{"id":33495,"date":"2023-04-07T04:13:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T04:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=33495"},"modified":"2023-04-08T04:17:02","modified_gmt":"2023-04-08T04:17:02","slug":"from-goddesses-and-rabbits-to-theology-and-superstar-4-essential-reads-on-easters-surprisingly-complicated-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/from-goddesses-and-rabbits-to-theology-and-superstar-4-essential-reads-on-easters-surprisingly-complicated-history\/","title":{"rendered":"From goddesses and rabbits to theology and \u2018Superstar\u2019: 4 essential reads on Easter\u2019s surprisingly complicated\u00a0history"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Molly Jackson<\/a>, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s Easter about? In some ways, the answer is pretty simple: Jesus Christ, and Christians\u2019 belief that he rose from the dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other ways, though, the springtime holiday is far from straightforward. How did rabbits get involved? Where did the name \u201cEaster\u201d come from \u2013 and why is the English word different from the way many other cultures refer to the holy day? Even theologically, exactly what the Resurrection means is not universally agreed upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are four articles that delve into Easter\u2019s history, its significance \u2013 and what a rock \u2018n\u2019 roll Broadway show has to do with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Picking the date<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

First things first: Easter is what\u2019s called a \u201cmovable feast,\u201d a holiday whose exact date changes year to year. In the Northern Hemisphere it falls soon after the spring equinox, as the world comes back into bloom \u2013 a fitting time to celebrate rebirth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Easter\u2019s dating<\/a> \u201cgoes back to the complicated origins of this holiday and how it has evolved over the centuries,\u201d wrote Brent Landau<\/a>, a religious studies scholar at the University of Texas at Austin. Similar to Christmas and Halloween celebrations today, Easter blends together elements from Christian and non-Christian traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An<\/a>
Fantastic hats: One more Easter tradition. Mario Tama\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The name \u201cEaster\u201d itself seems linked to a pre-Christian goddess named Eostre in what is now England; she was celebrated in springtime. And in fact, in most languages, the word for the holiday is related to Passover, since the Gospels say Jesus traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish festival<\/a> in the days leading up to his crucifixion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u201ccelebrating\u201d Easter, per se, wasn\u2019t always in fashion with Christians. For the Puritans, Landau explained, these holidays were regarded as too tainted by merrymaking and un-Christian influences. As 19th-century American culture embraced the idea of childhood as a special time in life, though \u2013 not just preparation for adulthood \u2013 both Christmas and Easter became popular occasions to spend time with family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Holy hares<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Easter bunny\u2019s bio starts long before the 1800s, though. Rabbits\u2019 and hares\u2019 famous fertility has made them symbols of rebirth for thousands of years<\/a>. Some were ritually buried alongside people during the Neolithic age, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, that fecundity also makes them symbols of sex, as anyone who\u2019s seen the Playboy logo is aware. \u201cIn the Classical Greek tradition, hares were sacred to Aphrodite, the goddess of love,\u201d explained folklorist Tok Thompson<\/a>, a professor at USC Dornsife. The goddess\u2019s son Eros was also depicted carrying a hare \u201cas a symbol of unquenchable desire,\u201d and even the Virgin Mary is often painted with a rabbit, to symbolize how she overcame desire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
\u2018The Madonna of the Rabbit,\u2019 a painting from 1530, depicting the Virgin Mary with a rabbit. A painting by artist Titian (1490-1576), Louvre Museum, Paris.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Modern-day Easter bunny traditions stem from folk traditions in Germany and England, and there is evidence that the goddess Eostre\u2019s symbol was the hare as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Victory over death<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Holy Week, the series of events in Christian churches that lead up to Easter, traces Jesus\u2019 final days before death and resurrection, including Palm Sunday<\/a> and the Last Supper. Easter Sunday itself is the climax of the story: his triumph over death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a Baptist minister and theologian myself, I believe it is important to understand how Christians more generally, and Baptists in particular, hold differing views<\/a> on the meaning of the resurrection,\u201d wrote Jason Oliver Evans<\/a>, a doctoral candidate at the University of Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
\u2018The Resurrection\u2019 by Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel, 1887. Fine Art Images\/Heritage Images\/Hulton Fine Art Collection via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Over the centuries, Evans wrote, Christians have had \u201cpassionate debates over this central doctrine of Christian faith\u201d and what it means for Jesus\u2019 followers \u2013 such as whether his body was literally raised from the dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Superstar<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are many ways to share the story of Holy Week \u2013 and one of the most controversial ones debuted on Broadway in 1971.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJesus Christ Superstar<\/a>,\u201d the rock musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, struck some Christians as blasphemous with its modern-day telling of the Passion and \u201cJesus is cool\u201d ethos. Then there\u2019s the show\u2019s ending, which cuts off after the crucifixion \u2013 cutting out the Resurrection, and its theological message, entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
The musical \u2018Jesus Christ Superstar\u2019 has always had ardent fans and fierce critics. Blick\/RDB\/ullstein bild via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Half a century later, though, \u201cSuperstar\u201d raises fewer eyebrows \u2013 a reflection of changes in U.S. culture and Christianity, wrote Henry Bial<\/a>, a theater professor at the University of Kansas. Maybe that shouldn\u2019t be such a shock: As he pointed out, theater and drama have always been entwined with Bible stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation\u2019s archives.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molly Jackson<\/a>, Religion and Ethics Editor, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Molly Jackson, The Conversation What\u2019s Easter about? In some ways, the answer is pretty simple: Jesus Christ, and Christians\u2019 belief that he rose from the dead. In other ways, though, the springtime holiday is far from straightforward. How did rabbits get involved? Where did the name \u201cEaster\u201d come from \u2013 and why is the English […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":33496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8025,2450],"tags":[12968,1829,5984,6211,13867,2150,6610,13584],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33495"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33497,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33495\/revisions\/33497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}