What is Easter? Other than Christmas, Easter is the next big holy day (holiday) of the world. Easter is according to the churches, the time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. According to the world, it is the time to celebrate the bunny rabbit with the colorful eggs, wear new clothes, among other things. According to the Bible, it is a custom of the heathen.
Lev 18:3 – After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.
Lev 18:30 – Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God.
Dt 12:29 – When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;
30 – Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.
31 – Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
32 – What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.
But isn’t Easter in the Bible? Well, yes and no, it’s in the bible, but it isn’t. Sounds confusing, but it really isn’t. Please keep in mind that when the King James Bible was written, it was written in 1611. What was the word of God before 1611, or before 1511, or before 1411? What was the text they were using as a standard before the KJV? There were 2 groups translating the Hebrew Masoretic text (OT) and Greek Textus Receptus Text (NT) into what was back then their proper English tongue. The 2 groups that were translating these texts were a bunch of Roman Catholics and Protestants (controlled opposition back then, still the same people regardless – they weren’t men of God – true men of God would not change and “hide/mystery” his word). With that being said, do you think they all agreed with what were the proper English words to use to translate all these Hebrew and Greek words? A good book to get about this is God’s Secretaries, the Making of the King James Bible. The KJ Bible is not the inspired word of God. The inspired word of God is the Interlinear Bible (by J.P. Green), which is comprised of the Hebrew Masoretic text and the Textus Receptus. A good set of books to get regarding the original texts is Unholy hands on the Bible, Volume I and II. Now let us go to the only verse in scripture where the English word “Easter” is mentioned.
Acts 12:4 – And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.
The English word Easter is not in the original NT Greek text of scripture. It actually says, pascha. What is pascha? All throughout the NT this word pascha is always translated into the word Passover with the exception of this one verse in Acts.
Mt 26:2 – Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover (pascha), and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.
Mk 14:1 – After two days was the feast of the passover (pascha), and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death.
Lk 22:1 – Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover (pascha).
Jn 6:4 – And the passover (pascha), a feast of the Jews, was nigh.
Ex 12:1 – And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
2 – This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.
3 – Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:
4 – And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.
5 – Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:
6 – And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
7 – And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.
8 – And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
9 – Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.
10 – And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.
11 – And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD’S passover (pascha).
So, why did the translators choose easter as an equivalent for pascha? Like I mentioned before, the men who translated the KJ bible were a bunch of Roman Catholics and Protestants. They made it fit to their heathen dogmas and their belief system. So, what is Easter? Alexander Hislop says in his book The Two Babylons, Easter is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean (Babylonian) origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis (or Baaltis), the queen of heaven. So, Easter is Babylonian. Mr. Hislop is not the only authority on this. Who is the queen of heaven according to Roman Catholicism heathen system?
Jer 7:18 – The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
Jer 44:17 – But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.
18 – But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
19 – And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?
Jer 44:25 – Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows.
Hasting’s Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics says, Ishtar was the Babylonian and Assyrian form of the divinity who was worshipped in Canaan (and this is where the 12 tribes Israel resided) as Ashtart (Ashtoreth, Astarte), in Mesopotamia as Attar, in Moab as Ashtar, in South Arabia as Athtar, and in Abyssinia as Astar. McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature says Ashtoreth (ashtoroth – plural) was the name of a goddess of the Sidonians (I K 11:5, 33), and also of the Philistines (I Sam 31:10), whose worship was introduced among the Israelites during the period of the Judges (Jud 2:13; I Sam 7:4), was celebrated by Solomon himself (I K 11:5 – and this is why the kingdom was split through his son Rehoboam), and was finally put down by Josiah (II K 23:13). She is frequently mentioned in Connection with Baal (meaning lord), as the corresponding female divinity (Jud 2:13); and, from the addition of the words and all the host of heaven in II K 23:4, (see asherah) it is probable that she represented one of the celestial bodies. There is also reason to believe that she is meant by the queen of heaven, in Jer 7:18; 44:17; whose worship is there said to have been solemnized by burning incense, pouring libations, and offering cakes. Further, by comparing the two passages II K 23:4, and Jer 8:2, which last speaks of the sun and moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they served, we may conclude that the moon was worshipped under the names of queen of heaven and of Ashtoreth, provided the connection between these titles is established.
