as embarrassing as this is to admit, the article below is an excerpt from a christian-cult-type website. the House of Yahweh, titled “An Easter Rememberance.”
good background material, though, for anyone who wonders how much we’ve been misled by our “religious,” and “spiritual” shepherds for so long. so glad i don’t bleet “i believe” anymore.
to those curious about the occult – i caution against delving too deeply into the debauchery associated with the pagan rituals discussed below. they will upset your view of reality and hurt your soul. seriously – depraved goings-on, combining sex, blood sacrifice, and cannibalism. and it gets worse, but as i mentioned above, you really DON’T want to know.
Reading from Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia, Volume 4, page 140, we find that Easter is the greatest festival of the Christian church, which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This festival was named after the ancient Anglo Saxon Goddess of spring.
EASTER. The greatest festival of the Christian church commemorates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a movable feast, that is, it is not always held on the same date. The church council of Nicea (a.d. 325) decided that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox (March 21). Easter can come as early as March 22 or as late as April 25.
The name Easter comes from the ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, Eostre or Ostara, in whose honor an annual spring festival was held. Some of our Easter customs have come from this and other pre-Christian spring festivals. Others come from the Passover feast of the Jews, observed in memory of their deliverance from Egypt (see Passover). The word “paschal,” meaning “pertaining to Easter,” like the French word for Easter, Pâques, comes through the Latin from the Hebrew name of the Passover.
.Unger’s Bible Dictionary, by Merrill F. Unger, page 283, goes on to corroborate this fact.
Easter (Gr. pascha, from Heb. pesah), the Passover, and so translated in every passage excepting “intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people” (Acts 12:4). In the earlier English versions Easter had been frequently used as the translation of pascha. At the last revision Passover was substituted in all passages but this. See Passover.
an ancient depiction of eastre and the “easter bunny.” creeps me right the fuck out.
The word Easter is of Saxon origin, Eastra, the goddess of spring, in whose honor sacrifices were offered about Passover time each year. By the 8th century Anglo-Saxons had adopted the name to designate the celebration of Christ’s resurrection.
It is a fully documented historical fact that the day which was chosen by the Christian church to celebrate this resurrection, was a day which had been celebrated by pagans from antiquity. Yes, the only difference between these two celebrations, is the fact that its name was changed to veneer it with “Christian respectability”.
It is simply no secret that Easter originated with the worship of a pagan Goddess. This fact is presented almost every time one researches the word Easter.
Compton’s Encyclopedia, Volume 4, says the following about Easter:
“Many Easter customs come from the Old World…colored eggs and rabbits have come from pagan antiquity as symbols of new life…our name `Easter’ comes from `Eostre’, an ancient Anglo Saxon goddess, originally of the dawn. In pagan times an annual spring festival was held in her honor. Some Easter customs have come from this and other pre-christian spring festivals.”
Reading about this pre-Christian spring festival from Funk & Wagnall’s Standard Reference Encyclopedia, Volume 8, page 294, we learn:
Although Easter is a Christian festival, it embodies traditions of an ancient time antedating the rise of Christianity. The origin of its name is lost in the dim past; some scholars believe it probably is derived from Eastre, Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility, to whom was dedicated Eastre monath, corresponding to April. Her festival was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox, and traditions associated with the festival survive in the familiar Easter bunny, symbol of the fertile rabbit, and in the equally familiar colored Easter eggs originally painted with gay hues to represent the sunlight of spring.
Such festivals, and the myths and legends which explain their origin, abounded in ancient religions. The Greek myth of the return of the earth-goddess Demeter from the underworld to the light of day, symbolizing the resurrection of life in the spring after the long hibernation of winter, had its counterpart, among many others, in the Latin legend of Ceres and Persephone. The Phrygians believed that their all-powerful deity went to sleep at the time of the winter solstice, and they performed ceremonies at the spring equinox to awaken him with music and dancing. The universality of such festivals and myths among ancient peoples has led some scholars to interpret the resurrection of Christ as a mystical and exalted variant of fertility myths.
.The Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore, and Symbols, Part 1, page 487 tells us more about this spring festival.
“It incorporates some of the ancient Spring Equinox ceremonies of sun worship in which there were phallic rites and spring fires, and in which the deity or offering to the deity was eaten…The festival is symbolized by an ascension Lily…a chick breaking its shell, the colors white and green, the egg, spring flowers, and the rabbit. The name is related to Astarte, Ashtoreth, Eostre and Ishtar, goddess who visited and rose from the underworld. Easter yields `Enduring Eos’… `Enduring Dawn’.”
