Wait! Did we accidentally worship a Pagan goddess?

I'm sure you've heard that Easter is named after a goddess named Ishtar or the Germanic goddess Eostur and that celebrating Easter is a deception brought into Christian practice that pollutes our worship of Jesus. I used to believe that myself, but here's why I don't anymore. And guess what, the answer is deeply linguistic, so buckle up!

You can find a good amount of this explanation in this video by Wes Huff, but I will connect a few more dots in this post. It would be better to read this explanation BEFORE watching Huff's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q31k28_rdTg

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What does Easter have to do with Ishtar. Literally nothing. The words just sound the same. Huff's video goes into a little more detail, but basically, the word "Easter" only shows up in Germanic languages, and Ishtar is not from Germanic origin, so it's a far cry to assume that ONLY the germanic speaking people adopted a holiday to celebrate a goddess from another language family. The real question is what the word "Easter" has to do with "Eostur," which is a Germanic word and actually IS the origin of the Modern English word "Easter."  

There is a tiny amount of information out there that suggests that Eostur was a Germanic goddess. When I say "tiny" I mean REALLY tiny. Huff's video points out that there's literally only one source that suggests it. Nevertheless, a Google search will turn up tons of AI generated information connecting Eostur to a goddess. That's just how the Internet works these days. 

Whether Eostur was actually a goddess that people worshipped is debatable, and it doesn't really matter. I'll explain why in a second. First, however, let's say what we know for sure. We know that the Old English name for the 4th month of the year was EOSTUROMONATH. Resurrection Sunday typically fell some time in the month of Eosturomonath, so the month became associated with that day. That kind of association a pretty normal thing in languages. 

Another normal thing that happens in languages is that they change over time. Old English (as in the Epic of Gilgamesh) morphed rather rapidly in 1066 AD to what we now call Middle English (as in the Canterbury Tales). The name "Eosturmonath" lost MOST of its meaning between Old and Middle English. The only part of the word that kept its meaning is the last few sounds [mo-nath], which we still use today as the English word "month." Regardless of what "Eostur" meant in Old English, in Middle English it only meant the 4th month. That's why I said earlier that it doesn't really matter whether Eostur was a goddess. If it was back in Old English, it hardly mattered in Middle English because it was just a meaningless cluster of sounds. BUT, language is alive, and languages will alway grow toward meaning. 

After Middle English, the language kept morphing through Early Modern English (as in Shakespeare and the King James Bible), and today, most westerners speak Modern English, and the young people speak Skibidi English. Just kidding--sort of. 

In Modern English, the 4th month of the year is called April, obviously, which comes to us likely from Latin. I haven't looked into it that much, but it's clear that the 4th month is not called "Eosturomonath." It is not hard to see how the Old English word "Eosturmonath" became two Modern English words: "Easter" and "Month." 

Here's Dustin's take on what probably happened to make that final linguistic jump to calling Resurrection Sunday "Easter Sunday"--demons and conspiracy! Just kidding again. 

With the meaning of the word "easter" essentially bleached of it's meaning in the transition from Old English to Modern English, another very normal language phenomenon occurred called "folk etymology," where people begin to redefine words according to what they THINK they mean. A better way to put it is that people redefined the sounds "easter" according to what they FELT LIKE it meant, based on how it was being used. 

Here's what that looks like. When "April" was adopted as the name of the 4th month, people still knew that it had been called "Easter Month." The word "Easter" had no meaning by that point, but people knew that the 4th month was when they celebrated the resurrection. Therefore, people most likely associated "Easter Month" with Resurrection Month, and since languages strive toward meaning and away from meaninglessness, Easter Month began to mean the month in which Easter occurrs.   

After all, the same logic is used when I say "Christmas Month" or "Thanksgiving Month." Everyone understands that I'm referring to the month in which those very important holidays occur. Likewise, even though the day had never been called "Easter" before, people simply felt like April, which used to be called "Easter Month" was the month in which they celebrated "Easter."  

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There's my logic. I'm perfectly comfortable calling Resurrection Sunday "Easter" for the same reason I'm comfortable calling Thursday "Thursday." Technically, "Thursday" means the day dedicated to the pagan God Thor. That would be Thor's Day. Likewise every day of our week is named after a different pagan God. However, worshiping Jesus on Thursday doesn't mean you're accidentally worshipping Thor. Neither does calling resurrection Sunday "Easter Sunday" mean you are accidentally worshipping a pagan God.

Please feel at liberty to say "Happy Easter" without fear. However, be aware that many of our Christian brothers and sisters are still unsure about that word, so if you feel that it would cause someone to stumble, feel free to say Happy Resurrection Day.