Easter: The Real Story

Where it really comes from

Easter celebrates Jesus rising from the dead, and Christians have celebrated it from the very beginning. The first believers gathered every Sunday because it was the day he rose (Acts 20:7; Revelation 1:10). Around AD 155, Justin Martyr wrote that Christians meet on Sunday because "Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead." By the mid-100s churches also held a yearly celebration, called Pascha, timed with Passover. Around AD 155, Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John, traveled to Rome and discussed with its bishop which day to hold it on. So Christians were celebrating the resurrection well over a thousand years before anyone told a story about an Easter bunny.

What people say vs. what history shows

Myth: “Easter is named after Ishtar, a Babylonian goddess of fertility.”

Solid: nearly all historians agree.

False. Ishtar was a Mesopotamian goddess whose symbols were lions and an eight-pointed star, not eggs or rabbits, and her name has no link to the English word Easter. Most of the world doesn't even call the holiday Easter: it's Pascha, Pâques, Pascua, or Pasqua, all from the Hebrew Pesach, Passover, because Jesus died and rose at Passover.

Myth: “The name Easter comes from Eostre, a pagan goddess of spring.”

Debated: scholars disagree.

Possibly, but only the English and German names. Our only source is the monk Bede, who wrote around AD 725 that the Anglo-Saxon month around April was named after a goddess called Eostre. No other ancient source mentions her, and some scholars think the name simply meant "dawn" or "east." Either way, it's only a name for the month. Christians were celebrating the resurrection for centuries before the English language existed.

Myth: “Constantine and the Council of Nicaea invented Easter in AD 325.”

Solid: nearly all historians agree.

Nicaea only agreed on a common way to set the date, so churches would celebrate on the same Sunday. Christians had already been celebrating Pascha for about 170 years, and arguing about its date since the mid-100s.

The customs, honestly

• The Easter bunny (Folk custom): Not Christian, and we won't pretend it is. It's a German folk custom first written about in 1682, when a hare was said to lay eggs and hide them for children. It came to America with German immigrants in the 1700s.
• Easter eggs (Mixed roots): Eggs were often given up during the Lent fast, so Easter was the day they came back. Christians saw an egg as a picture of the sealed tomb with new life bursting out. Eastern churches still dye them red to remember Jesus' blood. The egg hunt itself comes from the same German folk custom as the bunny.
• Sunrise services (Christian origin): The women came to the tomb "very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise" (Mark 16:2) and found it empty.
• The lamb (Christian origin): Jesus died at Passover, when lambs were sacrificed. Paul writes, "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Corinthians 5:7).

For kids

On Easter we celebrate that Jesus came back to life! He died for us on the cross, but three days later the tomb was empty. Jesus is alive!

Talk about it

If someone asked you, "What does Easter have to do with eggs?", what would you say?

Read it in the Bible

1 Corinthians 15:3-8 · 1 Corinthians 5:7 · Mark 16:1-8 · Acts 20:7 · Revelation 1:10

Sources

• Justin Martyr, First Apology 67 (c. AD 155)
• Eusebius, Church History 5.23-25 (Polycarp and Anicetus)
• Melito of Sardis, On Pascha (c. AD 160-170)
• Bede, The Reckoning of Time 15 (AD 725)
• Quartodecimanism (the early dispute over Easter's date)
• Easter Bunny (history of the custom)