Talk:Easter

The premise of the entire page is wrong.

I don't know your protocols.

I am a Christian, and things mentioned on this page seem almost totally Catholic (and maybe some Orthodox religions, and Lutheran churches go part way on these subjects), but not Christian at all.

Most Christians do not celebrate Passover, Pentecost (those are Jewish holidays), Lent, or Ash Wednesday. We don't know Pasha, whatever that is. We don't fast, and we don't do penance. Again, these are Catholic things, which the Bible does not tell us to copy. In fact, we were told in the beginning to not celebrate days, especially not Easter or Christmas. (Galatians 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? 4:10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.) Instead, Christians celebrate Jesus every day.

It would be much better to just call Easter a holiday celebrated by Catholics and some other faiths but leave most Christians out. Even some of the pictures seem Catholic or Orthodox. Many Christian churches don't even have a cross so that we don't start worshipping that. We also do not worship Mary or any saints (we Christians are all saints). Christian baptism must be by immersion. Catholics stopped doing that hundreds of years ago because one man was too sick to get in the water. We also don't worship a pope nor confess to a priest. Also, the Church is the bride of Christ. That means Christians, not nuns. Christians and Catholics are like oil and water.

If you have questions, I am ChristianLady5151 ChristianLady5151 (talk) 03:26, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

While you are perfectly entitled to it, your concept of what a Christian is seems a particularly narrow one. Wikipedia takes the broader position expressed in our article on the Christian Church. HiLo48 (talk) 03:46, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

My concept of what a Christian is comes from the New Testament. I didn't make it up. And, yes, it is narrow. "The way" is narrow. Matthew 7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. ChristianLady5151 (talk) 03:56, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

This article maintains the neutrality requirement of Wikipedia. It covers the wide range of Christian responses to the festival, including non-celebration. However, most branches of the Christian church do make some form of celebration. Based on the population figures given in the article Christianity, that's at least 90% of Christians. This talk page is not the place to soapbox a particular strand of Christianity. Neutrality is expected here as well. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:40, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

There is very little on the page that is neutral. What caught my attention in the first place is the overwhelming amount of Catholic terms. ChristianLady5151 (talk) 04:37, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not Catholic, and most of that is very comprehensible to me, brought up in the Protestant tradition in Australia. You must know that Catholics regard themselves as Christians too, as do all Protestants and Orthodox members. Wikipedia cannot write as if they're not. HiLo48 (talk) 04:51, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I think you miss my point. Catholics may consider themselves Christians, but Christians do not consider themselves Catholics. Catholics do everything differently than Christians that are not Catholic. Absolutely everything. When I was young, the only church where we were vacationing was Catholic. I got in line to take communion. The priest asked me if I was Catholic. When I said no, he pushed me backwards. That was not a Christian way to treat me, and it demonstrates just one of the differences. We even have very different Bibles. ChristianLady5151 (talk) 05:08, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I fully agree that the behaviour of a lot of people who call themselves Christiaan doesn't satisfy my idea of what Christian should do, but in Wikipedia we go on what reliable sources say. Most say Catholics are Christians. HiLo48 (talk) 05:15, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I am not trying to imply that they are not Christians, in that they do believe in Christ. But all of their teachings are different than "just plain" Christians. The page implies that we do all the things they do - far from it. "Just plain" Christians do not want to be "accused" of doing things Catholics do and we believe to be sinful. We should not all be lumped together. ChristianLady5151 (talk) 05:24, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

You pretty much state that everyone that isn't in your sect isn't Christian. You flatly contrast Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Lutherans against Christian, thus, you flatly state that none of those people are Christian. Wikipedia doesn't exist to promulgate your sect over any other. ZabiggyZoo (talk) 16:39, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Catholics are Christians. SMH. Prots are so narrow minded 166.181.85.58 (talk) 01:35, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Obviously not all of them. HiLo48 (talk) 22:14, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Protestants are raised to believe that their religious mumbo jumbo is the only version of Christianity around. Try to tolerate their arrogance. Dimadick (talk) 22:37, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Ha ha ha. The arrogance you describe there is one of many reasons I fell out of Protestant Christianity as I was growing up. HiLo48 (talk) 23:00, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

