Holy week, a week of celebration for Christianity, for processions, for preparing coloured eggs and decorating homes with eggs and bunnies. Time of indulging in chocolate eggs and cakes. This however is nowhere to be found in the Bible and very much contradicts what God has ordained for this time of the year – a celebration of the Passover, that symbolizes with restricting majority of foods and eating unleavened bread. Where did Christianity got it so wrong?
I have expressed on many occasions my believes around Catholic church and all the traditions associated with Christianity, that originate from Catholic church. One of those traditions is Easter. In my previous post I explained how Catholicism is taking us back to the Babylonian religion and is now quickly becoming one world religion, uniting other Christian denominations and branches, including Orthodox, Protestantism and denominations associated with it. It’s all in the name of unity, coexistence and universalism. No surprises there, because the word “catholic” comes from the Greek word “katholikos” – which means “universal” or “according to the whole”. Therefore Catholic church would always aim to be universal and to the whole world.
Interestingly, Babylonian religion was primarily a polytheistic faith that elevated the state of the god Marduk, who was Babylon’s patron god. Babylon created this centralized system, where essentially, it was not one “pure” religion, but a long-term merging of multiple regional Mesopotamian faiths into a single, evolving, state-driven, religious tradition. The goal was not to force everyone into a one set of believes and one religion, but more one centralized system with more hierarchy and one political goal. To achieve this goal, unity and coexistence was necessary.
As Babylon rose to power and integrated other deities and gods into the centralized system, it characterised by three main gods – Marduk, Ishtar and Shamash. Marduk was the chief god of Babylon, associated with creation, order, and kingship. Ishtar was a goddess of love, fertility, and war. One of her main celebration worships was spring equinox that symbolized with coloured eggs and rabbits due to celebration of fertility. Ishtar was also viewed as the Queen of Heaven. And finally the third god was Shamash – the sun god that was celebrated on Sunday. He was associated with justice, truth, and law. He was believed to be a divine judge. Therefore as you can see Babylon had Marduk – creation and order, Ishtar – Queen of Heaven and Shamash – sun god and just judge. All gods had representative statues and figures, which people were praying to. The cultic worship involved ritual care of the idols and preserving those statues.
Now I would like to take you to what Catholicism worships. I wouldn’t say Catholicism worships God the Father, more acknowledges Heavenly Father as the creator. Then we have Mary – mother of Jesus, also called Madonna and elevated to the status of the Queen of Heaven and of course Jesus – son of God and who will come to judge us, also worshiped on Sunday. Catholic church also boldly displays different statues and figures associated especially to Jesus and Mary and conveniently changed God’s Law by taking away second commandment from the Law, which specifically talks about idolatry and split the tenth commandment into two to make up for the difference. Of course Catholic church would never admit to idolatry and would never say it is wrong, even though God warned:
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God;” Exodus 20: 4-5
‘You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the Lord your God.” Levicitus 26:1
“Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage.” Deuteronomy 4: 15-19
It always amazed me why Catholic church disregarded this part, since pretty much the whole Old Testament talks about idols, idolatry and disobedience of Israel by worshiping idols. But the explanation I was given was the fact that Christianity is based on the New Testament, not Old Testament, since Jesus fulfilled prophecies from the Old Testament and said on the cross “it is finished”. And this is the reason Christianity got it so backwards…
Catholicism very conveniently overlapping the times of Babylonian religion, with three gods, carved images and changed the Law and festivals to fit into the Babylonian traditions. And as we see in the Bible: ” That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9. History likes to repeat itself. In this case, it is by design and Babylonian religion never really left, only changed under different names, labels and costumes.
It is also important to mention about the idolatry that Babylonian times represented. Idolatry was a state-sponsored, polytheistic system centered on worshipping physical statues as literal dwellings for deities, such as Marduk, Ishtar, and Shamash. Another words, it was a time when governance recognized, founded and promoted the worship of multiple deities, usually to unify diverse territories, legitimize the ruler’s authority, and maintain public order. In other words, public and universal holidays are important to not only unify but also to maintain public order.
