Easter or Resruurection Sunday? Further Thoughts!

Easter or Resurrection Sunday? 

Is Easter in the Bible?

A better question: Should Easter be in the Bible?

Yes it is in the King James Version, but no, the King James translators made the mistake using the exiting name of the pagan festival instead of translating the Greek properly.  I have been on a personal crusade to stop using “Easter” and promote replacement of it with “Resurrection Sunday.”  In studying the crucifixion timeline, I learned the King James translators took the original Greek word pascha and mistranslated it with the word Easter in Acts 12.

CHAPTER 12

¹ Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. ² And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. ³ And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) ⁴ And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter^a to bring him forth to the people. ^[1]

Here is Strong’s Concordance description of the word.  Of the 29 occurrences, 28 times “Passover” is used.  In newer translations, ESV and NKJV, “Passover” or “Feast of Unleavened Bread” is used.

3957 πάσχα [pascha /pas·khah/] n n. Of Aramaic origin cf 6453; TDNT 5:896; TDNTA 797; GK 4247; 29 occurrences; AV translates as “Passover” 28 times, and “Easter” once. 1 the paschal sacrifice (which was accustomed to be offered for the people’s deliverance of old from Egypt). 2 the paschal lamb, i.e. the lamb the Israelites were accustomed to slay and eat on the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan (the first month of their year) in memory of the day on which their fathers, preparing to depart from Egypt, were bidden by God to slay and eat a lamb, and to sprinkle their door posts with its blood, that the destroying angel, seeing the blood, might pass over their dwellings; Christ crucified is likened to the slain paschal lamb. 3 the paschal supper. 4 the paschal feast, the feast of the Passover, extending from the 14th to the 20th day of the month Nisan. ^[2]

So, what of my crusade?  I am continuing with it.  To me and mine it will be “Resurrection Sunday”

We will not refer to the resurrection of our Lord by a pagan title.  Who could that please?

We will not think on bunnies and eggs.

We will not awake to see the sun rise on the spring solstice.

We will worship our Lord and Savior, Jesus with honor, humility, and truth!

Praise the Lord that the tomb is empty!

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^a Easter: Gr. Passover

^[1] The Holy Bible : King James Version. electronic ed. of the 1769 edition of the 1611 Authorized Version. Bellingham WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1995, S. Ac 12:1-4

n n: noun or neuter

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

TDNTA Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume

GK Goodrick-Kohlenberger

AV Authorized Version

^[2]Strong, James: The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible : Showing Every Word of the Text of the Common English Version of the Canonical Books, and Every Occurrence of Each Word in Regular Order. electronic ed. Ontario : Woodside Bible Fellowship., 1996, S. G3957

The most offensive verse in the Bible by Dan Phillips

  Dan Phillips
teampyro.blogspot.com

In the Sunday School class at CBC we're doing a series called Marriage, the Bible and You. In the second lesson of the series, I brought up the subject of secular talk shows and how they like to try to beat up on Christians of any size, shape, and significance about whatever topic they think is most embarrassing and controversial. Of course, at the moment it's "gay" "marriage," or the topic of homosexuality at all.

In the course of the lesson, I remarked that I think — from the comfortable quiet safety of my study — that I'd take a different approach.

When Piers or Larry or Tavis or Rosie or Ellen or The View or whoever tried probing me about homosexuality, or wifely submission, or any other area where God has spoken (to the world's consternation), I think I'd decline the worm altogether. I think instead, I'd say something like,

"You know, TaPierRosEllRy, when you ask me about X, you're obviously picking a topic that is deeply offensive to non-Christians — but it's far from the most offensive thing I believe. You're just nibbling at the edge of one of the relatively minor leaves on the Tree of Offense. Let me do you a favor, and just take you right down to the root. Let me take you to the most offensive thing I believe.

"The most offensive thing I believe is Genesis 1:1, and everything it implies.

"That is, I believe in a sovereign Creator who is Lord and Definer of all. Everything in the universe — the planet, the laws of physics, the laws of morality, you, me — everything was created by Another, was designed by Another, was given value and definition by Another. God is Creator and Lord, and so He is ultimate. That means we are created and subjects, and therefore derivative and dependent.

"Therefore, we are not free to create meaning or value. We have only two options. We can discover the true value assigned by the Creator and revealed in His Word, the Bible; or we can rebel against that meaning.

"Any time you bring up questions about any of these issues, you do so from one of two stances. You either do it as someone advocating and enabling rebellion against the Creator's design, or as someone seeking submissive understanding of that design. You do it as servant or rebel. There is no third option.

"So yeah, insofar as I'm consistent with my core beliefs, everything I think about sexuality, relationships, morals, the whole nine yards, all of it is derived from what the Creator says. If I deviate from that, I'm wrong.

"To anyone involved in the doomed, damned you-shall-be-as-God project, that is the most offensive truth in the world, and it is the most offensive belief I hold.

"But if I can say one more thing, the first noun in that verse — beginning — immediately points us forward. It points to the end. And the end is all about Jesus Christ. That takes us to the topic of God's world-tilting Gospel, and that's what we really need to talk about."

I mean, why quibble about minor offenses, when we know how to take them right to the mother lode of all offense — that God is God, and we are not?

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