Easter is the foundation of the Christian religion. It commemorates the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ and whether or not you believe this story is the difference between being a Christian and not being a Christian. It’s the single defining event of that religion. So Easter is a very religious holiday. But it also has a historical side. Today, I want to dig into the historical side of Easter. What do we actually know about crucifixion, a form of execution so horrific it’s actually the root of the word excruciating? How did this all go down? Who's really responsible for the death of Christ and what historical evidence is there supporting the story? Also, what does any of this have to do with bunnies? Let’s fix that. 

 

Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. Sooo I have to take back what I said about British history being long and confusing and complicated. It’s not. It’s a walk in the freaking park compared to the history of the Middle East. I know that now and I retract that earlier statement. The history of the middle east is mind numbingly confusing and complicated. First of all, it’s one of the oldest places on Earth as far as human history goes so it goes back to the beginning of humans. That’s a lot of history. On top of that, much of what happened there happened far before reliable written records. At the same time, these were not inconsequential people and events. The history of the middle east bore multiple major world religions that have shaped our societies, cultures, philosophies, morals, everything that makes us human really, ever since. And yet, no one really understands it. They couldn’t possibly. Because it’s a hot mess. The names of places and people are ever changing, few reliable records have survived, many that did have been improperly translated, most of it is just word of mouth passed down for thousands of years and most likely twisted, intentionally or accidentally in what has become the biggest game of telephone the world has ever played. 

 

This is why no one has any idea what’s going on in Palestine slash Israel right now. They will act like they do all day long. Everyone is suddenly an expert. But they don’t know. They don’t have the full picture because no one does. That history is so incredibly complex and twisted and tainted by historical telephone that no one has any idea, truly, what all has gone into that conflict. It’s just impossible to accurately comprehend, to separate the fact from the fiction, to trace well this cause this and then that led to this. It’s a mess. And I got a little sucked in accidentally for this episode. Because I wanted to cover Easter. But this holiday, more than any of the others, I feel, does really tie to an actual historical event. So I really wanted to delve into that event, the crucifixion of Jesus. But the crucifixion of Jesus is part of the history of the middle east and it’s honestly just a nightmare but, anyway, let’s get into it. I promise this will be interesting guys. I know this intro has not been convincing of that. But I promise you’re gonna dig this story. And we’re gonna talk about the Easter bunny and all that weird stuff later on too, don’t worry. 

 

But first, travel with me to the ancient Middle East, just after the turn of the millenium when BC switches over to AD. I’m going to try my best to set the stage for you, to describe the world in which Jesus lived. And I know some of you might be going “but wait, are we sure Jesus was even a real person?” right now and I get that. I’ve said it myself, the Bible is not a history book. But I’m going to go ahead and say from a historical standpoint, not a religious one, that, yes, I do believe Jesus was a real person who actually lived. And I’ll tell you why I think that. I’ve said this in a few episodes before. To really get down to the facts of history, to be confident that something actually happened we need one of two things. The best thing is physical evidence, forensic evidence. We don’t have this for Jesus. Sure, there are churches that claim they have pieces of the cross, the crown of thorns… there’s the shroud of Turin which was thought to be the cloth that Jesus’ body was wrapped in when he was entombed. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t these things. Unfortunately, there is just no way to definitively prove it either way. So we have to rule them out as physical evidence. We don’t have that. The other thing we can use to discern fact from fiction is multiple accounts coming from different unrelated people with different or no motives and biases. This is what we have for Jesus. It’s not as good as forensic evidence, no, but it is something. The life of Jesus is obviously mentioned in great detail in the new testament of the bible, specifically the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. According to religious studies professor Bart D. Ehrman in a History.com article called “The Bible Says Jesus Was Real. What Other Proof Exists,” quote “These are all Christian and are obviously and understandably biased in what they report, and have to be evaluated very critically indeed to establish any historically reliable information. But their central claims about Jesus as a historical figure—a Jew, with followers, executed on orders of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius—are borne out by later sources with a completely different set of biases.” end quote. So what that means is, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the multitude of other people who have had a hand in transcribing and translating the bible since are not the only ones to mention Jesus. He was also mentioned by Jewish and Roman chroniclers who were unbiased, as in they weren’t trying to get Christianity to catch on. 

