Happy Easter! In this video, we debunk a handful of common pseudohistorical memes about the origins of certain Easter Rituals being tied to Pagan rituals and goddesses, from Ishtar to Ostara. Twitter: / somas_academy
The Pagan influence on christmass is highly overstated as well, if real at all. The dates dont match, nor do the festivities, nor does the purpose or character.
Always wondered who came up with the rabbit abomination handing out colored eggs to strangers and why it's called Easter/Ostern/Ooster in all West Germanic languages, while the rest of the world calls it some form of the word paskha. Also, can't believe there are people out there (notably on Facebook) trying to connect the Easter bunny to the goddess Ishtar, that one took a minute. All in all, this is a great video to wake up to.
This misconception is largely confined to the Anglosphere (as far as I know anyway). In nearly every European language except English, Easter is called some variation on Passover. EDIT: Ah, I see you already mentioned that 😅
Just found your channel and I am loving it. From what I understood about pre-Christian traditions, most were to mark the times of year to determine when to plant, grow, harvest, etc (Pastoral). Also, I am pretty sure Xmas was not in December, with all the lambs hanging around the manger. So, it is more likely that Christianity used those times of the year that early Europeans already understood as markers not for pastoral purposes but for Christianity. Oestre was not highly celebrated like Imbolc was (Feb 1, considered the start of the growing season and halfway between Xmas and Easter), but there are tons of references to a Dawn goddess before Rome became Christian. So, to my understanding, the Church took the most important day of the year, Yule, which is the Winter Solstice (rebirth of the sun) to be the birth of Jesus. Nine months before that was the Immaculate Conception (Spring Equinox), so Oestre got elevated because of that. The eggs could be referencing (or appropriating) the fertility that that entails. Rabbits are also coming out of their warrens during this time of year with their offspring, so rabbits are a marker of Spring. It was celebrated, even if it wasn't written down. Ireland especially didn't have their traditions written down until the 6th and 7th centuries. So, more nuance than just "Easter isn't pagan" is involved.
Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying the videos! It's potentially more nuanced, as you said, but it's really difficult to prove causality when you get to these more general things - like, was Easter influenced by Spring equinox celebrations? Very possibly, but we can't point to specific examples like "Ah, the Rabbit was a symbol of Eostre," and we CAN point to Christian precedents for a lot of these symbols (like eggs being associated with rebirth in the Middle East, and therefore becoming a symbol of Jesus, rabbits being percieved as Virgin mothers, and therefore associated with the Virgin Mary, etc.), which doesn't necessarily disprove the possibility of Pagan influence, but does provide counterpoints to the more intuitive, less supportable possibilities (i.e. it's very intuitive that eggs would be a fertility symbol associated with Spring, but we can't demonstrate a line of influence between that belief and Easter eggs, whereas we can demonstrate a line of causality from the use of eggs as a symbol of rebirth to them being used as a symbol for the crucifixion, complete with them being dyed red to symbolized the blood of Jesus). We can make an educated guess that certain Christian holidays like Christmas were placed on significant dates like the Winter Solstice because people already placed cultural weight on those dates, but it's a lot harder to support more specific claims (for example, we can be fairly certain that Christmas was not created as a replacement for Yule, because Christmas originated outside of the area where Yule was celebrated, and when Christmas came to areas that celebrated Yule, Yule was changed to coincide with Christmas traditions). My main point in this video was to debunk specific claims about Easter traditions, it's harder to be sure with more general stuff like dates and vibes. You're definitely right that there can be more nuance, it's just a lot easier to speculate about the nuanced area than to demonstrate one way or the other. That said, Easter is one of the more clear-cut examples in a lot of cases of Pagan influence, with all the specific things I talked about in this video; with a lot of other Holidays it's a lot harder to trace different traditions back to firmly Christian roots, though there are still plenty of myths (for example, there are some demonstrable examples of Yule traditions that started after Christianization, possibly due to influence from Christmas, which people sometimes mistakenly cite as examples of Pagan influence on Christmas). I intend to do a video similar to this one about Christmas traditions (where I'll probably talk about the idea that the Church specifically scheduled celebrations to replace older Pagan ones, which is easy to suggest but hard to demonstrate), and based on my preliminary research there's going to be a lot more grey area in that one, so stay tuned for that lmao
Very good points. I think most of "Easter" being pagan has to do with the calendar. You are absolutely correct that there are no examples of eggs or rabbits being specifically used to celebrate Oestre. Point well taken. My argument (I guess) is that there were "festivals" for lack of a better term on these dates before established Christianity, including Oestre. I also agree that some traditions we associate with Yule are post Christianity (shiny balls on trees?), but the essence of the tradition was much older than Christianity. I would love you to do a video on Christian holidays and their pagan "counterparts". I would be interested to know about Groundhog Day, May Day, Oktoberfest, Thanksgiving (actually Michelmas but moved to November), and Halloween. I believe all of them have Christian and pagan "coincidences".
