Easter is upon us, which is always a good time to look at the pagan roots of the Holiday. The Boston Globe had a nice story yesterday on the question of how the Easter Bunny came to be. There’s also a nice story on The Ancient Pagan Origins of Easter through a website that is apparently exclusively devoted to such questions. And Wikipedia contains an entry on Ēostre a pagan Germanic divinity who is the namesake of the festival of Easter. According to Wikipedia, “during Ēosturmōnaþ (the equivalent of April), pagan Anglo-Saxons had held feasts in Eostre’s honor.” By the time after Jesus this festival was “replaced by the Christian Paschal month, a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.”

Obviously the Easter Bunny doesn’t have much to do with the resurrection of Christ.

I wonder how long it will take before Easter, like Christmas, just becomes an excuse to “revitalize” the economy by doing a ton of shopping. In any case, enjoy your Easter celebrations for those of you who don’t celebrate Passover, or some other holiday, or nothing at all.