While trying to find a cheaper copy of the The Old Syriac Gospels, Studies and
Comparative Translations, I came across this
information. I thought I'd bring it forward for your perusal and
comment.
-- slade
FROM ISHTAR TO EASTER
On 1 April this year,
Christians churches around the world will celebrate "Eida Gowra" or the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the west this is called Easter. What
most Christians do not know is the Mesopotamian origin of the name Easter from
the goddess of fertility and war, Ishtar. The name Easter is a transliteration
of the word Ishtar, the goddess who descended to the underworld and brought
her lover Tammuz back to life.
The festival to honor
Ishtar was held on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring
equinox. This is the same date Christians celebrate Easter. Here's an
interesting article written for a Pennsylvania newspaper, Intelligencer, last
April which shows the history of the transition of the word Ishtar to Eostre
and finally Easter in Europe.
"Egg, bunny, dawn service Today's Easter
traditions started eons before Christ"
by Douglas
Harper
Christian, Jewish and pagan traditions have
intertwined for a thousand years to form the modern celebration of Easter.
Neopagans, Jews and Christians all celebrate religious rituals at this time
of year. Wiccans hold one of their eight yearly Sabbats (holy days of
celebration) on the day or eve of the equinox, which happens about the third
week of March. Christians, following Jewish/ Babylonian calendar customs, wait
until after the next full moon to mark Easter.
Near the Mediterranean,
this is the time when the summer crops sprout; north of the Alps, it is the
time for seeding. The pagan rituals of the spring equinox are meant to ensure
the fertility of the crops and animals in the coming summer.
Even the name given to the Christian holiday in English-speaking nations
seems to be derived directly from "Eostre," a Saxon fertility goddess.
Some scholars have been skeptical that the core Christian holiday would
blatantly bear the name of a pagan deity. But authority for this comes from
The Venerable Bede, a deeply pious Christian scholar of 8th-century England.
Alternate explanations of the name have been suggested in modern times, but
most are implausible.
The name of the goddess varied slightly in the Germanic tongues, and can be
spelled Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur,
Austron and Ausos.
Her name was rooted in a word-nexus that included the proto-Germanic words
for spring, the east and sunrise.
Not much is known about her. Some say she is just an alternate name for one
of the more important Germanic goddesses, like Frigg or Freya, with whom she
shares the overlordship of spring and the resurrection of life. But her
particular association with fertility suggests her as a maiden aspect of the
old, universal goddess Eostre.
The Saxons who conquered England in the 5th century seem to have kept her
name for the spring holiday when they were converted by missionaries from Rome
and Scotland. When they in turn evangelized their brethren on the mainland,
they evidently took the holiday name with them. English and German are the
only languages to use a word like "Easter" for this holiday.
Eostre's symbols were the hare and the egg, both representing fertility.
From them spring the customs and symbols of the Easter egg and Easter rabbit.
Of course, other civilizations -- from Egypt to China -- have taken the
same symbols to stand for life and regeneration. Dyed eggs played in rituals
of the Babylonian mystery religions and they were hung in Egyptian temples.
Pagan Anglo-Saxons apparently offered colored eggs to Eostre at the spring
equinox, placing them especially at graves, probably as a charm of rebirth (a
custom shared by Egyptians and Greeks, among others). The Goddess of Fertility
was also the Goddess of Grain, so offerings of bread and cakes were also made
to her.
Rabbits, especially white ones, are sacred to Eostre, and she was said to
sometimes take the form of a rabbit. One myth says she found a bird dying from
the cold. She changed it to a rabbit so it could stay warm. German children
are told that the Easter hare doesn't merely deliver the Easter eggs, it lays
them.
Eostre is almost certainly to be identified with Eos, the dawn goddess of
ancient Greece. As such, the importance of sunrise services in her cult
becomes clear.
Some commentators connect the candles lit in churches on the eve of Easter
Sunday to the pagan bonfires at this time of year that welcomed the rebirth of
the sun god. These Easter eve bonfires continued in rural Germany well into
the 1800s.
Spring fertility goddesses were known in ancient cultures around the
Mediterranean, goddesses such as Aphrodite, Astarte, Hathor and Ishtar. The
Roman form of "Aphrodite" gives her name to our month April.
But one of the most interesting and controversial pagan traditions of
ancient Mediterranea was of the young god who died and was resurrected at the
spring equinox.
Cybele, the Phrygian fertility goddess, had a consort who was said to have
been conceived by a god, born to a virgin. He was Attis, whom mythographers
identify as a localized form of Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus or Orpheus. The myths
told of how he died and was resurrected each year during the spring equinox.
Though this cult originated in what is now Turkey, it enjoyed a vogue
throughout the Roman Empire around the time of Christ. The Cybele cult in Rome
was centered on Vatican hill.
Attis' festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated
after three days in a day of rejoicing over his resurrection.
Wherever Christian and pagan lived in the same community in the ancient
world, the coincidental celebrations sparked bitter quarrels.
Similarities between the death and resurrection of Attis and that of Christ
led to pagans and Christians accusing each other of spurious imitation. The
heathens pointed out that their god was many centuries older, and therefore
couldn't be the counterfeit.