Part of this spring festival centered around phallic rites. Collier’s Encyclopedia, 1980, Volume 9, page 622, tells us of the Babylonian Ishtar festival phallic rites.
The Ishtar Festivals were symbolical of Ishtar as the goddess of love or generation. As the daughter of Sin, the moon god, she was the Mother Goddess who presided over child birth; and women, in her honor, sacrificed their virginity on the feast day or became temple prostitutes, their earnings being a source of revenue for the temple priests and servants.
We learn about these temple prostitutes from The Interpreter’s Dictionary of The Bible, Volume 3, pages 933-934:
a. The roll of the sacred prostitute in the fertility cult. The prostitute who was an official of the cult in ancient Palestine and nearby lands of biblical times exercised an important function. This religion was predicated upon the belief that the processes of nature were controlled by the relations between gods and goddesses. Projecting their understanding of their own sexual activities, the worshipers of these deities, through the use of imitative magic, engaged in sexual intercourse with devotees of the shrine, in the belief that this would encourage the gods and goddesses to do likewise. Only by sexual relations among the deities could man’s desire for increase in herds and fields, as well as in his own family, be realized. In Palestine the gods Baal and Asherah were especially prominent (see BAAL; ASHERAH; FERTILITY CULTS). Attached to the shrines of these cults were priests as well as prostitutes, both male and female. Their chief service was sexual in nature – the offering of their bodies for ritual purposes.
Sexual relations for ritual purposes was the ceremony for the fertility cults. The Interpreter’s Dictionary, Volume 2, page 265 says:
FERTILITY CULTS. The oldest common feature of the religions of the ancient Near East was the worship of a great mother-goddess, the personification of fertility. Associated with her, usually as a consort, was a young god who died and came to life again, like the vegetation which quickly withers but blooms again. His absence produced infertility of the earth, of man, and of beast. His consort mourned and searched for him. His return brought renewed fertility and rejoicing.
The great mother-goddess Asherah, the wife of the senescent chief god El, seems on the way to becoming the consort of the rising young god Baal, with whom we find her associated in the O.T. Ashtarte also appears in the Ugaritic myths, but she has a minor and undistinguished role.
The O.T. furnishes abundant evidence as to the character of the religion of the land into which the Israelites came. Fertility rites were practiced at the numerous shrines which dotted the land, as well as at the major sanctuaries. The Israelites absorbed the Canaanite ways and learned to identify their god with Baal, whose rains brought fertility to the land. A characteristic feature of the fertility cult was sacral sexual intercourse by priests and priestesses and other specially consecrated persons, sacred prostitutes of both sexes, intended to emulate and stimulate the deities who bestowed fertility. The agricultural cult stressed the sacrifice or common meal in which the gods, priests, and people partook. Wine was consumed in great quantity in thanksgiving to Baal for the fertility of the vineyards. The wine also helped induce ecstatic frenzy, which was climaxed by self-laceration, and sometimes even by self-emasculation. Child-sacrifice was also a feature of the rites. It was not simply a cult of wine, women, and song, but a matter of life and death in which the dearest things of life, and life itself, were offered to ensure the ongoing of life.
Reading on page 103 of The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop, we find that Easter and Ishtar are the same.
Then look at Easter. What means the term Easter itself? It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing elsethan “Astarte”, one of the titles of Beltis, “The Queen of Heaven” whose name, as “pronounced” by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That `name’, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is “Ishtar”.
Ishtar or Easter of Assyria was worshiped in pagan antiquity during her spring festival. Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 15, page 748, gives us the following information.
Ishtar, goddess of love and war, the most important goddess of the Sumero-Akkadian pantheon. Ishtar was equated with the planet Venus. As goddess of physical love,she was patron of the temple prostitutes. She was also considered the merciful mother who intercedes with the gods on behalf of her worshipers. Throughout Mesopotamian history she was worshiped under various names in many cities…
Astarte of Phoenicia was the offshoot of Ishtar of Assyria. To the Hebrews, this abomination was known as Ashtoreth/Ashtaroth. From Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 3, page 13, we read:
ASHTAROTH [æ¢'òterath] the plural of the Hebrew `Ashtoreth, the Phoenician-Canaanite goddess Astarte, deity of fertility, reproduction, and war.