You proved my point. We are very different (Catholics and Christians). Ask your priest. And I call myself a Christian because I am also not a Protestant. I am strictly Christian, following only what we are told in the Bible. ChristianLady5151 (talk) 01:32, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

It's always wonderful to see the amazing tolerance and humble non-arrogance of non-Christians, expressed in sweeping generalizations. :-)
Now back to what this was about: The premise of this whole thread is simply blatantly wrong, no matter where you stand on the denominational range. Stating that Pentecost is a Jewish holiday is just plain nonsense. It may go by different names in different regions of the world (Whitsunday), but the Jewish holiday its date is based on is not called Pentecost but Shavuot.
"We don't know Pasha, whatever that is", well - aside from the misspelling - you should if you've read your Bible. It's one of the very basic stories of the Bible, and Jesus almost certainly celebrated it.
While I would agree that most Christians probably do not celebrate Passover which definitely is a Jewish holiday, most Christians (not counting the purely nominal ones) do celebrate Lent and Pentecost. These are important traditions in most Protestant churches, and the article is not "Catholic" because it mentions these.
This statement is obviously based on the premise that Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran churches are not "Christian at all". Now judging who is Christian and who isn't requires a pope-like position. I do hope that Wikipedia will continue not to claim such a position, and I am surprised at anyone who rants at the Pope while at the same time claiming comparable authority for their own views. --2003:C0:8F13:4A00:20EA:B3CB:862C:5C52 (talk) 10:32, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Ishtar

I think you forgot to add it’s pagan origins. This is 100% bias & should’ve been fact checked before posting. 2601:58B:4600:6900:867:6ADC:310F:8189 (talk) 03:01, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed 148.252.146.210 (talk) 00:14, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

The possible pre-Christian origins would be related to the European Goddess Eostra/Ostara, and not Ishtar. Captchacatcher (talk) 01:14, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

No. Maybe the name and over the time some customs of different origin may have been incorporated. But Easter itself is biblical and was celebrated in the mediteranean (Palestine and modern Turkey/Greece/Italy/Egypt) before christianity came to the northern tribes from whom later the name may be transfered onto the existing festival. Also, not everywhere it is called Easter.--109.43.49.94 (talk) 06:22, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

References

Easter and Eostre/Ostara

@Indyguy, you deleted my sentence in the paragraph about pre-Christian custom because you said "...that theory about the feast for Eostre was put forward only by Bede with no corroborating evidence from other sources, and that it is one of several theories as to the origin of the name." I thought this was supposed to be an encyclopedia, and this seems an unbiased addition. The Eostre page contains arguments made by historians/anthropologists for and against the idea that Easter is derived from Eostre/Ostara as a practice or word.

Pre-Christian festivals around that time were related to the spring equinox, and the goddess Ēostre that the English term "Easter" may be derived from.

Do you also believe this sentence on the same page should be deleted, since it is only one of several theories:

The English term is derived from the Saxon spring festival Ēostre;

Or this:

He wrote that Ēosturmōnaþ (Old English for 'Month of Ēostre', translated in Bede's time as "Paschal month") was an English month, corresponding to April, which he says "was once called after a goddess of theirs named Ēostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month".

Or on the Eostre page:

In Anglo-Saxon England, her springtime festival gave its name to a month (Northumbrian: Ēosturmōnaþ, West Saxon: Eastermonað), the rough equivalent of April, then to the Christian feast of Easter that eventually displaced it.

Captchacatcher (talk) 15:18, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

@Captchacatcher: Having read your comments here and spending more time looking into this, I am modifying my position a bit. I have no problem with stating that Easter derives from the Saxon name for the month of April. I do think it is misleading to state or imply that the name for Easter was taken directly from the goddess's name because there's no explicit evidence for that and people with unfounded claims about the celebration of Easter having pagan roots and not being Christian (e.g., the comments regarding Ishtar on this talk page) might try to use that language to bolster their POV.

Nevertheless, regardless of what we decide this article should say, the discussion of this belongs in the Etymology section, which already goes into it, rather than repeating it in multiple places. Indyguy (talk) 03:47, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

This comes up so often that I wish we could add this to a FAQ. Please see the previous discussion in the talk page archives at [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], and [9]. Ben (talk) 14:34, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

References