 

One of these was a Jewish historian named Flavius Josephus. He wrote one of the earliest non-biblical accounts of Jesus. Josephus was actually born a few years after Jesus was crucified but because of who he was, what he did, and where he lived, it’s very likely that he would have known people who knew Jesus. Josephus mentions the existence of Jesus twice in his book “Jewish Antiquities.” In 116, so, you know just under a hundred years later, a Roman senator and historian named Tacitus mentions Jesus in his writing Annals of Imperial Rome. Neither Josephus nor Tacitus were Christians so they had no religious biases in supporting the existence of Jesus in their writing. Library science professor Lawrence Mykytiuk says in that History.com article quote “when Tacitus wrote history, if he considered the information not entirely reliable, he normally wrote some indication of that for his readers. There is no such indication of potential error in the passage that mentions Christus.” end quote. Which, you go Tacitus, thank you for that. But my point is, Jesus is written about from a historical standpoint, not just in religious texts. And while we don’t have physical evidence, that’s not at all surprising. Professor Ehrman says quote “The reality is that we don’t have archaeological records for virtually anyone who lived in Jesus’s time and place. The lack of evidence does not mean a person at the time didn’t exist. It means that she or he, like 99.99% of the rest of the world at the time, made no impact on the archaeological record.” end quote. Based on the varying accounts from unbiased sources, most scholars do believe that Jesus was a real person.

 

Okay now let’s get back to setting the stage, the world of Jesus because it’s important for understanding why and how he was executed. At this time, somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 33 AD, Jesus lived in what we would call Israel today, or Palestine, depending on who you ask. But at this time, there was no Palestine. That name didn’t exist yet. Israel was split into 3 main regions. Galilee was the northernmost region, Samaria was in the middle, and Judea was the southern region. Jesus was from Nazareth which was in Galilee, the northernmost region of what is called Israel today. A little to the south, right in between Samaria and Judea was the city of Jerusalem which was and still is the capital of Israel. In 63 BC so 60ish years before Jesus was born, the Roman Empire extended its way into Israel and conquered Jerusalem. So Jesus was born and lived his entire 30 some odd year life under Roman rule. Rome didn’t have a super hands on, direct rule over this region, the emperor just sort of appointed dudes to rule it for him. During Jesus’ adult life, Galilee, where he lived, was ruled by a guy named Herod Antipas. This guy was the son of Herod the Great who was the king of Judea when Jesus was born, Bethlehem is in Judea. So Herod the Great is supposedly the guy who ordered all male children age 2 and under be killed in and around Bethlehem in an attempt to get rid of the baby Jesus after his birth. Although, there is no actual evidence that that ever happened and unlike the crucifixion, it is not cross referenced by unbiased chroniclers outside of the bible. But that’s Herod the Great. He dies, his son Herod Antipas is put in charge of Galilee where Jesus lives. To the south, in Judea, Pontius Pilate is in charge. He was like a governor appointed by the Roman emperor, Tiberius. 

 

Jesus was Jewish as were a lot of folks in that area. So he believed in God, the same god that Christians believe in. And his holy book was the old testament of the bible, the torah, with the stories about Noah’s Ark and Moses and all that. The Romans were not Jewish. They were gentiles. Which just means someone who isn’t Jewish. The Romans, remember, are polytheistic. They recognize many gods. This is ancient Rome. So you may be wondering, “well, what was life like for a Jewish person living under Roman rule since the Romans weren’t Jewish.” The Romans didn’t really seem to mind Jewish people. According to a Franciscan Media article called “Exploring the World Jesus Knew” by Daniel J. Harrington quote “The Romans favored the Jews because they were well-networked throughout the empire, they didn't push their religion on others, and most important, they paid their taxes.” end quote. What’s not to love? So Jesus is not a problem in the Roman empire because he’s Jewish, that’s fine. 

