EASTER?
A Moment Nugget No,23 By Ray Knight (April 9th.2009)
"A NOT SO 'GOOD-FRIDAY' ... BUT CERTAINLY A GOOD ACHIEVEMENT!
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us (1 Cor.5:7). Passover Day (6 pm to 6 pm) was the 14th.Abib and like a birthday fell on Wednesday of ‘Holy Week’. It was referred to as THE DAY OF PREPARATION (Mark 15:42). Preparing for the 7-day Feast of Unleavened Bread which started on Thursday 15th.Abib (Lev.23:5-7) and the first day was a ‘special sabbath’ with no work allowed. So Jesus died around 3 pm, Joseph of Arimathaea had to hurry to get permission and to bury the body in his tomb before 6 pm [say, around 5.30 pm) when the special sabbath began. The embalming spices had to be acquired and prepared which was not done quickly. Friday was used for that purpose. Then it was too late to do the embalming for at 6 pm the weekly sabbath (Saturday) had began. 6 pm that same day it was dark so ‘they’ rose very early on the Sunday to go and attend to the embalming. Jesus had to be in the tomb (grave) like the Jonah pattern 3 days and 3 nights (72 hours). Thus He rose from the dead around 5.30 pm on the Saturday but His rising from the dead wasn’t discovered until very early on Sunday morning. So 3 full days only ‘works’ from Passover Day, Wednesday evening thus fulfilling Daniel 9:24 declaring that Messiah would be cut off in the midst of the week. Mat.28:1 should read, At the end of the sabbaths ... for there were two sabbaths in that week. No big deal! Just celebrate His marvelous provision with overflowing thankfulness."
and...
Excerpt from J. Preston Eby's "Just What Do You Mean...ETERNITY?
"It is interesting to note that the word "Easter" appears one time in the King James version in Acts 12:4. "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 to bring him forth to the people." Here Easter is translated from the Greek PASCHA which appears twenty-eight other places in the New Testament, and in all of those instances is translated "Passover." The Greek PASCHA comes from the Hebrew PASACH which means to pass, to leap, or skip over. We see from this that the English word "Passover" is the correct meaning of the original. How then did the translators of the King James version come up with Easter? Easter, according to Webster's New World Dictionary, is from "Eastre," the ancient Anglo Saxon GODDESS OF THE DAWN - her festival being in the spring of the year. And "Eastre" is the Anglo Saxon form of the Babylonian goddess "Ishtar" the pagan Queen of Heaven! Hundreds of years after Christ the Romish Church, as a compromise with the pagan converts, adopted the pagan rites and customs associated with the worship of Ishtar into the Church as a celebration of the resurrection of Christ - and called that celebration EASTER! Naturally, Easter is celebrated at approximately the same time as ancient Israel celebrated their Passover. But the point is - because of deeply entrenched apostate religious practice, the translators of the King James Bible mis-translated the Scripture according to CHURCH TRADITION instead of TRUTH! We must never forget that the King James version was translated under the auspices of a STATE CHURCH, which Church was even at that time persecuting, torturing and martyring humble followers of Jesus who dared to resist and denounce its apostasy and shame.
"It lets in light on the attitude of the translators of King James' Bible to know, as stated in the Bible helps of Bagster's edition, that King James instructed the men who gave us our Authorized Version, "To sanction no innovation that would disturb the orthodoxy or peace of the Church." It is said that, "The translators were careful in the main to respect the rules laid down by the king." What a vast difference it would have made in our thinking today had these translators followed consistently and accurately the Hebrew and Greek texts, instead of conforming to the heresies of the mother of harlots!"