Easter: Sun God Worship

The origins of the modern practice of Easter

The origins of Easter reach back to Babylonian sun-god worship. Nimrod, a mighty man in scripture was worshiped as god of the sun. He attempted to join the world together in a conspiracy to overthrow God and become ruler in his stead by building the tower of Babel.

When God saw this, he confused language and mankind was scattered, taking with them the sun god worship that is known all over the world today. Many different names, but all the same sun-god worship. Usually these sun gods are recognized by the golden sun disk behind their heads in many different form of art.

When Nimrod he died, his wife Semi-Ramis declared that he impregnated her post-mortem by the rays of the sun and gave birth to her son Tammuz on December 25th.

Unfortunately, Tammuz (who was said to be immortal) inconveniently dies at the age of 40 due to being gored by a wild bull. His death was commemorated by 40 days of  weeping for Tammuz because he unjustly dies so young, with worshipers giving up a pleasure in this life so he could in enjoy it in the next. Most would understand this concept as it is still practiced today as Lent.

We were all taught then we celebrated Lent, we were commemorating the time when our Messiah fasted and prayed in the wilderness for “forty days and forty nights.” The truth of the matter is that our Messiah fasted and prayed during the “Forty Days of Repentance” leading up to Yom Kippur.

The Hebrews have a tradition of fasting and repenting for forty days leading up to Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement and this is when our Messiah fasted and prayed. It had NOTHING to do with “Lent” or Easter.

God hated the weeping for Tammuz: Ezekiel 8:14,15 “Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD, and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? You will see still greater abominations than these.”

Bunny Rabbits and Easter Egg Hunts

When Semi-Ramis died, she was said to have been returned to earth by her former husband Nimrod, now the sun god, in an egg that landed in the Euphrates river and burst forth reborn as the sex goddess of fertility in what became the annual festival of her renewal on the Spring equinox.*

Now known as the queen of heaven, Ashtoreth; she proved her divinity by turning a bird into an egg laying rabbit. Each spring during the festival we know as Easter, her priests would impregnate virgins. Then, a year later,  the priests would sacrifice those 3 month old babies, dipping eggs into their blood. Those red eggs were highly prized as runes of fertility. **

In an excellent study about these origins, Raymond Blanton explains that Easter is Isthar (Ashtoreth) the queen of heaven and goddess of spring.  The sunrise services today are a continuation of that pagan worship, just as sun salutations in yoga practices are also a form of sun god worship.

“…the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing and which, in many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival [of passover and unleavened bread], being observed in Palestine and Assyria in June. To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festival amalgamated, and, by complicated but skillful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity to shake hands” (Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 105).

Continuing with Hislop, Blanton explains:  “The term Easter is of pagan origin. It bears its Chaldean [Babylonian] origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven” (p. 103).

Here is the connection between Easter and Tammuz, (she married her son after her return): “The wife of Tammuz was Isthar (Astarte), who is called Mother Nature, who being refreshed by spring rains brings life. When Tammuz died, she followed him into the underworld or realm of Eresh-Kigal, queen of the dead. In her deep grief Astarte persuaded Eresh-Kigal to allow her messenger to sprinkle Astarte and Tammuz with the water of life. By this sprinkling they had power to return in the light of the sun for six months. After which the same cycle must be repeated.”

The Flaming Torch (Jan-March 1987 volume) says “Thus, the goddess of spring or the dawn goddess is responsible for the resurrection of Tammuz. Easter is a joint worship of the two. This Satanic myth is interwoven with the sun’s cycle of vernal equinox (dawn) and autumn equinox (sunset).”

The passion and resurrection of these sun gods are well known to have occurred on what is called Black Friday, with resurrection on Sunday (Sun-Day). These sun gods are known by Tammuz, Marduk, Attis and Mithras. They are also identified as Horace, Sol, and Krishna.

In “The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets” it is written: “Attis’ passion was celebrated on the 25th of March exactly nine months before the festival of his birth, the 25th of December…the day of Attis’ death was black Friday…The god dies and was buried. He ascended into the underworld. On the third day [a Sunday] he rose again from the dead.”

Christian Synchretism

Clearly these are the origins of the “Christianized” Easter and resurrection story, which is in contraction to the 3 days and 3 nights sign of Messiah prophesied in scripture.

Arthur Weigall writes in “The Paganism in our Christianity”: “The clergy…could not prevent the people in various countries celebrating the great holiday at Easter in honor of the resurrection of Attis and other gods.”

Dake’s Bible adds, “Easter . . . is derived from Ishtar, one of the Babylonian titles of an idol goddess, the Queen of Heaven. The Saxon goddess Eastre is the same as the Astarte, the Syrian Venus, called Ashtoreth in the Old Testament. It was the worship of this woman by Israel that was such an abomination to God” (1 Sam. 7:3; 1 Ki. 11:5, 33; 2 Ki. 23:13; Jer. 7:18; 44:18) (p. 137 N.T.)

The Queen of Heaven has many names in different languages: Eastre, Eostre, Astarte, Ostara, Ishtar, Istar, Isis, Venus, and Aphrodite are among the most common.

Early Christian believers, known as “The Way” [Acts 9:2 and 24:14] did not keep Easter. Many historians including Arthur Weigal confirm that the Catholic Church adopted pagan festivals such as Easter to “Christian Ideas” rather than suppressing them. Even Calvin at one point found the festival of Easter so paganized he did not observe it either.

In 325CE the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first Full Moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. From that point forward, the Easter date depended on the ecclesiastical approximation of March 21 for the vernal equinox. This confirms the “Christianized” tradition of celebrating according to the pagan tradition of the vernal (spring) equinox.

The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, Vol 8, p.828 confirms “There is no indication for the observance of the Easter Festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the apostolic fathers.”

God warned his people not to even speak the name of another God, let alone name a holiday after the goddess Easter, and then dedicate that holiday named after another god to Him!

Exodus 23:13:“And in all things that I have said unto you take heed; and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of your mouth.”

The Ryrie Study Bible comments that “the Israelites were not even to inquire about the worship of the Canaanites, lest they be tempted to incorporate aspects of it into their worship of God.” [Deuteronomy 12:29-32, Jeremiah 10:2]

Deuteronomy 12:29-32 “When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

Adopting pagan festivals into “Christian Ideas” is known as “syncretism” and is forbidden by God throughout scripture.

Clearly the worship of Yehovah during these pagan festivals is not something believers in Messiah should be engaging in. So why would we continue to choose to worship Him in the way he detests, instead of the way he tells us to in scripture by celebrating His appointed feasts?

 

*Babylon Mystery Religion, Ralph Woodrow Evangelistic Association 1966

**Michael Rood, A Rood Awakening You Tube: “The Mystery of Solomon’s Laver” Parts one and two

*** Matthew 26:17-19, Mark 14:12-16 and Luke 22:7-13

The Great Easter Fraud Graphic published with permission by New 2 Torah