.Watson’s Biblical and Archaeological Dictionary, 1833, tells us more about this mother Goddess, Ashtaroth.
ASHTAROTH, or ASTARTE, a goddess of the Zidonians. The word Ashtaroth properly signifies flocks of sheep, or goats; and sometimes the grove, or woods, because she was goddess of woods, and groves were her temples. In groves consecrated to her, such lasciviousness was committed as rendered her worship infamous. She was also called the queen of heaven; and sometimes her worship is said to be that of “the host of heaven.” She was certainly represented in the same manner as Isis, with cow’s horns on her head, to denote the increase and decrease of the moon.
.The Interpreter’s Dictionary, Volume 3, page 975, tells us of Ishtar’s role as the Queen of Heaven:
Ishtar, the goddess of love and fertility, who was identified with the Venus Star and is actually entitled “Mistress of Heaven” in the Amarna tablets. The title “Queen of Heaven” is applied in an Egyptian inscription from the Nineteenth Dynasty at Beth-shan to “Antit,” the Canaanite fertility-goddess Anat, who is termed “Queen of Heaven and Mistress of the Gods.” This is the most active goddess in the Ras Shamra Texts, but in Palestine her functions seem to have been taken over largely by Ashtoreth.
We find the following information about Ashtoreth from The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume 1, pages 319-320.
ASHTORETH ash‘te-reth [Heb. `astoret. pl. `astarôt; Gk. Astarte]. A goddess of Canaan and Phoenicia whose name and cult were derived from Babylonia, where Ishtar represented the evening and morning stars and was accordingly androgynous in origin. Under Semitic influence, however, she became solely female, although retaining a trace of her original character by standing on equal footing with the male divinities. From Babylonia the worship of the goddess was carried to the Semites of the West, and in most instances the feminine suffix was attached to her name; where this was not the case the deity was regarded as a male. On the Moabite Stone, for example, ‘Ashtar is identified with Chemosh, and in the inscriptions of southern Arabia `Athtar is a god. On the other hand, in the name Atargatis (2 Macc. 12:26), `Atar, without the feminine suffix, is identified with the goddess `Athah or `Athi (Gk. Gatis). The cult of the Greek Aphrodite in Cyprus was borrowed from that of Ashtoreth; that the Greek name also is a modification of Ashtoreth is doubtful. It is maintained, however, that the vowels of Heb. `astoret were borrowed from boset (“shame”) in order to indicate the abhorrence the Hebrew scribes felt toward paganism and idolatry.
In Babylonia and Assyria Ishtar was the goddess of love and war. An old Babylonian legend relates how the descent of Ishtar into Hades in search of her dead husband Tammuz was followed by the cessation of marriage and birth in both earth and heaven; and the temples of the goddess at Nineveh and Arbela, around which the two cities afterward grew, were dedicated to her as the goddess of war. As such she appeared to one of Ashurbanipal’s seers and encouraged the Assyrian king to march against Elam. The other goddesses of Babylonia, who were little more than reflections of a god, tended to merge into Ishtar, who thus became a type of the female divinity, a personification of the productive principle in nature, and more especially the mother and creatress of mankind.
In Babylonia Ishtar was identified with Venus. Like Venus, Ishtar was the goddess of erotic love and fertility. Her chief se at of worship was Uruk (Erech), where prostitution was practiced in her name and she was served with immoral rites by bands of men and women. In Assyria, where the warlike side of the goddess was predominant, no such rites seem to have been practiced, and instead prophetesses to whom she delivered oracles were attached to her temples.
From various Egyptian sources it appears that Astarte or Ashtoreth was highly regarded in the Late Bronze Age.
Reading on pages 412-413 of Unger’s Bible Dictionary, we find the following information about Ashtoreth/Astarte.
Ash‘toreth (ash‘to-reth), Astarte, a Canaanite goddess. In south Arabic the name is found as `Athtar (apparently from `athara, to be fertile, to irrigate), a god identified with the planet Venus. The name is cognate with Babylonian Ishtar, the goddess of sensual love, maternity and fertility. Licentious worship was conducted in honor of her. As Asherah and Anat of Ras Shamra she was the patroness of war as well as sex and is sometimes identified with these goddesses.
.Unger’s Bible Dictionary, page 412, gives us the following information about Asherah.