 

He’s going around preaching messages of love and acceptance. He believed everyone was worthy of the kingdom of God despite their past indiscretions. He’s counseling prisoners and prostitutes and thieves. He was very into loving thy neighbor. He’s a pretty great guy and he’s gaining followers, disciples, he’s gaining popularity. People are digging what he’s preaching.  So what was the tipping point? How does he go from beloved teacher to executed. Well, Jesus presented himself as the son of God which was a problem for a lot of the Jewish higher ups. This was blasphemy, basically. They saw him as a false prophet who was threatening the religion. But in the end, Jesus was not executed for blasphemy. The consequence for that would have been being stoned to death. Which is when people throw stones at you, literally, until you die. But that’s not how Jesus died. He was crucified. That was a Roman punishment for rebellion against the empire. In the end, it wasn’t the blasphemy of calling himself the son of God that did him in, it was that he was also referred to as King of the Jews. And this was a problem for the Roman emperor. King of the Jews was a title only he could bestow. For example, Herod the Great, who I mentioned earlier, he was named King of the Jews when he ruled over Judea. This was not something that you could just claim. So as Jesus grew in popularity and people started referring to him as King of the Jews, this was perceived as a rebellion against the Roman Empire. They thought he was trying to take actual political power. Which wasn’t the case at all but the word King does have certain connotations that could make one assume as much.   

 

So I want to make it very clear that it was the Romans, not the Jews, who ultimately killed Jesus. Yes there were some Jewish higher ups that were not a fan of him because he was popular and loved by the masses and therefore a threat to them. But they did not have the authority to have him killed. Not like the Romans did. A lot of times this story is told with the Jews as the aggressors, the ones pursuing the death of Jesus and Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor with the power to actually carry out the execution seems timid, like he doesn’t actually want to kill Jesus. He famously washes his hands of the whole thing. That isn’t quite accurate and, according to the Jerusalem Post it has actually been used to sort of demonize Jewish people throughout history by casting them as the murderers of Christ. In reality, it was very much the Romans who ordered his execution and carried it out. And Pontius Pilate was way more of a sadistic freak than the washing of the hands thing would have you believe. According to Lewis Regenstein in that article for the Jerusalem Post quote “Eventually, Pilate’s brutality became so notorious that the emperor himself in the year 36 recalled his procurator back to Rome, after he slaughtered several thousand Samaritans on their holy mountain to disperse a crowd gathered around one of their prophets. Accounts of Pilate’s reign of terror in Judea appear in the works of the Roman historians Tacitus and Josephus. The Jewish king, King Herod Agrippa I, who ruled from 37- 44, wrote to the Roman Emperor Caligula, describing Pilate’s acts of violence, plundering... and continual murder of persons untried and uncondemned, and his never-ending and unbelievable cruelties, gratuitous and most grievous inhumanity.” end quote. So, uhhh, his hands don’t seem all that clean to me. 

 

But let’s back it up to a week before Jesus was crucified. And this is all according to the bible. He goes to Jerusalem. It’s about to be passover which is an important Jewish ritual. It’s a meal, basically, a meal that commemorates the enslavement of the Israelites, Jewish people, in Egypt and their escape from enslavement, their exodus, led by Moses over a thousand years before Jesus. Passover is a big deal in the Jewish religion. So Jesus goes to Jerusalem for Passover. The account recorded in the bible suggests that Jesus knows he’s walking into danger, into a trap. He knows there are powerful people who want him dead and that, by going to Jerusalem, he’s basically handing himself over to them. He knows this but he goes anyway. Almost like a prophecy that he knows he has to fulfill. He has to go to Jerusalem and let them kill him. It’s all part of the plan. 

