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Welcome to breakpoint, a daily look at an ever changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stonestreet. Is Easter a pagan holiday? In his treatise on the reckoning of Time, 8th century English monk the Venerable Bede proposed that the word Easter comes from the name of a pagan goddess. Here's what he wrote. Eostramaneth has a name which is now translated Paschal month, and was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostara, in whose honor feasts were celebrated in that month. End quote. Modern pagans, having latched onto this whole idea, further associated Iostara, the Anglo Saxon goddess of spring and fertility, with Ostara, a Germanic goddess of spring. Both of those names, of course, sound an awful lot like Easter. Well, there are multiple problems with this idea, the Venerable Bede notwithstanding. First, the Church had fought for centuries by this point to turn people from paganism. Therefore, it's unlikely that one of the most important Christian holidays would be named after a pagan goddess. More importantly, there is no evidence of a goddess named Ostara aside from Bede, nor is there evidence for a Germanic goddess named Ostara. The name Easter is only used in English, and it's cognate Ostern in German. Everywhere else, even in Germanic languages such as Dutch, Norwegian or Swedish, the word is derived from Pascha or Passover. Since Resurrection Day was celebrated for hundreds of years before the Anglo Saxons or Germans were even converted, it's unlikely that its name indicates a pagan origin to the holiday. More likely, Bede was either following a folk etymology or simply guessing. And the real story of where the day's name came from is probably a bit more complicated. New converts, after receiving intensive instruction, were baptized on Easter Sunday. The day was known as Dominica in Albis, or the Sunday in White, because of the white robes worn by the catechumens. It may be that Albis was misunderstood to be the plural of alba or dawn, which was then translated in Old High German into the word Iasterum. And it's likely that the words Easter and Ostron both derive from that word. Another common argument is that Easter traditions, such as rabbits and decorating eggs, were fertility symbols with roots in paganism. Some modern pagans even claim, without any evidence, that the worship of Ostara is involved these very things. However, the connection of these items to Easter is much less elaborate and far more recent than any mythical pagan past. During the Holy Week fast preceding Easter, Christians were prohibited from eating eggs. The chickens, however, kept laying, so eggs laid during Holy Week were considered Holy eggs. The practice of decorating them began in the 13th century, many centuries after Europe had already turned from paganism. The egg was seen as a symbol of the Resurrection, with Christ bursting free from the tomb in the same way that a chicken would burst free from the egg. As for rabbits, the timing of their association with Easter also eliminates the possibility that they are a holdover from pagan ideas. During the Middle Ages, rabbits were seen as innocent, good, harmless, and as such were sometimes used as a symbol of Christ. They weren't associated with Easter until about the 17th century. Another version of the Easter has roots in paganism. Idea associates the celebration of the Resurrection with the ancient Sumerian myth of Tammuz and Ishtar. This myth, which is an explanation of the annual cycle of death and winter, tells of Tammuz and Ishtar spending half a year in the underworld before having a new birth when they're released for six months each spring. That myth bears little resemblance to the three days Jesus spent in the tomb and his once and for all resurrection from the dead. Even so, this story and others like it may in fact be connected to Christianity, but just not in the way we normally think. In fact, we most likely have it just the wrong way around. As C.S. lewis described in Mere Christianity, quote, and what did God do? He sent the human race what I call good dreams. I mean those queer stories scattered all throughout heathen religions about a God who dies and comes to life again and by his death has somehow given new life to men. Lewis believed that these myths were hints that God gave to a pagan world of the person and work of Christ. In other words, the argument that myths are the source of the story of the Resurrection has it exactly backwards. The resurrection as actually happen and it is the reality to which these myths actually point. And because the Resurrection actually happened, it's worth celebrating with all of our hallelujahs, raised glasses and an awful lot of joy. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stonestreet with Breakpoint.