CHRISTIANS celebrate Easter as symbolising the resurrection of Christ on the third day after His crucifixion.
It is the oldest Christian-claimed holiday and the most important day on the church calendar year because of the significance attached to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the events upon which Christianity is based (1 Corinthians 15:14).
In some Christian traditions, Easter Sunday is preceded by the season of Lent, a 40-day period of fasting and repentance culminating in Holy Week and followed by a 50-day Easter season that stretches from Easter to Pentecost.
What are we to make of such a holiday as Africans?
Should we celebrate Easter or allow our children to go on Easter egg-bunny-rabbit hunts?
These are questions we struggle with as Africans guided by a genuinely African conscience?
The answers to these questions should come from a correct understanding of Easter, not just as it is appropriated by people of faith or irrational propaganda.
The answers lie in a correct historicisation of the concept.
They lie in tracing its origin as well as its historical applications and interpretations.
A word of caution is important here: Remember the concept has undergone many interpretations and competing interpretations for different ideological, religious and political reasons.
This article is an honest attempt to situate Easter in its proper historical context.
To begin with, although ‘Easter’ is one of the most popular religious celebrations practised by Christians throughout the world, it is hardly associated with the Christian ‘Bibles’ from which it would derive its etymological legitimacy.
The word ‘Easter’ appears only once in the King James Version of the Bible (and not at all in most others).
To make matters worse, even in the one place it does appear, the King James translators mistranslated the Greek word for ‘Passover’ as ‘Easter’. If Easter doesn’t come from the Bible and was not practised by the apostles and early Church after Christ’s death, does that not make you smell a rat?
If it does not affect Africans that way, then surely Africans are still not tired of being cheated?
If they are tired, then they should ask: Where did it come from?
Notice that in Acts 12:4 where this single reference is made, this is how it is presented: “And when he (King Herod Agrippa I) had apprehended him (the apostle Peter), he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.”
Take note too that the Bible version where this appears is a translation of many previous translations.
I am sure by now serious students of the Bible know that the original Hebrew text went through Greek, Latin and English translations as succeeding empires exchanged their grips on the book they depended heavily on for their political manoeuvres, ensuring that with each takeover, the book reflected the sensibilities of incumbent corridors of power.
That is why you have many self-confessed versions such as the Greek Bible, the Latin Bible, King James Version, The Revised Standard Version and the International Bible (the latter embracing the globalised American hegemony).
Do you need to be reminded that with each translation, the original meaning is lost?
If you have been in slumber, then awaken to the fact that the Greek word translated ‘Easter’ in the only reference in one of these translations is ‘pascha’, properly translated everywhere else in the Bible as ‘Passover’.
Referring to this mistranslation, Adam Clarke’s commentary on the Bible says: “Perhaps there never was an unhappy, not to say absurd, translation than that in our text.”
Think about these facts for a minute.
Such a major religious holiday, yet nowhere in the Bible – not even in the book of Acts which covers several decades of the history of the early Church, nor in any of the epistles of the New Testament, written over a span of 30 to 40 years after Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection!
If Easter doesn’t come from the Bible, and wasn’t practised by the apostles and early Church, where did it come from?
What remains clear is this name as well as the practice of this concept is an overlaid function of this relatively recent religion called Christianity. Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, in its entry, ‘Easter’, states:
“The term ‘Easter’ is not of Christian origin. It is another form of Astarte, one of the titles of the Chaldean goddess, the queen of heaven.
The festival of Pasch (Passover) held by Christians in post-apostolic times was a continuation of the Jewish feast…the pagan festival of ‘Easter’ was quite distinct and was introduced into the apostate Western religion, as part of the attempt to adapt pagan festivals to Christianity.” (Vine, 1985)
Vine is ostensibly a trained classical scholar, theologian, expert in ancient languages and author of several classics.
