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In Gulliver's Travels, a book written by Jonathan Swift in 1726, talks of two Islands Lilliput and Blefuscu. These islands are inhabited by small people (1/12 the size of normal people) and are constantly at war with each other. Both islands are ruled by emperors and both subscribe to a prophet Lustrog whose teachings are detailed in their holy book the Blundecral.
In the teachings of the Blundecral it details that eggs should be broken on the convenient end. The Lilliputians believe that this means the smaller end as generations before a son of the emperor had cut his finger breaking an egg on the big end. He thus mandated that all eggs be broken on the small end. The Blefuscans, on the contrary, believe an egg must be broken on the big end. This resulted in centuries of conflict with many people displaced from their homes and others slain in conflict through the strife between the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians. In the story Gulliver washes up on the shore of Lilliput and gains their good graces until he refuses to conquer Blefuscu and force them to adopt the practice of Little-Endians. Gulliver is subsequently charged with treason. Shakespeare famously said, "A rose by any name would smell as sweet." I am a bit of a word-smith and I love the many wonderful ways words can be used. However, sometimes our debates are as silly and lacking in importance as the debate between the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians. A word never has the weight of its referent--as beautiful as the word "rose" is, it never can approach the beauty and fragrance of the flower itself. In our religious squabbles it pays to remember this.
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I posted on FB a couple of weeks ago some observations about Passover and Easter. I notice that the misinformation doesn't seem to slow down. A quick review--neither the word Easter nor Passover appears in the original texts of the Bible. In the Hebrew Bible the word is Pesach and in the Greek New Testament the word is Pascha. Passover is the English word used to translate both Pesach and Pascha in most Bibles. In the original KJV in Acts 12:4 Pascha is translated "Easter." Remember that the word "Easter" is nearly 1000 years older than the word "Passover." I do think Tyndale came up with a great English word to translate the Hebrew Pesach but the English, Dutch and Germanic peoples were all using some variant of Easter as their term for the Resurrection long before he coined the word Passover.
Some think that Easter is a term that came from the Germanic goddess Eostre. This is difficult to prove or disprove and not worth your time in my opinion. Colored eggs at the celebration for the Resurrection have a long history and probably are connected to the egg on the Passover plate. At least they are found all through Christian history. The Easter Bunny is a fairly recent addition to the Resurrection celebration and is generally only found in Germanic cultures and thus also seen in England and America. It is not a feature even today in the traditional Christian churches of Italy and Greece. Its origins stem from the 13th century several hundred years after the Germans, Dutch and English began using the term Easter to describe the Resurrection. It is a practice that wormed its way into the Resurrection celebration and does not originate from Christian observance of the Resurrection. In spite of the often spurious and silly claims you might find in Encyclopedias and other reference sources there does not appear to be any relationship to calling Passover Easter and using bunnies. It is true that the countries that use the term Easter are the places the use of bunnies seem to have originated but this practice way postdates the name. You will also see a lot of memes saying that the Crucifixion could not occur on Friday and Yeshua (Jesus) arise on Sunday. The big objection to this is Yeshua's statement that the only sign he would show the people would be the sign of Jonah who was 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the fish. This was a picture of Yeshua being in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights. (Matthew 12:40) Certainly a Friday Crucifixion does not work in this scenario. However, when we look at all scripture concerning the Crucifixion and the Resurrection the picture is not so clear. You can easily find 12 passages in the New Testament that say he will rise on the 3rd day. Only one or two mention 3 days and 3 nights. Perhaps in Hebrew idiom these two are synonymous but they are not in English. In 1 Corinthians 15: 3 "For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that the Messiah died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." Paul goes on to say that He appeared to Peter, James and many others. Note, he says the items of first importance are 1- that he died for our sins according to the scriptures of which Isaiah 53 is an example. 2- that he was buried and 3- he raised on the third day according to the scriptures. The best scripture I can find to demonstrate this fact is Hosea 6: 2 "He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, That we may live before Him." Thus I believe it is reasonable to posit a Friday Crucifixion as well as a Wednesday Crucifixion. (Some believe Thursday is correct.) I personally believe that the "third day" in our understanding has more evidence than "three days and three nights" in our understanding. My suggestion is that we all be humble enough to recognize we could be mistaken on this issue. Of greatest importance, is recognizing He died for our sins, He was buried and He was raised on the third day. Finally we should realize when we compare "Easter" to "Passover" that the focus of the Christian Easter is the Resurrection which Paul tells us is of first importance. To the practicing Jew the focus of Passover is the exodus from Egypt. We shouldn't be surprised that there is some variance in practice. Celebrating the Resurrection is not pagan--it is Christian/Messianic. Yeshua is identified as the Passover (Pesach) in 1 Corinthians 5 so for Christians He is the focus of the celebration. For Jews it is the deliverance from Egypt and they celebrate by following the Biblical injunctions to refrain from leaven and eat matza (unleavened bread.) If we really wanted to help people see this topic correctly, our first prerogative would be to understand their practice and figure out why they do what they do. While there is a wide chasm between Christian and Jewish observance, those in the Messianic community would be well-served to do a little more research and really try to understand those who differ in their practice from them. I see great value in doing a Passover Seder as it shows us so much of the ministry of our Messiah. It is also a way that we Biblically observe Passover. However, celebrating the Resurrection is also of first importance for us and should not be neglected. Abba Eban reputedly said, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but everyone is not entitled to their own facts." This year the church will celebrate Easter (Resurrection Sunday) nearly a month before traditional Judaism celebrates Pesach (Passover) and the internet has already gone into overdrive on posts linking Easter to Ishtar and various other pagan entities.
