The origin of Easter

Easter bunnies, Easter eggs, Easter chicks, Easter lillies, Easter bonnets and Easter parades. Who is this Easter person that is given such great honor and elaborate celebration? That was the question that the noted British 19th century cleric, Alexander  Hislop asked. No one knew. So he launched a deep research into the origin of religious traditions and celebrations. He spent years tracing them back to the empire of Babylon established by Nimrod. The Bible says he  also built the famous tower at his capital city Babel (the ruins of which are about 100 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq). Much of Hislop's research appears in his book, "The Two Babylons."

According to Hislop the Easter legend started when the Babylonians encountered a severe drought in which the crops failed, domestic livestock weakened and did not reproduce and the people were desperate. So they petitioned the gods of Babylon for help. The gods in heaven responded by making a gigantic, beautifully decorated egg and dropped it into the Euphrates river right after the spring equinox . The ornate egg floated toward Babel. A swarm of  fish pushed the egg to the shore near the capital. A flock of doves sat on the colorful egg for 40 days of lent It hatched and out came the fertility goddess, Easter. The people in Babel rushed out and escorted her into the city. She then organized a great celebration with dancing around phallic poles, feasting  into the night along with fertility rites of extremely gross sex orgies. Even the animals caught the excitement and started breeding, the lillies bloomed and the crops grew. All the villages made Easter festivities and Babylon prospered. Then the gods took Easter back and she became the Queen of Heaven. Every year the people would hold these spring festivals to honor her. They would exchange colored eggs, chicks, rabbits and round moon cakes marked with a cross shaped sex symbol.

These festivals, with variations, spread rapidly over the world. years later (around 640 BCE) the Bible in Jeremiah 7:16-20 condemned the Israelites for making sacrificial offerings to the 'Queen of Heaven'. After the time of Jesus, neither the Jews nor Christians would have any part in the spring fertility rites of Easter. Jesus commanded his followers to keep only one celebration, that is the commemoration of his death on the 14th day of the lunar month Nisan which would replace the passover held annually on that same date. (this year that was April 17) So how did Easter enter Christendom?

In the 4th century CE  (about 425) the sun worshiping Constantine began to establish his version of Christianity by merging the pagan religions of the Roman Empire and fusing them with a Christian cover to form the new 'Universal Church of Rome. Pagan festivals were given Christian names,etc. Because the Romans hated the Jews they did not want to be celebrating a Jewish sacred day, the passover, even  though Christians also celebrated it as the death of Jesus, so the priests decided to combine the very popular spring festivals of the fertility goddess with the resurrecting of Jesus, moving it to the Sunday following the 14th of Nisan and calling it Easter.  The Romans could thus continue their licentious worship of Easter. By law all Roman citizens became pseudo Christians as members of the Universal Church of Rome--except real Christians who objected . All who refused to comply were persecuted, executed or expelled from the Empire.

So today after 4,000 years, the celebration of Easter the mythical Babylonian fertility goddess is still one of the most popular holidays in the world.