 

Around 5 days before he is ultimately killed, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. And he is met with a crowd of admirers. The masses are cheering him as he enters the city. They wave palm branches like cheerleaders brandishing pom poms and they lay their cloaks on the ground before him like a red carpet being rolled out before a celebrity gets out of a limo. Jesus is a big deal. He is beloved by the people. The Thursday before he is to be killed, so he’s killed on a Sunday. On Thursday, he eats a passover meal with his disciples, his inner circle. This is the last supper. The next day, on Friday, he is betrayed to Roman authorities by one of his own disciples named Judas Escariot. Judas made a deal to turn Jesus over to these Roman guys in exchange for 30 pieces of silver. So he’s basically the worst friend ever. Jesus is arrested and put on trial for claiming to be King of the Jews which, remember, was seen as rebellion against the Roman Empire. It was basically treason. He’s brought before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, and, although the bible kind of makes it seem like Pontius Pilate was hesitant to condemn Jesus, other accounts suggest he was all for it almost in a sick freak sort of way. And this misrepresentation actually makes a lot of sense if you look at the early Christian church. When and where did the Christian church take off? Officially, in the Roman Empire around 300 years after Jesus’ death. So the Romans are the ones creating Christianity. Who would they want to blame for Jesus’ death? Themselves? Or the Jews, who are in direct competition to their new religion? So it makes sense that Pilate was portrayed as this sort of timid yet noble, I don’t want to do this but my hands are tied kind of guy. 

 

He does in fact condemn Jesus as a rebel to be scourged and then crucified and he is actually the first one to do the scourging. So let’s get into crucifixion here. It is a truly horrific way to die, arguably the most painful and torturous way to kill someone. If you don’t like gory stuff, you might want to skip this next bit. According to Laura Geggel in an article for Live Science, crucifixion most likely began as a form of capital punishment in ancient Assyria and Babylon. It was definitely being used by the Persians as early as 600 BC. Crucifixion didn’t reach ancient Rome until the 200s BC when they were fighting a war in Tunisia. They were like “oh, this is perfectly horrific. We love it def gonna make this happen back in Rome.” And they start using crucifixion and perfecting it really, in the Roman Empire. It was seen as a very shameful way to die so it was mostly reserved for foreigners, disgraced soldiers, and political activists who threatened the empire.  

 

So what all did it entail? Well, I’m glad you asked. It started with scourging which involved being stripped naked and beaten with leather whips. But these whips were extra. They had metal balls on them that bruised the skin and they also had sheep bones attached to the ends. The sheep bones would tear into the skin as you were whipped, ripping out chunks of flesh so deep that bone was often exposed. This would leave the person’s back hanging in long ribbons of torn flesh. It also caused a massive amount of blood loss. So at this point, after the scourging, Jesus has lost a lot of blood. He would have been incredibly weakened by this. According to the bible, they put a purple robe on him which helps to stop the blood loss somewhat (they mercilessly rip that off later by the way). They also put a crown of thorns on his head. This is all just a way to mock him, though right? Purple was a color reserved for kings so with the robe and the crown, they are mocking him for claiming to be the King of the Jews. 

 

So the scourging is officially over but the abuse does not stop there. According to Live Science quote “sometimes, the Roman soldiers would hurt the victim further, cutting off a body part, such as the tongue, or blinding him. In another heinous turn, Josephus reported how soldiers under Antiochus IV… would have the victim's strangled child hung around his neck.” end quote. So now that you’ve been beaten and abused within an inch of your life, it’s time to actually be crucified. A lot of people mistakenly picture the accused carrying the whole big ol giant cross. That would not have been the case. Trees are quite a luxury in this area of the world. The crosses would have been reused as much as possible. Also, there’s just no way they could have carried a cross that big in their condition. Instead, the accused were forced to carry the patibulum which is just the horizontal bar part of the cross. The longer vertical part would have stayed in the ground at the crucifixion place. Jesus was actually unable to carry this though because he was already so weakened by blood loss and beatings. 

