Passover
Before you read this, I
must warn you. What I am about to say can be considered quite offensive to
some. I intend to expose the religious practices of Easter from their
beginnings.
One of the first things
that I hear concerning Easter is that it is mentioned in the Bible. I agree
that the King James Version does mention the word Easter, but is it talking
about the same thing we think of?
Acts 12: 4
And
when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four
quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.
The
word here used for Easter was translated from the Hebrew word pascha (3957).
The definition of this word is the Passover feast, Passover lamb. There is no
word that means Passover in Greek. This word has only one meaning and it is
Passover. Other translations get this correct. Unfortunately, King James did
not. Passover is a feast day that was still being celebrated by the first
Christian churches. It originated from the book of Exodus.
Leviticus 12: 12-13
‘For
I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the
firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of
Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. 13 Now the blood shall
be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the
blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the
land of Egypt.
This feast day is a celebration of
life. YHWH passes over all the households in the land which had done those
things He had asked of them. It was because they did these things their
firstborn(s), animals and children, were saved. The same thing can be said
about Yeshua (Jesus) being killed on the Passover day just over 2000 years ago.
Again, this is a celebration of life, only this time, it is eternal life.
The verse from Acts
takes place roughly ten years after the death of Christ, and does not endorse Easter
but rather shows that these early churches were still celebrating the “Jewish”
holiday Passover. I quote Jewish because I do not agree that these holidays are
only for the Jews, but rather everyone that believes Christ is the son of YHWH.
Here’s why…
Leviticus 23: 2
“Speak
to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to
be holy convocations,
these are My feasts.
As we can see, even the idea that the feast days are
Jewish holidays is incorrect. YHWH says Himself that these feast days are His
feasts. That being said, I believe all believers should celebrate them as such.
I have found several biblical passages that show Yeshua
was crucified on Passover.
Luke 22: 1-2
Now
the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called Passover.2 And
the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might kill Him, for they
feared the people.
Passover
is the first of two holidays that run 8 consecutive days. They have been
interchanging concerning their names. Sometimes it is said that the day of
Passover is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened bread. Other times it is
said that Passover runs for eight days. Either way there are two of YHWH’s
Feasts that take place in these eight days.
Mark 14: 1
After
two days it was the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief
priests and the scribes sought how they might take Him by trickery and put Him to death.
As
we can see the Passover was only two days away when the priests and scribes
were plotting the death of Yeshua. The next passage even shows the He, Himself
knew His time was up on the Passover day.
Matthew 26: 17-18
17 Now on the
first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus,
saying to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?”
18 And He said, “Go into the city to a certain man,
and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, “My
time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house with My
disciples.”’”
My
time is at hand. I take this as if he were saying, my time is up. From verse 17
we can clearly see this is the Passover day. One thing I must point out is that
the “Jewish” day begins at twilight, or when the third star is spotted in the
sky. Passover is the 14 day of the New Year. The first month of the New Year is
called Nisan. So Passover is the 14th day of Nisan. This verse from
Exodus is concerning the Passover lamb being sacrificed on the original
Passover.
Leviticus 23: 5
5 On
the fourteenth day of
the first month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover. 6 And
on the fifteenth day of the same month is the
Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord;
seven days you must eat unleavened bread.
Exodus 12: 6
6 Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth
day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel
shall kill it at twilight.
As
we can see from both of these passages, twilight starts the new day. We also
see another reference to the Feast being YHWH’s and not the Jew’s.
When Yeshua goes and
has His Passover meal with the disciples, He does so just after the third star
in the sky appearred, or at twilight, making it the beginning of Passover. The
next morning, still being the Passover, He would be crucified.
Yeshua rose on First
Fruits. First Fruits is the first day of the week after the High Sabbath, which
would be the 17th of Nisan. So if I am correct here, Yeshua was
crucified on Wednesday, put into the tomb on what we would call Wednesday
night, stayed there, Thursday, Thursday night, Friday, Friday night, Saturday
(Sabbath), then rose on what we call Saturday night. However, this would be
considered Sunday if it happened just after twilight on Sunday. This would give
us the three days and three nights in the tomb that Friday to Sunday does NOT.
Matthew 12: 40
40 For as Jonah was
three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of
Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
This
version of the biblical events makes much more sense than the idea of making
Easter out to mean something that it was never meant to be.
Easter
Now that we know
that Passover is all about the death and resurrection of Christ, what exactly
are Easter’s origins?
When
we think of Easter, we think about, the early sunrise church service. We think
of painting and hiding eggs so that our children can go on an Easter egg hunt.
We think of the big juicy ham dinner, and the resurrection. Many people even take
part in abstaining from certain types of food they had given up for lent, that
will be ending around Easter day.
Unfortunately,
these things had been around for almost 2,000 years before Christ was born.
They were ancient Babylonian practices in worship of their god Tammuz, who was
brought back from the underworld by his mother/wife Ishtar (Easter is an
English translation of the name Ishtar). These same traditions can also be
traced back to a Phoenician family worshipping Adonis
and Astarte, or a heretic Israelite family honoring the Canaanite Baal and
Ashtoreth. This depiction could just as easily represent any number of other
immoral, pagan fertility celebrations of death and resurrection—including the
modern Easter celebration as it has come to us through the Anglo-Saxon
fertility rites of the goddess Eostre or Ostara. These are all the same
festivals, separated only by time and culture.
All
of the traditions celebrated around Easter are rooted in pagan religions. Here
is a quote from historian Steve Englehart.
“In Babylonia…the goddess of spring was
called Ishtar. She was identified with the planet Venus, which, because… [it]
rises before the Sun…or sets after it…appears to love the light…In Phoenecia,
she became Astarte; in Greece, and in Germany, Ostara.”
