This graphic on Facebook has been driving me crazy all week – thanks to The Belle Jar for putting this together to address the mis- and disinformation being put out there that has absolutely no scholarly evidence or lore to back those claims up. I also found this on the Suppressed History Archives Facebook page: “A real connection, not linguistic or diffusionist, can be found in the spring festival of eggs, whether Pesach or Easter. Pesach (Passover) has been shown to incorporate Babylonian cultural elements (from the Jewish Babylonian) – beyond the egg and greenery on the plate, it incorporates the names Esther (Ishtar) and Mordechai (Marduk). Still today Iranians play games with painted eggs for Nowruz (Persian New Year, coinciding with Spring Equinox). Dunno if this is allowed now in the Islamic Republic of Iran, but looky here:” History of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. Also this from the Northern Grove, Cultural Appropriation, Ishtar, Eostre, and Easter. Good stuff to read!
If there is one thing that drives me absolutely bananas, it’s people spreading misinformation via social media under the guise of “educating”. I’ve seen this happen in several ways – through infographics that twist data in ways that support a conclusion that is ultimately false, or else through “meaningful” quotes falsely attributed to various celebrities, or by cobbling together a few actual facts with statements that are patently untrue to create something that seems plausible on the surface but is, in fact, full of crap.
Yesterday, the official Facebook page of (noted misogynistandeugenicsenthusiast) Richard Dawkins’ Foundation for Reason and Science shared the following image to their 637,000 fans:
Naturally, their fans lapped this shit up; after all, this is the kind of thing they absolutely live for. Religious people! Being hypocritical! And crazy! And wrong! The 2,000+ comments were chock-full of smug remarks…
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Journeying to the Goddess 
John booth here, i agree but , after studying ancient ceramics for 30 years, and the people , ancient people didn’t think like we today, there is one lady’s study that blows me away Paula Gott , Cleopatra 7 ? was mary magdalene. “what the ? i thought , i love alternative histroy. Helen of troy was a priestess to Dendritis. the lady of the column. Dendritis was her name on the isle of rhodes. Dendara was a temple to Hathor on the nile. there was one in ancient bronze age greece to. but the true history shake up is ancient bronze age greeks had corn. and rameses 11 had tobacco, lsd” (ergot mould) coca and opiates in his forensics analysis. and the jews where know to live in kuchin india and in their temples they worshipped Krishna.
Thanks! That Facebook image kept getting on my nerves and I appreciate the thorough exploration of its inaccuracies.
Excellent post! Thank you for reprinting it here as a reminder to always, ALWAYS check your information sources before “educating” others.
“ALWAYS check your information sources before “educating” others.” – And this is why I do it. I think back to all the “truths” I was told when I first started out on my Pagan path without researching these things for myself and then telling others the “truth”; and to be truthful, I’m almost embarrassed.
LOL – I saw that on Facebook and immediately thought a huge “WHAT???” I never heard that piece of information before but unlike you, I let it slide on by. Thanks for writing about it – yes – checking sources is critical especially when we put stuff out there!
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Regards Easter = Ishtar.
Actually, Easter and the Easter-egg came from the Egyptian Isis.
In Egyptian Isis was called Ast or Est, from which we derive Ester or Easter (referring to a star or the heavens). And remember that Isis-Est was a fertility goddess, as much as she was the Queen of Heaven.
And the Easter-egg came from the spelling, because Est was spelt with the easter-egg glyph. So yes, there are associations with fertility in the symbology of Est (Isis). Oh, and Ishtar (Isht-ar) came from the Egyptian Est (Isis), and not the other way around.
Ralph
(See: Cleopatra to Christ)
Ralph,
I respectfully beg to differ with your Easter/Ishtar post. Based on my research, I agree with Ian Corrigan when he states:”This stuff comes from half-wit anti-Catholic literature of the 19th century – it is worthless in light of modern scholarship.
Let’s do this in detail:
1: Ishtar is not pronounced ‘eester’ – silly.
2: Ishtar was a goddess of fertility and sex, also war and sovereignty. While the Spring equinox season was important, it was not her particular feast.
3: There are no depictions of her with eggs or rabbits.
4: Constantine did not Christianize the Roman empire, he only made Christianity legal.I can’t say whether Ishtar was still in business during Constantine’s time.
Most specifically, ‘Ishtar’ has nothing to do with ‘Easter’
Easter was said by the early medieval scholar, Bede (and only by him) to be derived from the English goddess-name Eoster. That name is hard to trace, though a bit of progress has been made. IT occurs nowhere else in literature. A germanic goddess-name of that sort would be connected with goddesses of dawn – Eos in Greece, etc. The most likely meaning for the name ‘easter’ for the Christian feast is ‘the feast we keep at dawn’. Of course only english speakers call it “easter” – nobody in Rome ever called it that. Constantine surely never heard the word ‘Easter’.”