Easter A Pagan Passover.
Artemis of Ephesus. Note: She is clothed with eggs.
Easter: A Pagan Passover.
It's nothing less than a coup against The Mighty One Of Israel.
Spring is the best season of the year for many people. Warm sunny days; the earth, springing forth with new life. Flowers, budding trees, baby animals: all seem to joyfully announce that the long cold winter is over. No other Springtime custom encapsulates these celebrations of new life quite like Easter. From baby animals, to Easter eggs and Easter egg hunts, to sunrise Sunday services and more, Easter is a beloved tradition to many people. Easter Sunday is the highlight of the Roman Catholic liturgical year when the resurrection of 'Jesus Christ' is celebrated.
According to their Catechism:
Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the "Feast of feasts," the "Solemnity of solemnities," just as the Eucharist is the "Sacrament of sacraments" (the Great Sacrament). St. Athanasius calls Easter "the Great Sunday" and the Eastern Churches call Holy Week "the Great Week." The mystery of the Resurrection, in which 'Christ' crushed death... See: Number 1169, (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part 2, Sec. 1, Chapter 2, Article 1).
The origins of Easter, however, reveal that it flows directly from ancient paganism. Shortly after the flood, Nimrod reestablished idolatry in the earth. After his death, Nimrod was promoted as the original sun 'god'. His widow, Semiramis, was called the "queen of heaven." Various cultures continued the idolatry of these original pagans under different names. To the Egyptians, Semiramis was Isis. To the Babylonians, she was Beltis, consort to the 'god', Bel. To the Cannaanites she was Astarte. The Assyrians called her Ishtar.
The worship of these 'goddesses' involved occult fertility practices. These degrading rites were practiced even by the Israelites. The ETERNAL clearly denounced any Israelite involvement in these pagan celebrations.
(Jeremiah 7:17-18)[1] (NKJV) 17Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other 'gods', that they may provoke Me to anger.
(Ezekiel 8:13-14) (NKJV) 13And He said to me, Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing. 14So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the ETERNAL's house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.
Easter (Ishtar) Eggs in a basket.
Modern Easter has no basis in the passover.
All of its traditions are pagan.
* Rabbits and dyed Easter eggs symbolize fertility.
* Hot cross buns were the "cakes" offered to the queen of heaven.
* The forty days of weeping for Tammuz are now the 40 days of Lent leading up to Easter.
* Sunrise services were performed by pagan priests to honor the sun 'god'.
Celebration of Easter does not honor the death and resurrection of the wooden idol on a stick. It is a blatant deception to hide the Mighty One's true command to observe HIS passover. Participation in pagan practices honors Satan. No amount of renaming it by Christian names can purify Easter of its pagan origins.
Easter is much more than a pagan imposter pretending to be Christian. Lurking behind the pretty facade, Easter is a cover-up for the greatest fraud of all time: causing the ETERNAL's people to worship false 'gods', instead of his scripturally ordained passover.
"To conciliate the Pagans to convert to Christianity, Rome, and her proselytising Christian daughters, pursuing their usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and by a complicated but skilfully arranged deception, it was found no difficult matter, to get Paganism and Christianity, now far sunk in idolatry, to shake hands.
This change also changed the day of worship. This is admitted by Roman Catholics who point to it as the sign of their authority. "Sunday, is purely a creation of the Catholic Church." (American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883)
"They [the Protestants] deem it their duty to keep the Sunday holy. Why? Because the Catholic Church tells them to do so. They have no other reason. The author of the Sunday law, is the Catholic Church." (Ecclesiastical Review, February 1914)
One Catholic bishop went so far as to state:
"It was the Catholic Church which made the law obliging us to keep Sunday holy. The church made this law long after the Bible was written. Hence said law is not in the Bible. The Catholic Church abolished not only the true Scriptural Sabbath, but all the other Jewish festivals." (T. Enright, Bishop of St. Alphonsus Church, St. Louis, Missouri, June, 1905, emphasis supplied.)
The Jewish festival which was outlawed in favor of Easter, was the Passover of the ETERNAL as outlined in (Leviticus 23:1-43). Paganized Christians wanted to celebrate Easter, while the Jews, still clinging to a pure faith, wanted the Hebrew Passover.
"Since the second century A.D. there had been a divergence of opinion about the date for substituting the paschal (Easter) anniversary of the false idol's (death, burial and resurrection) for the ETERNAL's Passover. The most ancient practice appears to have been to observe the fourteenth (the Passover date), fifteenth, and sixteenth days of the lunar month regardless of the day of the [Julian] week, these dates might fall on from year to year. The bishops of Rome, desirous of enhancing the observance of Sunday as a church festival, ruled that the annual celebration should always be held on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday following the fourteenth day of the lunar month. This controversy lasted almost two centuries, until [the Emperor] Constantine intervened in behalf of the Roman bishops and outlawed the other group". (Robert L. Odom, Sunday in Roman Paganism, p. 188, emphasis supplied).
