Keith Sisman Ramsey church of Christ, England - Traces of the Kingdom

Easter. 

The Germanic Gauls had many tribes (Lat. Germanus, a name given to them by their Celtic neighbours).  The most famous of these tribes was the Angles from Schleswig, northern Germany (Lat. Anglus) and the Saxons, from Saxony, Germany.  These tribes invaded England and took power from AD 450 onwards, being known today as the Anglo-Saxons.   These people were pagan, the British being at that time largely Christian. Christianity in Britain was forced into Wales, Cornwall and Scotland.  It is from the name Angle that the name of England is derived. They had many gods, including Tiw, the Germanic god identified with the Roman god Mars.  Tiw is still remembered today as the name of the third day of the week, Tuesday.  The Anglo-Saxons despite their paganism could trace their ancestry back to Japheth and during their travels from the middle east to their settlement of Germany they retained their knowledge of the flood but had forgotten the true God like the Celts.

It would seem that during these travels that they acquired worship and knowledge of the Assyrian goddess, Ishtar, the same goddess as the Babylonian Astarte, both pronounced in their original languages as Easter (or near enough), to whom it was customary to make fresh or hot buns/cakes, see Jer. 7:18 and 44:19, two Biblical passages that refer to this goddess.  To the Germanic tribes she became known as either the goddess of spring, or the goddess of the East, known in Germanic as Eostre, or ?starun, from which the Old English word Eastre is derived.  Today this pagan Goddess is still remembered by the world’s yearly celebration of Easter and the making of Hot Cross Buns and painted (chocolate) eggs.  For pagan peoples, without the modern conveniences of welfare etc., fertility  was important.  Hence at this time of year, the planting of crops, fertility and prayers to the gods was paramount.  This being coupled with human sacrifice.

The Celts had four main festivals, these were associated with the seasons.  Imbolc was celebrated on 1 February and was associated with the Irish mother goddess Brigit (meaning exalted one).  After the Druids were destroyed the cult of Brigit remained and continues today as the Catholic cult of St. Brigit who’s feast day is the 1 February.  Brigit was possibly associated with the British deity Brigantia. 

The cults of the many other Celtic mother goddesses has continued in the veneration shown to Mary the mother of Jesus and other Catholic female saints. 

So the word Easter is pagan in origin, the Catholic Church taking over this ceremony and incorporating it into the increasingly apostate Catholic Church.  

For many centuries man has denied the true meaning of the resurrection.  Hiding from fellow man that Christ did die and arise from the grave.  Typical is the writings of Thallus, whilst he could not deny the darkness that occurred at the crucifixion, he tried to provide a natural answer.  

Thallus (Possibly a Samaritan who lived during the first century AD) in his third book called ‘History’ wrote about the darkness that occurred at the time of the crucifixion of Christ.  Thallus put this down to an eclipse of the sun.  Julius Africanus (a Christian writer c160-c240AD) wrote in reply to this, “the Hebrews celebrate Passover on the 14 day according to the moon.  But an eclipse of the sun only occurs when the moon comes under the sun.  And it cannot happen at any other time but in the interval between the first day of the new moon and the last of the old, that is at their junction.  How then should an eclipse be supposed to happen when the moon is almost diametrically opposite the sun?”  Julius Africanus shows this flaw in Thallus’ argument, but for us it is very interesting to note that Thallus confirms the supernatural darkness that appeared at the crucifixion by making and losing his argument.  Likewise Phlegon another first century writer reports that in the time of Tiberius Caesar, “at the full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun, from the sixth hour to the ninth”.    

Today’s critics, like their predecessors, try to use science to explain phenomena found in the Bible, but true science serves to highlight the miracles.   Did it not occur to Phlegon that an eclipse cannot last three hours?  

Today the attacks are of same subtle kind, using the claims of   “experts” to deceive lazy minds. Schools teach evolution as unproved “fact” rather than theory.  The amount of contrary scientific evidence contradicting evolution is incredible, but how many people are aware of this?  By making Genesis a myth we loose the fall of mankind, removing the need for salvation, this means we remove our understanding of our need for Christ.   Even people who claim to be Christian say that the Flood is merely an interesting story, despite the warning of the apostle Peter (2 Peter 3:3-9). There is ample evidence at the time Peter wrote his warning that the Flood was well known amongst the Roman and Greek society.  Throughout the world there are over 275 different Flood accounts.  The Miautso people of China record Adam (the first man) through to Noah (who survived the Flood in an Ark which he had built on the command of God) and can even follow their decent back to Japheth.  The Irish, English, Welsh and Scottish have their own records of Noah and the Flood.   These accounts predate the Christian era.   The writers would have been quite unaware of the Jewish Old Testament.  The Atrahasis (Babylonian) Epic written on stone tablets contains both creation and flood accounts and is said to date back to 1700 BC. 

The Acagchemem Indians of California say that a powerful being called Chinigchinich created man out of clay which he found on banks of a lake; male and female he created them.  The Eskimos of Alaska tell of how a spirit named Aselu made a clay man and breathed life into him.  The Kumis, who inhabit portions of Arakan and Chittagong hill tracts in eastern India tell how God made the world and trees first and then made man and woman forming their bodies out clay.  The Karens of Burma tell how God made woman by taking a rib from man, and God made man by forming him from the earth having first finished the creation.  Throughout the world there are many such accounts which are pre Christian in origin.  If the Biblical account of creation is true and also the world-wide Flood then it is certain that such events would be remembered in the mythology of most nations!   

But it is the fool that says that there is no God (Psalm 14:1), Jesus says that His Word will never fail (Luke 16:17 Mark 13:31), and this prophecy has been proved true time and time again. 

From the persecution of Nero onwards Bibles have been burnt and Christians killed.  But man’s efforts to oppose God’s church, motivated by slavery to Satan, have always failed. 

Sources;

Thallus, Julius Africanus and Phlegon.  Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 6.  1994 reprint,

The Pulpit Commentary, Barnes notes and The History of the Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ, revised and edited by Vermes, Millar & Goodman, 1987 in four volumes.

Folklore in the Old Testament by Sir George Frazer in three volumes 1918.

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