The English word Easter actually derives from "Eostre," the name of a pagan Germanic goddess of Spring and the resurrection of new life after the cold winter. It is also similar to the name Ishtar, the ancient "Queen of Heaven". (More on this below.)

Because of the SHEEP mentality in us, most of us believe things that are not really true simply because we have always believed them as taught by our parents and our churches. We just follow the church crowd. Most of us never ask why we really believe the things we believe, and do the things we do? Do you, when you decide to celebrate any holiday, like Easter?

Does the Bible really say it is acceptable in the eyes of God for Christians to actually celebrate a Pagan holiday like Easter Sunday that has absolutely nothing to do with the resurrection of Jesus? Neither is actually commanded in the Bible. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is obviously important because it validates who Jesus claimed to be, namely, the Son of God and our Savior. No argument there. Believing that He rose from the dead is really essential for Christians. The Bible says we must believe in His resurrection in order to receive eternal life. Jesus Christ paid our debt, but His sacrifice on the cross means nothing if He never really rose from the dead. So the answer to the question about whether we should celebrate the resurrection of Jesus is Absolutely YES, but is the resurrection really the same thing as this Pagan holiday called Easter Sunday that Christians celebrate every Spring? When did the resurrection actually occur and when should we celebrate it?

Does The Bible Really Say Easter Is The Same As The Resurrection?

Let's Look At The Two Pagan Goddesses Associated With What Christians Call Easter.

What does the Bible really say about this Pagan holiday called Easter Sunday? Is it OK with God for Christians to actually celebrate Easter, which is an entirely different Pagan holiday celebration that really has nothing to do with Jesus or His resurrection? What? Isn't celebrating Easter Sunday the same thing as celebrating the resurrection? According to what the Bible actually says, absolutely NOT!

There is little dispute that "Eostre", the name of the pagan Germanic goddess, is directly connected with the day of Easter and Jesus' resurrection from the grave. Eostre comes from the 8th-century English monk Bede, who wrote that the pagan Anglo-Saxons held feasts in her honor during the month of April, which they called Ēosturmōnaþ (Eostre’s Month) Easter was changed from the Pagan Holiday Eostre celebration of resurrection of life in the Spring, to the celebration of Jesus and His resurrection from death.

There is some dispute among scholars about Ishtar though. Given the following evidence I believe there is definitely a strong connection with Ishtar, Eostre, and modern Easter Sunday holiday.

Ishtar, (pronounced (Easter), was the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian pagan goddess of sexuality and fertility and was believed to be Queen Of Heaven. The Phoenician name of Ishtar was Astarte, consort of Baal, the sun god, whose worship is denounced by the God in the Bible as abominable pagan idolatry. Ishtar's legacy from the Sumerian tradition is the role of a war goddess and fertility figure, (rabbits and eggs?) delighting in bodily love, and was the protector of prostitutes. She was actually known as the Queen of Heaven, which the Catholic church foolishly changed to the title for Jesus' mother, Mary. The Bible actually shows Ishtar, the Queen of Heaven, being mentioned in Jeremiah. Here is what the Bible says.

"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 ancestors, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm." But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine." (Jeremiah 44:17-19)

What do pagan Easter traditions like children hunting for dyed and decorated eggs, bunny themed baskets filled with candy, treats, and toys, and lies about an Easter bunny delivering all of these treats actually have to do with the resurrection of Jesus? Absolutely nothing! Eggs and rabbits were, and still are, fertility and sex symbols of a fertility goddess, hence their use to celebrate this Pagan holiday every Spring. These fertility customs and traditions are not connected with the resurrection in any way! They can only be connected with the celebration of Easter. Dyed eggs figured in the ancient Babylonian mystery rites, just as they do in this Easter holiday today. The ancient Druids bore an egg as the sacred emblem of their idolatrous pagan order. According to James Bonwick: "Eggs were hung up in the Egyptian temples. The mystic egg of Babylon, hatching the Venus Ishtar, fell from heaven to the Euphrates. Dyed eggs were sacred pagan Easter offerings in Egypt . The pagan Easter season was the season of birth, terrestrial and celestial" (Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought, pp. 211-212).

