk) 03:44, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
These "by-the-way-changes" in the beginning have to be reversed. Easter was and is a Christian festival which - like some other festivities- has also been taken up by people outside this religious community. But the claim that "it has roots in pre-Christian Europe, as a celebration of the arrival of Spring" is at best something to be debated (which I see as a misleading statement) but surely nothing that belongs into the initial summary. There is simply no valid argument that an originally Jewish holiday depending on the Jewish calender with widely variing dates should be "an pre Christian European spring festival" which cannot be traced in history. That a festival roughly in spring time aquires customs relating to the environment is a different matter but this is true even for many customs of Pentecost which is still in late spring.
The paragraph on "theological significance" was beside the point and it is no harm that it went altogether, especially from its prominent position. --Kipala (talk) 13:36, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think replacing one POV for a different POV is constructive. The Easter bunny is German, and for some reason, those German traditions became popular here in the United States. The rest of the world has resisted German influence, however. The replacing material has a distinct American and secular point of view. What is the basis that this POV is better? Because Easter/Pascha is celebrated world wide, should the article not reflect a worldwide perspective in accordance with Wikipedia policy? Perhaps this secular point of view would be better suited as an addition rather than a replacement of the existing material. As far as the lead image is concern, perhaps Raphael's Transfiguration or other resurrection themed masterpiece would be more appropriate. Gx872op (talk) 15:12, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Gx872op, I appreciate your reversing the changes for the opening paragraph. I would like to comment on your views above. Your ideas about "Easter Bunny" are a bit off the point. "Easter bunny" is definitely not German (I am German) - it looks pretty American. It is an American evolution of the German Easter Hare (Darwin is chuckling from above). But the very old tradition of Christian "hare"-symbolism in art and allegoric teaching has not yet been taken up which connected to resurrection and was the historic base for the German Easter Hare tradition.
I don't see that the world had to resist an German Easter-bunny-onslaught; German emigrants brought their traditions to some places in the world.
Having spent a number of years in Middle East and Africa I don't agree that that Easter is celebrated world wide. Where Christians are few Easter is not much of a topic. Easter is a distinct Christian festival. It has grown beyond Christanity in cultures which where formed/influence by Christianity and where significant numbers of population have come to see themselves as not Christian any more. As it happens with strong traditions in such environments people who cannot connect any more to the original context are looking for some different explanations in order to continue with the festivals. As far as I see it is only Christmas which really has spread to cultures not strongly informed by Christianity (Xmas as a consumers festival in Japan, parts of Muslim countries etc..). The attempts to refer Easter to an alleged pre Xian spring/fertility tradition have been popularized heavily in the context of European secularization but have not base in real history (look into Eostre although it is still short on account of historical criticism of its alleged attributes).
When you talk about "addition" I agree that these changes in reception by people should be shown in this article. Showing e.g. how Easter has been incorporated into modern movements like Wicca should be included even if these involve only small numbers of people.--Kipala (talk) 21:47, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Here is the page as it was, before being reverted:
http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Easter&oldid=284783964
Couldn't we have BOTH Jesus and the bunny? Or if the rabbit is too German / American (obscure countries, I admit), I wouldn't mind replacing the bunny with a basket of Easter eggs (NOT those Russian ones that look like icons! Normal secular eggs). Anyway, I think it's important to balance the Christian elements with pagan and secular ones. --Dawud

The theological significant content related to passover is important regarding the calendar position and also Easter's place within the time continuum of theology. What's missing is information about why the resurrection is significant. I'll see if I can add that. --Ed Brey (talk) 16:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I added info about the theological significance of the resurrection. I also made the following updates:

  1. Removed "Christian" from the section heading. Easter isn't significant to any other theology so as to require qualification.
  2. Removed singling out of Paul, since other NT writers corroborate.
  3. Removed reference to unidentified "later writings".
  4. Put passover quote back inline with paragraph so that the paragraphs now separate the three main topics of the section.
  5. Removed "More importantly". This judgment call seems unnecessary and may not be verifiable.
  6. Removed qualification of "is often held" regarding the inconsistency. This implies advocates of a way to reconcile the interpretation with the gospels' text, but there is no citation of such support.
  7. Only called out specific translations when quoting. Changed the quotes referring to the literal translations in John to use YLT and added text indicating that the quotes are literal.

--Ed Brey (talk) 06:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Related to point 6 above, User:John J. Bulten summary for his 15:40, 8 June 2009 edit says, "Theological significance: Restoring (again) important nuance, lost in what looks like an unrelated reversion by Ed Brey 13 May; chronology of Jesus says "apparent inconsistencies", in support". The concrete language was intentional, and I restored it. Chronology of Jesus states generally that there are apparent inconsistencies between the gospels regarding the time of death, which is a good way to summarize the matter when dealing with all interpretations generally. However, the context in the paragraph present paragraph in Easter is dealing only with a single interpretation of the texts. For that narrower context, we don't have any reliable sources that state that the gospels are consistent given that interpretation. All indications are that there is no argument against saying that the if one assumes that interpretation, he will find the gospels inconsistent. --Ed Brey (talk) 17:25, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Affirm POV dispute

The POV tag was originally due to allegations of "Christian bias", which I would agree with weakly, but here's a few more issues, just from the lead, that strike me as POV:

  1. Why say most important feast based on one source when other sources would say "Christmas"?
  2. "On the third day after" brings in the day-of-week chronology of Jesus debate over what this ambiguous phrase means.
  3. Not all Christians celebrate Good Friday and a sizable chunk do not celebrate Maundy Thursday. Ditto for several other terms, such as Lent, where the subset of observers should be stated, or the provenance of terms like "Octave" should be named.
  4. 40/50-day "traditional" or "official" season should be sourced and "Easter Season" should be in quotes as a (church) term (who?) rather than a (Biblical) concept.
  5. Calculation sentence should say "a formula approximating", because equinox and full moon are mathematically and not astronomically calculated.
  6. Western calculation is stated as definitive ("the" date of Easter), displacing the Eastern alternative before it is mentioned.
  7. Relationship to Passover should be expanded, including mentioning IN LEAD: Easter's alternate name Pasch or Pascua (from Pesach; and Pascha redirects here?); similar customs, such as annual agape feast related to (arising from?) seder; institution of communal remembrance by Jesus fully within Jewish context of Passover (if not a seder itself); reference to Levitical festival of First Fruits (now dated in Judaism to avoid always being Sunday); and actual dating of First Fruits as in Lev., i.e., "day after Sabbath" following 14th day of 7th month, i.e., first spring month (first spring month was later legislated by Sanhedrin by math or astro).
  8. Agree that secular events need more sourcing and more lead space.
  9. Why some denoms don't celebrate (alleged pagan origin, Hebrew-roots dating, anti-Romanism, etc.) should be stated, as it's a major controversy associated with Easter and thus lead-worthy.

Then we jump right in with "The Christian tradition, based on New Testament and later writings, links the Last Supper with Passover." A couple problems here are that: this first section, on significance of Easter, starts out with this linkage (as if basic to Easter) and only later throws "Easter" in as if it not only is already there in the linkage but also is named in 1 Cor., yet "Easter" does not appear in the Bible at all (except in a single KJV mistranslation of "pascha"); and there is NO source in this section for the only 2 claims made for Easter, that it commemorates either crucifixion or resurrection; and if nobody called it "Easter" for a century, we ought to say that it was something else before it was called "Easter"; so the reference to the Biblical customs itself is a bit of a diversion. Even trying to fix this sentence of its (in this case skeptical) bias would only yield something as tame and unadvancing as "Christian tradition, beginning with the New Testament and patristic writings, places great stress on Jesus's Last Supper, death, and resurrection having occurred during Passover week." Reading on, I am told that "anastase" means "upstanding", which is a real distractor, because who would ever guess from that that it means "resurrection", or (literally at least) "rising back", not "standing up" (let alone "upstanding"); or that the concept was so important to Paul that he was interpreted by idol-worshipers as promoting the worship of Anastasia? Anyway, this is just "a-start" on fixing these issues. Apologies for those points that have neat references in archives or above that you can speedily point me to. JJB 17:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Nice try, JJB but that is a bit much I see now way how to discuss this plethora of points all lumped together. Just for omne point: No, the passover-theme should NOT be expanded razher concentrated; it takes too much space anyway. Context passover-Last Supper has space elsewhere. Last Supper is not really an Easter topic unless you silently accept a theological notion of Easter as a festival period including the time from at least Maundy Thursday until ... Easter Monday? --Kipala (talk) 18:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Let's sharpen the focus of this discussion by bearing in mind Wikipedia's primary function as a reference work. As such, anybody consulting a Wikipedia article on Easter would be expecting to learn:
  1. a)What the meaning and significance of Easter is
  2. b)the historical development of Easter
  3. c) the customs associated with the holiday.
  4. and d)the differing perspectives on Easter across denominational lines.
  1. We cannot discuss any of these things adequately without discussing Easter's importance as a Christian holiday and the broader season in which Easter Sunday is situated. For a few Wiki editors to decide by fiat that Easter is now a secular holiday and its article should be shorn of its Christian content is akin to deciding that St. Patrick's Day is a holiday celebrated primarily by drunken American frat boys and focused accordingly. Anybody researching St. Patrick's Day on Wikipedia would be poorly served by such an article; likewise, anybody researching Easter would be poorly served to find an article stating that "Easter is a holiday observed by some atheists with children who hide Easter baskets laden with eggs and chocolates behind the drapes of their homes." Such an article would be pointless and brief, but unfortunately it would fit the polemical agenda of too many Wiki editors.69.212.53.213 (talk) 19:52, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
The answer to # 1 seems to be, because Orthodox Christians have been editing the article (see the lead image), and they think Easter is more important than Christmas. (My edits, which were roundly criticized as anti-religious, said it was "one of the most important Christian holidays, rivalled only by Christmas" or some such.)
That Christ rose "on the Third Day" is in the creeds. As to why this was thought to count as three days, there are several possibilities (maybe the J-Man was crucified on Thursday), but..does this really need to be here?
I agree with the proposed historical approach, which would solve the problem of Western > Eastern calculations (the "Eastern" being older). But a paragraph on "the meaning of Easter" is going to bring us to the same controversy as here. To me, it is as much about eggs and the bunny, and I am baffled that anyone would downplay these internationally-recognized (if not necessarily internationally-observed) elements.
One difficulty is that in English and German, "Easter" has taken on the name of what seems to be...is it still considered a pagan goddess? Something like that...whereas in other languages, it has the same name as Passover. Yes, the ancient Christian holiday veered off from Passover. But the section that used to be there went on and on about the theological significance of Passover, and Christ's saving death, which is too much IMHO. No, the Bible would not be discussing the holiday (as opposed to its origins), which is why there is so much attention paid to the liturgical churches which created the church calendar.
St. Patricks Day is, in fact, more often a drunken bacchannal than a celebration of the titular saint, or even Ireland, and Mardi Gras actually has little to do with Lent. This is an important social fact, which may be bad religion, but it is the reason why these holidays are more important than the Feast of the Dormition of the Holy Prepuce.118.165.205.226 (talk) 22:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC) <--Sorry, it's Dawud again. I never know if I'm logged in or not.