Asherah (a-she‘ra), plural, Asherim, a pagan goddess, who is found in the Ras Shamra epic religious texts discovered at Ugarit in North Syria (1929-1937), as Asherat,”`Lady of the Sea” and consort of El. She was the chief goddess of Tyre in the 15th century b.c. with the appellation Qudshu, “holiness.” In the Old Testament Asherah appears as a goddess by the side of Baal, whose consort she evidently came to be, at least among the Canaanites of the South. Other names of this deity were Ashtoreth (Astarte) and Anath. Frequently represented as a nude woman bestride a lion with a lily in one hand and a serpent in the other, and styled Qudshu “the Holiness,” that is, “the Holy One” in a perverted moral sense, she was a divine courtesan. In the same sense the male prostitutes consecrated to the cult of the Qudshu and prostituting themselves to her honor were styled qedishim, “sodomites” (Deut. 23:18; 1 Kings 14:24; 15:12; 22:46). Characteristically Canaanite the lily symbolizes grace and sex appeal and the serpent fecundity (W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, Baltimore, John Hopkins Press, 1942, pages 68-94). At Byblos (Biblical Gebal) on the Mediterranean, north of Sidon, a center dedicated to this goddess has been excavated. She and her colleagues specialized in sex and war and her shrines were temples of legalized vice. Her degraded cult offered a perpetual danger of pollution to Israel and must have sunk to sordid depths as lust and murder were glamorized in Canaanite religion.
Astarte is the Greek name for the Hebrew Ashtoreth. From Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 3, page 97, we find that Astarte/Ashtaroth is merely the Semitic Ishtar—which we have already learned is Easter.
ASTARTE [æsta'rti], the Phoenician goddess of fertility and erotic love. The Greek name, “Astarte” was derived from Semitic, “Ishtar,” “Ashtoreth.” Astarte was regarded in Classical antiquity as a moon goddess, perhaps in confusion with some other Semitic deity. In accordance with the literary traditions of the Greco-Romans, Astarte was identified with Selene and Artemis, and more often with Aphrodite. Among the Canaanites, Astarte, like her peer Anath, performed a major function as goddess of fertility.
Egyptian iconography, however, portrayed Astarte in her role as a warlike goddess massacring mankind, young and old. She is represented on plaques (dated 1700-1100 b.c.) as naked, in striking contrast to the modestly garbed Egyptian goddesses. Edward J. Jurji
In Ephesus from primitive times, this mother Goddess had been called Diana, who was worshiped as the Goddess of virginity and motherhood. She was said to represent the generative powers of nature, and so was pictured with many breasts. A tower shaped crown, symbolizing the tower of Babylon, adorned her head:
Reading from Bible Manners And Customs, by James M. Freeman, 1972, page 451, we learn the following facts about the mother of all things.
“The circle round her head denotes the nimbus (sin circle) of her glory, the griffins inside of which express its brilliancy. In her breasts are the twelve signs of the zodiac, of which those seen in front are the ram, bull, twins, crab, and lion; they are divided by the hours. Her necklace is composed of acorns, the primeval food of man. Lions are on her arms to denote her power, and her hands are stretched out to show that she is ready to receive all who come to her. Her body is covered with various breasts and monsters, as sirens, sphinxes, and griffins, to show that she is the source of nature, the mother of all things. Her head, hands, and feet are of bronze while the rest of the statue is of alabaster to denote the ever-varying light and shade of the moon’s figure… Like Rhea, she was crowned with turrets, to denote her dominion over terrestrial objects.”
The Original Goddess Semiramis Of Babylon
The worship of Ishtar/Easter spread throughout the ancient pagan world, where she was venerated in almost every segment of society. The original of this Goddess, however, loomed upon the historical scene in Babylon. From The Two Babylons by Hislop, pages 20-22, we find this information about the original of this great mother Goddess—Semiramis.
The Babylonians in their popular religion, supremely worshiped a Goddess Mother, and a Son, who was represented in pictures and in images as an infant or child in his mother’s arms. From Babylon, this worship of the Mother and the Child spread to the ends of the earth. …the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the counterpart of Madonna ** and her child as devoutly worshiped as in Papal Rome itself…
The original of that mother, so widely worshiped, there is reason to believe, was Semiramis, * already referred to, who, it is well known, was worshiped by the Babylonians, * and other eastern nations, § and that under the name of Rhea, ||the great goddess “Mother.”