First early Christianity does appear to have celebrated the Resurrection on the Passover week also observed by Judaism. Within less than a couple of hundred years a controversy developed over whether the Resurrection should be celebrated on the 14th day of Nisan (traditional night of the Passover Seder) or on the Sunday occurring during the week of Unleavened Bread. The famous martyr Polycarp was one of those pushing for the 14th of Nisan. This controversy never was really resolved but more and more Christians moved to the Sunday celebration. By the Council of Nicaea convened by the emperor Constantine in 325 AD the decision was made that the Resurrection should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring after the Spring Equinox. Two major reasons for their decision was to produce uniformity of observance and completely separate Christian observance of the Resurrection from the Jewish calendar. Sadly while there is no evidence of paganism influencing this choice it is plain that Antisemitism was a major force in the change. All through church history and still today in the ancient churches of Rome, Istanbul, etc. the name of the Resurrection observance is some form of "pascha" taken from the Hebrew "pesach." In the Dutch, German and English churches the term for the Resurrection became some variant of Easter. This appears to have occurred some time in the 600s AD. In Tyndale's English translation of the Bible in the late 1300s he didn't want to use the Christian term "Easter" for the Hebrew pesach found all through the Tanach (Old Testament.) So he coined the word "Passover" to be the English equivalent of the Hebrew "pesach." Thus in terms of chronological age the term Easter is older than Passover. However much you like or don't like the silly Easter egg hunts or Easter bunnies they have nothing to do with the name Easter and it is not at all related to the Semitic Ishtar. Eggs are associated with the Resurrection celebration through most of Christianity and most of them have never used or had the word Easter in their vocabulary. They are clearly extraBiblical. You are all entitled to your opinion but for the sake of peace try to ascertain the facts of the situation. There are plenty of places you can do the research but I would suggest you don't pay much attention to FB memes. We can all make our choices without castigating those we disagree with. It also makes sense to develop a sound case for why you believe in the practice you follow but perhaps we could be a little less severe with those who haven't seen our light as of yet. We are in the Days of Awe--the 10 days starting at Rosh Hashana (Yom Teruah--Feast of Trumpets) to the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. This is a time of introspection, repentance, reconciliation. Something we forget but still all know is that when we have no peace with people we have no peace with God. So preparing to come before our Maker always involves straightening things out with people.
We betray our priorities by what "hill" we are willing to die on. In 155 CE, Polycarp the bishop of Smyrna traveled to Rome to meet with Anicetus the bishop of Rome to resolve an important controversy. Polycarp, who said he was following his mentor the apostle John, believed the resurrection should be celebrated on the 14th day of Nisan. Anicetus believed that since the resurrection occurred on Sunday that the resurrection should always be celebrated on the Sunday during the Passover week. They discussed and debated at length but neither could convince the other of the error of their position. To display what their top priority was, they celebrated the "Lord's Supper" together publicly to show their unity in the Messiah and parted in peace. Sadly a few decades later Victor excommunicated Polycrates for his Quartodeciman (Polycarp's) views. This exemplifies a trend that grew in the early church--hating and separating from "heretics" and finally killing them. The Jews bore the brunt of this misguided zeal. In the 5th century a group of Christians burned down a synagogue. The emperor Theodosius ordered the Christians to rebuild the synagogue out of their own funds. The Roman bishop of the time rebuked Theodosius and refused to allow him to take Communion until he had rescinded his order. Most of us are aware of the barbarity of the Inquisition and the murderous treatment of Jews, infidels and Protestants. But we don't look for the root. Can there be a worse heresy than a willingness to kill those we disagree with? Augustine called for the death of heretics, as did Calvin, Luther, Cromwell and other reformers. Perhaps it's time to admit that there is no worse heresy than the willingness to destroy our opponents and wipe out our opponents. That's the way the world operates--not the Kingdom. These 10 days afford us an opportunity to look deeply inside ourselves and ask "Do my actions reveal me as a follower of Yeshua (Jesus)? While I think doctrine, liturgy, dogma, ceremony are all vital they are not the most important aspect of the Christian life. "By this will ALL men know that you are my disciples, that you love one another." There may be a reason the world doesn't know who we are yet.  It is the time of year for the Biblical celebration of Passover. Since memes seem to be the way we communicate and teach now, I thought I might clear up some confusion for many of you. Many are sharing erroneous information about this season. I have no interest in telling you how to think or what to believe. But facts can be helpful.
