Where Do Easter Eggs Come From?

Have you ever asked yourself: Where do Easter eggs come from?

Centuries ago in the ancient land of Mesopotamia the Babylonian empire worshipped a variety of gods and goddesses. As legend has it a large egg fell from the sky into the river Euphrates and when it hatched the goddess Astarte was revealed.

Eggs are widely seen as symbols of fertility and Astarte was worshipped as a goddess of fertility. The New World Encyclopedia provides more insight into this ancient myth.

"Ishtar, a goddess of both fertility and war, is the Akkadian name of the Sumerian goddess Inanna and the Semitic goddess Astarte, the three names referring to the same deity in different cultural contexts." (New World Encyclopedia, article "Ishtar")

So Astarte or Ishtar, as she was also known, was represented by a fertile egg. Ancient cultures also connected the lunar cycle with the goddesses of fertility. This is where rabbits come in. Originally believed to be asexual, the rabbit has a gestation period of roughly one month and was closely associated with the lunar cycle. So with prolific procreation in a lunar month, believed to be brought about miraculously without the rabbit losing its virginity, ancient cultures worshiped the goddess Ishtar with rabbits that laid eggs.

Spring forward several centuries and in the year AD 431, at the Council of Ephesus, the Christian bishops attained consensus that Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, should be proclaimed "theotokos" or "Mother of God". The worship of Mary as the mother of God or Queen of Heaven, a title given to Ishtar in the ancient world, effectively transposed the ancient practice of worshiping Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, into the Biblical account of Christ's birth, death and resurrection.

Today we find ourselves in a society that still celebrates and effectively worships the goddess Ishtar, under the more recognisable name 'Easter'. Coloured eggs are not the only Easter tradition with peculiar origins. Some European countries have different national cakes and cultural ceremonies such as whipping girls to keep them fertile or throwing cold water over men to enact revenge. There are many more traditions associated with Easter than simply coloured eggs and chocolate. Once you realise the origins of what you may be celebrating, it's probably a good time to question whether you want these egg laying rabbits in your life. Will you teach these traditions to your children? If you're a Christian and your church has taught you to observe the mythical worship of egg laying rabbits, you must then question the veracity of the entire religion.

What time has allowed to become tradition is in fact an absurd misrepresentation of events. In other words, Easter is a mockery of an historical account. If you took my voice and applied it to the body of another, does it not also make a mockery of what you hear? Therefore, if a Christian religion claims to follow Christ but instead takes the stories of other gods and applies them to the Biblical account of Christ, they are a sham. Ironically this deceit and fraudulent religion is precisely what was warned about in the very text Christianity is supposed to be founded upon.

The vast majority of those who profess the Christian faith today have ignored instruction from scripture and have adopted idolatry. Is it any wonder that very few people take religion seriously when you can openly observe the hypocrisy of what it practises? Rabbits and eggs have nothing to do with the solemn observance of Christ's death and resurrection which occurred at this time of year.

If you have reason to believe in the existence of a Creator then it is best practise to go to the biblical source. Listening to the opinions of men without comparing what you are told to the original material leads to blind faith; if you can't prove something for yourself then how can you firmly believe it to be true?

Do not have blind faith; question everything, especially your traditions and realise that you are mocking your child's intelligence by telling them to look for coloured eggs, laid by rabbits!

Here is a fun fact: Rabbits don't lay eggs.

I am Jonathan Riley for Tomorrow's World Viewpoint.

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