Shocked by the Bible, Chapter 3: Easter Vanished!
Joe Kovacs is spot on in this chapter. I don’t disagree with him on any major point he makes, so I will simply give a synopsis of what I thought his major points were in this chapter.
Point 1—The word “Easter” only appears in one location in the King James Version (Acts 12:4). It does not appear in any of the more recent translations (NIV, NASB, ESV, HCSB, etc.) Therefore, Kovacs correctly notes that the original word is properly translated as “Passover” in English, not Easter.
Point 2—Much of what we do around Easter does not stem from Biblical tradition at all. This includes bunnies, Easter eggs, and many of the other now “traditional” Easter festivities. Rather, these practices stem from the worship practices of the ancient fertility goddess Isthar—also known as Astarte, Ashtaroth, Ashroreth, Ostara, Eostre, and Eastre.
Point 1—The word “Easter” only appears in one location in the King James Version (Acts 12:4). It does not appear in any of the more recent translations (NIV, NASB, ESV, HCSB, etc.) Therefore, Kovacs correctly notes that the original word is properly translated as “Passover” in English, not Easter.
Point 2—Much of what we do around Easter does not stem from Biblical tradition at all. This includes bunnies, Easter eggs, and many of the other now “traditional” Easter festivities. Rather, these practices stem from the worship practices of the ancient fertility goddess Isthar—also known as Astarte, Ashtaroth, Ashroreth, Ostara, Eostre, and Eastre.
Kovacs also noted that God condemned these practices in the Old Testament. Time and time again God would warn the Israelites not to engage in these practices and worship the “Ashtoreth(s).” These warnings can be found in many places (Judges 10:6, 1 Samuel 7:3, 1 Kings 11:5, etc.).
Overall Point—The common Easter festivities of today have absolutely nothing to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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Shocked by the Bible
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Hmmm, it seems to me that I heard an aweful lot of your argument somewhere last Resurrection Sunday time. I miss being at Hickory Hammock and getting that good kind of teaching.
Just found the site, so I apologize for such a late question. Are you saying that the KJV translators got Easter wrong?
The KJV translators did not get it wrong. What occurred at the time was that Passover was coincident to the week with Easter that year. The significance of the coincidence helps to properly date the events astronomically. The later versions removed it, because the committees did not use the same source material for the passage as the KJV. Also the motive of the revisors and their committees was to discredit the KJV at all costs. Read the real biographies of Wescott and Hort.
Anonymous (July 1, 2011),
Thank you for your comment. However, there are some things you brought up that I would like to address. Without further research on my part, I cannot say whether or not Passover and Easter were concurrent the year Christ died.
You are correct that committees of later version did not use the same source material as the translators of the KJV. They have better and more source material available to them (such as the dead sea scrolls). Based upon all textual evidence, the original writings would not have used Easter, but Passover. This conclusion is reached by the fact that the vast majority of copies we have use Passover and that Jewish authors would have used the Jewish name for the Jewish festival occurring at that time and not the name for a pagan festival taking place at the same time, if that were in fact the case.
Lastly, I'm not sure what you mean by revisors because the modern english translators were not revising the KJV but performing an entirely new translation in modern english that was faithful as possible to the original writings. I'm also not familiar with the biographies you mention, but I can assure that no modern english translation was undertaken with the desire to discredit the King James Version.
Really enjoyed reading your blog...
A thought re "Easter" in the KJV. The Jewish Passover occurs on a different day to "Ressurection Sunday" aka Easter (3 days earlier) so could the KJV be correct in naming Easter as the name of the pagan festival of Estarte coincidental to Ressurection Sunday as it wouldn't align correctly with the Jewish Feast of Passover or the following days High Sabbath of Unleavened Bread?
Ps, the Dead Sea Scrolls only contained the Old Testament not the book of Acts
I feel you are not giving people enough information on these subjects...guess I'd better get his book(s)and check out the full story!