I went and fixed #2 by changing "third day after" to "third day from", which allows sufficient ambiguity to cover the ground. The others I may or may not fix at convenience; some are equally simple, if the fixes stand. However, the problem is that this is a highly visible article and thus important nuances are lost in the hubbub. The problem is not heathen vs. holy, because neutral coverage of both facets of the same celebration works itself out over time (other than chronic tension about weighting). A bigger problem is that an abundance of folk religion leads people to think that certain POV statements are actually neutral because they've heard them enough times. But the regulars should take WP:LEAD (more) to heart. JJB 21:03, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

What source says that Christmas is more important than Easter? Easter is the most important day on the Christian calendar according to the Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, everyone. Carlo (talk) 00:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

easter bunny!

Why is there not even a mention of the Easter Bunnyon this page!?68.9.130.10 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:44, 22 July 2009 (UTC).

Because we haven't seen one, and don't have any reliable reports. Does it appear only in Australia? Dbfirs 21:24, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
You're confusing the Easter bunny with Jesus (common mistake). Jesus only appears in Australia, the easter bunny appears everywhere. CapitalElll (talk) 06:27, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Dates of Easter Sunday

The Article says (correctly) "Gregorian Easter can fall on 35 possible dates - between March 22 and April 25 inclusive".

There are 36 possible Ordinal Dates : yyyy-81 to yyyy-116.

There are 6 possible Week Numbering Dates, yyyy-W12-7 to yyyy-W17-7; and if Easter were to become Fixed, yyyy-W15-7 would seem most suitable.

Those are, of course, in international (ISO 8601) notation; they seem worth mentioning.

82.163.24.100 (talk) 10:22, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

"If Easter were to become..." is speculation and does not belong in the article. →Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 13:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Easter cannot be specified using ISO 8601 ordinal dates or week notation unless you can find some published source using those methods. — Joe Kress (talk) 07:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Should this link be included somewhere in the easter article? http://www.easterau.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.184.99.144 (talk) 08:38, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

That article appears not to have been peer-reviewed. It contains numerous errors (e.g., Persian is an Indo-European language, not a semitic one) and typos, so that it is not possible to independantly verify the conclusions. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 03:12, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't find where Persian was called an Indo-European language in that article. I seems to have been used by other sources. http://www.textus-receptus.com/w/mediawiki-1.13.2/index.php/Article:_Why_We_Should_Not_Passover_Easter_%28Part_1%29_by_Nick_Sayers and http://www.christian-witness-ministries.com/newsletters/cetf43.pdf also a second part.. http://www.christian-witness-ministries.com/index.php/component/content/article/41-mar-2009/120-why-we-should-not-passover-easter-part-2.html 124.184.99.144 (talk) 18:46, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not, and that's the problem. To quote the article, "he knew a great deal about Hebrew’s sister languages - like Arabic, Persian, Syriac, Aramaic, Coptic, etc. ". The article seems to be quite low-quality--with a blank references section--and therefore unsuitable as a source, despite being correct for the most part. -Ben (talk) 19:54, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Ben is correct. Persian is an Indo-European language, but the cited article seems to group it with simitic languages. That's just one example of the many sloppy errors that detract from the article's credibility and render it unfit as a source to be cited on Wikipedia. The thesis of the article may be valid, but one wonders, if the author is sloppy about things like that, is he sloppy about more important parts of the research as well? Ruckabumpkus (talk) 21:10, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. Though the author's thesis is correct, the article's flaws are more grievous than its incorrect details like the classification of Persian or Coptic, or the etymology of auferstehen: the article doesn't mention Bede once! It's concerned entirely with the KJV translators. That's fine, but that concern seems to blind the author to popular usage of "Easter" before the seventeenth century. Since that popular usage is the source of pagan origin claims, it really doesn't have much to contribute to an encyclopedia article about Easter and the controversy over its origins. If it were better sourced, it might be appropriate for articles on the KJV, however. Ben (talk) 03:21, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
A glance at that link should reveal that it is completely useless for anyone not solely interested in a poorly written and laughably researched propaganda piece. I am frankly surprised that it has even received more than an "lol" in response to its proposed usage. It has no value anywhere on Wikipedia. :bloodofox: (talk)

Easter and Passover

The lede of this article says that "Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover by much of its symbolism, as well as by its position in the calendar." However, the article doesn't seem to explain this connection very well, and many of the editors of Passover seem to be implying that Easter doesn't have a special connection with Passover. See Talk:Passover#What precisely is that spiel about Easter in aid of?. If Easter is really as strongly connected to Passover as the lede seems to imply, the article should explain this better and IMO, there should be a section in Passover#Influence about this very notable Christian holiday. If not, the lede should be changed. What are your thoughts? --AFriedman (talk) 17:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

For starters, the Last Supper was the Passover feast. Both Passover and Easter are determined by a formula having to do with the first full moon after the vernal equinox (though not the identical formula). Notice that we are in the midst of Passover week right now, although they do not always coincide. See the various links within Paschal for further info. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:07, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
The relationship of Easter (the Christian celebration, not the pagan one) to Passover is complex. First, the events Easter celebrates happened in the context of a Passover, and so the church's method of computing the date for Easter is derived from, but not the same as, the Jewish date for Passover. Christians regard the events of Good Friday through Easter as superceding the events celebrated on Passover, calling it a "new Exodus." Jesus is referred to as the "Lamb of God," meaning that the sacrifice of his life replaces the Passover lamb and other animal sacrifices prescribed in the Hebrew Bible. And in most languages, the name for the celebration is derived from Hebrew via Greek (as the article explains). On the other hand, there is very little in the way Christians celebrate Easter that bears any outward resemblance to Passover. For instance, there is no seder, and unlevened bread has no significance. Unlike Passover, the celebration of Easter is not seen as commanded by God but as a human invention, which can be changed and adapted over time. No special foods or rituals are prescribed, but customs vary from place to place. (E.g., where I'm from, it's common to have ham for Easter dinner, in celebration of the fact that Christians are not bound by any religious dietary rules.) Ruckabumpkus (talk) 22:23, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Jesus took the matzo and wine from the Seder, metaphorically (or so He thought) referring to them as His body and blood, and asked His disciples, "Do this in remembrance of me." As you say, implying a replacement of Pesach with Resurrection Day. The Church(es) took some steps to make their formula(s) not necessarily coincide with the Pesach week, in part to distance themselves from Judaism, and in part to ensure that the celebration of the Resurrection always occurs on a Sunday. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:33, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
And obviously, eggs and rabbits have nothing to do with the Resurrection directly, although as symbols of renewal of life, they loosely connect with both the Resurrection and with the pagan "rites of spring". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:35, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
And Christians disagree about what Jesus meant when he said the bread is his body and the wine is his blood, but that's part of a whole nother discussion. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 22:50, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Perhaps the information in this discussion could be added and clarified in the article. For example, as of now the easter ham is mentioned briefly but its significance is not. Baseball and Ruckabumpkus, do you have sources for the information you just gave? --AFriedman (talk) 14:46, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to find "sources" for some of these things, since they're common knowledge among my Christian friends where I live. Some of it you can find in the New Testament (e.g., Jesus as the "Lamb of God" is in John 1, etc.; and the fact that Christians are neither commanded nor forbidden to observe any particular festivals is in Romans 14). I wouldn't know where to look for documentation about things like the "Easter ham," which is a relatively minor thing anyway. Maybe it originated as celebration of freedom from dietary laws, or maybe people who liked having ham for a family banquet attached that meaning to it, or maybe it's a holdover from some pagan observance that involved sacrificing a boar that got reinterpreted when Christianity took hold-- there may be no way to tell. Some Christians I've known who come from other parts of the world think our Easter ham is weird and insist on roast lamb, because Jesus is the Lamb of God. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 20:31, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Slavic Section

I do not know all of the languages referenced in the Slavic Section, but the etymologies listed are CERTAINLY incorrect. The prefix {V#Z} in slavic languages generally means to rise. Hence even though vzem in modern Croation /resembles/ vzesti (to take) it is not genetically related to it. It literally means to 'go up' from the old-slavonic roots. This must be changed by a competent slavic lexicographer. As as start. Here is Fasmer's commentary:

Ближайшая этимология: др.-русск., ст.-слав. въскрьсениЉ ўnЈstasij (Супр., Euch. Sin.), въскрkшэниЉ -- то же (Супр.). Из "день воскресения (из мертвых)" получилось знач. "воскресный, нерабочий день". Первонач. в этом знач. употреблялось недеґля, откуда понедеґльник. Ввиду наличия вос- (а не вс-) заимств. из цслав. (http://vasmer.narod.ru/p115.htm) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.212.115.194 (talk • contribs) 02:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC) when jeues died thats the day we cebate $ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.107.234.229 (talk) 20:26, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I fully endorse this opinion. It is absurd and anachronistic to link an Old Church Slavonic term to modern Croatian. It is commonly accepted in the scholarly community that the literary language of St. Cyril and Methodius has at its base a mid-ninth century Slavic dialect of Salonika region. The word въскрьсeньe is derived from the verb въскрьснѫти (rise again, be resurrected) and it is a perfectly good Old Church Slavonic word.
(Source: Old Church Slavonic glossary, compiled by Horace G. Lunt, Harvard University 1959, rev. 1969). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.126.224 (talk) 01:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of comments

A post by me to this talk page was deleted by Amatulic on March 31 2010. I was objecting to the Christian POV of this article which has to do with ARTICLE CONTENT. Perhaps this editor felt my comments were uncivil, but this is not grounds to delete talk page posts. WP:TPO states that removing harmful posts "generally does not extend to messages that are merely incivil." My comments are not directed at any individual editor and are therefore not a personal attack (WP:RPA). WP editors should have the right to criticize the POV of an article on the talk page without fear of being censored. Consider: If I wrote this article was dominated by "heathens," would that be deleted? Or is this another example of Christian censorship. 94.222.211.17 (talk) 19:27, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Calm yourself, first, then state what you want changed. NJMauthor (talk) 21:44, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I stand by my deletion of the comments, as discussed on my talk page, per WP:REFACTOR, and per WP:SOAP. I am also changing the heading of this section (re-added in violation of WP:POINT) to something less inflammatory and more germaine to this section. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:49, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Calvinists, Puritans, et. al. originally against Easter?

It seems that some Protestant groups were originally opposed to the celebration of Easter (& Christmas) because they believed them to be "too Catholic" (and thus "too pagan"???). I am assuming that this included all or many of the Puritans, Separatists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and other Calvinists who were the majority or plurality of the first European settlers in New England (USA); is this maybe why, even to this day, most US companies and corporations do not acknowledge Easter even as a deferred holiday (and if they are normally open for business on Sundays, remain so on Easter)? Or is there some other reason, such as it not being required by federal law or perhaps it was bargained away early on by the labor movement? I think if anyone can find information about this, it should be included in this article. Shanoman (talk) 06:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you'll find that the Puritans were opposed to Christmas but not Easter. Easter coincides with the Passover, which is one of the three pilgrimage feasts of the Law of Moses. That would have been important for the Puritans in legitimating Easter, as they were Biblical literalists and Sunday sabbatarians. By contrast, Christmas would have been viewed by the Puritans as an innovation of unknown provenance. Not only is Christmas lacking a strict Biblical sanction as a celebration, but, in those days, Christmas was celebrated by English-speaking peoples in a manner very similar to a cross between the modern New Year's Eve party (before the current sensitivity to drinking and driving) and the stereotypical modern office Christmas party (before concerns about sexual harassment suits moderated corporate behavior). The family-friendly Christmas celebration of today is a product of the Victorian era. Bob99 (talk) 22:22, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Who says Easter is pagan?

Who says Easter is pagan. Easter simply comes from East which is German Ost. So are ALL words relating to East or Ost evil? That is not correct, because, I am sure there are 100's of words related to East, some good some bad. If I took the name ALLAH and made the same etymological fallacy, then all people called ALLan are evil, and all words like ALarm are Islamic and people need to repent of ALLigator worship and ALien demon worship when they use the word ALmighty.. Or Jesus SOUNDS like Zeus so they are connected somehow... it is a joke how these conncectiona are made..

Might sound stupid, but that is really the crux of the whole so called Pagan Easter association. Look at just one example, German Oster (which means Easter) is contained in simple words like the German name of Austria, Österreich, which derives from the Old High German word Ostarrîchi "eastern realm", and refers to Austria's position relative to other German-speaking lands. Oster in this word is simply EASTERN - i.e. Eastern Kingdom. No pagan goddess there, nor in the 100's of other words, names, places, people, names after East - including Easter. I mean 1000's of names are called so after North, East, South and west. Why throw out 2000 years of Christian practice, because of a false English. German etymology.

C. F. Cruse in 1850 AD pointed out that "Our word EASTER is of Saxon origin and of precisely the same import with its German cognate ostern. The latter is derived from the old Teutonic form of auferstehen / auferstehung, that is - resurrection."

Also "O.E. east, from P.Gmc. *aus-to-, *austra- "east, toward the sunrise" (cf. Du. oost, Ger. Ost, O.N. austr "from the east"), from PIE *aus- "dawn" (cf. Skt. ushas "dawn," Gk. aurion "morning," O.Ir. usah, Lith. auszra "dawn," L. aurora "dawn," auster "south"), lit. "to shine." The east is the direction in which dawn breaks." (Online Etymological Dictionary)

Here are some other links concerning this topic...

http://www.lamblion.net/Articles/ScottJones/easter_or_passove.htm
http://www.trinitarianbiblesociety.org/site/articles/easter.asp
http://brandplucked.webs.com/easterreplenish.htm
http://www.easterau.com/
http://sites.google.com/site/kjvtoday/home/translation-issues/easter-or-passover-in-acts-124
http://www.bible.net.au/flowplayer/example/index.html

It would seem that people like Bloodofox doesn't want to let the truth get in the way of a good story. 124.184.99.144 (talk) 21:47, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

"So are ALL words relating to East or Ost evil?" Since when does anything Pagan automatically mean "evil"? 98.223.48.241 (talk) 03:16, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
The Resurrection Day part of Easter is Christian. The "rites of spring" parts (rabbits, eggs, etc.) are pagan. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:42, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
A blathering, anonymous rant about "evil" that references a bunch of confused Christian websites is hardly worth responding to. It should be obvious enough that you're wrong. Yet since you've called me out by name, I'll point you (well, more importantly, those that are reading this) to a few basic scholarly mainstream sources on the matter:
None of this is news, which a glance at Jacob Grimm's mid-19th century writing on the matter will attest (take a peek at the references provided on our Ēostre article). Enjoy! :bloodofox: (talk) 00:49, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Look, either Ostern comes from 'east' or it comes from auferstehen, but it can't be both. Believe it or not, people have been doing historical linguistics since some wishful-thinker in 1850 started making up things like auferstehen->Ostern from whole cloth. (In fact, historical linguists including the Grimms were doing more rigorous work even in the time of C. F. Cruse, whoever that might have been.) -Ben (talk) 01:51, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Let me add that we've discussed the quality of the easterau.com website before, and no editor on any side of the issue recommends using it as a source for the article. -Ben (talk) 01:53, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the word Easter is etymologically related to east, which is the direction of the rising sun, which is why it's easy to connect it with the concept of resurrection. It's also true that Easter and east are probably both related to the name of a pagan deity Eostre, who may have been regarded as the goddess of dawn, or of spring, and that some of the ways she was celebrated have been incorporated into Christian observances after being reinterpreted. It is, however, completely illogical for detractors of Christianity to adduce these facts as evidence against the validity of Christian practice. The same facts could equally well be adduced as evidence that even pre-Christian pagans had a sense that "rising" and "new life" were worth celebrating, lending more credence to the Christian message. Both are weak arguments. Christians have no need to get defensive about the "pagan origins" of many Christian traditions. They've been given a Christian meaning, so when Christians do them, they're Christian traditions, not pagan ones. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 02:47, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Likewise with Christmas, which originally celebrated the Winter Solstice, and which Emperor Constantine (the savior of Christianity, in some sense) associated with Jesus because he connected God with the sun. Having pagan origins doesn't make a holiday itself "pagan". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:53, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Easter, correctly Ēostre, or more exactly Ēostrevon, is the Pagan celebration of fertility, reproduction, and life. Eæstur-Mónaþ is the Nordic/Slavic celebration of the same, though lasting a full 28 days. The holiday that came before the Christian holiday, was/is/will forever be called Easter in Roman English by the hundreds of millions of pagan practitioners. They deserve their rightful, longer existing, far earlier existing, holiday to take up AT THE VERY LEAST an EQUAL part of this article, if not a larger back-story. Easter has existed in one way or another since 1000 years before anyone with the name Christ came along, and will be around as a celebration of life long after christianity is just another mythological footnote in history.
Can someone with a fuller understanding please send me a message so I can work up a more neutral layout for this article in a sandbox, and posibly something going on this.
As an aside note regarding all the above and archives related to this issue. I an not judaic/christian/islomic nor am I pagan. My intentions are free of bias from either side. Lostinlodos (talk) 02:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Easter is Easter, Ēostre is Ēostre, and we already have an article on Ēostre, and it's linked in the lead. We could add a bunch of Ēostre stuff to this article, but then in fairness, we should add a bunch of Easter stuff in the Ēostre article. Or we can just be satisfied that the two articles link to each other so readers ca get both pagan and Christian details as they deem appropriate. Rklawton (talk) 02:47, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I sincerely doubt that "hundreds of millions of pagan practitioners" of the sort that celebrate Ēostre (per se as a pagan holiday, not a secular thing) even exist. Millions, perhaps, but not hundreds of millions, unless you can cite statistics from a reliable source. In any case, I think it's a safe bet that there are more practicing Christians than practicing pagans in the English-speaking world. And it's more than a bit speculative to say that paganism will outlast Christianity. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 04:29, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Actually, I believe that a merger of the half-dozen unlinked, loosely relate stubs into Ēostre, and the Holiday spun off from the goddess and merged into Easter would be most Ideal. All the various mythologies have their own link to the fertility/life/rebirth ceremony. It's a bit silly, in mnsho, to have all these various holidays taking up three sentence articles when they all refer to the same thing. At the same time, the largest single faith celebrating an 'Easter' is Christianity. However, without specific statistics to back any claim I'd take the hazardous guess that the total non-christian population celebrating some loosely related similarly timed holiday at the beginning of spring are nearly equal when generalized context is removed. Thereby, I'd support a full and complete merger of ALL spring life-rebirth-fertility-rejuvenation be merged into this article. As it stands now, I have to agree with the neutrality tag at the top of the page.
As far as the HoM statement, it wasn't a direct pull to the term Ēostre, it was a figure for the various holidays that fall into the same theme and time. Lostinlodos (talk) 15:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I think it's pretty clear that this article concerns the Christian holiday (though renaming the article to be more specific might not hurt). Since the Christian holiday primarily concerns Jesus and not Ēostre, I think merging Ēostre-related articles into this article wouldn't be appropriate. Rklawton (talk) 15:32, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, it would be completely inappropriate to merge all of those topics together. If anything, as I've said elsewhere, we need to divide them up, so the article about the worldwide Christian celebration (which goes by names related to Ēostre only in English and German, and in most parts of the world has no connection with germanic paganism) and the pagan and secular observances can be treated separately. BTW, the disambiguation page says this article is about the "Christian" celebration. A separate article for the pagan spring festival would allow the disambiguation page to be less ambiguous. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 16:58, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Censorship of Pagan origins

