THE TRUTH ABOUT EASTER

(PART 4)

(... continued from Part 3)

There are several Biblical passages, (please read them) from the Tanakh (referred to as the 'Old Testament by most Christians), which I will mention to that effect. I will also quote some verses within these passages in order to show how God had turned from His people due to their engaging.

Jeremiah 7:16-20, "...and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. ...")

Jeremiah 44:16-23, "..."We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD! We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. ...")

The Queen of Heaven was a name for Isthar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and fertility. After the fall of Jerusalem, the refugees from Judah who fled to Egypt continued to worship her. She was among the gods honoured by the Jewish community living there.

The further we drift from God, the more confused our thinking becomes. Whatever spiritual life was left in the Israelites when they went to Egypt was lost as they sank into the depths of idolatry.

Ezekiel 8:3-18, "...Then he brought me to the entrance to the north gate of the house of the LORD, and I saw women sitting there, mourning for Tammuz." ..."Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol?, ...With their backs toward the Temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east, they were bowing down to the sun in the east. ..."

Tammuz was the Babylonian god of spring. He was the husband or lover of the goddess Isthar. The followers of this cult believed that the green vegetation shriveled and died in the hot summer because Tammuz had died and descended into the underworld. Thus, the worshipers wept and mourned his death. In the springtime, when the new vegetation appeared, they rejoiced, believing that Tammuz had come back to life. God was showing Ezekiel that many people were no longer worshiping the true God of life and vegetation.

The Easter Egg

The Isthar egg originated as follows: The egg was a sacred symbol among the Babylonians. They believed an egg of wondrous size fell from heaven into the Euphrates River'. From this marvelous egg the goddess Astarte (as also know as Semiramis or Ishtar, where we get the name Easter from), was supposed to have hatched. Thus the egg came to symbolize the goddess Easter.

The idea of the mystic egg spread from Babylon to many parts of the world. In Rome, the mystic egg preceded processions in honour of the Roman Mother goddess. The egg was part of the sacred ceremonies of the Mysteries of Bacchus. The Druids used the egg as their sacred emblem. In Northern Europe, China and Japan the eggs were coloured for their sacred festivals.

The egg was a symbol of fertility; Semiramis (Easter) was the goddess of Fertility. The Easter egg is a symbol of the pagan Mother goddess, and it even bears one of her names.

The rabbit is also a well known as a sexual symbol of fertility. Annual spring time fertility rituals are associated worship of the Mother Goddess and Tammuz, the reincarnation of Nimrod.

How was Easter adopted by the church?

How did a pagan celebration such as Easter come to be an important celebration in Christianity? The original community of believers was predominately Jewish (as was the Messiah and the Apostles). These believers had a full understanding of Torah, the prophets and followed the God ordained Feasts and Shabbat. As the community of believers grew, the number of Gentiles increased much faster than Jews. These Gentile believers had little or no knowledge of the Torah, and the prophets. As time passed Greek (Hellenized) thought and mythology began to be incorporated into the church beliefs. The Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE (AD) left Jews as enemies of Rome, and the church moved swiftly to distance itself from the Roman persecution of the Jewish remnant.

As the church separated itself from the Hebrew root it was grafted into, pagan practices began to quickly infiltrate it. With the victory of Constantine in the early 4th century (300's), paganism of the church accelerated rapidly and was given the official state seal, protected and enforced by law. Overnight Pagan temples became churches, and former pagan priests became "Christian" Priests. Statues of Jupiter, became Peter, others represented other saints.

The Council of Nicea & Imperial edicts sealed pagan practices, with Shabbat now being outlawed (replaced by the day to honour the sun god, called Sunday, not to honour the Messiah) and the resurrection celebration (originally 3 days after Passover) moved to the pagan celebration of Easter.

Constantine ended the persecution of the church brought by Diocletian, and thus to many was seen as a type of 'saviour'.

But far from being a benefactor of the church, he became its worst enemy, by marrying pagan & true worship, Holy & unholy. He, in fact, was a Sun worshipper, professing Christianity for political reasons. He professed allegiance to Messiah was in reality a faith based on Mithras (Tammuz). His edict making Sunday the official day of worship was in honour of Deis Solis, Day of the invincible Sun-god, not the Son of God.

British historian Sir James Frazer deduced that it was through the compromise the Christian church made to accommodate competing pagan religions.

Frazer says that the compromise was made because at the time when Christianity was new, it had inflexible and had rigid principles. Those principles were bent to make the religion appealing. This was done with the backing of Roman religious authorities.

Such compromises were part of the reasons why Christians were persecuted in the early days of the church. Some of them refused to compromise. To this day, because of the pagan origin of Easter, some Christian leaders and followers condemn its celebration.

(to be continued ...)