It was from the son, however, that she derived all her glory and her claims to deification. That son, though represented as a child in his mother’s arms, was a person of great stature and immense bodily powers, as well as most fascinating manners. In Scripture he is referred to (Ezek. viii. 14) under the name of Tammuz, but he is commonly known among classical writers under the name of Bacchus, that is, “The Lamented One.” ¶ To the ordinary reader the name of Bacchus suggests nothing more than revelry and drunkenness, but it is now well known, that amid all the abominations that attended his orgies, their grand design was professedly “the purification of souls,” * and that from the guilt and defilement of sin. This lamented one, exhibited and adored as a little child in his mother’s arms, seems, in point of fact, to have been the husband of Semiramis, whose name, Ninus, by which he is commonly known in classical history, literally signified “The Son,”* As Semiramis, the wife, was worshiped as Rhea, whose grand distinguishing character was that of the great goddess “Mother,”* the conjunction with her of her husband, under the name of Ninus, or “The Son,” was sufficient to originate the peculiar worship of the “Mother and Son,” so extensively diffused among the nations of antiquity; and this, no doubt, is the explanation of the fact which has so much puzzled the inquirers into ancient history, that Ninus is sometimes called the husband, and sometimes the son of Semiramis.§ This also accounts for the origin of the very same confusion of relationship between Isis and Osiris, the mother and child of the Egyptians; for as Bunsen shows, Osiris was represented in Egypt as at once the son and husband of his mother; and actually bore, as one of his titles of dignity and honour, the name “Husband of the Mother.”||
The Babylonian worship of the great mother spread throughout the known world. This mother Goddess was known by different names, but the form of her religion has not transformed since antiquity. The Layman’s Bible Encyclopedia, William C. Martin, The Southwestern Company, Nashville, TN, 1964, page 209, gives the following facts about Easter.
EASTER, an annual celebration observed by much of the Christian church, commemorating Christ’s resurrection. Modern observance of Easter represents a convergence of three traditions: (1) The Hebrew Passover, celebrated during Nisan, the first month of the Hebrew lunar calendar; (2) The Christian commemoration of the `crucifixion’ and resurrection of `Jesus’, which took place at the feast of the Passover; and (3) The Norse Ostara or Eostra (from which the name, “Easter” is derived), a pagan festival of spring which fell at the vernal equinox, March 21. Prominent symbols in this celebration of the resurrection of nature after the winter were rabbits, signifying fecundity, and eggs, colored like the rays of the “returning sun” and the northern lights, or aurora borealis.”
The Ishtar Egg
Eggs have absolutely nothing to do with the resurrection of the Messiah (three days and three nights after He was placed in the grave),but the egg was a sacred symbol to the Babylonians. Mythology says that an egg of wondrous size fell from heaven into the Euphrates River; from this marvelous egg the Goddess Astarte (Easter) was hatched. This teaching was scattered to the various parts of the earth. These religious people took with them the symbol of the mystic sacred egg. Each pagan nation had its own representation of this wonder. The Greeks had their sacred egg of Heliopolis, and the Typhon’s egg.
From The Two Babylons, by Hislop on page 109, we learn about the mystic egg of Astarte:
From Egypt these sacred eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks of the Euphrates. The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the Babylonians; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus, the Egyptian, the learned keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in the time of Augustus, who was skilled in all the wisdom of his native country: “An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, hatched it, and out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess”*___that is, Astarte. Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale. (See Fig. 32) §
The Roman Catholic church now has their own official representation of Ishtar—the virgin mother—who stands upon the top of this sacred egg of Heliopolis, with the serpent Typhon at her feet.
The Ishtar Fertility Hare – The Easter Bunny
From The Encyclopedia Britannica, we find the following information about Easter:
Like the Easter egg, the Easter hare came to Christianity from antiquity. The hare is associated with the moon in the legends of ancient Egypt and other peoples… Through the fact that the Egyptian word for hare___um, means also open and period. The hare came to be associated with the idea of periodicity both lunar and human, and with the beginning of new life in both the young man and young woman, and so a symbol of fertility and of the renewal of life.
Easter eggs and rabbits are symbols of sexual fertility in the ancient, pagan religions. The Reader’s Digest Book of Facts, page 122, gives the following information.