In Catholicism we see that celebrations like Christmas and Easter are taking on more universal and international aspect. Christmas is celebrated not only by Christians and Easter is also becoming chocolate centered celebration of eggs and bunnies. Easter has been changed by the Catholic church from the traditional Passover. Easter is a pagan holiday that has nothing to do with the resurrection of Christ. The Easter festival in the church history was quite a different festival in the 3rd and 4th centuries. In those times it was called a Passover and observed by many professing Christians. Jesus was crucified during the time of Passover, however the date of Passover and name “Easter” was changed and determined by the council of Nicaea in the 325 AD by of course Catholic church. The date of celebration of Easter has nothing to do with the date of the Passover.
Many people reject the idea that Easter is actually celebration of Ishtar, however it is important to see the connections with our modern Easter. Ishtar was a goddess who held the titles of “Queen of Heaven” and “Goddess of Love and War,” embodying both powerful and contradictory forces of love, fertility, and war. As a fertility goddess, she played a role in ensuring the continuation of life, particularly in the agricultural season. Her worship also involved honoring the renewal of life and giving decorated eggs as gifts during the spring equinox. Moreover, the spring equinox was a time for celebrating fertility and the rebirth of nature, with Ishtar’s symbols like eggs and bunnies representing these themes. I hope you can see the connection with Easter?
You really have to ask yourself those questions – why do we decorate houses with eggs and bunnies? What connection does it have with crucifixion of Jesus? Can you find any verses in the Bible that talk about eggs or bunnies? If not and if you are serious about following God the Biblical way, then you should reject those traditions.
Let’s have a look at the scripture what God has to say about the “Queen of Heaven”
“The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger.” Jeremiah 7:17
“We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine.”
The women added, “When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands know that we were making cakes impressed with her image and pouring out drink offerings to her?” Jeremiah 44: 17-19
The Queen of Heaven has been worshiped by the house of Judah during Prophet Jeremiah’s times. God was giving people many warnings, yet they were very stubborn on keeping their traditions. Just like we see today in Christianity, with many people being aware those celebrations are pagan celebrations, yet not willing to stop due to the family traditions. Unfortunately those that participate in pagan traditions through churches will receive the judgement of God, as time and time God has been warning people to stop and has been very patient.
What is also important to mention is the celebration of statues in the Babylonian times and parades of statues which we also see in Catholicism.
During one of the main religious festivals was the festival of Akitu, which was celebrated at the beginning of spring and the agricultural cycle, which fell on the first day of the month of Nisan (March/April). During the festival, the statue of the god Marduk was paraded through the city and there were processions, offerings, and public ceremonies. This was the biggest annual celebration in Babylonian life. Now what we can see in many Catholic countries is the parade of statues of Jesus and Mary around the cities and public processions and ceremonies. People call this holy, honoring Jesus and his work on the cross, however God was very clear in the Bible to not worship with statues and carved images. The problem is, as I mentioned before, that people either don’t read Old Testament at all or read and think this is old news because Jesus fulfilled it by his work on the cross and therefore this does not apply to us anymore. It is therefore difficult to take people away from those traditions and for them to take it seriously and for them to realize that they are in fact in error. Because for the past 2 thousand years, the message has been that Jesus finished the work of the Old Testament, the Old Testament doesn’t apply to Christians and the false Apostle Paul didn’t mentioned anything about idolatry. And since Christianity is based on the words on the Apostle Paul mainly and is a religion about Jesus, therefore Paul’s words stand above the words of God from the Old Testament.
This is one of the reasons I left Christianity and left all those traditions. It wasn’t easy at first because of the backlash of the family, who were insisting that I should just keep it for tradition and family time. But the family time doesn’t have to be only during those celebrations and it was more important to me to follow God as He ordained in the Bible, by following His commandements, statues and ordinances:
“Therefore you shall love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always.” Deuteronomy 11:1
Now the question is, do you follow man made religion and traditions that are nowhere in the Bible or you take the word of God seriously?
“Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:14-15
By Dagmara Z.