 

Once they got to the place where they were to be crucified, in the case of Jesus that was a place called Calvary or Golgotha just outside of Jerusalem. Once there, they were attached to the patibulum, that cross beam. And I say attached, not nailed, because there is some question as to how they were actually attached. Jesus is often portrayed as being nailed to the cross through the palms of his hands. That was most certainly not the case because the nails would have ripped right through the flesh of his hands. They would have had to go through bone to actually hold him on the cross. So some argue that they must have been nailed through their wrists, not their hands. But more recent evidence suggests that’s wrong too. In the 1980s, the body of a man was discovered near Jerusalem. He had been crucified in around the same time period as Jesus, the first century. And they were able to study his remains to try to figure out how people were actually affixed to the cross. They found no evidence that the man’s wrists had been nailed to the cross. There were no nail holes in his wrist bones. There was, however, a large nail going through the man’s heel bone. But not long enough to go through both heels and the cross. So based on this, they determined that the arms must have been tied and not nailed to the patibulum and then the feet were likely nailed with two separate nails, one through each heel and into either side of the cross. 

 

So at this point, they get to Calvary or Golgotha whatever you want to call it. Jesus is thrown onto the ground and his arms are probably tied to the patibulum, possibly nailed, but probably tied based on the forensic evidence they found, that other guy. The patibulum is lifted up, with him on it and attached to the tall vertical part of the cross that’s sticking out of the ground. Once up there, they are attached by their hands, wrists, whatever, their torso is not attached. That weight pulling down likely dislocated their shoulders and elbows. According to Cathleen Shrier at Azusa Pacific University, quote “in this position, Jesus’ arms stretched to a minimum of 6 inches longer than their original length.” end quote. 

 

The feet are nailed, probably through both heels as was evident in that body they found. So now, I mean you're just kind of hanging there, it hurts, it sucks but how do you actually die from that? Shrier elaborates quote “normally, to breathe in, the diaphragm must move down. This enlarges the chest cavity and air automatically moves into the lungs. To exhale, the diaphragm rises up, which compresses the air in the lungs and forces the air out. As Jesus hangs on the cross, the weight of His body pulls down on the diaphragm and the air moves into His lungs and remains there. Jesus must push up on His nailed feet (causing more pain) to exhale.” end quote. So breathing becomes difficult and excruciating. 

 

Shrier goes on quote “The difficulty surrounding exhalation leads to a slow form of suffocation. Carbon dioxide builds up in the blood, resulting in a high level of carbonic acid in the blood. The body responds instinctively, triggering the desire to breathe. At the same time, the heart beats faster to circulate available oxygen. The decreased oxygen causes damage to the tissues and the capillaries begin leaking watery fluid from the blood into the tissues. This results in a build-up of fluid around the heart and lungs. The collapsing lungs, failing heart, dehydration, and the inability to get sufficient oxygen to the tissues essentially suffocate the victim. The decreased oxygen also damages the heart itself which leads to cardiac arrest. In severe cases of cardiac stress, the heart can even burst, a process known as cardiac rupture. Jesus most likely died of a heart attack.” end quote. 

 

All of this can take anywhere from 3 hours to 4 days and if it was taking too long, they would break your legs so that you couldn’t push up on them to exhale. According to the bible, this is what the Roman soldiers did to the two men crucified alongside Jesus so that they would suffocate and die quicker. But Jesus had already died. According to those reports, he lasted just 6 hours on the cross. 

 

The most horrific death possible, so they say. Crucifixion was outlawed by Roman emperor Constantine I in the 4th century so it’s in the fairly distant past now, but we’re still scrambling to try to understand it. According to Geggel in that Live Science article I mentioned earlier quote “To investigate crucifixion (without actually killing anybody), German researchers tied volunteers by their wrists to a cross and then monitored their respiratory and cardiovascular activity in the 1960s. Within 6 minutes, the volunteers had trouble breathing, their pulse rates had doubled, and their blood pressure had plummeted, according to the 1963 study in the journal Berlin Medicine. The experiment had to be stopped after about 30 minutes, because of wrist pain.” end quote. 

