Easter and Ishtar as a word and celebration

[ShivaFan]

Namaste

We all know what Easter today means in terms of Christianity, and I in no way mean to distract or absract the celebration as it is understood today.

But there are a lot of traditions where ancient traditions mix in with other traditions simply due to certain calendar dates are chosen to appropriate more longstanding dates, celebrations already in existence on that particular date then "mix" into popular culture.

Today I was listening to an interesting commentator on the radio who was claiming the word "Easter" comes from the name of the Goddess Ishtar (he said Ishtar and also used the word Ister) and the "rabbit" we see in popular culture is related also to the ancient Goddess and that the egg (e.g. colored eggs used in popular culture at this time sometimes in "egg rolls" and decorated as a celebration) is related to Ishtar in that the birth of Ishtar in ancient tradition was from an egg in the Euphrates river, and the date of Easter correlates to the celebration of Ishtar in ancient times.

Is there legitimacy to this? Anyone ever hear of this? It is the first I have heard.

Om Namah Sivaya

F.y.i. I hit submit by mistake before I finished the title of this thread which should read "Easter and Ishtar as a word and celebration"

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Happy Easter, Which is Not Named After Ishtar, Okay? - The Daily Beast

 

[Drolefille]

That ^^^ Thankfully the correction is circulating around my pagan friends, not the misinformation.

 

[ShivaFan]

Thanks for the link.

Interestingly enough this article in the link reads:

"Most scholars believe that Easter gets its name from Eostre or Ostara, a Germanic pagan goddess. English and German" ...

This same commebtator I heard today on the radio ALSO spoke of Eostre and Ostara, which he said are related to the same Goddess which spread into areas such as Iraq and as Ishtar.

So perhaps there is something to this.

But I do not think that Ishtar was all about "sex" as this link discusses. I think it is about life and the chain of life.

There are a lot of words of old English and Romanian and many other languages that come from older languages such as Sanskrit.

... hmmmm .... Could be this radio commentator has some interesting, and probable, legit points (he is a Christian by the way).

Om Namah Sivaya

 

[Drolefille]

Thanks for the link.

Interestingly enough this article in the link reads:

"Most scholars believe that Easter gets its name from Eostre or Ostara, a Germanic pagan goddess. English and German" ...

This same commebtator I heard tuday on the radio ALSO spoke of Eostre and Ostara, which he said are related to the same Goddess which spread into areas such as Iraq and as Ishtar.

So perhaps there is something to this.

But I do not think that Ishtar was all about "sex" as this link discisses. I think it is about life and the chain of life.

There are a lot of words of old English and Romanian and many other languages that come from older languages such as Sanskrit.

... hmmmm .... Could be this radio commentator has some interesting, and probable, legit points (he is a Christian by the way).

Om Namah Sivaya

No... really they're not related.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Ostara and Ishtar might be linked by the PIE (proto-Indo-European) root word for dawn...but there's little to no evidence that PIE and PAA (proto-Afroasiatic) are linked.

 

[ShivaFan]

"Ostara and Ishtar might be linked by the PIE (proto-Indo-European)"

Wow, that is Interesting G! Thanks for sharing that.

 

[Quintessence]

Fixed the title for ya.

It's also worth noting that Eostre might be something of a Neopagan fabrication, as there is little to no documentation of this goddess. For your info.

 

[Drolefille]

So some more info to debunk this:
Regarding the origin of the word Easter.

Our main source for the word 'Easter' is Bede, writing around 730AD in On the Reckoning of Time who says:
In olden times the English people—for it did not seem fitting that I should speak of other nations' observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation's—calculated their months according to the course of the Moon. Hence, after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans, [the months] take their name from the Moon, for the Moon is called mona and the month monath. The first month, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; February is called Solmonath; March Hrethmonath; April, Eosturmonath … Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month" and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.
The problem is the existence of the said goddess, who outside of Bede doesn't really exist. Bede has his own historical problems, and recognizes in this instance that he's not really sure about it and it's Bede's interpretation, rather than being supported from outside evidence.
The other linguistic issue, is that Anglo-Saxons named their months agriculturally, not according to deities (see the list here[1] ). So it's rather strange that Eostre should suddenly pop up and be a month name. You also see the problem with Hredmonath - outside of Bede, there's no knowledge of the goddess (if that is indeed what it's referring to). Philip Shaw recently published a monograph on this[2] and attempts to link 'Easter' with the Old Norse 'austr' the "East". The problem is that it's one thing to show a linguistic link - it's another to show that there actually was something called Eostre that was worshipped.
Yet another issue is that Charlemagne is responsible for renaming all the months of the year, and April is turned into 'Ostarmanoth' - considering that Charlemagne has been waging war on the Saxons[3] and converting them somewhat by force, it's a bit strange that he'd suddenly name the month after a pagan goddess.
So it makes much more sense that Eostermonath to be translated as 'the month of opening' - which fits with the time period (spring), rather than the goddess.

Also this post is really English/Western-centric:

Other names in English are the Pasch[11] or Pascha (two names derived, through Latin: Pascha and Greek Πάσχα Paskha, from Hebrew: פֶּסַח‎ Pesa&#7717,[9][12] or Resurrection Sunday,[13] Pace is a dialect form of Pasch, found in Scottish English[14] and in the English of northeastern England,[15] and used especially in combination with the word "egg", as in "Pace Egg play.[16]

This section contains Ethiopic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Ethiopic characters.

In nearly all Romance languages, the name of the Easter festival is derived from the Latin Pascha. In Spanish, Easter is Pascua, in Italian and Catalan Pasqua, in Portuguese Páscoa and in Romanian Paşti. In French, the name of Easter Pâques also derives from the Latin word but the s following the a has been lost and the two letters have been transformed into an â with a circumflex accent by elision. In Romanian, the only Romance language of an Eastern church, the word Înviere (resurrection, cf. Greek Ἀνάστασις, [anástasis]) is also used.

Albanian, although not a Romance language, borrows the Latin Pascha as Pashka. The holiday is frequently referred to in the plural, Pashkët.

In all modern Celtic languages the term for Easter is derived from Latin. In Brythonic languages this has yielded Welsh Pasg, Cornish and Breton Pask. In Goidelic languages the word was borrowed before these languages had re-developed the /p/ sound and as a result the initial /p/ was replaced with /k/. This yielded Irish Cáisc, Gaelic Càisg and Manx Caisht. These terms are normally used with the definite article in Goidelic languages, causing lenition in all cases: An Cháisc, A' Chàisg and Y Chaisht.

In Dutch, Easter is known as Pasen and in the Scandinavian languages Easter is known as påske (Danish and Norwegian), påsk (Swedish), páskar (Icelandic) and páskir (Faeroese). The name is derived directly from Hebrew Pesach.[17] The letter å is pronounced /oː/, derived from an older aa, and an alternate spelling is paaske or paask.

In Russia, Pascha (Paskha), is a borrowing of the Greek form via Old Church Slavonic.[18]

It's not like the countries that actually worshiped Ishtar were calling it Easter either.

Eggs and bunny aren't universally associated with Easter either. Bells bring chocolate eggs in belgium, not bunnies. In Norway you read murder mysteries. In Sweden, Denmark and Finland it's like Halloween except the little children dressed as witches trade soft fuzzy tree branches (I can't post the word.)

So why is it only Western/American traditions that get connected with Ishtar? Because it's bunk. (Also Ishtar is not pronounced Easter., It's pronounced Ishtar.)

 

[TheDopeyOne]

Subbed.