Tim,
Thanks for bringing this up. After hearing Dr. Matthew McMahon’s,
Easter: The Devil's holiday, with his use of Alexander Hislop’s book,
The Two Babylons; Or The Papal Worship: Proved To Be The Worship Of Nimrod and His Wife (Lorizeaux Brothers, 1990), to support his thesis, I wanted to study a little and write on this.
First of all, Ralph Woodrow, who wrote,
Babylon Mystery Religion, influenced deeply by Hislop’s book, later retracted his view (and pulled his book off the market) after realizing Hislop badly erred. He then wrote a review (here in PDF),
“THE TWO BABYLONS: A Case Study in Poor Methodology”, published in
Christian Research Journal, 1999 Volume: 22 Number: 2.
Second, Will Kinney published a brief essay,
“Is the word ‘Easter’ an error in the King James Bible?” I think this makes sense. I myself, in the past, have refused to term our celebration of the Resurrection “Easter” due to thinking it derived from Ishtar. But no longer. Check out Kinney’s point of view.
Of course, the pagan fertility symbols of eggs and rabbits
are carry-overs from ancient fertility rites and
do represent corruption in the church. But this has nothing to do with pure Easter. As a Jew, I do not like ungodly accretions to the Gospel and to the biblical Faith, be they rabbinic or pagan; as a poet and word-smith I like language that is spare and potent, and keep a sharp eye on linguistic corruptions in my native tongue (English); on either count I am not offended by the word Easter.