 

What happens next is hotly debated and whether or not you believe it is the difference between being a Christian and not being a Christian. It is religion, not history, but it is the origins of Easter. So, according to the bible, Jesus’ body was removed from the cross and placed into a rocky tomb. This is all happening on Friday. On Sunday, Mary Magdalene and the quote “other Mary” go to Jesus' tomb where they find that the stone has been rolled away and his body is not there. An angel appears to them and tells them that Jesus has risen from the dead and that they need to go and tell his disciples. And I want to pause for a moment to say how pleased I am that it was women who discovered the empty tomb and are tasked with this important mission of spreading the word. Women in this time and place did not get this sort of value placed on them. This is a big deal for biblical women and I will take it. This moment, this event, is the basis of Christianity, Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead as a symbol of sacrifice and rebirth. But it wasn’t like boom now Christianity is a thing and everyone is rocking cross necklaces and reading the bible, no. It would take another almost 400 years for all of that to really catch on. It would take Rome finally accepting Christianity as its official religion after hundreds of years of crucifying Christians before it actually became the major world religion it is today. 

 

Easter is a celebration and a remembrance of the crucifixion and the rising from the dead, the rebirth. But it’s extremely symbolic. What it means for Christians is that, no matter how terrible of a person you are, no matter what horrible things you have done, you can be forgiven for those things, you can rise from that and be reborn and accepted into heaven. It’s a big deal. And it makes a lot of sense that Easter falls during the spring which is itself a time of rebirth, of coming out of winter, of new life. That is semi coincidental. Really, Easter happens in the spring because it happens around passover. Right, remember Jesus went to Jerusalem for Passover. So, because of that, we know that he was likely crucified right after Passover. Now, Easter has probably the weirdest ever date each year. Christmas is always on December 25th, right? But that could be a Monday or a Wednesday. Easter has to be on a Sunday. It’s Easter Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday. We can’t just pick a date for Easter because that date will be on a different day of the week each year. So Easter is always on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal equinox. Huh? What? And it took them literally hundreds of years to come up with that very confusing plan. For a while there, different groups celebrated Easter on different days. It wasn’t until the 1500s that everyone agreed to do it this way. 

 

And you might be thinking “wait a minute, vernal equinox, full moon? This is sounding pretty pagan. Is Easter pagan?” Not as much as some of the other Christian holidays actually. This one is pretty straight up Christian in most places. However, it does have some touches of pre-Christianity especially coming from Germany and the UK area. For example, most Christian nations call Easter something related to the Hebrew word for passover which is Pesach. In Latin Pascha, in Spanish and Italian Pascua, in French Paques (Pack), Swedish Pask. These sound nothing like the English name for the holiday, Easter. And in German, Ostern. So where are Easter and Ostern coming from? That’s where it potentially gets a little pagany. In the year 731, Bede, a medieval monk who is commonly thought of as the father of English history, wrote about an Anglo-Saxon goddess named Eostre (eastra) or it can also be pronounced ustrah. He goes on to say that in 8th century England, the month of April was called Eosturmonth in honor of this goddess and that there was a pagan spring festival that time of year named after the goddess that had been assimilated into the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ.  

 

According to a Smithsonian Magazine article by Tok Thompson called “The Ancient Origins of the Easter Bunny,” quote “Recent archaeological research appears to confirm the worship of Eostre in parts of England and Germany, with the hare as her main symbol.” end quote. The hare AKA rabbit AKA bunny. Okay now it's all starting to make sense. So before Christianity arrived in Germany and England they were worshiping a goddess named Eostre whose symbol was a bunny. April was called Eosturmonth and included a celebration in honor of the goddess Eostre. When Christianity came along, these two holidays blended together and in England and Germany at least, they maintained the original name or something close to the original name Eostre. So this explains the name which seems so random and different than what the holiday is called everywhere else, something Pesach, right, passover. It also explains the bunnies. The Easter bunny, or the Easter hare as it’s called in the UK. 

 

Hares have an interesting history in that area of the world. They clearly were of some ritual or religious significance in ancient Britain. We know this because we have unearthed burials from as far back as 2,500 BC in which hares were buried alongside humans. They were given ritual burials. In 51 BC Roman emperor Julius Caesar mentioned that hares were not eaten in Britain because of their religious significance. Hares were likely a symbol of fertility and of rebirth. Now it gets a little weird once these areas become Christian and the church starts stirring up fear about witches (please refer back to episode 29 for more on that, one of my most popular episodes by the way). A folk tradition springs up where people try to scare away the witches at Easter. Witches were believed to drain the life out of people and make them sick. This is basically winter, right, it’s not actually witches. It’s malnutrition, cold weather, and lack of sunlight contributing to vitamin D deficiency. But they didn’t know that so they blamed witches and springtime, when the winter weather naturally went away, seemed an ideal time to banish these witches right along with it. They started eating the hares because people believed that witches could take the form of a hare. So hares sort of transform from pagan symbols of fertility and rebirth into life sucking witches that must be eaten to be destroyed. So yeah they’re, they’re eating the Easter bunny you guys. 

 

German accounts from the 1600s describe children hunting for Easter eggs hidden by the Easter hare. Which is more or less the modern Easter tradition in the US today. And if you’ve done this your whole life it’s like “yeah the bunny hides the eggs and then we go find them and they have candy and stuff in them,” it all makes perfect sense. But if you really think about it. Um, bunnies don’t lay eggs. Why are bunnies hiding eggs? Shouldn’t it be an Easter chicken? But that’s Eostre and her fertility symbol, the hare, talking. And eggs, they’re just an age old symbol of birth and fertility. It makes sense that they would be associated with a spring holiday about rebirth. Eggs and bunnies have nothing to do with the resurrection of Christ but everything to do with spring festivals celebrating the end of winter and the rebirth of everything in the springtime. And yet, in a weird way that does relate to the resurrection of Christ because it’s all about the end of the cold, the dark, the evil, and the rebirth and renewal and forgiveness. In a weird way, it kind of meshes together beautifully. 

 

But there are certain sects, certain denominations of Christianity that are not very into the whole Easter bunny, Easter egg hunt thing because of their pagan origins. I actually saw a Facebook ad the other day for Easter eggs that were shaped like Jesus’ head. Which is just so absurd but I get it. That was some Christians being like “man we shouldn’t be doing Easter egg hunts cause that’s not Christian but it’s so dang fun and the kids love it, what can we do? I know, let’s make Jesus heads instead of eggs. We’ll find the Jesus heads instead cause eggs are way too evil. I mean everyone knows eggs are evil.” It’s really silly but you know, whatever, to each his own. If you want to search for decapitated Jesus heads full candy this year by all means. I’ll let the History Fix host of the future have fun explaining that one. “Well yeah cause the bunny hides the heads, the bearded man heads, and then you find it and there’s candy inside the head.” This is truly how these weird traditions happen. We're seeing it in real time here.  

 

So Easter, like Christmas, is a religious Christian holiday with a secular side to it. There are plenty of people who do Easter baskets and Easter egg hunts and don’t go to church or reflect on the crucifixion or the resurrection of Christ. For them, it’s just a celebration of spring, of renewal and rebirth. And what I find interesting is that the Christian holiday of Easter, the one that focuses on the death of Jesus and his resurrection from the dead, his rebirth, has remarkably similar themes. Whether it’s winter or sin, spring or forgiveness, it all has the same message, something all humans so desperately want, and that is the comfort of knowing that no matter how dark and cold and hungry and lonely life gets, there is always a way out, a fresh start, a new beginning. There is no hopelessness, no defeat because one need only step out of the darkness of winter and into the light of spring to know that they are loved and they are worthy despite it all. And that is a beautiful thing.   

 

Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix, I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow History Fix on whatever app you’re using to listen, and help me spread the word by telling a few friends about it. That’ll make it much easier to get your next fix.  

 

Information used in this episode was sourced from Smithsonian Magazine, Live Science, allthatsinteresting.com, Franciscan Media, Azusa Pacific University, the Biblical Archaeology Society, The Jerusalem Post, and History.com. As always, links to these sources can be found in the show notes.