The worship of Astarte was very ancient and very widely spread. We find the plural Ashtaroth united with the adjunct Karnaim, as the name of a city, so early as the time of Abraham (Gen 14:5), and we read of a temple of this goddess, apparently as the goddess of war, among the Philistines in the time of Saul (I Sam 31:10). From the connection of this goddess with BAAL or BEL, we should, moreover, naturally conclude that she would be found in the Assyrian Pantheon, and, in fact, the name Ishtar appears to be clearly identified in the list of the great gods of Assyria (Layard, Nin. and Bab. p. 352, 629; Rawlinson, Early-History of Babylon, Lond. 1854, p. 23; Rawlinson, Herodotus, i, 634). There is no reason to doubt that this Assyrian goddess is the Ashtoreth of the OT and the Astarte of the Greeks and Romans. She was known to the Babylonians as Mylitta (mediatrix – wrath subduer). To the Arabians as Alitta or Alilat, allahat, the goddess which may, however, also mean the crescent moon (we get the word croissant from crescent). Astarte placed the head of a bull upon her own head, as an emblem of sovereignty. As she was journeying about the world, she found a star wandering in the air, and having taken possession of it, she consecrated it in the sacred island of Tyre (where Hercules was worshipped). The Phoenicians (Canaan/Israel) say that Astarte is Venus (in Latin, the Roman language, venus means wish – how many wishes do you get from a geni?). She has also been considered to be the same as the Syrian fish-deity (and that is why Roman Catholicism eat fish of Friday’s). Asherah (another name for Ashtoreth means grove – tree) was more permanently established later by the Queen Jezebel in the land of Ephraim (I K 16:31-33; 18:19), but at times prevailed in the kingdom of Judah also (II K 18:4; 21:3; 23:4; II Ch 31:1). She had prophets, like Baal (I K 18:19), and her rites were characterized by licentiousness (II K 23:7). Her images were of wood (Jud 6:26), which were erected sometimes together with those of Baal; at one time even in the Temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem (II K 21:7 23:6). Socrates, the ancient ecclesiastical historian, said, everyone knows that the name Easter, used in our translation of Acts 12:4, refers not to any Christian festival, but to the Jewish Passover. This is one of the few places in our version where the translators show an undue bias. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says, The English word Easter comes from the Anglo-Saxon Eastre or Estera, a Teutonic goddess to whom sacrifice was offered in April, so the name was transferred to the paschal feast. There is no trace of Easter celebration in the NT. The Jewish Christians in the early church continued to celebrate the Passover, regarding Christ as the true paschal lamb, and this naturally passed over into a commemoration of the death and resurrection of our Lord, or an Easter feast. This was preceded by a fast, which was considered by one party as ending at the hour of the crucifixion. Differences arose as to the time of the Easter celebration, the Jewish Christians naturally fixing it at the time of the Passover feast which was regulated by the paschal moon. According to this reckoning it began on the evening of the 14th day of the moon of the month of Nisan without regard to the day of the week, while the Gentile Christians identified it with the first day of the week, i.e. the Sunday of the resurrection, irrespective of the day of the month. This latter practice finally prevailed in the church, and those who followed the other reckoning were stigmatized as heretics. But differences arose as to the proper Sunday for the Easter celebration which led to long and bitter controversies. The Council of Nice, 325 AD (same time Roman Catholicism started), decreed that it should be on Sunday, but did not fix the particular Sunday.
Ishtar is the resurrection (or the springing forth) of the fertility gods (vegetation or crop gods) after the day of the carnival Mardi Gras (farewell to the flesh). Before the birth of Jesus, the gods of nature resurrected at this time of the year. Ishtar, had many names in the different cultural societies; Ostara, Ishtar, Estera (the goddess of the east of the Saxons), Ostern (German), Ashtarte of the Syrians, which was a Greek form of Asherah (the grove of the Hebrews), and Ashtoreth. The female deities were all forms of the tree goddess’ of Jeremiah 10, Isaiah 44 and Jeremiah 44.
Isa 44:9 – They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.
10 – Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?
11 – Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed: and the workmen, they are of men: let them all be gathered together, let them stand up; yet they shall fear, and they shall be ashamed together.
12 – The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water, and is faint.
13 – The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house.
14 – He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it
15 – Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto.
16 – He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire:
17 – And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.
This all goes back to Babylon, the mother of harlots.
Rev 17:5 – And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
This system began at Babel in Genesis 11.
