Where Did Easter Come From?


True Bible Teaching - Gods Word Explained

Where Did Easter Come From?

The Truth of Easter and where it came from?

EasterTo begin, Easter is a Chaldee word wrongly applied to the Passover or pascha {pas'-khah}. Pascha, which means to skip, or pass over, applies to the Pascal sacrifice the Israelites were accustomed to slay and eat on the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan, (the first month of their year), in memory of the day on which their forefathers, preparing to depart from Egypt, were bidden by God to slay and eat a lamb, and to sprinkle their door posts with its blood, that the destroying angel, seeing the blood, may pass over their dwellings.

'For God said, "I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt" (Exodus 12:12-13).

That Passover lamb was a type of Christ crucified. Those who believe the Gospel message of salvation and are baptised into Christ are covered by the blood of Christ, as in type the Israelites were under the blood of the lamb.  As the lamb died in place of Israel's firstborn, who were under its blood in Egypt, Christ died for those who choose to follow him and are baptised into his name and become a community of believers who follow Christ’s teaching.

Believers know that the name 'Easter,' used in our translation of Acts 12:4, refers not to any Christian festival, and not to the Jewish Passover. This is one of those places in our Bible where the translators show an undue bias. The best explanation is that this refers to the pagan festival of Astarte, also known as 'Ishtar' and pronounced 'Easter' by us. This festival was held in late April around the time of the Passover. In its original form, it was a celebration of the earth regenerating itself after the winter season in the northern hemisphere. The festival involved the celebration of fertility and reproduction. The common symbols of Easter were the rabbit and (for obvious reasons) the egg. Pagan symbols which have crept into church usage.

Astarte or Ishtar was the main female deity of pagan religion, and is known in the Bible as the 'Queen of Heaven'. In Jeremiah 7:16-18, God told His prophet this;


And again in Jeremiah 44:11-25 we read;



 And again in Ezekiel 8:13-18 records the Jew's worship of these gods, brought the fierce wrath of God, in the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. These perverted rituals take place at sunrise on Easter morning;


The word 'Easter' appears only once in the Bible. Acts 12:1-4: 'About that time Herod the king moved against some of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And when he saw how greatly this pleased the Jewish leaders, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (It was during the days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.) And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to sixteen soldiers; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people for execution'.

The key to understanding Acts 12:4 is in the previous verse. This was in 'the days of Unleavened Bread'. The Passover was the feast before the days of Unleavened Bread, so this word does not refer to the Passover, but to some event after the Passover. Herod was not a Jew, and could care less about the Passover. However, he probably kept Easter, in honor of his false goddess, 'the Queen of Heaven', and wanted to slay James, to add a little interest to his PAGAN feast day.

Much has been written that goes far to prove the identity of the Babylonian system of worship within Christendom; but at every step the evidence becomes still more overwhelming. Particularly when we compare the different festivals. One of its important festivals that can be proved to be Babylonian is Easter. Now don't just take my word for you can prove this from any encyclopedia, and the Bible.

So the term "Easter" is not a Christian name.  Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, 'the Queen of Heaven', whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in Australia. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar.

The worship of Bel and Astarte was introduced into Britain by the Druids, 'the priests of the groves'. Baal was worshipped, and his consort, Astarte, was also adored by our ancestors in Britain. And from Astarte, whose name in Nineveh was Ishtar, the religious solemnities of April, as now practiced, are called by the name of Easter - that month, among our Pagan ancestors, was called Easter-month.

According to the Bible, there is no requirement for Christians to observe the Jew's Feast of Passover, which Christ has fulfilled (past tense). Like many other Jewish and also pagan traditions the passover was reintroduced in the early days of the false church.

That festival was not idolatrous, and was preceded by no Lent. In the age of Constantine, fifteen days was enforced by law (Bingham, ix. p. 95). "It ought to be known," said Cassianus the monk of Marseilles (writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive Church with the Church in his day), "that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of the primitive Church remained inviolate."

The forty days' abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshipers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, 'in the spring of the year,' is still observed by the pagan devil-worshipers of Koordistan.

Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. 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 buns, were used in the worship of the 'Queen of Heaven', the goddess Easter, as early as the founding of Athens, 1500 years before Christ. They offered sacred cakes made of fine flour and honey. The prophet Jeremiah speaks of this kind of offering when he says, "The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven' (Jeremiah 7:18). Hot cross buns are not offered nowadays, but eaten, on the festival of Astarte. This leaves no doubt as to whence they've been derived.

The Chinese also observed this festival. They baked moon cakes to the Goddess of mercy who was sometimes portrayed with her son in her arms. Imagine the surprise of some Roman Catholic missionaries as they entered China and found there a Madonna and Child with rays of light emanating from the head of the babe. The image could have been exchanged for one in the Vatican except for the difference of certain facial features.

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 mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, one part of the ceremony consisted in consecrating an egg. The Hindu fables celebrate their mundane egg as of a golden colour. The people of Japan say their sacred egg was brazen. In China, today, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals. 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. Classic poets are full of fables of the mystic egg of the Babylonians; "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, hatched it, and out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess, Astarte. Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter and the false apostate churches have adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and consecrated it as a symbol of Christ's resurrection.

So True Believers have no part of the church adoption of Easter as taking any place in their following of the teaching of Christ and the Word of God.

True Bible Believers follow only the Truth as it is taught in the Bible.