Vine continues: “Easter isn’t a Christian or directly biblical term, but comes from a form of the name Astarte, a Chaldean (Babylonian) goddess known as ‘the queen of heaven’.” (She is mentioned by that title in the Bible in Jeremiah 7:18 and Jeremiah 44:17-19; Jeremiah 44:25 and referred to in 1 Kings 11:5; 1 Kings 5:33 and 2 Kings 23:13 by the Hebrew form of her name, Ashtoreth. So ‘Easter’ is found in the Bible – as part of the pagan religion the Christianised God condemns)!
What becomes apparent is that Easter was very different, even from the Old Testament Passover or the Passover of the New Testament as understood, the latter practised by the early Church supposedly based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and the apostles.
How does The Catholic Encyclopedia define Easter?
“Easter: The English term, according to the (8th Century monk) Bede, relates to ‘Eostre’, a Teutonic goddess of the rising light of day and spring, which deity, however, is otherwise unknown…” (1909, Vol. 5, p. 224)
Apparently, ‘Eostre’ is the ancient European name for the same goddess worshipped by the Babylonians as ‘Astarte’ or ‘Ishtar’, the goddess of fertility, whose major celebration was in the spring of the year.
Are you not fazed by this admission testifying to the fact that Easter is a borrowed concept?
Who are Babylonians?
Where had they got their civilisation from if not from the indisputable cradle of civilisation, black Africa?
We are already past the demonstrated fact that Easter became a substitute festival for the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread by both design and default.
What we now need is to take the argument of its origin further.
The good thing is that we now have pointers which require further corroboration but hold your breath for now.
Two symbols associated with Easter celebrations, namely; eggs and rabbits are worth examining in our interrogation of the metaphysics of Easter.
Both of them are not contested by commentators as ‘pagan’ symbols and emblems of fertility.
Author Greg Dues (1992, p. 101), in his
book Catholic Customs and Traditions, elaborates on the symbolism of eggs in ancient pre-Christian cultures: “The egg has become a popular Easter symbol.
Creation myths of many ancient peoples centre in a cosmogenic egg from which the universe is born…
In ancient Egypt and Persia friends exchanged decorated eggs at the spring equinox, the beginning of their new year.
These eggs were a symbol of fertility for them because the coming forth of a live creature from an egg was so surprising to people of ancient times.
Christians of the Near East adopted this tradition and the Easter egg became a religious symbol.
It represented the tomb from which Jesus came forth to new life”, may I add, ‘by deliberate ingenious adaptation’.
If you have been wondering ‘adopted’ from where, then the time to relieve you of the burden of guessing is over.
It is from nowhere else except from the land of your ancestors.
You may know by now that it has become common knowledge that the entire history of Europeans has been characterised by a desire to hide the painful truth that they owe their civilisation to your ancestors, Africans. They have for centuries been content with tracing history, philosophy and religion only as far as the Greeks for palatable reasons: mainly because the Greeks are fellow whites.
This lie has been systematically nurtured in order to justify slavery and the capitalist exploitation of a fellow race.
Thank God!
Truth always finds its way out.
Research confirms Africa is the indisputable cradle of ancient civilisation.
Herodotus, one of the few and rare early Greek (European) historians confirms in his book Histories that the architects of this ancient civilisation were Egyptians who were black.
He also confesses that all the so-called Greek philosophers had been schooled by ancient African philosophers in Egypt.
G.G.M. James in his canonical book, Stolen Legacy, weighs in by demonstrating that Greek philosophy and the so-called Greek mythology are stolen African intangible assets.
Pre-Christian reference to the symbols of Easter eggs, bunnies and rabbits in fact have their roots in ancient African indigenous knowledge systems, your undisputed heritage.
They are part of pre-Christian African fertility symbolism because of their reputation to reproduce rapidly.
Now back to Easter.
Easter, deemed a ‘pagan’ festival with its ‘pagan’ fertility symbols, replaced the God-ordained festivals that Jesus Christ, the apostles and the early Church observed.
