The Sun, Easter & Goddess Ishtar : The Forgotten Ancient Connection !!!

Today even as the world is celebrating Good Friday and soon will be celebrating Easter, it becomes quite important to understand the pagan origins of these Christian festivals.

The question that we need to ask is – “Are these really Christian in nature or were they copied from much earlier pagan religions of the world, particularly Middle - East?”

So let’s begin our fascinating journey into hidden and long forgotten ancient world, its religions and its shocking connections with modern Christianity.

Easter story comes from an ancient Sumerian legend called “The Descent of Inanna” according to which G-d Damuzi (Tammuz) dies his wife Inanna (Ishtar) is grief–stricken and follows him to the underworld.
                                                                                               

Inanna's Decent

In the underworld, she enters through seven gates, and her clothes are removed. "Naked and bowed low" she is judged, killed, and then hung on display. In her absence, the earth loses its fertility, crops cease to grow and animals stop reproducing. Unless something is done, all life on earth will end.

After Inanna has been missing for three days her assistant goes to other gods for help. Finally one G-d Enki, creates two creatures who carry the plant of life and water of life down to the Underworld, sprinkling them on Inanna and Damuzi, resurrecting them, and giving them the power to return to the earth as the light of the sun for six months.

Goddess Ishtar

After the six months, Tammuz returns to the underworld of the dead, remaining there for another six months, and Ishtar pursues him, prompting the water G-d to rescue them both. Thus were the cycles of winter death and spring life.

Ishtar is known as Astarte, and her counterparts in the Greece and Rome are known as Aphrodite and Venus. In the 4th Century, when Christians assumed a particular site in Jerusalem to be an empty tomb of Jesus where a temple of Aphrodite (Astarte/Ishtar/Inanna) was standing, they torn it down and that’s how Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built, the holiest church in the Christian world.

The most commonly practiced customs on Easter Sunday relate to the symbol of the Rabbit (‘Easter bunny’) and the Egg. As per Encyclopedia Britannica:

 “The egg as a symbol of fertility and of renewed life goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who had also the custom of colouring and eating eggs during their spring festival.”

Roman Goddess Cybele 

In Rome, the Cybele cult flourished. Cybele's lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising after three days. He gets resurrected each year during March 22 - March 25, at the time of the vernal equinox.

There was violent conflict on Vatican in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshippers and pagans who quarrelled over whose God was the true, and who is the imitation.

Hot cross buns so popular today are very ancient too. In the Old Testament we see the Israelites baking sweet buns for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it.

Easter Eggs

So the final riddle that needs to be unravelled is why was this Spring Equinox so much celebrated?

Astronomically speaking during this spring equinox (March 21^th ) tilt of the Earth’s axis is neither away from nor towards the Sun, but completely parallel, resulting in a night and day length that are the same.

From here onwards as the year progresses the days get longer and longer. Meaning Goodness and Righteousness begins to conquer Cold and Darkness.

So Earth’s tilt is parallel to Sun is picturized as a Saviour who died for atonement of sins of Mankind to bring them in the glory and righteousness of God i.e. make them stand in front of God (Making both parallel to each other).

By the act of Sacrifice the mythical figure called Jesus did the balancing act, by balancing the two sides of Weighing Scale and bringing them at par with each other i.e. Making Men stand in front of G-d, enter kingdom of heaven through the sacrificial act on cross.

In conclusion, Christianity is nothing just a collection of pagan rituals and practices which it cleverly copied from its predecessors.