There is a legitimate debate about the pagan origins of Easter (see above). Yet you wouldn't know it from reading this article. Rather than debate the evidence in the article body, it is deleted and relegated to the talk page.

Consider the following reliable sources:

- The BBC states, "...not all Easter customs are Christian; some, such as the Easter Bunny, are Pagan in origin."

- "Pagan festivities [in mid-March] have been included in Easter, such as Easter eggs, taken from Baltic paganism (see chapter 8), and the Easter rabbit or hare, which recalls the sacred hares of the British tribes." (A History of Pagan Europe, Routledge, 1997, p. 122)

- "Most religious historians believe that many elements of the Christian observance of Easter were derived from earlier Pagan celebrations."(http://www.religioustolerance.org/easter.htm) See also this page citing reliable sources.

- Ronald Hutton, Professor of History at the University of Bristol, gives the best and most balanced overview of the debate I could find:

"Two facts do seem to emerge from the discussion. One is that versions of the name given by Bede were used widely among speakers of Germanic languages during or shortly after his time; thus the Christian festival was known as Ostarstuopha in the main valley during the eight and ninth centuries. The other is that the Anglo-Saxon eastre, signifying both the festival and the season of spring, is associated with a set of words in various Indo-European languages, signifying dawn and also goddesses who personified that event, such as the Greek Eos, the Roman Aurora, and the Indian Ushas. It is therefore quite possible to argue that Bede's Eostre was a Germanic dawn-deity who was venerated, appropriately, at this seasoning of opening and new beginnings. It is equally valid, however, to suggest that the Anglo-Saxon "Estor-monath" simply meant 'the month of opening' or 'the month of beginnings'..." (The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 180)

- Even Christians admit many of these pagan origins. The book Pagan Christianity? Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices is written by Christians. They do not discuss Easter and Christmas because they do not feel that it hinders the faith in any way, but they explain openly on their website: "Our spiritual forefathers chose to compete with the pagans by redeeming certain days for Jesus Christ that had traditionally been kept sacred by their heathen neighbors."

I cannot edit the article, because I do not yet have an account, but I hope someone will make it more balanced with these sources. There is also no source or evidence for the claim in the introduction that the Easter egg and bunny are "relatively newer elements." 88.74.223.64 (talk) 14:20, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

It's misleading to say that the "pagan origins" of Easter are being "censored." Even if the the word Easter derives from pagan roots, in contemporary English it refers to the Christian festival of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christians would have been celebrating the resurrection at that time of year in any case, and if pre-Christian Europeans also had some kind of spring festival, by whatever name and in honor of whatever deity they believed in, that's mere coincidence. And if some of the cultural customs that have become connected to Easter are holdovers from paganism, that's not a problem for most Christians, because it's understood that those things are far from the essence of the celebration. You're not likely to find Easter bunnies in Christian sanctuaries. It's not like "pagan influences" are some kind of scandal in the Church. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 04:41, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
And, btw, no one is stopping you from creating an account. It's free and easy. The link is at the top of the page. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 04:48, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
In the United States, Easter also refers to a holiday where a completely secular ritual of basket-bearing children hunting for strategically placed gift-containing eggs takes place, which is frequently followed by the consumption of chocolate rabbits. It does not take a rocket scientist to deduce what eggs and rabbits have to do with springtime and how little it has to do with, say, Christianity. Substitute some Easter cakes for the chocolate, and chances are that this is not terribly far removed from the pre-Christian Germanic springtime festivals of yore (well, minus the sword dances and bonfires).
Funnily enough, the introduction does not mention the fact that the name of the festival is blatantly un-Christian in English (in fact, given the evidence, most scholars find it quite likely to reflect exactly what Bede says it did), and it completely ignores how millions today celebrate the holiday. :bloodofox: (talk) 01:42, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Etymology does not determine the meaning of a word. If it did, decimate would mean "kill a tenth of," not "mostly destroy." Is this article about the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ (known as Easter in today's English), or is it about celebrations of spring in general, one example of which is that funny Christian thing? Yes, it's likely that the rabbits and eggs and perhaps even the name of the festival itself are pagan in origin and have become attached to the Christian celebration due to the coincidence in time of year, but that doesn't mean they're part of it. Christians were celebrating the resurrection long before English speakers dubbed it Easter-- in fact, long before English existed. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 02:04, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
"Christians were celebrating the resurrection long before English speakers dubbed it Easter" - that statement is not correct. Easter (or Ishtar) was celebrated by Pagans in 2000 BC, long before Jesus was nailed to a plank of wood for saying how we should be nice to people for a change. So that's 2000 years before the Christians celebrated a supposed resurrection. It is true that the Jews celebrated Passover before it was hijacked by the Christians, and is detailed in Exodus of the Old Testament. Exodus was written between 1440 and 1400 BC, which is still 600 years after the Pagans. If Easter really was about the 'Resurrection' then it would be on a fixed day and not follow the cycles of the moon and the seasons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.164.21.1 (talk) 05:15, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Except that there were no English speakers in 2000 BC. Look, Christians around the world hold an annual celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Most Christians, not being English speakers, do not call it Easter. Wikipedia should have an article about this world-wide Christian celebration. How it came to be called Easter in English is an interesting question that deserves its own Wikipedia article. Same goes for the question of how the Christian festival may be related to pre-Christian customs (other than the Jewish Passover). No one is censoring those topics. However, those questions are not central to understanding the Christian observance, and controversies about them do not add to the quality of the article about it. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 13:11, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Okay, lots of confusion and misinformation presented in these last three paragraphs. Let's get a few things straight here:
  1. Easter has nothing to do with Ishtar. This absurd notion seems to be revitalized every year by confused and/or malicious Christians who have found a copy of Alexander Hislop's nonsensical The Two Babylons (which itself would be pure comedy if it wasn't so destructive). For those curious, Hislop's infallible logic on the topic is on display here: [2]
  2. The Angles (that is to say the English) are attested by Tacitus, which means they existed prior to the invention of Christianity, and, obviously, so did their customs. (Further reading: Herbert, Kathleen (2007). Looking for the Lost Gods of England. Anglo-Saxon Books.)
  3. By employing the science of comparative linguistics, scholars argue that Eostre etymologically descends from the Proto-Indo-European goddess *Hausos. If you weren't aware, Proto-Indo-European is the mother language of numerous languages, including the Germanic languages (including, yes, English), Celtic languages, Balto-Slavic languages, Hellenic languages, Indo-Iranian languages, and so on. Dropping arguments based on dating would be wise.
  4. Keep in mind that Bede is also our sole attestation for Mōdraniht, which scholars connect to the Matres and Matrones. Bede's reputation in this area isn't exactly dubious.
My point is that there is quite a lot to say about the origins of what we now know as Easter here in the Anglosphere. English Easter is not the same thing as Christian Paskha. It has its own distinct history. It is often extremely secular, and it even has roots well attested enough to be recognized by modern neopagan groups ranging from Wiccans (Wheel of the Year) to groups more interested in reconstruction (Germanic Neopaganism).
This article does not reflect these facts as it stands. The critics are right when they say that this article is too Christian-centered. :bloodofox: (talk) 15:42, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
You make my point. Christian Easter (or Pascha as it's known in other languages), is a distinct thing from the Easter you're talking about. The two should not be confused, though they obviously are. I would support the creation of separate articles on the two topics-- perhaps "Easter_(Christian)" and "Easter_(Pagan)", or suggest something better. It sounds like you'd be qualified to draft the article on Pagan Easter. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 16:36, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
That's a pretty good summary, :bloodofox:. The problem is, as you say, that we're talking about three or four different things when we talk about the "origin of Easter", and that they're made especially blurry due to monolingual English-speakers, widespread ignorance of medieval and/or ecclesiastical history, folk-etymologizing, and intentional obfuscators (whether Puritan or Pagan).
  1. Easter, the western religious Holy Day, clearly originates in Hebrew Passover and antedates the application of the word "Easter" to it.
  2. Eostre, whatever she or it may have been before 597, is clearly Pagan and while the sources are sparse, they are well documented under the Eostre article.
  3. Ancillary Easter traditions like eggs and bunnies are not obviously Christian or Pagan in origin. While they're not specifically Christian, we aren't really able to find continuity between modern usages and medieval Pagan sources either. To muddy the waters, plenty of similar traditions were invented or "redisovered" by Romantics of the Victorian period and attested continuity where there was none. I'd love to see this sorted out for bunnies and eggs, and haven't really seen it yet.
  4. Easter, the English-speaking holiday observed by plenty of people who don't observe any religion, is an amalgam of most of these but has a sort of existence of its own, despite originating alongside Christian Easter in England. It is, furthermore, the way that most readers experience Easter in these secularized times.
It's just very hard to tease these apart into separate articles -- not least because for most readers, three of the four seem like the same thing.Ben (talk) 17:20, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
For me there's Easter the Christian observance and Easter with secular traditions and customs (bunny, eggs). The article discusses origins of the former and etymology, but doesn't mention at all the origin of the secular traditions and customs. I noted several sources above which link these (bunny, eggs) to pagan origins. Not only are these not mentioned, but they are dismissed in the introduction as "relatively newer elements." There is no source for that description, and it should be edited. There is also some content forking going on as Easter bunny clearly states "Eggs, like rabbits and hares, are fertility symbols of extreme antiquity" and Easter egg states "The egg was a symbol of the rebirth of the earth in celebrations of spring and was adopted by early Christians as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus." 88.74.215.225 (talk) 22:44, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