@@michaelrae9599 I'll most likely look into Halloween and Samhain next year (that's one where I'm pretty sure the Pagan connections are much stronger, though I will of course need to check sources before I can be sure of that). I hadn't thought to look into any of those others because, aside from Mayday (which I've never actually seen celebrated, it's just not really a thing where I'm from), I haven't seen any of them associated with Pagan precursors. Definitely worth looking into, thank you for the suggestions.
I've never celebrated Mayday. I just remember learning about it in elementary school. The fertility in May and honoring the dead half a year later is pagan. There may be a Christian Mass or holiday. Also, Lughnasa. The Groundhog Day is a stretch. Basically, a Jewish groundhog sees his shadow every three years or so. Lunar calendar. I'll let you figure out the rest. Imbolc and St Brigid's day are both Feb 1. Also look into St Brigid's vs the Irish Deity Brigid and St Patrick. There you will see a lot of crossover, from what I've read. Maybe my info is wrong. But now there is you, so I can be lazy. I look forward to your next video, whatever the topic.
@@michaelrae9599 In case you didn't see it, I did end up making a video on Halloween/Samhain, and the results of my research surprised me. You can watch it here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cE8IijTSLCA.html
The one bad thing about this video is that after watching it I'm getting recommendations of videos about that Ishtar nonsense (which I wasn't even aware of before). And these videos have tens and hundreds of thousands of views! Yet another reason to be disappointed with the Humanity.
Finally, so tired of hearing these every year , especially the fallacious word association of “Easter” and “Ishtar” like it’s so pathetic 😂 It’s exactly like the “Jesus is a “sun” God because “Son of God” sounds like “Sun of God” loool” . Good video.
Thank you! Omg, I've heard that "Sun of God" one before too, that's the silliest thing. Do these people just forget that the ancient people who wrote this stuff down didn't speak English? Lmao
Check out the Slavic Goddess Vesna, Goddess of spring, beauty etc. Ishtar is also worshiped under the names Inanna, Astarte, Aphrodite and possibly a couple more. As far as I know, Emperor Constantine put a christian label at the council of Nicaea on Pagan holidays, not sure on that though but fairly certain.
There are many spring goddesses, doesn't mean they have anything to do with Easter. Aphrodite probably did develop from Inanna, but she evolved substantially after being introduced to the Greek World, losing her association with war and being incorporated into all sorts of new myths, and in any case, none of her variations have anything to do with Easter. I explain the very much non-Pagan origins of Easter in this video, simply listing goddesses and mentioning that some Pagan holidays were Christianized (which I mention in the introduction of the video) isn't a refutation, if that's what you're going for.
The council of Nicea discussed what date Easter should be observed but , it had been a Christian festival, in most Christian communities, since at least 180 CE. Christians in Rome and Christians in Alexandria differed on whether it should be held at the Jewish Passover, on the lunar Jewish calendar, or always on a Sunday , or on the same date every year on the Julian calendar … but it was always connected to Passover in some way , because two of the gospels do say Jesus was killed near Passover.
