ORIGINS OF EASTER HOLIDAYS

Have you ever wondered how it is seemingly bizarre that the date of the death of our Lord and Saviour changes every year and that it follows the full moon? Christians recognise Easter by honouring the day Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead. The truth is that the traditional original Easter celebration, which many of us grew up practising, actually has nothing to do with the resurrection or the death of Christ!

The holiday often involves a traditional church service, with a resurrection-themed message, along with other traditions such as giving Easter baskets, filled with colourful, decorated eggs and candy; stuffed Easter bunnies and egg hunts for children. There are many questions about Easter, such as: Is the ever changing full moon Easter Sunday truly the day when Jesus rose from the dead or is this reference to another deity? Where did all the strange customs come from, which have nothing to do with the resurrection of Jesus? We need to know the answers to these questions.

The first thing we should know is that professing Christians were not the only ones who celebrated a festival called ‘Easter’. The word Easter is actually a derivative of the word ‘Ishtar’, which was a day on which many people who practiced pagan religion commemorated the resurrection of one of the gods they worshipped, named ‘Tammuz’. This god was believed to be the offspring of their moon-goddess and sun-god.

The Great Nimrod

In biblical times, there was a man named Nimrod, who was the grandson of Noah’s son Ham. Nimrod married his own mother and became a powerful king. In fact, the people over whom Nimrod ruled elevated him to the status of ‘god-man’. His wife and mother, Semiramis, became a powerful queen of ancient Babylon. Due to the barbaric and sinful nature of Nimrod’s life, he was eventually killed and his body was cut into pieces and sent to various parts of his kingdom. However, the part of his body that could not be found was his reproductive organs. Semiramis, his mother and wife, claimed that Nimrod could not come back to life without them and told the people of Babylon that he had ascended to the sun and was now to be called ‘Baal’, the sun god and that the sun had impregnated her. Queen Semiramis also proclaimed that Baal should be worshipped, hence the start of the worship of Baal, which is well documented in biblical times.

Semiramis was essentially creating a pagan religion and setting herself up as a goddess of fertility on earth. She claimed that she came down from the moon in a giant moon-egg that fell into the Euphrates River and that her ‘birth’ took place at the time as the first full moon after the spring equinox. Semiramis became known as ‘Ishtar’, which is pronounced ‘Easter’, and her moon-egg became known as ‘Ishtar’s egg’. This is where the central theme of eggs originated in connection with the Easter holiday.

Ishtar, her son Tammuz

Ishtar (Easter) soon became pregnant and claimed that it was the rays of the sun-god Baal that caused her to conceive. She gave birth nine months later on December 25, a date that was later wrongly given as the birthday of Jesus called Christmas. She named her son Tammuz, and it was believed that he was especially fond of rabbits. As a result, the animal became sacred in this ancient pagan religion. Worshippers of this religion were taught to meditate on the sacred mysteries of Baal and Tammuz and to celebrate on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. This was considered ‘Ishtar’s Sunday’ and was celebrated with rabbits and eggs.

The truth is that the traditional ‘Ishtar’s Sunday’ Easter celebration that many of us grew up practising actually has nothing to do with the resurrection of Christ. In fact eggs, rabbits and hot-cross buns have everything to do with an ancient pagan religion that is based on idol worship. For this reason, we should make sure we understand what we are actually celebrating. Jesus came to earth and died for our sins so that we may have an eternally abundant life. Our worship belongs to the one and only true God Almighty. Therefore, instead of celebrating Easter Sunday, without true knowledge of its origins, we need to use the time to reflect on what the death of the real Christ means. Take the time to explain these truths to your family and children so they will know the truth about ‘Easter’.

Passover holiday

There are Christians who relate to this time in teams of the biblical Passover because Christ was in fact going to Jerusalem for the Passover feast and would later be crucified on a Friday afternoon following His capture on the Thursday night. He rested in the grave on Sabbath (Saturday) to rise early Sunday morning on the first day. My problem is understanding how the full moon came into play. According to the Jewish culture, Passover begins on day 15 of the Hebrew month of Nissan (which falls in March or April) and continues for eight days. Initially, Passover began at twilight on the 14 day of Nissan (Leviticus 23: 5), and then on day 15 the Feast of Unleavened Bread would begin and continue for seven days (Leviticus 23: 6).

Liberation from slavery

Passover, Hebrew Pesah or Pesach, is a Judaism holiday commemorating the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt and the ‘passing over’ of the forces of destruction, or the sparing of the firstborn of the Israelites, when the Lord ‘smote the land of Egypt’ on the eve of the Exodus. The African mind can only be liberated by knowing and understanding the true origins of all the foreign culture and traditions we have embraced. Comment septembereswatini@gmail.com

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