This may be an oversimplification, but I think it’s at least approximately true and may help in understanding why this is such a neuralgic issue. There appear to be two groups who are most eager to highlight the "pagan origins" of customs associated with Easter (as well as other Christian traditions) and one group most eager to suppress them. One group highlighting the pagan origins consists of zealous Christian sectarians who wish to adduce them as evidence that the Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant churches are syncretistic or idolatrous, and therefore illegitimate (along the lines of Hislop). The other consists of atheists, neo-pagans and others who wish to discredit Christianity in general. The group most wishing to suppress the issue consists of insecure Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant Christians who feel attacked and worry that the fact of pagan origins of Christian traditions might actually constitute a legitimate critique of Christianity (which I'm convinced it does not, as I've commented previously). So here's the puzzle: since there are hotheads in all of these groups, who are likely to perceive a bias no matter how the issue is presented, or if it's not presented at all, how can a NPOV section on the "pagan origins" of certain aspects of Easter be crafted? I stand by my opinion that the Wikipedia should have an article about the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that's relatively uncluttered by ancillary issues such as where the Easter Bunny came from, but it should include one or more links to one or more articles about those issues. Likewise, any article about "Secular Easter" should have a link to the one about the Christian celebration. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 03:26, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

The Easter bunny is an "ancillary issue" to an article about Easter? For you Easter may be primarily about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but many people are also interested in the secular element. NPOV means including both elements and not privileging the views of Christians. Perhaps two different articles is the solution, but until there are two different articles, this article should also reflect a NPOV. I otherwise agree with your analysis but not sure how much it matters in the end. Ultimately the content should reflect reliable sources; I began this thread by listing several. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.222.211.17 (talk) 18:49, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Why this is an issue? All of major christian holidays are in the fact pagan holiday. And paganism just predated neolithic holidays. So, for example, easter is merely a spring equinox. Nature awakens from the winter. See any parallels with resurrection celebrated? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.141.133.172 (talk) 17:11, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Just came across this. Interesting also that the German version of this article states in the introduction "Many Easter customs are of non-Christian ("pagan") origin" ("Viele Osterbräuche sind außerchristlicher („heidnischer“) Herkunft"). So we have language forking as well as content forking going on. 94.222.211.17 (talk) 19:35, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

It may be correct to say that all major Christian holidays were pagan holidays, but as observed by Christians today they are no longer pagan. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 20:45, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
And therefore, as observed by the secular people of the modern western world (most easily found outside the Americas) they are secular holidays with interesting histories. But seriously, there's a hell of a lot of pagan people around who see the spring equinox as a pagan holiday; a lot of christians who see it as a christian holiday; a lot of secular people who see it as a secular holiday; and it seems quite a few christians who see it as a coopted pagan holiday. --203.202.43.53 (talk) 01:39, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Don't confuse Easter with the spring equinox. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 02:42, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. See Lady Day for the Christian co-option of the Spring Equinox. -Ben (talk) 14:48, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

WHY IS THE WORD "EASTER" OR 'EOSTRE' NOT A LINK TO THE WIKI PAGE ON EOSTRE? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.220.247.136 (talk) 14:35, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

It's the second word in the article, and it's linked. Rklawton (talk) 14:40, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Capitalization of Son of God

This is ridiculous. It is completely standard throughout the English-speaking world, even in secular publications, to capitalize "Son of God" when referring to the Christian belief about who Jesus is, regardless of whether the writer agrees with that belief or not. If a pedantic interpretation of Wikipedia's style manual requires "son of God" instead, even in an article about an important topic in Christianity, then it's Wikipedia's rule that's wrong. To insist on the lower-case "s" despite the standard usage and objections by Christians themselves comes across as an expression of contempt for Christian doctrine. As such it fails the NPOV test. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 01:38, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Happy Easter, everyone. Looks like I just dropped in on an edit war here. WP's style manual provides for the initial word of a phrase to be capitalised and the rest of it to be lower case. To give an example which caused much blood to flow, Commonwealth Realms or Commonwealth realms. Following the style manual, Son of God is correct. 217.169.37.146 (talk) 10:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Then by that reasoning the following sentence from Muse

"According to Hesiod's Theogony (seventh century BC), they were daughters of Zeus, the second generation king of the gods, and the offspring of Mnemosyne, goddess of memory."

Should read

"According to Hesiod's Theogony (seventh century BC), they were Daughters of Zeus, the second generation King of the gods, and the Offspring of Mnemosyne, Goddess of memory."

Yes, I agree it is ridiculous. In fact the whole paragraph reads as if it came from a sermon rather than an objective, POV neutral statement of the theological significance of this holiday. Gr8white (talk) 15:37, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
While I believe this paragraph could be improved, its whole purpose is to explain the Christian POV. The footnotes point to statements by early Christians about how they understand the significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The fact that the letters in which these statements appear have been collected into a book called the Bible does not change the fact that we have a summary of Christian belief with references.
Oddly, footnote six appears twice. The second time it is attached to the statement that "the resurrection established Jesus as the powerful Son of God". Footnote six points to 1 Corinthians 15:12-20, but there I find no mention of the phrase "Son of God".
Chappell (talk)
The MOS says that the first letter of a phrase should be capitalized when it's the beginning of a sentence or title. The context in which "son of God" is used is not one of those cases, so by that logic the lowercase spelling is correct. (Of course, there are other reasons why one would want to capitalize the "S"; I'm just saying that the MOS isn't one of them.) --160.94.88.15 (talk) 20:02, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

That's the last I have to say about this and I've unwatched the page. Gr8white (talk) 15:39, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, just one more comment. I want to point out the MOS section cited above is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand, as it deals only with whether an entire phrase or just the first word should be capitalized, given an initial assumption that the phrase itself should be. It doesn't address this question at all.

The only argument I've heard in favor of capitalization is that from a Christian believer's standpoint it should be. But WP guidelines make it abundantly clear that articles aren't written from a believer's standpoint, but a neutral POV. A believer in Greek mythology might think "Daughter of Zeus" should be capitalized, but it isn't because that would be POV. Just because the article is on a Christian topic doesn't mean it should be written from a believer's POV. Gr8white (talk) 17:01, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Neither should an article about a Christian (or other religious) topic be written from an anti-belief POV, which the unconventional "son of God" would represent. The difference is that "Son of God" in reference to Jesus functions not only an identifying description but also as a proper name, whereas the phrases in the above quotation ("daughters of Zeus" etc) do not. I agree that the paragraph in which the phrase appears has other issues as well. The current explanation of the theological significance of Easter for Christians is not a formulation all Christians would agree on Ruckabumpkus (talk) 23:28, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
The proper name argument is valid, and I think it should be capitalized as being a title. In fact, "Son of God" is probably less POV than "son of God" would be. But for a gross comparison, consider David Berkowitz, which has several references within to his "imaginary friend" or whatever, called "Son of Sam", with "Son" capitalized even when it's in the middle of a sentence. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:42, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I've been debating internally whether to chip in here or not. In my best fence sitting mode: both are right and both are wrong. In the particular context in which the phrase is used in this article there is a relationship being expressed ("son of God") rather than Jesus' title ("Son of God"). But, were the paragraph to be re-worded a little, then it would be the other way round. However, I think the paragraph (and possibly the section) needs a complete re-write, the result of which may well be that the issue of capitalisation becomes moot. I'll try and find time to have a proper go at it over the next few days. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:29, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Ruckabumpkus, I don't think those who write "son of God" instead of "Son of God" mean anything by it. Capitalization rules for English have changed significantly since the current edition of the KJV came out in the middle of the 18th century. In the 18th century writers capitalized far more words in a sentence than we do today.
Those who write "son of God" are probably just following the advice of modern style guides for referring to government officials, which Christ Jesus as king of God's kingdom (or King of God's Kingdom) is. For example, style guides tell us to write "He is the president of the United States." but "President Kennedy said...". If we were to follow these style guides, we might write "I believe that Christ Jesus is the son of God."
Though I am a Christian, I do not consider this to be disrespectful.
Chappell (talk) 16:26, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
For the record, I am Catholic. If the article intends to discuss the RELATIONSHIP between Jesus and God, then 'son of God' would be correct. If the article intends to reference 'Son of God' as one of his many honorifics (like 'Prince of Peace', etc) then 'Son of God' would be correct. It depends on the context. Please rewrite the 'offending' portion to make the usage clear and unambiguous, and lay this to rest. Tinfoil666 (talk) 14:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

