Tuesday, January 16, 2007

12. EASTER ASTARTE ISHTAR

As a Christian, would you participate in a Wicca Samhain Festival? As a follower of Messiah, would you participate in "The Burning Man" festivities? As a Christian, would you participate in a pagan fertility rite? Webster`s dictionary defines Easter as "originally a pagan festival in honor of the Goddess of spring, Eastre held in April". And, "The word Easter is of Saxon origin, Eastra, the Goddess of Spring, in whose honor sacrifices were offered about Passover time each year." [The New Ungers Bible Dictionary].
YHVH in the Tanakh gave very strong warnings to his people not to adopt the beliefs, customs, and practices of the pagan nations around them.So, why are so many Christians, and so-called Christians, participating in rites that has its origins in pagan fertility goddess worship? (The rabbit and the egg were fertility symbols, for example.) God punished his people Israel for doing similar things! Either forsaking God`s commandments, and adopting pagan ways, or to commingle the worship of Yahweh with pagan beliefs and practices. For a few examples read II Kings 17:3-23 and Jeremiah 44:15-23.
YHVH is "the same yesterday, today, and forever". Originally, this holiday was called "Passover" [1 Cor 5:7] with Y`shua`s resurrection on the "Feast of Firstfruits" [1 Cor 15:20 & 23]! Remember Y`shua was a devout Jewish Rabbi 2,000 yrs. ago. He said " I haven`t come to destroy the Torah (Law), but to fulfill it!" (We`re not under the "Law" [Legalism], but the spirit and purpose of the Torah and the prophets still has possible biblical principles application to us today.) To commingle the worship of Yahweh with pagan beliefs and practices, is an Abomination (one of the stongest words in Hebrew, meaning - detestable, despicable, vile, repulsive).
For the past 1,800 years, the church has moved away from the Jewish Roots & Jewishness of our faith. That`s exactly how we ended up with bad theology, like "replacement theology", where the church replaced Israel, which 50% of the churches teach today, I`ve been told. Or, "dual covenant" theology [ ala John Hagee. Rev. Hagee has since issued an apology for his teaching error "In Defense of Israel". I hope it`s true.], where God deals with Jews and Gentiles differently when it comes to Jesus & salvation. Both are wrong! The N.C. was written with Jewish thinking, theology, customs, beliefs and practices in mind. Not with the Greek Worldview! Essentially, the N.C. is a Jewish Document! The N.C. refers back to the O.C. hundreds of times! We have the Old & New Covenants in our bible! Yahweh hasn`t changed! Same God! We are under the New Covenant relationship. Not under the Old Mosaic Law / Covenant, true. God hasn`t changed though. Same God! Then you have what you call the Indigenous People movement [ http://www.letusreason.org/ has more info. on this]. Where Christians try and "Christianize" or repackage pagan gods, beliefs and practices, to try and make Christianity more palatable for local people. That`s how Easter came about! The name of the pagan goddess Easter was not part of the first century church, in either, in doctrine, scripture or practice. This is not an issue of Legalism. This is an issue of Idolatry! I hope this helps clarify my position. Tom.

1 Comments:

Blogger tomjworkman said...

Webster`s dictionary defines Easter as "originally a pagan festival in honor of the goddess of spring, Eastre held in April". And, "The word Easter is of Saxon origin, Eastra, the Goddess of Spring, in whose honor sacrifices were offered about Passover time each year." [The New Ungers Bible Dictionary].
If there is a bible translation like that out there, it is a mistranslation [Easter]. The term is Passover, and actually should be Celebrated during the "Feast of Passover". And I didn`t say Easter is derived from Ishtar. All those terms Easter, Astarte, Ishtar, Asheroth are ALL the names of Pagan deities! They have some similarities, they even sound alike! That`s why I use them! As for "Wicapedia", that source is unreliable, anyone can post something there. Their personal opinions, not necessarily well researched fact! My quote is from Webster`s dictionary, most scholars would give more credibility to that than anything on Wicapedia. [I got the spelling right this time, I hope! Hey! I didn`t have my glasses the first time!]
Irregardless, people miss a very important but obvious point, which is...
The N.T. was written in the common Greek language, but with Jewish Religious thinking, theology, customs, beliefs and practices in mind. NOT with the Greek Worldview! Or Roman or Greek philosophies or pagan religions thinking or theology in mind. Essentially, the N.T. is a Jewish document! "Christ [ Messiah ] our Passover..." scripture. Or, "Jesus our First fruits..." scripture. This discussion is getting redundant. Christians need to ask Yahweh what He thinks about all this stuff. It HIS bible, not ours. Instead of going on our personal opinions.

Basically this is a summary of my entire blog post -
My point is, like in the 10 commandments, "I am the LORD your God, you will not have any other gods besides me" [with me or addition to me]. We are "not to adopt the beliefs, customs and practices" of pagan heathen nations, i.e. other religions. That`s all. Using the name [and fertility symbols associated with] of a pagan fertility goddess, has no place in Christianity. Tom.

1:49 PM  

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