The other main thing the council of Nicea was mainly concerned about was the heresy of Arianism . This is why the Nicene Creed says Christ is “begotten not made, one in being with the father”
I’m a big fan of syncretism but like sometimes that just isn’t the case! Also, people will be people and people love piecing together traditions through thinking something is neat, liking the thing their neighbors do, or an institution saying that a thing is part of an observance. Really good video, thank you!
Yeah this is one of those very stupid myths after all Ester is just the christian version of the Jewish Pesach and eggs are considered pure and associated with purity. Christmas on the other hand....just so happens to occur at the same time as the celebrations of the unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus)...and there are probably adoption and syncretism there.
I actually plan to do a similar video talking about Christmas, as while some of the Pagan associations with that one are more plausible, there are a lot of similarly silly myths surrounding it (and even some of the more plausible claims are less straightforward than they may seem!)
Easter is a pre-Christian celebration. It has to do with the moon and spring. Christians do not know when Jesus was resurrected because Easter falls on a different day every year. Christians hijacked this pre-Christian celebration. In Spanish it called “Pascua” very similar to Ishtar celebration.
...My friend, you should re-watch the video, seems you missed a few crucial details. The "pre-Christian" tradition that Easter was drawing from was the Jewish tradition of Passover. There was no "Ishtar celebration" with a name like "Pascua," that word comes from the Hebrew name of Passover, Pesach. I already stated this in clear terms in the video, if you somehow got the impression that Pesach was the name of an Ishtar celebration, you weren't paying attention. The Hebrew Calendar is Lunar, so the dates of Jewish holidays don't stay consistent on the Solar calendar we typically use today; Christians believe that Jesus was crucified on Passover, so the day of Easter is calculated based on a Lunar calendar in an effort to correspond to Passover (though the Ecclesiastical Lunar Calendar used by Christians doesn't exactly correspond to the Jewish calendar, so the correspondence isn't as consistent as early Christians believed). This is why Easter is a floating holiday rather than having a fixed date on the solar calendar.
@@SomasAcademy Call it what you will, but all Jewish and Christian traditions have pagan roots. Humans rulers created all these books with a narrative/intent to control. I don’t believe any one of them. But I do like some of the principles of Jesus. Except I don’t believe he’s the son of the true God. Because as you know, in the beginning there were many gods having their humans/believers fight each other on their behalf for the position of the “true god”. I believe there is one CREATOR that we know nothing about and when die we go back to that source.
@@jp7393 I don't really care what your religious beliefs are, I'm an atheist myself. The only thing that matters to me is the history, and the fact is that there's no historical evidence tracing any Easter traditions to pagan origins.
@@SomasAcademy Great. I don’t care what you believe either. I don’t need evidence to tell me that that humans, currently and historically, around the world celebrate spring. People can call it whatever they like, e.g. Easter. This means humans celebrated spring before there was any those made up stories in the Bible.
@@SomasAcademy Unrelated to this guy's comments, but just curious as to why you still consider yourself atheist, especially as a historian-type. For me, diving deeper into the history and nuance of the abrahamic religious tradition was very eye-opening and gave context to so much that's usually lost in modern conversation, and eventually I accepted that the resurrection of jesus likely did happen, and once you get past those hurdles, you can start to believe that jesus was who he said he was, and so on. Of course I'm not perfectly summarizing how and why i believe what i do in a few sentences, but I'd like to know what your "story" here is, I'm always looking to understand other people's pov!
@@SomasAcademy they aren't myths there religion and no you cant, idk what far of corner of the internet you found that false information at but that's what it is, false
@@joejolley7696 When I say "myths" I'm not talking about the religions, I'm talking about the false association between Pagan religions and Easter. The claim that Easter comes from Ishtar originated in the propaganda book "The Two Babylons", written in the 1850s by a Protestant to demonize Catholic traditions by associating them with (made up) Pagan ones. You can assert that my claims are false all you want, but you're doing so to defend a bunch of completely made up connections between a Christian holiday and made up versions of Pagan beliefs.
