Happy Easter: Where Did It Come From?    

Guess who I ran into today?

Where did our Easter celebration come from? 

      You will probably answer that with, "well from Christianity, of course."  This is the day we choose to set aside to observe the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  This is a very important event for Christians, because Christ's resurrection is the proof that God the Father was satisfied with Christ's payment for the sins of all mankind.  Christ had "paid in full" (Greek word - tetelesthai - means paid in full, but is often translated in people's Bibles as "it is finished" instead), and the grave could hold him no longer.  This is because he died (which is the penalty for sin), yet he himself had no sin.  For this reason his death could pay for all those who did actually sin (all the rest of us in the world).
      Today many people will go to churches to observe this.  For a lot of people this is one of the only days they ever appear in a church.  Sometimes they're called the C&E Christians (Christmas & Easter). 
      This however is the only part of the Easter celebration that comes from Christianity.  Not even the name is Christian.  In pagan Germany, they had a goddess named Oestre/Oester.  She was a fertility goddess.  The Germans stole her though.  So did almost every other culture in eastern Europe and the Mid-East.  That's because her annual festival of fertility was so popular.  Her roots go all the way back ancient Sumeria.  There she was known as Ishtar.  The people of Israel worshiped her under the Canaanite name for her, Ashteroth (and got duly spanked by God for it).  The Greeks called her Astarte, and for the Egyptians she was Isis.  The Celts who lived north of Greece at that time called her Oster.
      The Festival of Ishtar was week long celebration filled with every form of debauchery possible, and was all for the sake of fertility.  They figured that if they did many acts of fertility down here on earth, then their fertility gods would in turn fertilize "Mother Earth."  That would mean good crops, and many healthy lambs, calves, kids, and other livestock.
      It was held every year during the first week following the first full moon, following the vernal (spring) equinox.  Even the date we celebrate Easter comes from that.  That is why some years Easter and Passover are weeks apart.  This year it was only three days different, but that can be attributed to trying to have it on a Sunday.  The actual resurrection of Jesus Christ happened three days after Passover.
      During the Festival of Ishtar "being fertile" was encouraged, and the more "fertile" you showed yourself to be, showed everyone how devoted you were to the goddess.  Extra-marital "fertility" was not only excused, but was also encouraged.  This was one of the aspects of it that made it so popular across many cultures.  Marriage was no limit, age was no limit, and species was no limit (eww!). 
      During the festival people gave out gifts in baskets and ceramic vessels.  These gifts were all symbols of fertility.  They had eggs that were decorated with fertility symbols, not just innocent little zig zags and stripes.  Imagine a little kid today getting an egg and asking, "Mommy, why is there a picture of "that" on my egg?"  At least that aspect has changed over the years.  They also gave out rabbits; real living ones, little statuettes of them, and cookies and other confections made in the shape of rabbits.  A third thing they gave was statuettes and confections of billy goats that were "aroused."  These were used as part of the celebration.  So far I have tried to keep this blog clean, so I will not explain how they were used, other than to say they were used in the same way that the priestesses of Thor used his "aroused" statuettes - and they did this publicly.   I'm really glad that they dropped the billy goats from the modern form of the festivities (imagine trying to explain that to your kids).
      The Festival of Ishtar/Ashteroth/Astarte/Oster/Oester/Easter was a massive, public orgy.  What the heck does it have to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ?