Jesus was with his buddies celebrating Passover, when Judas came, betrayed him, and handed him over to the Pharisees. The Pharisees knew they had a limited amount of time to condemn him, because it was a holy day and they were not supposed to be "working."
Knowing this, one would think that the early Christian church, in searching for a date on which to remember Jesus' death and celebrate Jesus' resurrection would base it around Passover, the dates of which are determined by the Hebrew calendar.
Instead, 4th century Christians decided that the Bishop of the Church of Alexandria should be responsible for announcing the date of Easter to the rest of the Roman church. The criteria, they determined, should be to find the date of the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox, and then find the date of the first Sunday after that. That Sunday should be the date of Easter.
From that, one might suppose that it was in some way influenced by the Catholic practice of absorbing other religious holy days and assigning Christian significance to them, particularly Druidic (ex: All Saint's Day, All Hallow's Eve, Samhain). But no, the Chuch of Alexandria is in Egypt, which to my knowledge, had been "civilized" long before that by the Persians, Greeks, and Romans.
Knowing this, I simply have to ask... WHY? Why would you make it so complicated? Is Judaism so evil that you cannot base your own holiday on the dates of one of theirs, even if the person your holiday celebrates happened to DIE observing said Jewish holiday?
In a side note, unless major religious authorities read my blog and do something about this, this year's Easter will fall one day later than the earliest possible date it can fall on. It will not come this early in the year for another 152 years. Enjoy your nearly-springtime-flower-less Easter this year, and look forward to 2011, when we will enjoy an Easter that is one day short of its latest possible date, and chock full of spring flowers.
I like spring. I like not having dead plants all around my house. I like growing things.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Bedtime Ponderings...
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2 comments:
Maybe there is some other significance to that time of year, as determined by the movement of different heavenly bodies, that is integral to death and rebirth?
Perhaps some ancient knowledge preserved in Alexandria indicated the most auspicious time, celestially, for the rebirth and renewal of our faith?
In any event....1:48am is quite a bed time! What kept you up so late if not simply these musings....?
Nope, it was just the musings... I spend a lot of time thinking at night...
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