If you are (as I am) non-Christian, what do you make of the story of Easter?
I’ve switched among all of these at one time or another.
The whole thing is made up by people reporting from a century later; no need to analyze it further.
That the story was concocted at the time of the crucifixion by the followers to keep the sect going.
That Jesus actually came out of a coma.
That Jesus had somehow faked death through fakir-style breath control. Of course he would still soon die of his wounds.
It could have reflected a combination of real events that didn’t happen to one person. In this view, one real person was crucified, another came out of a coma only to die again, and the two stories were combined a century later, in the way that Greek and Roman myths often combined parts of earlier stories.
Easter comes to us from Phrygia and the age-old “Passion of Attis” (recognized by Phrygians as also being Osiris in Egypt) during the festival of Cybele, which is also where the sacrament of eating the savior-god’s flesh and blood comes from. For four days during Easter the monks hung an effigy of Attis on a pine trunk in the temple, while the ititiate monks castrated themselves and played music and danced in frenzy. Then the effigy was removed and placed in a tomb. The tomb was then ritualistically opened the next day at dawn (March 25th) and the God was not there. He had been resurrected into eternal life. Originally, a live priest would have been sacrificed. These rituals took place over a thousand years before Christianity.
According to Martin Larson in The Story of Christian Origins the second most controversial doctrine in Christianity was the time of the Crucifixion. The Eastern Orthodox accepted the same date as passover, the Western faction, however (Irenaeus, Lactantius) disputed this and suggested to the date to be the same as the Attis festival, the first days of Spring.
It sounds like a myth. I mean, an anthropomorphic rabbit, circumnavigating the world in under 24 hours, planting enough brightly-colored hard-boiled eggs to feed a small country? Come on.
It’s a good excuse to cook a ham. And a month later, when the ham is finally consumed, you have a nice ham-bone and you can make split-pea soup. Also, the ovoid-shape is an excellent vehicle for milk-chocolate confections.
And the resurrection stuff makes for a charming fairy-tale story, great for regaling the kids with after you’re all full of ham and chocolate, as long as you follow it up by telling them about the death of Baldur and every OTHER back-to-life story from world legendry.
And don’t forget those chocolate-covered marshmallow “eggs”. One of the local stores carries a brand of chocolate-covered egg-shaped[sup]1[/sup] marshmallows in a container that looks like a dozen-egg carton.
[sup]1) actually, they’re only shaped like half an egg, as though the egg had been cut in half lengthwise.[/sup]
Your Friendly Neighborhood Atheist’s take on the Christian Easter story: A combination of several myths put together by early Christians - possibly unconsciously - sometime after the fact. I think “a century later” is too late, since the earliest written events may date from about 40 years or so after the events were alleged to have taken place.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Atheist’s take on the Easter holiday as currently celebrated in her neighborhood (see signature): A five-day weekend is fun if you’re celebrating something. An enforced five-day weekend (with no stores open, no newspapers printed, etc. etc.) is too friggin’ long if you’re not celebrating anything. At least the food is good. Chocolate. Marzipan. Ham. I can live with it.
Ah, but the pagans only took weeks off because there was nothing – I mean nothing – to do between the last harvest (on Samhain, which is now Halloween) and the first planting season (in early Spring, e.g. around Easter time).
“Take, eat, this is my body…Take, drink, this is my blood” (or something very close to that). I think there are three definite possibilities:
The fakir idea, that Jesus put himself in some kind of trance, faking death, his comatose body was recovered from the crypt, nursed back to health, he went on a brief speaking tour 40 days later (why does everything in the bible take 40 days? Any students of the Khabala want to hit that question? I’ll hit the archives.)
The body was stolen by a second faction/enemy of his followers. I have no cites for this, I just think it would be a hell of a prank to play on a cult of fanatics.
The apostles took Jesus’ lifeless body from the crypt and either:
a: buried it somewhere else
b: Took his advice literally and ate it. This may have something to do with the origin of christianity allowing the consumption of lots of tasty animals formerly forbidden by Judaism. However, I have never heard of any christian sects practicing ritual cannibalism; it may have been abandoned early in church history.
Please don’t jump me for listing three possibilities and numbering the third one “4”. I almost forgot that the best part of Easter (and Halloween)is the clearance sale of candy the next day!
Those 3 days that Jesus was dead was really him recuporating from his crusifixion. It was kept secret, and only his closest friends and relatives knew aout it. Then, when he was recovered enough, he was “resurrected.”
The only thing signifigant Easter, for me anyways, is that everything is closed and there is lots of commercialism, and lots of people going to church.
How about one option that’s not been discussed; the story of the death and Resurrection of the Nazarene took place pretty much as described in the Gospels. In other words, it did happen, a man died the horrible death of crucifiction and was revived by divine intervention 3 days later.
The point to emphasize here is that while this proves the existence of the J/C/I God, it likewise, doesn’t disprove the existence of other Gods.
The OP seems to make the assumption that you have to believe in (the J/C/I) God or not, there are no other alternatives. I say there are other alternatives and you can make a choice between them.
Ex-Catholic here. I never got what this “three days” jazz was all about. We’re talking entombment from late Friday afternoon until early Sunday morning. That’s slightly more than a day and a half. One full day plus some hours out of the other days. How do you get three days out of that?
