Is Easter based on a pagan tradition?

[A_Nony_Mouse]

They are in denial over 1st c. sources because they know it cannot be true because they know the Judeans were strict monotheists.

They can work themselves up even more over the actual late 9th/early 8th century inscription at Kuntillet Arjud.

http://www.cojs.org/cojswiki/Kuntillet_%...entury_BCE

Missed that one entirely, thank you!

Fourth, do the drawings depict Yahweh and Asherah? If so, the image violates the commandment forbidding images of Yahweh (Exodus 20:4; Deut 5:8) plus it renders him in a form highly evocative of the Egyptian god Bes. These drawings and inscriptions substantiate prophetic ranting and admonitions against idolatrous and polytheistic practices in Israel.

I have come across one reference that one of the statues of Ashara from the 2nd c. BC shows mold lines indicating they were mass produced.

The most debated depiction consists of a blessing “To Yahweh and His Asherah” inscribed on a pithos over a drawing of two crudely-drawn, grotesque figures standing side-by-side.

William Dever explores this in depth in "Did God Have A Wife."

They all sort of have to admit that. The issue is they claim it was some kind of heresy or religion wiped out the Yahweh cult. Problem is her worship still continues centuries after it was supposedly eliminated. Of course that suggests the religion of the priests was the religion of the people when in every case I can find the religion of the people is NOT the religion of the priests. Priests can only write about their cult. The religion of the people is all that matters.

I read one open minded rabbi make the cryptic comment to the effect we do not know the religion of the women because they left no written record. But he gave no idea what he was talking about.

Another wag suggested the reason her temple was on the temple mount and Yahweh's below it was that if they were reversed people could look down on her temple and see the priests making sacred love.