EASTER AND THE BUNNY – Children’s stories in many countries tell how Easter eggs are brought not by a chicken but by hares and rabbits. These long eared hopping mammals have represented fertility in many cultures because they breed so quickly. In traditional Christian art the hare represents lust, and paintings sometimes show a hare at the Virgin Mary’s feet to signify her triumph over temptations of the flesh. Yet as a symbol of life reawakening in the spring - often portrayed as the innocent and cuddly Easter bunny – the rabbit coexists in many places with the solemn Christian rites of Easter.
Hot Cross Buns
Another custom closely associated with Easter is the baking and eating of hot cross buns. There is, of course, no Scriptural justification for this custom, but there is great pagan justification involved. The cross is the original sign of the God Tammuz. The cross is the letter T.
The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop on pages 197-200, tells us the following about the sign of the cross.
The magic virtues attributed to the so-called “sign of the cross”, the worship bestowed on it, never came from (Yahshua or His Apostles). The same sign of the “cross” that Rome now worships was used in the Babylonian Mysteries, and was applied by paganism to the same magic purposes (signing oneself, kissing the cross, holding the cross, wearing it as a charm), was honored with the same honors. That which is now called the “Christian Cross” was originally no Christian emblem at all, but was the Mystic Tau of the Chaldeans and Egyptians - the true original form of the letter “`T” – the initial of the name of Tammuz…that mystic “Tau” was marked in baptism on the foreheads of those initiated in the Mysteries…The mystic “Tau”, as the symbol of the great divinity, was called “the Sign of Life”; it was used as an amulet (“good luck charm”) over the heart; it was marked on the official garments of the (ancient pagan) priests, as (now) on the official garments of the Priests of Rome (today)…The Vestal Virgins of pagan Rome wore (the cross) suspended from their necklaces, as the Nuns do today…men as well as women wore earrings and they frequently had a small cross suspended to a necklace or to the collar of their dress…(the cross) was also appended to the robes of the “Rot-N-No” (Pagan Priests); and traces of it may be seen in the fancy ornaments of the “Rebo” (Pagan Priests), showing that it was already in use as early as the Fifteenth Century before the Christian Era…
There is hardly a pagan tribe where the cross has not been found. The cross was worshiped by the pagan Celts long before the “incarnation” and death of Christ… The Druids in their groves were accustomed to select the most stately and beautiful tree as an emblem of the deity (god) they adored, and having cut the side branches, they affixed two of the largest of them to the highest part of the trunk, in such a manner that those branches extended on each side like the arms of a man, and, together with the body, presented the appearance of a huge cross, and on the bark, in several places, was also inscribed the letter “Thau”. It was worshiped in Mexico for ages before the Roman Catholic missionaries set foot there, large stone crosses being erected, probably to the “god of rain”. The cross thus widely worshiped, or regarded as a sacred emblem, was the unequivocal symbol of “Bacchus”, the Babylonian Messiah, for he was represented with a head-band covered with crosses.
Tammuz, according to Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 15, page 749, was the Sumero-Akkadian God of vegetation, who was known as Adoni—my Lord.
Tammuz, the Sumero-Akkadian god of vegetation. His name in Sumerian is Dumu-zi-abzu (true son of Apsu), or simply Dumu-zi, from which the Hebrew form Tammuz is derived. The cult of Tammuz, under the west-Semitic name of Adoni (my lord) and the Greek equivalent Adonis, was widespread throughout the Mediterranean world. According to still extant mythology, Tammuz died, descended to the lower world, was resurrected, and ascended again to earth and then to heaven. During his absence the earth remained sterile and the flocks were plundered. Because of his close association with the realm of nature, the fields and animals, he was called “the shepherd.”
.The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume 4, page 725, shows that the original of the name Tammuz, which is dumuzi, means invigorator of the child. Tammuz was the same Sumerian and Babylonian God of fertility, who married Easter/Ishtar at the vernal equinox.
TAMMUZ tam‘uz, tä‘mooz [Heb. tammûz; Akk. tammuz; Sum. dumuzi__``invigorator of the child (?)'']. A Sumerian and Babylonian god of fertility mentioned once in the O.T. (Eze. 8:14). The prophet in a vision during his Babylonian exile saw an abomination: women in the north gate of the Jerusalem temple wailing for Tammuz.
As this source reference has stated, Tammuz was mentioned oncein Yechetzqyah.
.Yechetzqyah 8:13-14—
13 He also said to me: Turn yet again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing.
14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of Yahweh’s House, which was toward the north; and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.
