NationStates Jolt Archive

Enlighten me.

Taggy tag! I am also befuddled by this question...

Why are some people named?

it comes from the goddess "Ostara", but the christian church stole and integrated it

because someone with way too much time said "hey, I wonder what word I can come up with to confuse future generations about a religious holiday? I know, I'll call it easter and have them look for candy!"

Many say that it derives from Eastre, or Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring and dawn. A pagan festival celebrating the rebirth that is spring that persisted and was combined into the ceremony of the crucifiction and rebirth.

this seems logically consistent given the fact that unlike Christmas which is a specific date to celebreate Christ's birth, Easter is tied to the lunar calendar.

-Z-

Easter is tied to the lunar calendar.



Is it? Isn't just the second Sunday of April? :shock:

In Chinese 'Easter' is much clearer: Festival of Resurrection. There CAN'T be mistakes with that. :wink:

Easter is tied to the lunar calendar.



Is it? Isn't just the second Sunday of April? :shock:



nope (http://www.assa.org.au/edm.html#List19)

Zepp you beat me to it :P

Okay, I've been checking the previous dates. My mistake. But I doubt that it follows the Lunar Calendar. We Chinese have a festival based on the Lunar Calendar around Easter, but they don't go together.

Okay, I've been checking the previous dates. My mistake. But I doubt that it follows the Lunar Calendar. We Chinese have a festival based on the Lunar Calendar around Easter, but they don't go together.

Sorry - it's actually a combo.

According to the military, (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/easter.html)

The ecclesiastical rules are:

- Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox;

- this particular ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of a tabular lunation (new moon); and

-the vernal equinox is fixed as March 21.

resulting in that Easter can never occur before March 22 or later than April 25. The Gregorian dates for the ecclesiastical full moon come from the Gregorian tables. Therefore, the civil date of Easter depends upon which tables - Gregorian or pre-Gregorian - are used. The western (Roman Catholic and Protestent) Christian churches use the Gregorian tables; many eastern (Orthodox) Christian churches use the older tables based on the Julian Calendar.

In a congress held in 1923, the eastern churches adopted a modified Gregorian Calendar and decided to set the date of Easter according to the astronomical Full Moon for the meridian of Jerusalem. However, a variety of practices remain among the eastern churches.


so wonder it doesn't quite match a true lunar celebration in your area...

the chinese calendar is different from this one, each year begins on another date of the western calendar, mostly end of january till midth february; therefore it is no wonder that it doesn't fit

of course only the traditional one ;)

[OE. éastre wk. fem. = OHG. ôstara; more freq. in plural éastron, corresponding to OHG. ôstoron (MHG., mod.G. ostern pl.); the strong forms occas. appearing seem to have been derived from the combining form éastor-. Bæda Temp. Rat. xv. derives the word from Eostre (Northumb. spelling of Éastre), the name of a goddess whose festival was celebrated at the vernal equinox; her name (:OTeut. *austrôn- cogn. w. Skr. usr dawn; see EAST) shows that she was originally the dawn-goddess.]

From the Oxford English Dictionary. It appears that Easter is celebrated on the same day as some old goddess's feast day, and is named for her.

and this is not the only feast day the christian church stole to "free" the "heathens" :(

Yeah, everyone knows the pagans were celebrating the birth and resurrection of Jesus centuries, or even millenia, before he was actually even born.

That's why the Eastern Orthodox refer to it as Pasha, NOT Easter.

Okay, I've been checking the previous dates. My mistake. But I doubt that it follows the Lunar Calendar. We Chinese have a festival based on the Lunar Calendar around Easter, but they don't go together.

Sorry - it's actually a combo.

According to the military, (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/easter.html)

The ecclesiastical rules are:

- Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox;

- this particular ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of a tabular lunation (new moon); and

-the vernal equinox is fixed as March 21.

resulting in that Easter can never occur before March 22 or later than April 25. The Gregorian dates for the ecclesiastical full moon come from the Gregorian tables. Therefore, the civil date of Easter depends upon which tables - Gregorian or pre-Gregorian - are used. The western (Roman Catholic and Protestent) Christian churches use the Gregorian tables; many eastern (Orthodox) Christian churches use the older tables based on the Julian Calendar.

In a congress held in 1923, the eastern churches adopted a modified Gregorian Calendar and decided to set the date of Easter according to the astronomical Full Moon for the meridian of Jerusalem. However, a variety of practices remain among the eastern churches.


so wonder it doesn't quite match a true lunar celebration in your area...
dam you're smart...

The Chinese calenar isn't strictly lunar, either. It's actually a combination of solar and lunar, as well.

In Chinese, it's called the "farming calendar" -- not lunar.

Easter is a pre-Christian name, and the bunny and egg are (Roman?) symbols of sex and fertility.

So let's just have separate holidays, or a new name.

I like what DB tells us of China, that's the ticket.

any link to Oestrogen?

the bunny [is a] symbol of sex I never got this before. I understood about the egg being new life but... lol!

I don't know about the name, but the Easter bunny and basket were originated in Germany around the time of the Civil War.

You're all wrong. When the Pope was inventing festivals inthe late 1300s, Jesus had lived in the east, hence that part. The ending, er, means "festival" in latin, so east-er means eastern festival

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The Chinese calenar isn't strictly lunar, either. It's actually a combination of solar and lunar, as well.

In Chinese, it's called the "farming calendar" -- not lunar.

Nearly. Every calendar devised in the past was to aid in farming.
Lunar New Year = Farming New Year are interchangeable terms. Trust me, I know.

Thankfully our Lunar Calendar does have some traits of a solar calendar. One entire month is added on to the year at various points to make sure our festivals don't gradually move back in seasons. In this respect, the Chinese calendar wins the Muslim calendar by scores.

After the Anglo Saxon Goddess Eostre

read first, then post ;)

After the Anglo Saxon Goddess Eostre

Ostara (as it is more often called in modern Pagan traditions) isn't the only holiday stolen by Christianity. Yule, the celebration of the winter solstice (usually Dec. 21st) is the source of most Christmas traditions such as tree decorations, holly, and such. Christian converters took the old traditions and gave new reasons for them to make the conversion to Christianity easier.