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What Components Went Into Making The History Of Easter A Compelling Study

By: Jullienne Queen


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Easter the history includes not only the history of the Easter holiday and Easter season, but also the words and traditions that we use today in celebration of Easter.

Easter the history includes the etymology of the word Easter which goes back to the Greek Pascha, meaning Passover, the Hebrew holiday. Both Easter and Passover are partially traditions that have to do with new life. The Christian Easter has to do with Jesus' resurrection while the Hebrew Passover has to do with God sparing the children of the Jews while killing the first born of the Egyptians. Passover has another connection to Easter in that the Last Supper is believed to have taken place either just before or during Passover. 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.

Eastertide in Easter the history is the whole of the Easter season. It used to be that the season was 40 days from Easter Sunday to the Ascension when God brought Jesus to heaven, but in the modern Christian calendar it has expanded 10 extra days to Pentecost when the holy spirit enlightened the apostles. Pentecost took place on Shavout, a Jewish commemoration of the day God delivered Ten Commandments to Moses.

Over time in the Christian church there were many disputes over the date that Easter should be celebrated. The last of these was known as the Quartodeciman. The whole argument was whether to celebrate Easter on Nisan 14, a Hebrew calendar date, or the following Sunday. Passover Proper, held on Nisan 14, is the day people get ready 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. Nisan 14 fell on different days each year while the majority of Bishops and the Pope wanted Easter on a Sunday. When the dispute first began the Bishop of Phyrgia and the Bishop of Rome agreed to disagree, and let it stand. But about 20 years later the Bishop of Rome excommunicated all the Bishops of Asia minor over the practice of celebrating on Nisan 14.

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. It was possible, depending on the decision of Jewish leaders, to have two Nisan 14's within the span of less than a year. The whole thing was cleared up with the First Nicaea Council who separated Easter from the Jewish calculations for Passover.

Wikipedia has a very interesting entry for Easter the History and the date calculation of the holiday.

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