This weeping for Tammuz was an abomination which was being practiced even by the people of Yerusalem at the time that Yechetzqyah was prophesying. This weeping was a fertility rite. One of the ceremonies of Ishtar/Easter worship, was that of weeping for the dead vegetation God, because fertility had ceased from the land. In the people’s minds, unless this God was resurrected, there would be no renewing of fertility with the great mother Goddess. So, through sympathetic magic—the weeping of his mother (Easter/Ishtar)—Tammuz was mystically resurrected. Each year these people grieved with Ishtar/Easter over the death of Tammuz; and at each vernal equinox they were rewarded as this resurrected God was reunited with his great mother Goddess, in order to ensure the success of the crops and the fertility of animals and people.
This ancient fertility worship was exactly scheduled according to the shadows of the sun. It is very easy to learn how this was done. Obtain our book, Deceptions Concerning Yahweh’s Calendar Of Events.
Hot cross buns are in reality Tammuz cakes. These little magic Tammuz cakes were made and used in the worship of Ishtar/Easter, the Queen of Heaven, for it was she who brought the God back to ensure their fertility. So, when the God returned to fertilize the mother, on the exact day of the vernal equinox, the people mystically held him in their hands and ate the God, mystically uniting with him and his mother in worship.
During the time that the Prophet Yeremyah was proclaiming Yahweh’s Laws to the people, Yahweh inspired him to rebuke His People for this pagan practice.
.Yeremyah 7:17-20—
17 Do you not see what they do in the cities of Yahdah and in the streets of Yerusalem?
18 How the children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, while the women knead dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven, and how they pour out drink offerings to the hinder Gods (elohim), so they may act defiantly against Me?
19 Is it I Whom they act defiantly against? says Yahweh: Or is it not themselves, whom they harm to their own shame?
20 Therefore this is what Yahweh says: Behold, they have acted defiantly against Me, so justice will be poured out on this place__on man and on beast, on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground__and they will burn; and this fire will not be quenched.
The very things that the people were seeking to reproduce in this fertility worship—man, animals, fruits, and produce—were the very things that Yahweh would not bless because of their apostasy and God worship.
The Interpreter’s Dictionary of The Bible, Volume 3, page 975, tells us of Ishtar’s role as the Queen of Heaven:
QUEEN OF HEAVEN. The object of worship, particularly by women, in Judah in the time of Jeremiah; cakes (konim), possibly shaped as figurines, were offered to her with libations (Jer. 7:18; 44:17-19, 25). Jeremiah censures the Jewish refugees in Egypt after the fall of Jerusalem for burning incense and offering libation to the Queen of heaven. From the second reference this cult seems to have been designed to secure material welfare. From these two isolated references, however, it is not possible to determine with certainty the object of worship, the more so because of variant readings.
The MT (melekat) is an unusual form of melekah, the normal word for “queen” and certain MSS read melakat (“handiwork”), meaning presumably the stars; this was understood by the LXX translators in Jer. 7:18, where “the heavenly host” (th stratia tou ouranou) is read, supported by the Targ., which reads “the star(s) of heaven” (shemia kukbat). If “the queen of heaven” is to be read__which seems more probable__the reference might be to Ishtar, the goddess of love and fertility, who was identified with the Venus Star and is actually entitled “Mistress of Heaven” in the Amarna tablets. The difficulty is that the Venus Star was regarded in Palestine as a male deity (see day star), though the cult of the goddess Ishtar may have been introduced from Mesopotamia under Manasseh. It is possible that Astarte, or Ashtoreth, the Canaanite fertility-goddess, whose cult was well established in Palestine, had preserved more traces of her astral character as the female counterpart of Athtar than the evidence of the O.T. or the Ras Shamra Texts indicates. The title “Queen of Heaven” is applied in an Egyptian inscription from the Nineteenth Dynasty at Beth-shan to “Antit,” the Canaanite fertility-goddess Anat, who is termed “Queen of Heaven and Mistress of the Gods.” This is the most active goddess in the Ras Shamra Texts, but in Palestine her functions seem to have been taken over largely by Ashtoreth.
We have had the opportunity to read more than once throughout this article that the name and the festival of Easter have their origins in the worship of a pagan Goddess of spring, but Easter is now the most important Christian festival. From The Last Two Million Years by The Reader’s Digest Association, page 215, we learn how the worship of a pagan Goddess became the most important Christian festival.