At its roots, Easter Sunday is all about celebrating a Pagan holiday regardless of which pagan goddess is behind it. That's why God says in the Bible that He actually hates OUR man made Feasts like Christmas, Halloween, and Easter. Our pagan holiday's violate the principle of the first commandment.

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex 20:3).

The Bible says God really hates our Pagan holidays like Easter, no matter how well intended, yet millions of Christians put this pagan goddess celebration before God with lavish meals and drink, dyed eggs, chocolate rabbits, and fertility based, bunny themed decorations and other pagan traditions.

What Does Scripture Actually Say About 3 Days And 3 Nights In The Tomb?

Does The Church Not Know How Many Hours Are In A Day?

Is the church really right, or are they just playing number games to "try" to make 3 days and 3 nights fit into the Good Friday to Easter Sunday lie they are fostering? Jesus did not really rise on a Sunday morning. That's a fact! It's based on when Passover was the year Jesus was crucified. Jewish historical records which God ordained them to accurately keep, plainly show it actually was on a Wednesday that year.

Early Christian documents, such as the Didascalia Apostolorum (c. 200 AD), mention a Tuesday night Passover and a Wednesday crucifixion. This does not fit with the "tradition" of the Catholic church which "claims" Jesus died on a Friday, either during 30 AD or 33 AD. 72 hours in the grave is only possible with a Wednesday crucifixion which doesn't fit with what the Catholica church said for these 2 years.

As Jesus broke the bread and drank the wine at the Last Supper, the evening of Passover, (Tuesday evening after sunset as God counts time, when Passover began), Jesus told His disciples He really desired to celebrate this Passover with them. Here is what the Bible says.

"And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." (Luke 22:15).

The next day, Wednesday, was the day part of Passover when Jesus actually became the new Passover lamb for our sins. He died on the cross on a Wednesday. After he was removed from the cross and His body wrapped for burial as was the custom, He was then taken to the tomb and buried right before sunset on Wednesday. Do the math. There is absolutely no way to get three 12 hour days, and three 12 hour nights from Friday to Sunday. The Bible says this.

"Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him" (John 11:9-10)

Jesus showed us plainly in the Bible that there are 12 daylight hours in a 24 hour day, which also means there are 12 hours when one walk in the darkness of night. It's just like Jesus said as he differentiated the 3 days and 3 nights He would be in the grave.

"For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matthew 12:40)

3 days, (Thursday, Friday and Saturday), and 3 nights, (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday), means He actually rose around the same time He was buried, on Saturday, the Sabbath, (how appropriate), around sunset, not on Easter Sunday morning as the church teaches.

Night 1 = Wednesday after sunset to Thursday sunrise.
Day 1 = Thursday after sunrise to Thursday sunset.
Night 2 = Thursday after sunset to Friday sunrise.
Day 2 = Friday after sunrise to Friday sunset.
Night 3 = Friday after sunset to Saturday sunrise.
Day 3 = Saturday after sunrise to Saturday sunset.

The disciples HAD to bury Jesus on Passover before sunset on Wednesday. At sunset on Wednesday the First Day Of Unleavened Bread would begin. This is actually one of the 7 special appointed feast of the Lord, an annual Holyday that we find in the the Old Testament in Leviticus chapter 23. It was a day of Sabbath rest just like every weekly Sabbath is, so they had to bury Him before the Sabbath began Wednesday evening at sunset. Everyone then rested on Thursday, the special Holy Day Sabbath. Then the women prepared the spices on Friday to anoint Jesus when they went to the tomb Sunday morning. After preparing the spices, the women then rested on the weekly Sabbath (Saturday). When the women came to the tomb Sunday morning to anoint Him, Christ was already risen, 12 hours earlier at the end of the Sabbath. He did NOT rise on Easter" Sunday morning. Look at what the Scriptures actually say.

The Bible says..."Now after the sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Mag'dalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre." (Matthew 28:1)

The Bible plainly says..."he has risen, as he said" (Matt 28:6).

Jesus got it right! "three days and three nights, 72 full hours in the heart of the earth" ! The church really got it wrong!

