There are enemies of Christ, who attack the word of God, because Acts 12:4 uses the word “Easter.”
And there are good Christians who say that the translators either missed the translation of this word or that they deliberately mistranslated it for their own purposes.
This leads some people to say that if those men can’t be trusted here, they can’t be trusted anywhere else in the King James Bible.
I am as firmly convinced as I was when first saved, that our English Bible is trustworthy.
The Authorized Version of the Bible can be trusted – must be trusted – to be the Word of God.
There are three primary explanations for this one instance of the word “Easter” in our Bibles.
One is that it should have been translated “Passover.”
Another is that it refers to a pagan celebration which occurred about the time of the Passover.
And the third is that it refers to the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ.
I’ll say from the outset that there are questions and problems with all three opinions.
The Greek word, derived from the Aramaic – which in this case is translated “Easter” – is “pascha.”
It is found twenty-eight times in the New Testament and twenty-seven times it is rendered “Passover.”
For example, two of those occasions are in Matthew 26:17-18 –
And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples.
But neither can it be overturned that our translators in1611 considered “Easter” to be another good rendering.
I was taught that the word “Easter” is a derivation of “Astarte” or “Ishtar,” which is often pronounced “Easter.”
In Bible school, the book “Two Babylons” by Alexander Hislop, was required reading.
It says that “Astarte” and “Ishtar” are words which have moved from one ancient language to another, and to another.
These female idol deities took up slightly different forms in different cultures – worshiped in different ways.
Eventually they came into English and her special day was known as “Easter.”
This is what I had been taught, and this is the common explanation for the word “Easter.”
My Chamber’s Etymological Dictionary, says that Easter comes, “from “Eastre, a goddess whose festival was held in April.”
Freedictonary.com explains its derivation by saying “Old English astre, after a Germanic goddess Eostre; related to Old High German star n Easter, Old Norse austr to the east, Old Slavonic ustru like summer.”
And my trusty, 10 pound, Random House Dictionary says that “Easter comes from ME ester, OE eastre; G Ostern; Name of a goddess and her festival; akin to East.”
With the common translation of “pascha.” being “Passover,”
and with the etymology of “Easter” to relate to Istar, then perhaps we SHOULD retranslate the word.
But before we do that, we need to spend a few minutes looking a little more closely at the word of God.
Turn to Exodus 12 where we are introduced to the Passover followed by Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Verse 12 – “For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.
And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.
Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.
And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.
And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever.
In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.”
These instructions and the dates are repeated in Numbers 28 and Deuteronomy 16.
Then we see Israel following those dates in II Chronicles 8 and again in chapter 30.
The Passover took place on the 14th of Nisan, and it was followed by the seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread, ending on the 21st of Nisan.
Now lets return to Acts 12.
“Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church.
And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.)
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 to bring him forth to the people.”
That means that he was taken AFTER the Passover.
If we take the word of God literally here then “Easter” could not mean “the day of the Passover” because that had already come and gone.
In this interpretation “Easter” was an entirely different day than “Passover.”
But a major problem remains – and there is also a possible explanation which might do away with this idea.
First, the word “pascha” is still translated “Passover” everywhere but here – that is a problem.
And the possible explanation is that the word “Passover” had possibly come to refer to the week which followed the Passover – “the Feast of Unleavened Bread.”
However there is no Biblical precedent to say that, and even today, we don’t talk about either the Passover or Easter as anything more than a single day.
So to reiterate – this explanation of “Easter” is that Herod was referring to the pagan festival which had come out of Babylon centuries before, and it fits perfectly into the context, despite the fact that “pascha” is the Greek word.
The first argument for this idea is that twice the Book of John puts an interesting adjective before “Passover.”
John 2:13 – “After this (Jesus) went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days. And the JEWS’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.”
Is there special significance to John’s reference to “the JEWS” passover?”
He does it again in John 11:55 – “And the Jews’ passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves.”
John never uses the word “Passover” without the adjective “the JEWS’ Passover.”
A part of this argument is that by the time John wrote his gospel, there was another Passover besides the Jews’ Passover.
A part of this argument is that very early on in Christian history, the day of Christ’s resurrection had become the Christian Passover.
And further, it had become known as “Easter.”
To bolster this argument there are lots of references to early Christian authors.
It is argued that from almost the first century, the day of Christ’s resurrection is called both “Passover” and “Easter.”
For example, it is pointed out that the historian Eusebius speaks of the Saviour’s “pascha” in contrast to the Jews’ “pascha.”
I reply that although Eusebius is interesting, he is hardly a good judge when it comes to theology.
It doesn’t matter how quickly “Easter” became a common term in the rapidly decaying world of Christendom.
There is nothing in the Bible which hints that Acts 12 is talking about the “Christian’s Easter.”
I have no trouble with the word “Easter” being in the Bible.
I don’t want to remove it or to change it to “Passover.”
Because of the reference to the seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread, I think that it probably refers to the pagan celebration of Ishtar.