If Son of God is a name or title, then it's capitalized. If son of God is a description, then it is not capitalized. If it's a description, though, then using the phrase "son of God" would be POV since most people do not believe Jesus to be the son of God and using that phrase without qualification would make it sound like Wikipedia was endorsing Christianity. Personally, I suspect that Son of God is a name or title and so capitalizing it is OK. Rklawton (talk) 15:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

As Chappell alluded to, the citation for the statement that the resurrection established Jesus as the powerful Son of God was incorrect. I fixed it. Regarding the capitalization question, while not definitive, one helpful point of reference is to look at existing practice of reputable publishers. Taking a quick look at the translations I have loaded on my installation of e-Sword (ESV, HCSB, KJV, and YLT), all of them capitalize "Son", even though ESV and KJV do not capitalize personal pronouns with divine antecedents. --Ed Brey (talk) 05:20, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I think we should use sources other than Bible publishers - as Bible publishers would represent the Christian point of view, and it's our intent to make this article more neutral. Though I suspect we'll end up with the same result, it would be best to do it with a more neutral source. Rklawton (talk) 12:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Descent into Hell Icon

I'm a little confused as to why the Descent Into Hell icon image on the article page is labeled with "he anastasis" ("the Resurrection" in Greek). Does anybody know more about the image, and are we sure the caption is accurate? Ben (talk) 16:08, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if maybe "Descent into Hades" is a misnomer and the image actually represents an ascent from that place? The image name is "Resurrection" Gr8white (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
The icon of the Descent into Hades (Harrowing of Hell) is the icon that is traditionally used by Orthodox Christians as the festal icon for Easter ("Pascha" as the Orthodox call it). The first Divine Liturgy of Easter, celebrated on the afternoon of Holy Saturday, specifically commemorates the Harrowing of Hell. MishaPan (talk) 15:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Jesus had to "descend into hell" in order to be resurrected. It was all predestined before time began.Nate5713 (talk) 22:49, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Nordic countries

The following sentence is incorrect considering Finland, where there is no traditional meal for Holy Saturday: "For lunch/dinner on Holy Saturday, families traditionally feast on a smörgåsbord of herring, salmon, potatoes, eggs and other kinds of food."

The following sentence is inaccurate in that pasha is also eaten by the Lutheran majority in Finland. Pasha and mämmi are both generally available in grocery stores near Easter. "In Finland, the Lutheran majority enjoys mämmi as another traditional Easter treat, while the Orthodox minority's traditions include eating pasha (also spelled paskha) instead." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.114.201.190 (talk) 09:09, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Whoever wrote this about Finland is right. There is no traditional dinner for Holy Saturday. Finland is not Scandinavia - I wish Americans would learn this and start to recognize the individuality of our country. Life in Finland and life in the other three Scandinavian countries is extremely dissimilar - why everyone seems to bunch us together I will never understand. We have a different culture to the other three Scandinavians, different habits, different morality issues, a very different psychology, and an extremely different language. Oh, and we do not eat smörgåsbord. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.243.234.19 (talk) 07:20, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Scandinavia is the Roman name for the geographic area where Norway, Sweden and Finland is situated today. Denmark is not part of Scandinavia, however Norway, Sweden and Denmark are Nordic (speaking) countries, Finland is not. Why is this so difficult to remember? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avlokiteshvara (talk • contribs) 00:34, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The Finish don't like to be associated with Scandinavia regardless of the etymology. It's because they'd been p0wned by Sweden for so long; they hate that. Rklawton (talk) 01:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

A discussion on the word Scandinavia is out of place here. Unsure readers should consult Scandinavia. However, the article explicitly claims a traditional smörgåsbord dinner in Finland, which is incorrect, as smörgåsbord is not a tradition in Finland, not even on Holy Saturday. No sources for this false claim are mentioned either. 88.114.201.190 (talk) 15:41, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a suggestion for how to reword that paragraph? Ruckabumpkus (talk) 12:28, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 122.148.240.48, 9 April 2010

[[Template:--Kipala (talk) 09:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)editsemiprotected|{{--Kipala (talk) 09:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)editsemiprotected}}]]

Please change:

"...established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the vernal equinox.[3]"

To:

"...established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the northern hemisphere vernal equinox.[3]"

Because:

The reference to "the vernal equinox" is ambiguous. The vernal equinox occurs at 2 different times of year, separated by 6 months, depending on whether you are referring to the northern hemisphere vernal equinox or the southern hemisphere vernal equinox. For clarity, the article should state the timing of Easter as being relative to the northern hemisphere vernal equinox and not the southern hemisphere vernal equinox.

122.148.240.48 (talk) 00:30, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Done - and thanks, that's a really good point. Rklawton (talk) 00:41, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Marked as completed  Chzz  ►  00:56, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done

Suggestion on "Origins and Etymology"