In the Tanach (Old Testament) the word translated Passover is the Hebrew פֶּסחַ (pesach.) In the New Testament the word translated as Passover is the Greek πάσχα (pascha.) In the King James Version "pascha" is translated once as Easter but most Bible versions use only the term Passover to translate pascha. Pesach refers to not only the ritual celebrated on the evening of the 14th day of Nisan (Aviv) but often to the entire 7 day Feast also known as Unleavened Bread. In the New Testament there is a clear link between Yeshua's (Jesus's) crucifixion, burial and resurrection and the Passover and Unleavened Bread observances. Yeshua arguably was crucified on the evening of the 14 or 15th day of Nisan, was buried and then rose from the dead on the first day of the week which corresponded to the waving of the barley sheaf performed during the week of Unleavened Bread. Since Yeshua said he would give the sign of Jonah by being buried 3 days and 3 nights but many more places say he would be raised on the third day there is not general consensus on what day of the week he was buried. Some believe he was resurrected on the night after the Sabbath but by Jewish reckoning that would still be Sunday the first day of the week. In 1 Corinthians 5 Paul clearly states that Yeshua is our Passover. (Some versions say "our Passover Lamb" which is not wrong but does add a word.) The earliest Christians (Messianics) kept Passover like their Jewish neighbors with the major difference being their emphasis on the celebration of Yeshua's resurrection. As Jewish influence waned in the early church the crucifixion and resurrection themes dominated and the exodus and unleavened bread themes retreated. Less than 200 years after Yeshua's death and resurrection a controversy arose in the church now known as the quartodeciman controversy. Basically the quartodecimans believed that the resurrection should be celebrated on the 14th day of Nisan and their opponents believed the resurrection should be celebrated on the Sunday during the week of Passover. The martyr Polycarp subscribed to the quartodeciman theory and claimed he had been taught this by the apostle John. The opponents of the quartodecimans also claimed apostolic authority. By the time of the Nicean Council 325AD where the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity was established, an effort was made to establish a uniform date for celebrating the resurrection but this effort failed. Constantine and the Council made clear however that they felt it was an error to be dependent upon the Jewish/Biblical lunar calendar and that they wished for the church to set the date for this important celebration and not the Jews. The calculation favored by the Nicean bishops eventually became the Christian practice which was to set the celebration on the first Sunday following the first full moon occurring on or after the Spring Equinox. Thus the dating for Passover as observed by Jews and the dating for the Resurrection became independent of each other. Around 600 AD the word Easter became the word to describe the Christian celebration of the resurrection for people who spoke English, German and Dutch. Its origin is thought to be from a German goddess, Ostara or Eostre, or some believe it came from a word describing the direction of the rising sun, the East. Regardless of its origin it became the word to describe the resurrection in these languages. The word became so entrenched that even English Jews used Oester to describe their Passover celebrations in England in the 14th and 15th century. When Tyndale translated the Bible into old English he felt that the word "Easter" was too sacred and special to use to translate the Hebrew pesach of the Old Testament. He is the one to invent the English word Passover so it is actually a much younger word than Easter. It was an excellent term that fit the Biblical pesach very well as it had the connotation of passing or leaping over. The ancient historical churches have always used the Biblical term pascha to describe their observances--Latin, Greek, Aramaic and Syriac. The word Easter is not a part of Catholic, Orthodox, and Maronite worship in their original languages. It is a purely Germanic term and thus has only impacted those cultures using the English, German and Dutch languages. Ancillary activities that many Christians observe on Easter/Pascha had nothing to do with the name of the festivity. They were cultural practices that gradually became a part of Pascha celebrations in many groups--Easter bunnies, colored eggs, etc. Particularly the bunnies are a rather modern innovation only emphasized in the last 200 years. Finally in the Old Testament the Biblical term translated Passover is pesach. In the New Testament the Biblical term translated Passover is pascha. The term Passover is never used in either testament. It is a great term coined by Tyndale to translate the Hebrew and Greek terms, pesach and pascha. |
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