I want to
point out that this Easter goddess has also been known by the name Ashtoreth. This
stands out to me because that is a name that YHWH tells His followers to stay
away from.
Judges 2: 13
13 They forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.
1 Samuel 7: 3-4
3 Then Samuel spoke
to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the
foreign gods and the Ashtoreths from among you, and
prepare your hearts for the Lord, and
serve Him only; and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.” 4 So the children of
Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only.
Messing
with this goddess really seems to upset YHWH. It makes me wonder if it is because
when the Israelites would worship her along with Baal, maybe they were doing so
in the name of YHWH, just as we do today with Easter. Baal is a topic I can get
into at a later time. But I do want to mention this. Baal and Ashtoreth are
from my understanding a couple. Ashtoreth is worshipped during the spring
solstice and Baal is worshipped during the winter solstice, somewhere around
December 21st. Either way, it seems as if Baal is the husband of
Ashtoreth.
The widely-known historian, Will Durant, in his famous and
respected work, Story of
Civilization, pp. 235, 244-245, writes, “Ishtar [Astarte to the Greeks,
Ashtoreth to the Jews]”. So who was Ashtoreth?
Worship to her included sexual immorality, prostitution,
divination, and fortune telling. She is known as the bare breasted fertility
goddess. This goddess was also known as the queen of heaven. Many ancient
depictions of her show her naked. One of her symbols is the star within a
circle, also known as a pentagram. In Greek mythology she was known as
Aphrodite. The Encyclopedia Britannica has this to say concerning Ashtoreth, “Through her identification with the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman
Venus, Inanna-Ishtar, the queen of heaven, still survives in Roman Catholic
iconography - e.g., as the Virgin Mary standing on the moon."
Jeremiah 44: 19 & 23
19 The women also said, “And
when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to
her, did we make cakes for her, to worship her, and pour out drink offerings to
her without our husbands’permission?”
23 Because
you have burned incense and because you have sinned against the Lord, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord or
walked in His law, in His statutes or in His testimonies, therefore this
calamity has happened to you, as at this day.”
I
have one more excerpt from Jeremiah concerning the queen of heaven, and also
her husband Baal.
Jeremiah 7: 9-10
9 Do you really think
you can steal, murder, commit adultery, lie, and burn incense to Baal and all
those other new gods of yours,10 and then come here and stand before me in my
Temple and chant, “We are safe!”—only to go right back to all those evils again?
It
really seems that YHWH does not like His people worshipping other gods. In fact
that is His number ONE commandment.
Exodus 20: 3
3 “You
shall have no other gods before Me.
According
to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the English term Easter is relating to “Estro, a Teutonic
goddess of the rising light of day and spring”.
I
have done a little research and I came across the ancient text of the historian
Josephus. He has written some of the pagan practices concerning ancient Ishtar
worship.
Nimrod,
from the book of Genesis and the tower of Babel, was punished for his rebellion
at the tower. Noah’s son Shem had him killed, and his body cut into many pieces
and sent to all surrounding communities as a warning against idolatry. Nimrod’s
wife Semiramis claimed that he did not actually die, but instead ascended into
heaven and became the Sun god. Of course this would make her a goddess because
she was his wife. She later claimed that the moon was a goddess and that she
fell from the moon in a giant moon egg and landed in the Euphrates River. Once
the egg hatched she emerged as the bare breasted goddess Ishtar. This happened
after the first full moon of the spring equinox. This is the time she became
known as Ishtar and the egg she fell in became known as Ishtar’s egg. She later
claimed to have become pregnant by the rays of the sun (Nimrod as a deity), and
gave birth to Tammuz.
Tammuz
became very fond of rabbits. Ishtar made rabbits sacred because the child of
the sun god adored them. Tammuz also became a great hunter, just as Nimrod was
a great hunter. During his 40th year while out hunting, he was
killed by a wild boar (pig).
Ishtar
implemented the rabbit into her religion after her son’s death, to give tribute
to him. They became a sign of sexual desire and fertility. Rabbits are still a
sign of sexual desire and fertility today. Think Playboy bunnies.
Eventually,
she became known as the queen of heaven. She went on to create a 40 days of
sorrow in her mystery religion. This was practiced every year prior to
anniversary of the death of Tammuz. During this 40 day period of Weeping for
Tammuz, no meat was to be eaten (meat was given up for 40 days). At the end of the
40 days, a feast was held in which a boar (pig) was killed and eaten. This ham
was a representation of the boar that killed Tammuz.
Ezekiel 8: 13-14
13 And He said to me,
“Turn again, and you will see
greater abominations that they are doing.” 14 So He brought me to
the door of the north gate of the Lord’s house; and to my
dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.
Once
this mystery religion was popular worldwide, every year on the first Sunday
after the first full moon after the spring equinox, a sunrise mass or sacrifice
was made to Ishtar. This sacrifice involved the priest of Ishtar impregnating
virgins on the altar of Ishtar at sunrise. Those virgins became pregnant and the
following year during the same time period, the infants would be sacrificed on
the altar, then the priest would dye Ishtar’s eggs in the blood of the killed
babies.
As
we can see, everything about Easter is based on a horrific false religion.
Easter eggs, bunnies, lent, and ham dinner are all connected with Ishtar and
not our salvation. YHWH does not want us to practice this tribute to the untrue
goddess of heaven, or her son.
I am going to end this with a quote from
Ephesians….
Ephesians 5: 8-11
8 For once you
were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people
of light! 9 For this light within you produces only what is
good and right and true. 10 Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. 11 Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil
and darkness; instead, expose them.
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