Pagan rites absorbed
By a stroke of tactical genius the Church, while intolerant of pagan beliefs, was able to harness the powerful emotions generated by pagan worship. Often, churches were sited where temples had stood before, and many heathen festivals were added to the Christian calendar. Easter, for instance, a time of sacrifice and rebirth in the Christian year, takes its name from the Norse goddess Eostre, in whose honour rites were held every spring. She in turn was simply a northern version of the Phoenician earth-mother Astarte, goddess of fertility. Easter eggs continue an age-old tradition in which the egg is a symbol of birth; and cakes which were eaten to mark the festivals of Astarte and Eostre were the direct ancestors of our hot-cross buns.
Why were the pagan rites absorbed, rather than being completely abolished? The answer to this question is that many people had been drawn to the religion called Christianity, but so strong in their minds was their adoration for the mother Goddess that they would not forsake her worship. Due to the fact that Christianity could readily transform its beliefs, compromising church leaders saw their opportunity. They found similarities in Christian customs with those of the mother Goddess and brought people by the droves into their fold.
Who did these compromising church leaders find to worship, instead of the great mother Ishtar/Easter? They found Miryam (Mary), the mother of Yahshua Messiah. Through Mary worship, the pagans could continue their customary prayers and devotion to the mediating Goddess—just change her name to Mary. This would give the pagan worship of the mother the appearance of respectability, the same respectability that it still holds today. Slowly but methodically, the religion of pagan Rome, which was a synthesis of everything that was abominable to Yahweh from the beginning, became established with its new name: Christianity.
During the first centuries of this religion, no emphasis was placed upon Mary whatsoever. But, thanks to Constantine, the savior of Christianity, in the early part of the Fourth Century of this Common Era, the worship of Mary as a Goddess was encouraged. Since Rome had long been a center for the worship of the mother Goddess of paganism, we need not be surprised that Rome was one of the first places where Mary worship, and many other renamed, but very familiar customs,became firmly rooted.
From Grolier’s Encyclopedia, Grolier Corporation, N.Y., 1966, Volume 17, we find the following information.
Easter: A Day of Joy
Though not all Protestants observe Lent and Holy Week, all Christians celebrate Easter Day, commemorating the Resurrection. Easter Day invariably falls on a Sunday, the first Sunday after the full moon following the spring equinox, usually late in March.
The name of this holiday and the time it is celebrated have led people to believe that an earlier holiday existed on this day before the Christian observance. For many ancient nations joyously celebrated the end of winter and the “resurrection of the sun” at this season of the year; and some devoted this festival to Eostre, Germanic goddess of spring.
The Church Fathers turned this heathen holiday into the Christian celebration of the Resurrection. And Christians the world over observe this day with great rejoicing. Some greet each other with:”Christ is risen! Christ is risen!” And all think of Jesus, who conquered death so that those who follow him may gain everlasting life.
On Easter people go to church services and delight in the sight of the great masses of Easter lilies that decorate the altars. For the Chinese the peony is the king of flowers and symbol of spring. But to the people in church on Easter Day, the fragrant lily with its trumpet shaped blossoms is the symbol of purity and the welcome harbinger of spring.
The churchgoers enjoy the flowers and the music and the sermon of the day. And from time to time they look about them to observe the gay clothes that people wear, since it has long been the custom for people to put on their newest clothes on Easter Day.
The Eastern Orthodox Easter Parade
In countries where the Eastern Orthodox Church dominates, a quite different parade is put on during Easter. The worshippers gather early on Saturday night in an elaborate ritual. And at midnight, led by their priests in richly embroidered vestments, carrying images and lighted candles in their hands, they go out into the night in search of Jesus.
It is almost dawn when the people return home to eat the Easter bread with white cheese and honey and the richly colored hard boiled eggs.
Many encyclopedias will make the statement that Easter is the worship of a pagan Goddess and at the same time will state this celebration is one of the most important Christian celebrations today. In each of these reference works a statement is made, in one form or another, that Easter is the day on which the Christian church commemorates our Savior’s resurrection.
The Sunday Resurrection Lie
Christendom teaches that the Messiah rose from His grave on Sunday morning and because of this, they say, they are worshipping on the day of His resurrection. There is, however, no Scriptural proof for this Good Friday/Easter Sunday tradition. As we have seen, the foundation for this tradition is in pagan antiquity, although this tradition is taught as Scripture to deceived Christianity. Was Yahshua, our True Savior, resurrected on Easter Sunday morning? The answer is, NO!
