Easter
(also called Pascha) is generally accounted the most important
holiday of the Christian year, observed March or April
each year to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus from
the dead (after his death by crucifixion), which Christians
believe happened at about this time of year, almost two
thousand years ago. (Easter can also refer to the season
of the church year, lasting for nearly two months, which
follows this holiday and ends around Pentecost.)
In
most languages other than English and German, the holiday's
name is derived from Pesach, the Hebrew name of Passover,
a Jewish holiday to which the Christian Easter is intimately
linked. Easter depends on Passover not only for much of
its symbolic meaning but also for its position in the
calendar; the Last Supper shared by Jesus and his disciples
before his crucifixion is generally thought of as a Passover
seder.
The
English and German names, "Easter" and "Ostern",
seem clearly unrelated to Pesach etymologically and likely
derive either from Eostremonat, an old Germanic month
name, or Eostre, an Asatru fertility goddess whom the
8th century English historian Bede records was honored
with a fertility festival during Eostremonat. It has been
suggested that many of modern Easter's symbols, such as
colored eggs and the Easter Bunny, are cultural remnants
of Eostre's springtime fertility festival, even though
giving of eggs at spring festivals was not restricted
to Germanic peoples and could be found among the Persians,
the Romans, and the Jews, and that Eostre merged with
the Christian Pesach celebrations after the Germanic heathens
were Christianized (see Easter as a Germanic Heathen festival
below.). This theory would, of course, require that the
Germanics somehow managed to dominate all of Christianity,
even including Christianity in India.
source:
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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