Historical Easter Question for Minimalist

[thesummerqueen]

From another forum: 

"I need your help, my fellow damned souls -

I still haven't found out the exact timeline of the development of the Easter myth. Yes, the concept of the killed then resurrected deity is common in almost all ancient religions, but what I haven't pinpointed yet is how the execution of the political dissident Jesus of Nazareth in c. 30 CE morphed into what we know as the Easter story in less than a century.
Please share any academic scholarly references you may know of."



Any ideas? 

[Mudhammam]

Yeah. People are gullible. Next.

[thesummerqueen]

Thank you for that scintillating explanation.

[Minimalist]

That's a really good question, Sweetie.

Justin Martyr's First Apologia was written to Antonius Pius c 160.  In it, he knows of the crucifixion and Pilate but not Mary, Joseph, Caiaphas, Peter, James, Judas, Mary Magdalene, Nazareth, or John the Baptist.  Again, as with the purported Tacitus reference, note this from the First Apology:

Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judaea, in the times of Tiberius Caesar; and that we reasonably worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove. For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery that is herein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to give heed.

Justin uses the term "procurator" which is first used in Judaea after the death of Herod Agrippa I in 44 AD.  Prior to Herod Agrippa's reign the Romans appointed a Prefect to administer Judaea (only) as the other regions were under the control of allied kings such as Herod Antipas.  This suggests that the story was concocted after the term Prefect had gone out of general usage.  Further, the other allegedly early body of xtian writings, the so-called epistles of "Paul" are even worse than Justin as they know nothing of any of the above nor Pilate.
Now xtians love to rattle on how "Paul" dates from the first century but the earliest we actually hear of him in solidly datable references is in the mid 2d century and Justin never heard of any "Paul" either....although he did hear of "Paul's" sponsor, Marcion.  The whole thing is very confusing because the handful of actual facts we have do not match up to xtian bullshit.

By c 185 Irenaeus is writing of controversy in dating the resurrection celebration.  This indicates that the bulk of the xtian bullshit story as we now know it developed between 160 and 185.

You may find this web site interesting.

http://www.cogwriter.com/easter.htm

This is known by scholars:

The first Christians celebrated the death of Jesus with a Pascha meal (eucharist) on the lunar date of the Jewish Passover (note 1 Cor. 5:7-8).
At first there was no annual celebration of the resurrection. Eventually, in the gentile world, the day of resurrection was added to the Pascha festival. That day was Sunday. At the Council of Nicea (325) it was ruled that Easter Sunday would be celebrated on the Sunday immediately following that full moon which came after the vernal equinox. At the same time the Council decided that the vernal equinox would be March 21 in the Julian calendar (Eusebius, Vit. Const. 3.18). (Synder GF. Irish Jesus, Roman Jesus: the formation of early Irish Christianity. Trinity Press International, 2002, p. 183)

So, for compromisers, the Passover changed. And it changed a lot. Because they held it on Sunday, some of the compromisers quickly decided to teach that Jesus was resurrected on a Sunday as partial justification (in their view) for the change. But this resulted in major changes to the observance of Passover by those who held to the Greco-Roman position.

Let me know what you think.

[dyresand]

Easter is a Pagan holiday again if christianity is true every single christian who does christmas and easter is going to hell.

[Minimalist]

Easter - probably derived from the Germanic goddess Eostre - is a northern European term.

In the southern countries, France, Italy, etc. the term is some derivation of pesach which was the jewish term for Passover.

[Mudhammam]

Thank you for that scintillating explanation.

No problem. Just trying to save you the time of combing through the other multiple threads made on the topic in the past month.

[watchamadoodle]

Somewhere I read that the Jewish celebration of passover included a second ritual three days later that may have inspired the Christian celebration of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I believe it may have involved planting a seed or something to foreshadow the harvest festival of Pentecost?

I can't find this in wikipedia, and I may have remembered the details wrong. Anybody else heard of this?

[RobbyPants]

Now xtians love to rattle on how "Paul" dates from the first century but the earliest we actually hear of him in solidly datable references is in the mid 2d century and Justin never heard of any "Paul" either....although he did hear of "Paul's" sponsor, Marcion.  The whole thing is very confusing because the handful of actual facts we have do not match up to xtian bullshit.

Can you elaborate on this? I thought the Epistles were dated to something like 20 years after the events described in the gospels. Or are you saying that it wasn't necessarily Paul who wrote them?

[FreeTony]

Where does the Easter bunny fit in? Was he an apostle, or perhaps even one of the Trinity?