If your intent is really to celebrate the resurrection then you should be observing it in any given year, 3 days and 3 nights after Passover, not the same day,Easter Sunday every year. If your intent is to actually celebrate the resurrection at least do it on the right day! Think about this before you celebrate Easter Sunday this year contrary to God's will.

On Easter Sunday millions of Christians will gather outside, facing East to worship, celebrating the resurrection of the Son of God with the rising of the sun. Does this sound familiar? If so, you may have read about it long before Jesus ever walked this earth. Facing East and worshiping towards the sun at sunrise is a pagan tradition going back thousands of years, long before Easter Sunday. What does the Bible say about this?

"Have you seen this?" he asked. "But I will show you even more detestable sins than these!" Then he brought me into the inner courtyard of the Lord's Temple. There were about twenty-five men with their backs to the sanctuary of the Lord. They were facing east, bowing low to the ground, worshiping the sun! "Have you seen this, son of man?" he asked. "Is it nothing to the people of Judah that they commit these detestable sins, leading the whole nation into violence, thumbing their noses at me, and provoking my anger? " Ezekiel 8:15-18

How foolish that the Christian churches adopted this sinful pagan tradition of facing east at sunrise on Easter Sunday morning, bowing down and worshiping the "Son of God" at the rising of the sun, just like the pagans did worshiping the "Sun God", Baal, and his idolatrous consort goddess, Ishtar. These Easterworship practices are identical, but millions of Christians unwittingly do it every year in spite of God finding it detestable, and it fills Him with anger. He really HATES it! It's just another Easter pagan tradition that the church "Christianized". Pagan holiday traditions like this on Easter Sunday should be avoided by true followers of Jesus, if you actually want to be in alignment with God's WILL

The History Of Pagan Resurrection Traditions

How Did Pagan Easter Customs Get Connected With Jesus' Resurrection?

So how did all this paganism get injected into the Christian church Easter tradition anyway? Here is what the Encyclopedia Britannica (11th edition, Vol. VIII, pp. 828-829) says about Easter: "There is NO indication of the observance of the festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. . . . The first Christians continued to observe the Jewish festivals, though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed. Thus the Passover, [the 14th day of the first month] with a new conception added to it, of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb and the first fruits from the dead, continued to be observed. The Gentile [Catholic] Christians identified the first day of the week with the resurrection, [without Biblical authority], and kept the preceding Friday as the commemoration of the crucifixion, irrespective of the day of the month, [another error]."

Encyclopedia Britannica is 100% correct! For several centuries after Jesus walked the earth, the original church of God, celebrated God's Festivals and Holydays. This includes observing Passover every year, the Last Supper with the new emblems of bread and wine, and foot washing. The false Western church on the other hand began incorporating the pagan customs and traditions on the wrong days and in the wrong ways contrary to God's Will. The apostles, AND the early New Testament Church, BOTH Jewish and Gentile-born believers, observed God's Sabbath and God's Festival Holydays at the correct times, the Sabbath weekly on the 7th day, and the Holydays annually as He commanded in Leviticus 23, but NEVER PAGAN HOLIDAYS! Followers of Jesus today still observe the Holydays as special Sabbath days of rest, but now doing so spiritually, rather than keeping them physically with the customs God originally commanded for the Jews.

Do the Scriptures really say observing a man-made Pagan holiday like Easter Sunday is really OK, or does it say what is the truth about worship that God actually commands? Does the Bible say the observance of holidays that God absolutely won't accept no matter how sincere we are, is permitted in any way? NO! Will we stand with the truth of God as actually spoken by Him in the Bible without interpretation, or will we continue to follow pagan inspired, man-made, erroneous church teachings and traditions like Easter that have no Bible foundation and God hates? Will we get in alignment with God's "WILL", or keep following our churches false Pagan holiday traditions and customs? Will we do what the Bible says?

The Bible says to "Prove All Things". (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Have you actually proved the celebration of Easter Sunday from the Bible? Is it possible God really hates your Easter celebration no matter how well intended and you should not celebrateEaster in any way? Your eternal life really depends on you knowing the truth! And now you do know the truth about not celebrating this Pagan holiday called Easter. What you do with this knowledge is between you and God! You can ignore it and continue believing and doing what God does not want, OR you can repent and change and do what God says. The choice is yours for all eternity!