Does Easter actually derive from the goddess Ishtar?

So there's this meme that you may have seen going around that says Easter ultimately derives from the worship of a Mesopotamian fertility goddess named Ishtar who used bunnies and eggs as her symbols. There's also one that links Easter with the goddess Eostre who was a Germanic fertility goddess who had a festival every spring. But are these connections legit or just social media nonsense? Let's dig in.
#archaeology #biblicalarchaeology #ancienthistory #bible #ancientneareast #easter #ishtar #memes #meme
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For more on Ishtar check out:
The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Leiden: Brill, 1999.
Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia. London: The British Museum Press, 2004.
On Eostre:
Richard Sermon, Eostre and the Matronae Austriahenae, Folklore 132 (2022): 139-157.
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00:22 The Meme
01:17 Easter and Eostre
04:00 Easter and Ishtar
07:21 Pulling it together

[@lionofgod5843]

Rather unsatisfying as no answers as to how the egg and bunny come into play.

[@KingJesus41]

Eggs represent fertility, and bunnies sex. She represents sexuality and fertility.

[@icypirate11]

Very interesting. I thought there was a connection with the eggs and the ham with Ishtar. Good to know. 👍 🥚🐷 Textual criticism got the best of me and now I'm an agnostic atheist but I still love this channel. Theology and apologetics was fun while it lasted but _digging in_ to the ancient world _beneath_ the Bible is so much more fun! I love your honesty with the texts, traditions, and cultures. I recommend your channel to all my Christian friends.

[@DopeThug]

Agnostic is agnostic, atheist id atheist, they are different

[@icypirate11]

@@DopeThug From Wikipedia: Agnostic atheism is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, and are agnostic because they claim that the existence of a demiurgic entity or entities is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact. Bart Ehrman calls himself an agnostic atheist. I consider myself an agnostic atheist as well.

[@michellel9764]

Why aren’t you using the Bible as proof? Afraid you might find the answer.

[@michellel9764]

Because different cultures just named her different. Say person

[@michellel9764]

*same person

[@tjpm]

I love this channel.

[@sunflowershine5160]

I disagree

[@qawii3]

Of course get rid of the pagan worship of Ishtar and the Ishtar bunny. but let's get right back to Passover, when because of the death and resurrection of Jesus we too came under the blood of the Lamb

[@wickhunter7733]

"Lets get back to passover" the celebration of the murder of thousands of innocent Egyptian children by the evil god YHWH. Disgusting.

[@truthbehindthelie7511]

Easter? A rabbit! A rabbit of chaos! He stole the eggs and hid them!! In Egyptian this would be Seti!

[@dustinclark3390]

All hail the great rabbit of chaos!

[@brickcreation7074]

@Beneath the Bible Awesome video! I think you should put the Tomb of Talipot under scrutiny, the so called "lost tomb of Jesus"

[@briendoyle4680]

hahaha

[@kavikv.d.hexenholtz3474]

Actually, eggs and hares have _never_ been historically associated (or even suggested to be associated) with Ishtar; Her sacred animal was the lion; her symbol, the eight pointed star and a twisted knot of reeds representing the doorpost to a grain house (in her earliest form, she was a goddess of grain); not _one credible source_ cites eggs. Indeed, neither the hare nor eggs were seen as fertility symbols in the ancient Near East. Easter derives from Ēostra; the Anglo-Saxon name variation of the West Germanic goddess of dawn. The etymology of her name comes from the Indo-European root word *hewsôs, meaning “to shine, glow red” -a reference to dawn. In Proto-Germanic, the name has been reconstructed as *Austrô(n). To the early Germans, she was Ostara, from which modern German gets “Oster” for Easter. Ēostra’s name has also given us the name of the cardinal direction “East”, many place names in England, and even a few female first names (none of which I believe are used anymore). Some will claim that because Ēostra’s name only appears in one written source; a text from the works of the Venerable Bede, that he invented her, and this Germanic deity never existed. The place and personal names based on her name in the areas she was worshiped however, completely contradict this claim. Bede was born during the early stages of the Christianization of England, when the names of the Anglo-Saxon gods and goddesses would have been common knowledge, and still worshiped in many places. The highly respected father of English history would have been unlikely to invent a goddess of that name. He would have been "called out" on it had he done so. Furthermore, a number of English place names of Saxon origin, such as Eastry in Kent, Eastrea in Cambridgeshire and Eastrington in East Yorkshire, are derived from Ēostra. The Indo-European root of this name is cognate to other dawn goddesses in Europe; for example, the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, has the same root. There are many names of gods and goddesses that still survive in the oral traditions, but are either not evidenced, or very sparsely evidenced in the written tradition. The fact that Ēostra does not appear in the written corpus, does not exclude her existence. Further, Ostara (in another form, ‘Austra’) was verified in 1958 with the discovery of more than 150 Roman-Germanic votive inscriptions to the matronae (female deities) Austria-hena near Bonn, Germany which were dated to the 2nd century AD, well before the Christian era in that part of Europe. The evidence of her existence appears to be rather strong. In addition, the mere fact that in the very places she was most prevalent (Anglo-Saxon England and northwest Germany), the name for the pre-Christian spring celebration is still called by her name (Easter and Oster) and was not overtaken by English and German forms of pesach strongly speaks to her existence. Clearly, this was not someone merely 'invented' by Bede as some would suggest. It would seem that such a deity did exist in the Anglo-Saxon and northern German pantheon. In addition, the Brothers Grimm, more famous for their collecting of fairy tales, also conducted important work in the burgeoning field of Folklore. The brothers surveyed the local people all around Germany and in neighboring German speaking regions. Through his study of oral history, they discovered that the goddess Ostara was to be found in nearly *all* German speaking areas. The folklore recorded by the Grimms demonstrated that people miles and miles apart retained shared cultural memories of the same goddess. If Bede invented her in England, then how did illiterate peasants in Germany know of her over one thousand years later? Either she was genuinely worshiped, or Bede had an excellent PR team! The above having been said, Ēostra has lent only her name to the holiday in the same way that other Germanic deities have lent their names to our weekdays.

[@samiaint8043]

Timeline - World History Documentaries / Jesus Christ Just A Myth? Pagan Christ / Timeline

[@veraVD1984]

Don't spend more Christian energy on putting shame on our native culture, you hurt it so much all this years. Ishtar is obviously Persephone, spring and life going down into the abyss and returning again in grace, punishing her unfaithful husband who didn't miss her, sitting on his throne doing nothing 😀 Later she even regrets this, but of course you don't tell this part. Just learned about this ancient story and it gives me more than most of your bible in my childhood. There is a red thread leading from her to Brigid (aspect of crafting) and all the very heathen and sexually loaded spring traditions such as the Maibaum here in Germany, of course it is the same theme.

[@bitteranjel6782]

You just fig this out lmao 🤣