[asa] Re: Easter & Christmas

On Fri, 10 Apr 2009, Jack Syme wrote:

> To me your argument is not convincing. The date of Easter Sunday is
> determined by the Spring Solstice which is clearly of pagan origin. Even the
> name Easter can be traced to one of a dozen pagan fertility goddesses. The
> only thing that is Christian about it is that it is on Sunday.
>
> At least Christmas contains the name of Christ and mass. But when we
> celebrate Christmas has nothing to do with when Jesus was actually born, but
> is related, again, to a pagan solstice celebration. So is it not just pagan
> trappings and symbols that have infiltrated into these celebrations, but it
> seems to me, that the Christian celebrations have infiltrated the pre
> existing pagan celebrations.

I mostly agree with this, but I think it is a little misleading about the
date of Easter. Granted that there was a pagan holiday at about the same
time of year (near the vernal equinox (not solstice)), but Easter is
theoretically supposed to happen during Passover, which is when the first
Easter occurred. The formula for determining the date has been written in
terms of phases of the moon after the vernal equinox rather than
mentioning Passover, but it usually does occur during Passover.

Gordon Brown (ASA member)

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Received on Fri Apr 10 14:20:46 2009