Nov 02 2009
The Story Of Easter - What Do You Believe?
Easter the history is a combination of religious traditions, pagan and
secular celebrations, and language. Click through here for additional
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For the word aspect of Easter the history, the word Easter dates back to the Greek word Pascha
which came from the Hebrew word for Passover. Both Easter and Passover are partially traditions
that have to do with new life. For Christians
Easter is a celebration of Christ’s resurrection, while for Jews Passover relates the story of the
angel of death killing every first born but passing over homes marked with blood, the Jewish homes. Remember too that Jesus was a Jew,
and he celebrated passover with the last supper. Our English word, Easter,
comes from the Old English name of a month in the Germanic Calendar, Eostre, which itself may come
from the name of a goddess, Eostre, who often carried a basket filled with eggs.
In Easter the history
for Christians the Easter season, or Eastertide, is important. At one time this was
marked as 40 days from Easter until Ascension Day, the day Jesus rose into heaven, but now it lasts 50
days until Pentecost, when the apostles were visited by the Holy Spirit. Another link to Judaism comes in that
Pentecost happened on Shavout, the day 50 days after the Exodus that God delivered the Ten
commandments to Moses. You can get complimentaryvaluable info
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Over time in the Christian church there were many disputes over the date that Easter should be
celebrated. The final argument is commonly called the Quartodeciman controversy. The
whole argument was whether to celebrate Easter on Nisan 14, a Hebrew calendar date, or the following
Sunday. Nisan 14 is the Lord’s Passover, the day when Jews prepare for the Feast of
Unleavened Bread. Only the Christians in Phyrgia, located in Asia, celebrated
Easter on this day, while everyone else marked it as the next Sunday. That was because
Nisan 14 could fall any day of the week, while most Christians wanted to celebrate Easter on a
Sunday. The initial dispute didn’t create a
schism. But one generation later all the Asia minor
Bishops were excommunicated because they would not celebrate Easter the Sunday following Nisan 14. You will find
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There’s another element to the controversy in that Christians had to rely on Jews to set the
date for Nisan 14, and thus for Easter whether or not it fell on that date or on the following
Sunday.
Sometimes there were two Nisan 14’s in the same year, because Jewish scholars set the date one
year before the spring equinox after the last year it was after the spring equinox. The First Council of Nicaea ended all the date disputes by ending the reliance on the
Jewish calendar for Nisan 14.
Wikipedia has a very interesting entry for Easter the History and the date calculation of
the holiday.
