Easter Festival – Colorful Eggs and Easter Bunny – Pagan Traditions

Deutsch

With Easter, the Christian world remembers Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection on the third day. There is a connection between colorful eggs and carrying Easter bunnies. However, these legends of pagan origin have long been sold as being of Christian origin.

Are Easter eggs and Easter bunnies Christian?

On the occasion of Easter, reports appear again and again about the “Christian tradition” of painting Easter eggs and having them carry a rabbit. With such theses, however, one can hardly avoid somehow working out the connection between Christianity and eggs. However, since such a connection cannot be found according to the Gospel, imaginative constructs are necessary. Such a construct repeated recently “evangelisch.de“.

The egg as a Christian symbol of life?

“In Christianity, the egg has always been a symbol of life,” says the author. This claim is as completely false as it is far-fetched. All you have to do is open the Bible and read it. From Genesis to chapter 22 of Revelation. Not one syllable is mentioned in Scripture an egg as a symbol of life. The egg as a symbol of life, or the egg in connection with Christianity, depending on how you would like it to be. But the word egg simply does not appear, neither on its own nor in combination with chickens, ostriches, crocodiles, turtles or rabbits.

The egg is the tomb of Jesus

But the nonsense is not enough. The egg can be equated with the tomb of Christ. According to the author, the chick breaks through the shell of the egg just as Christ broke through the grave and thus through death. Even if this statement can be found in wiki, but what is that supposed to be? Maybe modern theology in connection with pedagogy? Was Jesus Christ supposed to be an unborn chick? The egg secretly as a symbol for grave and death? This sheer nonsense only demonstrates ignorance of the gospel. Whoever came up with this, congratulations, it’s parroted enough.

Hiding eggs only since the 17th century

It is quite conceivable that red colored eggs at Easter have been known in Germany since the 13th century. Throughout European art history, the egg is a symbol of new life. With this, the author comes a little closer to the true background of the symbols rabbit and egg. Hiding brightly painted eggs is still part of the Easter tradition today. This was first mentioned by the physician Georg Franck von Franckenau in 1682, the author explained. So in the 17th century and thus a good 1,600 years after the active spreading of the gospel by the disciples of Jesus.

Just as an egg has nothing to do with the gospel, the rabbit has just as little to do with original Christianity. Also not as long-eared, rabbit, bunny, buck, crook, spoon man or mummel man. There is absolutely nothing about this in the Bible either.

Pagan symbols simply adopted

The hare and egg is nothing more than a man-made tradition, which has an origin but is in no way connected to the teachings of the gospel. Indirectly, however, such practices are already mentioned in the Bible, always in connection with paganism. A good example is Revelation chapter 2. With the epistle to the church in Ephesus, Jesus praises the church there for not accepting the pagan traditions and remaining true to the pure doctrine.
“But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” (Rev. 2:6)

On the other hand, there is blame for the church in Pergamus (Pergamum). This church accepted the pagan traditions and combined them with the teachings of the gospel.
“So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.” (Rev. 2:15)

By the way: The church of Ephesus stands for the first church in the typos, i.e. in the area of ​​the 1st century AD. Pergamum stands for the church in the time when the papacy (Bishop of Rome) was constantly expanding ecclesiastical and political power (approx. 313 to 538 AD).

In some regions of Germany, the tradition of St. Nicholas is still held on December 6th, often in connection with a companion, the Krampus. The fact that Father Christmas, Nicholas (tradition in southern Germany), Santa Claus and Co. wear bishop’s hats and carry a shepherd’s staff speaks for itself.

Hare and egg in antiquity

The rabbit and the egg as symbols of life definitely did not originate in Christianity. The tradition was simply absorbed and mixed up with the teachings of the Bible. Just like the church in Pergamum did.
The origin of the rabbits and eggs used in today’s Christianity can be found in ancient Greece, Rome and also Babylon. The ancient Greeks associated the rabbit as a symbol of fertility with the “love goddess” Aphrodite. In ancient Rome, women who failed to conceive were advised to try eating rabbit meat. Even the Germans had a spring goddess, Ostara, and she was accompanied by a fertility rabbit.
The egg is hardly inferior to the rabbit in the symbolism of fertility. Teutons as well as the ancient Egyptians used the egg as a symbol of fertility and also as a sign of returning life.

The so-called world egg, also known as the cosmic egg, appears far more interesting here. Considered the origin of the universe in many cultures. Everything hatched out of this cosmos egg. The Phoenicians used a special variant of this world egg for their former trading center Tyros. An egg with a snake entwined around it. However, the city, once on the mainland, then on an island, took a very inglorious end. This metropolis was believed to be the birthplace of Europe according to Greek mythology.

Egypt, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome

Just as Christmas has its origins in the winter solstice, Easter can also be attributed to the spring solstice. The focus is simply the sun. The ancient Romans adopted their deities from the Greeks. These in turn got their ideas from the Medo-Persians and these in turn were heavily inspired by the diversity of the Babylonian gods. Whatever the name of their chief god and that of other cultures, it is almost always the sun. This was also the case in ancient Egypt. Whether Mithras, Baal or the interplay between Isis, Osiris, Seth and Horus, the sun disk and the crescent moon open at the top play a central role. The goddess of sexual desire in ancient Babylon was Ishtar (Ištar). The wording Ishtar even resembles the English word for Easter. This fertility goddess is also associated with eggs.

So it is not surprising that the continuation of pagan Rome by the Roman Catholic Church focused on Sunday (“Sun Day”) and gave all “saints” a sun disk in their pictures. As a sign of their “holiness”? No! A smooth negation or reversal through the setting of pagan symbols.

Pope Gregory XIII (dragon as heraldic symbol) changed the calendar of the time so that the Christian holidays of Easter and Christmas always fell on Sundays. This regularity was not possible in the days of the Hebrew calendar. The integration of pagan symbols of Babylonian and Egyptian origin, such as eggs and rabbits as “traditional Christianity”, is only logical here.

The traditions practiced at Easter and Christmas are pagan through and through and have nothing to do with true Christianity. These traditions were introduced and maintained by the Roman Catholic Church, the continuation institution of pagan Rome (see Daniel 7).

The Catholic Church is “open-hearted” about this

The Roman Catholic Church also communicates very openly the idiosyncratic interpretation of the gospel and the introduction of its own traditions. Rome admits Easter, Advent, Christmas, Sunday observance and Co. himself and rubs this under the nose of the Protestantism.

Our Sunday Visitor – February 05, 1950

This newspaper article speaks for itself

This is also the reason why Rome never really understood Protestantism as a split from the church, but as an (internal) rebellion. Bishop Eduard Josephus Johannes Maria Kimman, in his role as Secretary General of the Dutch Bishops’ Conference in 2008, allowed himself to following statement: “Protestantism is an action group that just forgot to disband”