Easter and Eggs

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of Vinyamar
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Easter and Eggs

Post by Alatar »

Ok, so I know I could have Googled this, but I prefer to ask people I trust!

How exactly is the date for Easter Sunday determined and why is it not a fixed date?

Where did the practise of giving Easter Eggs begin and why?


Facts please!

My 7 year old daughter asked me today if the Easter Bunny only comes to those who believe in Jesus. Boy was I glad TP (sorry Nerdy) wasn't around. :)
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Jnyusa
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Post by Jnyusa »

Alatar, I believe this formula is correct ... someone else can fix it if not.

Vernal Equinox occurs on March 20-21.

First New Moon after that is the first day of the month of Nissan on the Jewish Calendar. Passover begins on the evening of the next Full Moon (14 of Nissan) and Easter is the Sunday immediately following.

Easter is linked to Passover because it was the Passover meal that Jesus and his disciples were celebrating at the Last Supper. So it's figured that his resurrection was on the third day of Passover (Jewish days begin the evening before - so Good Friday was the first day.)

The Jewish calendar is lunar and rotates against the solar calendar, with a forumula for adding a month in certain years to keep lunar and solar in sync. That's why the date of Easter moves.

Someone else will have to answer about the eggs and the Easter Bunny. :D
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Dave_LF
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Post by Dave_LF »

The bunny and eggs are remnants of the fertility rites to Ishtar that used to occur at the same time of year.
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truehobbit
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Post by truehobbit »

From what I've heard (never having lived in real natural rural surroundings), chickens don't lay eggs in winter - so the fact that you get eggs again is one of the things of spring: new life everywhere, and, most importantly, new food!
Eggs represent fertility, so they would be involved in all the rites of spring, but for the people of olden times being able to eat something as nourishing as eggs again was miracle enough, too! :)
Where the practice of giving them for Easter began I don't know.

Bunnies, too, have their, um, fertility rites visibly in spring. :D

(I don't understand the reference to nerdanel, though - does she have issues with the Easter bunny? :P ;) )

As to the Easter Date: it's on the first Sunday after the first full moon in Spring.

Jny, I've never read it explained like that - wouldn't that make the distance in time between Passover and Easter always the same?

The explanation I've always heard is that the orthodox churches have Easter at the Jewish Passover date, because that's when the events commemorated took place, but the Western Church wanted to distance itself from this practice that's why they came up with the above way to determine the date for Easter.
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Post by Primula Baggins »

I remember learning that sometimes the Jewish calendar disagrees with the Gregorian calendar as to which of two days a full moon falls on (or even the equinox, which is an astronomical event and is now timed to the second). That means that Passover and Easter are sometimes a month apart. But ordinarily Easter is the first Sunday after Passover.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
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Post by Jnyusa »

Hobby: Jny, I've never read it explained like that - wouldn't that make the distance in time between Passover and Easter always the same?

Not exactly, because Easter always falls on a Sunday but the full moon does not always fall on the same day of the week. They couldn't be more than than seven days apart though, except for the glitch than Prim mentioned.

Prim: You're right. I had forgotten that this was the case, though I do know that the vernal equinox sometimes falls on March 20 and sometimes on March 21. Same with the autumnal equinox. It can happen that the day of the week on which this happens causes Easter and Passover to separate, but I can only recall once in my life time that they were a month apart. It must have happened more than once though (considering my age!) because the days of the week rotate against the calendar on something like an eleven year cycle.

Hobby, the church probably does not officially tie Easter to Passover - they must not if it is possible for them to be a month apart - but they calculate the date of Easter the same way we calculate the date of Passover, that is, its timing is linked to the full moon following the vernal equinox. The reason is that we can know when the resurrection occurred (unlike Christmas) because we know that it was Passover that was being celebrated.

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Primula Baggins
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Post by Primula Baggins »

One year a while back the cantor and several members of a local synagogue came to our church to help us with our Maundy Thursday meal, which that year was an opportunity to learn about the Seder. They were only able to do that because that year, Passover was a month away rather than being that week as usual.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
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