Gen 11:1 – And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 – And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 – And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
4 – And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5 – And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 – And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Ishtar was Semiramis, which was the mother of Nimrod. All the gods were forms of Nimrod as the virgin-born son Tammuz, Mithra (whose birthday was Dec. 25th), Hercules, Baal, Attis, Thor, Osiris, etc. They were all sun-gods. These gods died in the winter, just like the crops die in the winter (the end of the harvest was Oct. 31st, called all saint’s eve (Roman Catholic), all hallows eve or halloween), and resurrected (or springs forth) every spring. The pagan festivals of the sun gods, are the patterns that the Roman Church used to pollute Christendom. Before the birth of Christ, the ancient Adonis (a perversion of the word adonai) was said to have been born of a virgin in a cave near Bethlehem (the Saturnalia festival of Rome – Dec. 25th, the birthday of Mithra). Adonis was the spirit of corn, the fertility god of spring. Another of these gods of fertility whose supposed death and resurrection had deep roots in the faith and ritual of western Asia, was Attis. He (Attis) was to Phrygia what Adonis was to Syria. Attis was the god of vegetation, and his death and resurrection was yearly mourned and rejoiced in the spring. The resurrection of the gods and goddesses of vegetation, i.e. Easter, Adonis, Attis, etc., was about food and feasting. The last of all these festivals was called Fat Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday (then Ash Wednesday). The French word is Mardi Gras. The carnival, a type of visitation of their sun god in winter, had to die on the last day of the festival (carnival, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday). He would die at Mardi Gras. Mourning for the god would begin the next day on Ash Wednesday, and last for forty (40) days. The Roman Catholics adopted this and renamed it Lent. During that forty-day period the worshipers would fast forty days. Then on the day of annunciation, March 25th, he would rise from the dead as the fertility god of vegetation. Mr. Hislop said, the forty days abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days was held in spring by the Pagan Mexicans, three days after the vernal equinox began a solemn fast of forty days in honour of the sun. In Egypt it was held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris. Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing.
Ezk 8:1 – And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me.
2 – Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber.
3 – And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.
4 – And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain.
5 – Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.
6 – He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.
7 – And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall.
8 – Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.
9 – And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.
10 – So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about.
11 – And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.
12 – Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.
13 – He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.
14 –Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz (the women were weeping over the death of Tammuz – the sun god of Babylon, who must die before spring).
15 – Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.
16 – And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD’S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.
Yes, sunrise service is pagan. Mr. Hislop said, to conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skillful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity (now far sunk in idolatry) in this as in so many other things, to shake hands. The instrument in accomplishing this amalgamation was the abbot Dionysius the Little, to whom also we owe it, as modern chronologers have demonstrated, that the date of the Christian era, or of the birth of Christ Himself, was moved 4 years from the true time. Whether this was done through ignorance or design may be matter of question; but there seems to be no doubt of the fact, that the birth of the Lord Jesus was made full four years later than the truth. This change of the calendar in regard to Easter was attended with momentous consequences. It brought into the Church the grossest corruption and the rankest superstition in connection with the abstinence of Lent. The festivals (carnivals) were a prelude to the death of their gods, which was followed by a 40-day mourning season (Lent). The carnival, meaning farewell to the flesh, is exactly what the pagans celebrated in the festival before the death of their god in late winter. Mardi Gras is the French word Shrove (Fat) Tuesday. During the carnival the people ate all of the fat they could consume, hence the name, Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras). Shrove Tuesday was the last day of the festival before Ash Wednesday, when mourning for their god began. The Roman Catholics brought this into the church, calling it a holy festival. At the end of the 40-day mourning period, the spring goddess of vegetation, Ishtar, rose from the dead. Since the trees and the flowers had new clothes, they would all come to the sunrise service in new Ishtar clothes. The yearly celebration of the resurrection was about the resurrection of spring vegetation, which was transformed into a god in the minds of the people. The resurrection of Jesus was celebrated every week on the first day of the week (our Sunday).
Where did the dyed eggs come from? Mr. Hislop said, the hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The hot cross buns are not now offered, but eaten, on the festival of Astarte; but this leaves no doubt as to whence they have been derived. The origin of the Pasch eggs is just as clear. The ancient Druids bore an egg, as the sacred emblem of their order. In the Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. The Hindoo fables celebrate their mundane egg as of a golden colour. The people of Japan make their sacred egg to have been brazen. In China, at this hour, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals, even as in this country. In ancient times eggs were used in the religious rites of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up for mystic purposes in their temples. From Egypt these sacred eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks of the Euphrates (Babylon). The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the Babylonians; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus, the Egyptian, the learned keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in the time of Augustus, who was skilled in all the wisdom of his native country: An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess–that is, Astarte. Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale. The occult meaning of this mystic egg of Astarte, in one of its aspects (for it had a twofold significance), had reference to the ark during the time of the flood, in which the whole human race were shut up, as the chick is enclosed in the egg before it is hatched. Now the Romish Church adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and consecrated it as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection.
This was said to be Dagon, the fish god of the Philistines (or the Palestinians/Canaan/Phoenicia/Israel). They deified Noah, and worshipped him as a god. This is the story of Easter/Ishtar.