Easter

It truly is an issue attached to certain translations only.
My own country's AV, first printed in 1637 uses the word: "Pasen". Luther's translation on the other hand uses:"Ostern".

 

As far as I am concerned the Acts 12:4 "easter" mistranslation is a totally understandable blemish coming out of the culutural/religious and Pagan roots of Great Britain.

Remember, all the English names of the days of the week are in honor of Pagan gods (Sun Day, Moon Day, Zues Day, Woden's Day, Thor's Day, Frieden's Day, Saturn's Day).

Acts 12:4 (and other blemishes) went almost totally unoticed until the radical KJVO and their version of The Emporer's New Clothes that the 1611KJV is/was the jot and tittle (of which there are none) "perfect" and "very" Word of God which corrects the Greek and Hebrew with "advanced revelations" such as Acts 12:4.

This erroneous teaching ABOUT the KJV needs to be exposed (pardon the pun) as a pious but false myth.

Old habits die hard (to quote a cliche) so personally I tolerate "Easter" for Resurrection Day and "Christmas" for Incarnation Day as well as going to church on the Day of the sun or going to prayer meeting on Woden's day.

But I will throw my 2 cents in when someone else asks questions.


HankD

[ February 28, 2005, 09:17 AM: Message edited by: HankD ]

 

Our church does not use the term Easter, we use Resurrection Day and the celebration of Christ's birth for Christmas.

Bro Tony

Right now there is a sign out in front of our church that has the times for our "Resurrection Day" services.

 

I personally enjoy Easter eggs, Easter candy, and the Easter feast. It has to be a little heaven on earth. Oh, and I do enjoy the Easter sermons and services. I lead a young man to Christ on Easter 2003. He is attending Bible College now. My Pastor calls me his spiritual dad because of the branches that are starting to sprout from that single seed. I prefer the KJV, and personally do not mind the translation term Easter. I guess I dwell more on some of the other significant words that it contains.

 

What I like about Easter as I get older and more forgetful, I can hide my own Easter eggs.

 

Due to circumstances that I have discussed on this board before, a few of us had children later in life. The kids get upset at us when we come up short on the egg count, and we cannot remember where we hid them. My youngest is 13. I hope and pray that she outgrows the need to hunt Easter eggs very soon, and just enjoy eating them. The eggs are usually discovered over the course of a few weeks; however, we have had one pop up a year later. We use the plastic eggs for hunting, and the real ones for eating.

 

Nick has always enjoyed hiding and hunting Easter Eggs so we've used the plastic since he was tiny.

 

I know that Easter came from Ishtar but I am celebrating THE RISEN CHRIST and if I am wrong may GOD have mercy on my soul.----yours in CHRIST

 

To try to answer your question,Ps104_33:

The KJV translators did know what they were doing when they put the word "Easter" in the Bible. Let me try to explain:

The Greek word which is translated "Easter" in Acts 12:4 is the word "pascha".
Coming to the word "Easter" in God's Authorized Bible, some people seize upon it imagining that they have found proof that the Bible is not perfect. Well, I believe that it is perfect.
Easter, as we know it,comes from the ancient pagan festival of Astarte(also known as Ishtar). This festival, as we know, was in April. It was a celebration of the earth "regenerating" itself after the winter season. This festival involved a celebration of reproduction.For this reason the common symbols of Easter is the "rabbit" and the "egg".Both are known for their reproductive abilities.
At the center of attention was Astarte, the female deity. She is known in the Bible as the "queen of heaven"(Jer.7:18;44:17-25). She is the mother of Tammuz(Ez.8:14).These rituals would take place at sunrise on Easter morning (Ez.8:13-16). From the referances in Jeremiah and Ezekiel,we can see that the true Easter has never had any association with Jesus Christ.
PROBLEM: Even though the Jewish passover was held in mid April (the fourteenth or Fifteenth) and the pagan festival Easter was held later the same month,how do we know that Herod was referring to Easter and not the Jewish passover?

If Herod was referring to the passover, the translation of"pascha" as "Easter" is incorrect.

If Herod was indeed referring to the pagan holiday, then the KJV must truly be the VERY word and words of God for it is the only Bible in print today which has the correct reading.

Herod was not Jewish, so why would he be celebrating the passover?

 

Yeah.... Isn't it in Hezekiah ... something about plastic pastel eggs sending you straight to hell?

 

I'm OK with using the term Easter. The particular etymology of the word, while interesting, does not, IMHO, reach the level of dumping the word. It communicates both the spiritual as well as the secular connotations of the word but NONE of the more pagan definitions of its origin. I would be very surprised if one out of a thousand people have any notion of the origins and even then I doubt that it has any relevance to them.

 

Colossians 2:16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. 18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. 20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations-- 21 "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle," 22 which all concern things which perish with the using--according to the commandments and doctrines of men? 23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

 

While I would not judge anyone who used the term Easter or even did the egg thing, it is intellectually dishonest to say that the word "Pascha" can properly be translated Easter. The word is that same no matter if a Jew or a non-Jew uses it. Easter comes from an entirely different word.

Bro Tony

 

We know that he was not referring to easter:

Acts 12
2 And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.
3 And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.)
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 (Pascha) to bring him forth to the people.

Compare with
Luke 22:1 Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover.
2 And the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill him; for they feared the people.
...
7 Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed.

You are also correct.

So until 1611 every Bible was incorrect?

This is the exact theory of Dr. Peter Ruckman. That even the “errors” in the KJV Bible are inspired. He calls them “advanced revelation”. Indeed he teaches that the completed canon of Scripture is the KJV and the KJV alone (although he never tells us which revision) and that until he came along and discovered end expounded upon these “advanced revelations” the entire church from the Apostles on had either an incomplete or unknowable revelation from God.

Why did his family rebuild the temple? Besides, the Scripture doesn’t say that he himself was going to celebrate the Passover, only that he was going to wait until the Passover was finished to judge Peter before the people.

HankD

[ March 01, 2005, 08:49 PM: Message edited by: HankD ]

 

bluejayy, you were correct when you said

But then you go on to say

Now just doing a word search I found the word pascha occurs 29 times in the new testament. Every other time it is translated passover. If Pascha refers to a pagan holiday in Acts 12:4 then how can it refer to the passover in Matt 26:2,17,18,19; Mark 14:1,12,14,16; Luke 2:41, 22:1,7,8,11,13,15; John 2:13,23, 6:4, 11:55, 12:1, 13:1, 18:28,39, 19:4; I Cor 5:7; and Heb 11:28?

 

bluejayy, you also said

Here you are at least partially mistaken. The man called Herod the king in Acts 12 is Herod Agrippa the first, the grandson of Herod the Great. (the king Argippa found in Acts 25 and 26 is his son Herod Agrippa the second).

According to Josephus Herod the Great was the son of Antipar, an Idumaean (Jos., "Bel. Jud.", I, vi, 2). The Idumaeans were defeated by John Hyrcanus and were considered Jews (Jos., "Ant.", XIII, ix, 4). Josephus further records that while Antigonus called Herod a half-Jew (Jos., "Ant.", XIV, xv, 2), the Jews spoke of Herod their king as by birth a Jew (Jos., "Ant." XX, viii, 7). Remember that it was Herod the Great who built the temple where Jesus would go to worship.

Herod the Great married several wives but it was through Mariamne, a direct descendant of the Macabees that Herod Arippa's father Aristobulus was born. Herod Arippa aslo had a sister, Herodias, the woman who was a big part of John the Baptist's problems. She married two of her uncles, first Herod Philip with whom her daughter Salome was born and then to Herod Antipas.

So Herod Agrippa was at least three quarters Jewish. Again, according to Josephus, he seemed to have inherited from his Hasmonean ancestors a great love and zeal for the law (Jos., "Ant.", XIX, vii, 3). According to Josephus it was his love of the Jewish law and religion that caused him to imprison Peter and execute James.

In short(too late), Herod Agrippa was very much a Jew and specifically the kind of Jew who would have celebrated the Passover.