But this was not settled until AD 325 Conference of Nicaea, almost three centuries after Jesus Christ was crucified and resurrected, regrettably not on the basis of biblical truth, ‘but on the basis of anti-Semitism and raw ecclesiastical and imperial power’.
As The Encyclopedia Britannica further explains: “A final settlement of the dispute (over whether and when to keep Easter or Passover) was one among the other reasons which led (the Roman emperor) Constantine to summon the council of Nicaea in 325.
The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday, and on the same Sunday throughout the world, and ‘that none should hereafter follow the blindness of the Jews’” (ibid., pp. 828-829).
Those who did choose to ‘follow the blindness of the Jews’ – that is, who continued to keep the biblical festivals kept by Jesus Christ and the apostles rather than the newly ‘Christianised’ pagan Easter festival – were systematically persecuted by the powerful church-state alliance of Constantine’s Roman Empire.
Three points require immediate elucidation here: First, it further confirms the hijacking of the Bible for political advantage and, second; it confirms the re-appropriation of foreign African symbolism to the reconstructed Christian ethic.
Third, it reminds Christians that their practice of Easter is far from the values of the Christianity they profess.
The ultimate point of this article is not to dissuade Christians or non-Christians from observing Easter.
It is neither saying that there is anything objectionable about Easter.
Far from it!
Rather this article is simply saying that if you have to observe Easter, then you need to be clear of its symbolic significance as authored by its original architects, Africans.
There is nothing pagan or hedonistic about it.
It is our way of celebrating creation and life itself.
Africans should claim Easter without shame or remorse.
It is part of our cosmological heritage as captured in our traditions, fables, proverbs and life-tales-imagery-and-symbolism.
Notice that I have deliberately resisted such terms as ‘myths’ and ‘legends’ which have been used to distort stories about our lives and the lives of our ancestors.
The name of the holiday called Easter today goes as far back as the ancient Egyptian ceremony called ‘Shemu’ (harvest season), which refers to a day of creation.
According to annals written by Plutarch during the 1st Century AD, the ancient Egyptians used to offer salted fish, lettuce and onions to their deities on this day.
After the Christianisation of Egypt, the festival became associated with the other Christian spring festival, Easter.
Over time, Shemu was morphed into its current form and its current date, and by the time of the Islamic conquest of Egypt (7th Century), the holiday was settled on Easter Monday.
As Egypt became Arabised, the term Shemu found a rough phono-semantic match in Sham el-Nessim (smelling/taking in of the Zephyrs), which fairly accurately represents the way in which Egyptians celebrate the holiday.
One point that requires emphasis is that early Christianity made a pragmatic acceptance of ancient ‘pagan’ practices most of which we enjoy today at Easter.
The general symbolic story of the death of the Son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and His rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well-known story in the ancient Egyptian world, including the world of those who borrowed from the ancient architects of human civilisation.
There were plenty of parallel resurrected saviours too.
For instance, the Sumerian goddess ‘Ishtar’ was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection tales is Egyptian ‘Horus’.
Born on December 25, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth.
You find the all-seeing eye of Horus on the American dollar bill as one of the stolen African symbols.
Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas Day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox.
Even as late as the 4th Century AD, the ‘sol invictus’, associated with Mithras, was the last great ‘pagan’ cult the church had to overcome.
What is interesting to note here is that in the ancient world, wherever you had popular resurrected god myths, Christianity found lots of converts.
So, eventually Christianity came to an accommodation with the ‘pagan’ spring festival.
That we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament speaks volumes.
Easter is an obvious Egyptian solar celebration.
The date of Easter is not fixed, but instead is governed by the phases of the moon in line with the lunar reality of the ancient Egyptian calendar, not the re-arranged and transfixed Gregorian calendar, yet another re-arrangement of nature’s order.
To this end I repeat: Africans should celebrate Easter with a clear conscience as their ceremony.
And African Christians should join them without pretending that they are celebrating a foreign or new reality.
It is our ceremony together.
Yes, Easter is an African celebration of creation, fertility and potency. The world can join us in this our day of spiritual meditation.