There is a lot of controversy on the talk page, and it seems to relate to various original-research-type issues that center around the "Origins and Etymology" section. Here are two suggestions: First, move that section to the end. It is really the least important section in the article, and putting it up front probably discourages people from reading the entire article -- thus detracting from the whole. (It is also too long for an etymology section, but that's another issue entirely.) Second, change the name of the section to "Etymology and Names in Other Languages" because the section does not discuss the origins of Easter but instead discusses the origins of the word "Easter" and a few other words for the holiday in other languages. Indeed, though there may not be any takers, I would also suggest editing this "Origins and Etymology" section down to a paragraph, mentioning that most languages use a term ultimately derived from the Hebrew Pskh but that English uses a term that was apparently originally applied to a non-Christian Anglo-Saxon holiday that apparently occurred at approximately the same time. The other information could be moved to a separate article entitled something like "Name for Easter in Different Languages." Bob99 (talk) 22:40, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I oppose this suggestion. As just per norm, the etymology section needs to be front and center. Etymology provides not only history but crucial terminology for approaching the rest of the article.
Secondly, you seem to be confused. Easter in English does not derive from the name of a holiday, but the name of an Anglo-Saxon goddess. More specifically, it derives from the name of a month from the native Anglo-Saxon calendar, Eosturmonath ("Eostre month"), which refers to the goddess. Clearly, for some reason the name was not Christianized as elsewhere outside of Germany (including the rest of Germanic Europe), and it's not known why this is. Grimm, for example, theorized that it was because the native peoples refused to allow for a name change during the Christianization process (which is not unique - to this day we retain the very pagan Anglo-Saxon holiday name Yule and we continue to do very pagan things like erect maypoles and give people names like Alfred and Ingrid).
As discussed above, our "Easter" article not only neglects the very heavy secular element of Easter (where Easter is a spring celebration; hares, eggs, and so forth), but also the various theories handling the survival of elements from the original Germanic pagan festivities. Unfortunately, there's no recent scholarly work dedicated to thoroughly handling this as far as I am aware (but as I list above, there are a handful of scholarly entries in various handbooks on Germanic paganism that do cover it).
So, if anything, this article needs more of the reality of what the holiday is here in the modern Anglosphere, not less. To top it off, the lead of the article is supposed to be a summary of its contents (WP:LEAD). :bloodofox: (talk) 02:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
You are correct that Bede states that the Anglo-Saxon month name "Eastur-monath" was named for their goddess Eostre ("quondam a dea illorum quae Eostre vocabatur"). I take it that there was an event dedicated to "Eostre" in the month.
It is not possible to speak knowledgeably about what pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons meant by "Eostur" because there are no sources. There is only the month name and speculations based on comparative linguistics. While this may be interesting stuff, it cannot rise beyond the level of original research, because there is no original source material on Germanic religious beliefs of this era. Grimm, for example, is a source for 19th Century German folklore, not the pre-Christian Germanic religious beliefs of Late Antiquity. Even the well-known Icelandic mythology sources are centuries later than the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon period. Plus, they represent a different culture and may have been composed primarily for entertainment rather than to preserve a religious tradition.
I really don't think there are very many useful original sources for pre-Christian European folk religion dating later than the Romans. The Roman sources, however, have depth. And if one's interest is in gaining insights into prehistory of these things, the Roman sources have the added advantage of the inherent conservatism of the Roman mind.
Furthermore, there is nothing inherently Christian or pagan about symbols such as hares and eggs. Eggs, in particular, are pervasive symbols in Near Eastern spring holidays, including both the table set for the Passover seder and (frequently) the haft shin tables set by Iranians at Nowruz. Eggs symbolize Spring (indeed, some Native American languages call the Spring lunar month by a name that translates as "Egg month"), and there is no objective reason to view an egg as having particular religious significance. The Spring is a time when many bird lay their eggs, so eggs symbolize Spring.
Bob99 (talk) 15:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
First of all, you need to familiarize yourself with Jacob Grimm. Stating that Grimm was simply "a source for 19th century folklore" is absolutely wrong. As an example, Scholar Thomas Shipper recently (2005, The Shadow Walkers, page 6) argued that, essentially, Jacob Grimm was to the humanities as Darwin was to life Sciences. Scholar Rudolf Simek comments (2007, Dictionary of Northern Mythology) that "Grimm is not only the founder of German philology and antiquities but also of scholarly research into Germanic mythology so that a history of scholarship can be divided quite clearly into a 'pre-J. Grimm' and 'post-J. Grimm' era". If nothing else, it should be evident that you should try digging a little deeper than the Grimms' Kinder und Hausmärchen. In the realm of Germanic philology, Grimm's theories and evidence are widely cited and commented on to this day (as Shippey's work makes quite clear).
Secondly, you are incorrect regarding sources. Many of those Icelandic sources that you dismiss (or are simply unfamiliar with?) preserve material directly from pagan Norway (from as early as the 9th century), such as Ynglingatal and numerous skaldic poems. We also have, for example, the extremely important Merseburg Incantations from continental Europe. Then there are hundreds of runic inscriptions, toponyms, archaeological finds (sometimes even directly backing 13th century Snorri, such as the recent raven-flanked throne found recently—Odin_from_Lejre), and so on.
Third, Bede is not exactly a dubious source. As I point out above, he is also our sole source for Mōdraniht (which is backed by tons of continental evidence), and then there's also Hretha and Hredmonath.
Lastly and perhaps most glaringly, I have to wonder about your comment where you dismiss historical linguistics as mere "speculation"... uh, what's that about? :bloodofox: (talk) 16:43, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Grimm did not live during Late Antiquity and had no access to records as to beliefs of Late Antiquity, other than the records (or a subset of them) which are available to us today. Grimm was a linguistr and folklorist. You are making him out to be something else. The points you are making as you invoke Grimm are consistent with my statement above: "There is only the month name [Eostur-monath] and speculations based on comparative linguistics." One difference between Darwin and Grimm is that there are increasingly vast amounts of data corroborating Darwin's theory of evolution. Even if Grimm stood for the points that you attribute to him, irrespective of Grimm's influence on views of Germanic mythology, there is a difference between mythology and religion.
There are very few sources about pre-Christian Germanic religion. That is the point here. Religion is not the same a mythology. To find out about Greek religion, for example, read Walter Burkert; to find out about Greek mythology, read Padraic Column. There is no source for Germanic religion comparable to Burkert on Greek religion, because there is not enough information to serve as the basis for such a source.
Mythology is not religion, even though it may be have a connection to religion for example, by explaining ritual or some other aspect of religion. Mythology, taken alone and in the context of 20th-21st Century rationalism, does not reveal the religious practices or beliefs of the audience for whom the mythology was composed.
Here is an example of how much can be known about an ancient myth, even though it reveals very little to us about mythology. Dumezil and others have observed extremely interesting connections, in terms of both comparative linguistics and comparative mythology, between the Norse Ymir myth and an Indo-Iranian myth characterized by the Persian legend of Jamshid and myths of the Sanskrit deity Yama (as well as Sanskrit tales of King Yayate). The various names appear to derive from a proto-Indo-European word for "twin" which we also see in the name of the contellation Gemini. Nothing suggests, however, how the underlying myth of Yama/Twin related to a putative proto-Indo-European religion. Roman religion is rife the motif of twinning, particularly in religious contexts relating to representations of human collectives (cf. Yama as archetypal king). Thus, the lares (often represented as twins) are patron deities of the household, while another set of lares are patron deities of the vicus (neighborhood, from a proto-Indo-European word apparently referring to a closed corporate community), while the lares augusti are patron deities of the state in the religious reforms of Emperor Augustus. Similarly, Romulus and Remus are represented as twins, and the legend of Romulus killing Remus relates to Remus's violation of the boundary of the city of Rome -- something which seems like it may reflect a function similar to that of lares as protectors of the Roman vicus. There is reasonable linguistic suspicion that the Ymir/Yama name may be reflected in the Roman names Romulus, Remus, and Janus. In view of all of this (and more), we can hypothesize that twinning was extremely important in one area of Roman religious ideology. We not expect to be able to determine exactly what the twinning motif meant to the Romans, because there are no original sources providing that information and there are no ancient Romans to interview. However, there is very little mythology concerning the lares, even though they appear to represent a very important part of Roman religion. Thus, mythology does not necessarily tell us about religion. Indeed, it is possible that those aspects of religion which are viewed as the most sacred are the least likely to be reflected in mythology. (Remember what a flop "Son of God" comics were in the 1970s?)
Nothing the foreging, even when the source material is abundant, we typically cannot expect to move beyond extremely interesting suggestions of meaning. When the sources are limited to (i) Bede's account of Anglo-Saxon month names and (ii) comparative linguistics, as with "Eostur," we know next to nothing and do not have a reasonable methodology for advancing beyond that point.
I disagree that the Icelandic mythological sources are necessarily religious rather than poetic. I would view Adam of Bremen's account of the pagan ceremonies at the Temple of Uppsala as the kind of source that is typically lacking with regard to pre-Christian Germanic religion. As discussed above, myths may or may not illustrate aspects of religion. Similarly, the most sacred aspect of religion may be avoided by myth poets out of respect for the subject matter. Some myths may simply be entertaining stories similar to superhero movies, while others may be borrowed from a foreign culture (as the Romans borrowed Greek myths) and thus have little or no relationship to ghe religion of the intended audience. Without context, it is impossible to know what aspect of religion, if any, a myth relates to.
I agree that Bede is a good source; however, Bede is limited to providing the names of months in Anglo-Saxon. That's not very much information.
Historical linguistics is good information about linguistics, but it is not information about religion. Just as a one-to-one correspondence cannot be established between linguistics and archeology, it is also the case that a one-to-one correspondence cannot be established between linguistics and religion. Bob99 (talk) 18:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Again, I suggest getting more familiar with Grimm. He remains the single most important figure in Germanic philology, as my references above may quite clear.
Your Georges Dumézil cite is a poor example; we have much better examples of reconstructed Proto-Indo-European deities than the vagueness you've posted here. In fact, the "twin" element you're talking about is well attested and hardly as murky as you make it out to be (two of them are mentioned by Bede—Hengist and Horsa—but he has royally Euhemerized them per monastery policy, which he didn't do with Eostre...). I should also note that Ymir (Snorri, 1200 AD) and Tuisto (Tacitus, 1 AD) are considered directly connected (if not the same figure) in both modern and old scholarship. Here we have another example of a likely confirmation of Snorri (who based his work on that of the skalds before him) with a (Roman!) source a thousand years earlier.
I never made a nonsensical comment like "the Icelandic mythological sources are necessarily religious rather than poetic", because I would not agree or disagree. Obviously, the skalds were a product of pagan Germanic society and maintained concepts and religions practices (I can even think of surviving directions for pagan worship from skaldic poetry, and that is what just made it through the post-Christianization filter...), contributed to their development and acknowledgment, and continued to do so far into Christianization. After all, they depended on these references for their extremely intricate art. However, this discussion is getting quite off topic—exactly what is your point with that your myth versus religion comments? Let's keep it on topic. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Returning to the original point, my original comment was that the article would be improved by moving the "Origins and Etymology" section to the end, editing it down, and changing the name of the section to "Etymology and Names in Other Languages." I also proposed moving the original material to a new article. To this, I will add deleting the "Ostara" illustration, since the above discussion shows that one thing we agree upon is that it does not have anything to do with the holiday presently known as Easter. Bob99 (talk) 14:08, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
No, it has everything to do with Easter because Eostre is where the name derives from. I oppose the image removal. It well illustrates the etymology section handling the issue. :bloodofox: (talk) 14:15, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I would like to comment on the "German" side of Bloodofox argument. Grimm just assumed "Ostara" - no German linguistic or historic scientist accepts her factuality any more. There is simply nothing to show for the alleged Ostara or Germanic pre-Christian tradition of Easter. This is scholarly standard since the first half of the 20th century - in spite of massive national-socialist propaganda for "old-germanic" rites which have, however, left quite some impact on wider popular opinion to this day. Entry should be corrected as Grimms assumption has just too much space. --Kipala (talk) 19:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
You are completely wrong. As you have clearly yet to go to the most basic modern scholarly source on the matter (on the "German side"), I will (yet again) suggest that you do exactly that:
  • Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S. Brewer.
See my above posts for further references. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:36, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Is there in fact any first-hand documentary evidence about what pre-Christian pagans believed about Eostre or Ostara? As I understand it, by the time Bede wrote, Britain had already been largely Christianized, and the former pagan beliefs had ceased being living traditions. Over a thousand years after Bede, Grimm, lacking documentary evidence and using only linguistic clues, inferred "Ostara" as the name of a pagan goddess. Even if both Bede and Grimm are correct, there is zero credible evidence that those pagan beliefs were maintained with any continuity through the middle ages into the modern era. Any other conclusion from the facts would seem to be neo-pagan revisionism. The connection of the Christian celebration of Easter and the pagan goddess Eostre is etymological only. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 22:12, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Folks, if you're both so certain, I have no doubt that you can avoid Original Research by attributing your claims about the abundance/paucity of sources for Ostara to published works. :bloodofox:, perhaps you could set an example by quoting a couple of paragraphs from Simek? -Ben (talk) 03:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure. Here (brackets are mine):
Ēostre (or perhaps *Ēastre; Anglo-Saxon). A goddess mentioned by Bede, from whom the Ēostur-monath (= April) takes its name according to Bede (De temporibus ratione 15). Grimm concluded from this reference and also from the name of the OHG [Old High German] Easter festival Ôstarûn (pl. of *Ôstara) a West Germanic goddess of sunrise and of spring-time, Proto-Germanic *Austrō, OHG *Ôstara (cf. Latin Aurora). Despite repeatedly expressing doubt one should not disregard Bede's information totally. However, a spring-like fertility goddess will have to be assumed instead of a goddess of sunrise, despite the name, seeing that otherwise the Germanic goddesses (and matrons) are mostly connected with prosperity and growth. Cf. Hreda.
Simek follows this entry with a series of references. Note that he points out that Grimm had comparative evidence in the Old High German festival (!) of Ôstarûn. Grimm, obviously, didn't just pull this out of his hat. Any modern scholarly work on the subject will yield similar results, though for some unapparent reason Simek doesn't go into the further evidence supplied by the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European *Hausos, and he is not correct when he says that goddesses in Germanic paganism are "mostly connected with prosperity and growth"—Freyja, Hel (note that modern English Hell derives from an underworld in Germanic paganism and was applied to the Christian underworld—similar to what seems to have happened with Easter), the dísir, and the valkyries are all examples of deities with evident traits contrary to this "mostly connected with prosperity and growth" line. The situation isn't as simple as that. :bloodofox: (talk) 13:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, :bloodofox: -- that's exactly what I was hoping for. Ruckabumpkus, do you have a source we could cite expanding on the paucity of evidence for Eostre? -Ben (talk) 14:08, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm. Do I have any evidence that there's a paucity of evidence? How does one prove a negative? In fact, the source :bloodofox: cites makes the very case. Grimm inferred the name Ostara but did not point to any documentary evidence for it. He certainly didn't know of any practitioners of Ostarism he could interview on the subject. I don't doubt that germanic pagans worshiped a goddess by that name, as Grimm argued, but whatever beliefs they had about her are lost to history. The quotation from Bede in the article about Ēostre makes it clear, too, that Bede had no first-hand information from any actual Ēostre worshipers but stated that only the name of the old festival was transferred to the Christian paschal feast. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 14:37, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
No—as Simek makes quite clear, Grimm cites comparative evidence; Old High German Ôstarûn. This, and the names of some folk customs that refer to this event, are his basis for *Ostara. Grimm also goes into some detail about the folk customs surrounding the event (including Easter eggs). By the time Bede was writing, oral tradition and customs deriving from Germanic paganism were definitely alive in England despite the declared status of "Christian". Norse invasions would re-introduce a later form of Germanic paganism (Norse paganism) to parts of England before Christianization would again occur (though numerous elements would remain in every day life until even today). :bloodofox: (talk) 15:26, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
The point of quoting someone else discussing the paucity of sources is that then we can quote them both in the article, and move this from an argument between a couple of commenters on a talk page to something that can be dealt with (or at least evaluated) based on NPOV. -Ben (talk) 16:33, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not a scholar of germanic paganism. However, the burden of proof is not on me here. Those who are arguing that "pagan origins" deserve extensive coverage in the article about Easter have not made the case, based on the evidence they've cited. (Grimm cites no historical document that mentions "Ostara".) The point I'm making is this: there is a world-wide Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and Wikipedia should have an article about it. A NPOV treatment of the topic would mention that it is celebrated in different ways by different groups. In English, it's called Easter, and how it came to be named that is interesting and relevant. The fact that some of the ways English speaking Christians celebrate it may have evolved from pagan customs deserves mention, but the same could probably be said about the unique ways people in other cultures celebrate it as well. And the fact that non-religious folks celebrate many of the trappings of Easter without reference to the Resurrection is worthy of a section, perhaps. BUT, if this is an article about the Christian festival, those things are secondary. Extensive treatment of "pagan origins" and secular customs belongs in a separate article. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 17:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
I would like to point out that perfectly mainstream modern works in Indo-European studies often cite *Hausos>Eostre as well accepted, not as a theory. Any of this nonsense claiming that "Eostre as a goddess is no longer treated as a valid theory" needs to be thoroughly obliterated wherever it may be seen, including the current German Eostre article. A few examples:
  • Adams, Douglas Q. Mallory, J. P. (2006). The Oxford introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European world. Oxford University Press. ([3])
  • Adams, Douglas Q. Mallory, J. P. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture. Routledge. ([4])
  • Mallory, J. P. (1991). In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Thames and Hudson.
Contributing to the spread of misinformation is the worst thing we can do here. :bloodofox: (talk) 18:21, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Which is completely beside the point. I'm not disputing that Ostara or Eostre was the name of a pagan goddess. Ostara/Eostre (the goddess) does indeed figure in the etymology of Easter (the Christian festival) but is otherwise a mere footnote in its history and largely irrelevant to a discussion of what Easter is. People who celebrate Easter, by and large, are not celebrating a pagan festival. Yes, there are traditional parts of the Easter celebration that can be traced to pagan practices or beliefs (e.g., the bunnies and colored eggs), but people do not generally attach any pagan meaning to them. They are either given a Christian interpretation, or merely regarded as fun things people do in connection with the holiday for no particular reason. The fact that Grimm had no documentary evidence for Ostara as the name of the goddess of spring (or maybe dawn) demonstrates that she had passed out of living tradition by the time the germanic people became literate (neo-pagan assertions that paganism had some kind of continuous secret following through the middle-ages notwithstanding). Likewise for Bede and Eostre. An undue emphasis on "pagan origins" in the Easter article would therefore introduce a non-neutral POV that would detract from the quality of it. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 22:20, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
That was not a response to you, thank you, but a response to the post above referencing German scholarship, and therefore completely on topic. I've outlined my position on your approach above, and again refer readers to my previous post regarding it. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:21, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
But you appear to persist in the fallacious argument from etymology to meaning. The fact that the word Easter derives from the name of a pagan goddess is almost completely irrelevant in determining what the word means today. If etymology determined meaning, then apology would only be used in the technical sense of offering a reasoned defense of an action or opinion and would never be used to refer to saying "Sorry." For over a thousand years, the word Easter (or its precursors) has been used primarily to refer to the Christian holiday. Neo-pagans may be trying to redefine the word back to its supposedly original meaning, but so far they haven't succeeded (which is not surprising, since Christians outnumber neo-pagans by well over 100 to 1). Academic pronouncements about what the word ought to mean belong in opinion pieces, not encyclopedia articles. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 04:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Uh, what are you talking about? Eostre is mentioned in this article because—and I'll put this plainly—this is where the word Easter comes from. And I've previously pointed out that your argument of age holds no water here—Eostre developed directly from Proto-Indo-European *Hausos over a period of somewhere around, oh, 5,000 to 8,000 years (depending on the scholar) prior to Christian adaptation of the term.
The reality of the situation is that Christianity can make no specific claim for what we now know as Easter; the term is quite pagan English, was appropriated during the Christianization of England (and not changed for reasons unexplained), and then continued to be used into the modern period where the picture is complicated by completely secular modern Eastern traditions and various neopagan movements. It's as simple as that, and that is what the article must reflect. Your opinions regarding a neopagan conspiracy, while curious, are better suited for a blog. :bloodofox: (talk) 14:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Ok, left you for 2 days, back to bloodofox-Simek-Ostara: I repeat that I know of no German linguistic or historic scholar who accepts her factuality any more. Simek in your quote does not. He just gives the information on Grimms famous assumption, and goes on to plead that Bede`s Eostre should not be thrown out altogehther, adding his own guess on Eostre. That says nothing about Ostara or Simek upholding her. (You like to take Simek as the nonplus of German state-of-art on Ostara??? I recommend the Ostara-entry in HDA Handwörterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens vol 6, col 1311-1317, a bit older, but still the best collection of sources! <1166 words and 75 footnotes on Ostara - a bit more substance than Simek on Ostara possibly? - no fault of Simek as he really does not write about Ostara, just referencing Grimm.> HDA-summary: "If an Anglo-Saxon Eostra stood on shaky ground, research has shown a German goddess Ostara as unverifiable." (my translation)).
As for your insistence that there MUST be some more in Grimm: just read him! Here he is on the net: Jacob Grimm: Deutsche Mythologie; Ausgabe, 1843, Göttingen, pp 266 -268. I see Konjunktiv "könnte, mag..." and postulates "muß"; in my words: speculation.
I am not ging into the Eostre-business. I just state: "Ostara" is of 0.00 value for any question concerning Eostre and for this entry should be reduced to one sentence including the correct info that she is out of business, plus footnote giving some reference.--Kipala (talk) 09:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Response posted at Talk:Ēostre. :bloodofox: (talk) 14:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
:bloodofox:, you and I seem to be talking past each other. I agree that Eostre should be mentioned in the etymology of Easter, but we're construing the word Easter to refer to two almost entirely different things that happen to overlap a bit. I use Easter in referring to the world-wide, cross-cultural, Christian festival, which happens to be called by that name in English. You seem to be referring to a collection of spring-time customs and celebrations in the Anglosphere, among which is the Christian festival. Each of these topics is worthy of a Wikipedia article on its own. You and I appear to be agreed that the topic each of us is more interested in should not be weighed down by excessive emphasis on the other. So, we need two articles that link to each other, right?
Furthermore, the fact that Easter was originally a pagan word does not make it pagan today. By that logic, all words are pagan, because language appears to have evolved before any non-pagan (i.e., Abrahamic) religion developed. Ruckabumpkus (talk) 15:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
"Easter" does not comes from "Eostre." Bede's information is questionable, but even if accurate, he says it comes from "eostremonath" - the name of the MONTH, not directly the related to the (purported) goddess herself.
This is like claiming that Good Friday has something to do with the god Frigga because it's named after Friday.
The Easter/Eostre connection is really silliness at this point. Pascha didn't originate in England. Carlo (talk) 18:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Although in 725 Bede stated "April, Eosturmonath" at the beginning of chapter 15 of De temporum ratione, he explicitly stated at the end of that same chapter:
"Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance." [Bede: The Reckoning of Time, translated by Faith Wallis (1999), pp.53–54.]
— Joe Kress (talk) 20:06, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
But in the above, Bede says it was the pagans who called Pascha "Easter," not the Christians, at least if the word "they" has a consistent meaning. So it still has nothing to do with any pagan origins of the holiday. Carlo (talk) 11:15, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Bede clearly stated that "they" and "theirs" referred to the "English people" in the first line of Chapter 15. Hence "in olden time", when the English people were pagan, they celebrated feasts to honour Eostre, but "now", after they became Christian, they applied the "time-honoured name" Eostre to the "Paschal season". — Joe Kress (talk) 19:06, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ Vita Karoli Magni (Latin); English translation: Life of Charlemagne
  2. ^ Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun. A History of the Ritual Year in Britain , Oxford University Press (p.180)
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