"The point of contention appeared deceptively simple: Passover versus Easter. The issues at stake, however, were immense. The only way to determine when Passover occurs is to use the Biblical lunar calendar (Hebrew calendar), for only by observing the moon can one count to the 14th day following the first day of Abib. Because the Scriptural Seventh-Day Sabbath was also calculated from the first day of the month, a ruling in favor of Easter being observed on a Julian date would also affect the ETERNAL's Scriptural Seventh-Day Sabbath". (eLaine Vornholt & L. L. Vornholt-Jones, Calendar Fraud, p. 49 [PDF eBook]).
"These contentions had agitated the churches of Asia since the time of the Roman bishop Victor, who had persecuted the churches of Asia for following the '14th-day heresy' as they called it, in reference to the Passover. The future Easter observance was to be rendered independent of Jewish calculation." (Grace Amadon, Report of Committee, Part V, Sec. B., p. 17.)
Here is the real significance of Easter. Sunday is kept as a day of worship because of Easter Sunday! It is claimed that the so-called 'Saviour' (false idol), was resurrected then. Consequently, it is assumed that the day before Easter Sunday, Saturday, is the ETERNAL's seventh-day Sabbath.
The Jews No Longer Observe The Scriptural Sabbath.
Jews today worship on Saturday, rather than the Biblical seventh-day Sabbath. However, Jewish scholars admit that the calendar in use for worship today is not the same as was used in Bible times:
"The New Moon is still, and the Sabbath originally was, dependent upon the lunar cycle." ("Holidays," Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, p. 410.)
The Jews point to the extreme persecution following the Council of Nicea's decision to set aside Jewish time calculation as the reason for why they no longer use the Biblical calendar.
"Declaring the new month by observation of the New Moon, and the new year by the arrival of spring, can only be done by the Sanhedrin. In the time of Hillel II [4th century C.E.]... the Romans prohibited this practice." ("The Jewish Calendar; Changing the Calendar".)
Jewish scholars understand that 'Christianity' stepped free of its Biblical roots when the pagan Easter holiday was substituted for the ETERNAL's true Passover.
"At the Council of Nicaea, the last thread was snapped which connected 'Christianity' to its parent stock. The festival of Easter had up till now been celebrated for the most part at the same time as the Jewish Passover, and indeed upon the days calculated and fixed by the Synhedrion [Sanhedrin] in Judea for its celebration; but in future its observance was to be rendered altogether independent of the Hebrew calendar.
"[Emperor Constantine stated], 'For it is unbecoming beyond measure that on this holiest of festivals we should follow the customs of the Jews. Henceforward let us have nothing in common with this odious people; our 'Saviour' (false idol), has shown us another path. It would indeed be absurd if the Jews were able to boast that we are not in a position to celebrate the Passover without the aid of their rules ([time] calculations).'" (Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Vol. II, pp. 563-564, emphasis supplied.)
The truth is, Easter is a fraud. Nor is Saturday the Biblical seventh-day Sabbath of the CREATOR. Easter is and has always been a pagan holiday celebrating fertility. It was substituted for the ETERNAL's true Passover at the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century when the Church of Rome, and her proselytising Christian daughters, decided to set aside Hebrew calculation of time.
Now, in this last generation, truth is to be restored. (Daniel 12:4) All who wish to express their love for the ETERNAl, should only observe His true Passover. This can only be calculated by the original, Scripturally Ordained Hebrew Calendar. Any other observance gives honor to Satan, the one who has set himself up in opposition to Heaven.
Today you can choose which day represents your beliefs; Passover or Easter. You can choose to which power you give your honor and worship; the ETERNAL or our enemy, Satan. You can choose on which day, calculated by which calendar, you offer that worship. The choice is yours.
Footnotes:
[1] [a]All scriptural links point to the Bible Gateway, A Searchable Online Bible In Over 100 Versions And 50 Languages, located at "BibleGateway.Com", a vast biblical resource containing all the major texts and reference materials useful for in-depth bible studies. Most scriptual quotations are from the (KJV) of the Bible, however versions noted in (parentheses) should also be consulted. [b]All Strong's scriptural references point to the Blue Letter Bible Lexicon, located at "BlueLetterBible.Org", another vast biblical resource which has over 4,000,000 links available, pointing to more than 165,000 pages of concordances, lexicons, dictionaries, commentaries, images, and several Bible versions.