From goddesses and rabbits to theology and ‘Superstar’

What’s Easter about? In some ways, the answer is pretty simple: Jesus Christ, and Christians’ belief that He rose from the dead.

In other ways, though, the springtime holiday is far from straightforward. How did rabbits get involved? Where did the name ‘Easter’ come from – and why is the English word different from the way many other cultures refer to the holy day? Even theologically, exactly what the Resurrection means is not universally agreed upon.

Here, The Conversation’s Religion and Ethics Editor Molly Jackson, shares four articles that delve into Easter’s history, its significance – and what a rock ‘n’ roll Broadway show has to do with it.

1. PICKING THE DATE

First things first: Easter is what’s called a “movable feast”, a holiday whose exact date changes year to year. In the Northern Hemisphere, it falls soon after the spring equinox, as the world comes back into bloom – a fitting time to celebrate rebirth.

But Easter’s dating “goes back to the complicated origins of this holiday and how it has evolved over the centuries”, wrote Brent Landau, a religious studies scholar at the University of Texas at Austin. Similar to Christmas and Halloween celebrations today, Easter blends together elements from Christian and non-Christian traditions.

The name “Easter” itself seems linked to a pre-Christian goddess named Eostre. In what is now England, she was celebrated in springtime. And, in fact, in most languages, the word for the holiday is related to Passover, since the Gospels say Jesus travelled to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish festival in the days leading up to His crucifixion.

But ‘celebrating’ Easter, per se, wasn’t always in fashion with Christians. For the Puritans, Landau explained, these holidays were regarded as too tainted by merrymaking and un-Christian influences. As 19th-century American culture embraced the idea of childhood as a special time in life, though, not just preparation for adulthood, both Christmas and Easter became popular occasions to spend time with family.

2. HOLY HARES

The Easter bunny’s bio starts long before the 1800s, though. Rabbits’ and hares’ famous fertility has made them symbols of rebirth for thousands of years. Some were ritually buried alongside people during the Neolithic Age, for example.

Of course, that fecundity also makes them symbols of sex, as anyone who’s seen the Playboy logo is aware. “In the Classical Greek tradition, hares were sacred to Aphrodite, the goddess of love,” explained folklorist Tok Thompson, a professor at USC Dornsife. The goddess’s son Eros was also depicted carrying a hare “as a symbol of unquenchable desire”, and even the Virgin Mary is often painted with a rabbit, to symbolise how she overcame desire.

Modern-day Easter bunny traditions stem from folk traditions in Germany and England, and there is evidence that the goddess Eostre’s symbol was the hare as well.

3. VICTORY OVER DEATH

Holy Week, the series of events in Christian churches that lead up to Easter, traces Jesus’ final days before death and resurrection, including Palm Sunday and the Last Supper. Easter Sunday itself is the climax of the story: His triumph over death.

“As a Baptist minister and theologian myself, I believe it is important to understand how Christians, more generally, and Baptists, in particular, hold differing views on the meaning of the Resurrection,” wrote Jason Oliver Evans, a doctoral candidate at the University of Virginia.

Over the centuries, Evans wrote, Christians have had “passionate debates over this central doctrine of Christian faith” and what it means for Jesus’ followers – such as whether His body was literally raised from the dead.

4. SUPERSTAR

There are many ways to share the story of Holy Week – and one of the most controversial ones debuted on Broadway in 1971.

Jesus Christ Superstar, the rock musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, struck some Christians as blasphemous with its modern-day telling of The Passion and “Jesus is cool” ethos. Then there’s the show’s ending, which cuts off after the crucifixion – cutting out the resurrection, and its theological message entirely.

Half a century later, though, ‘Superstar’ raises fewer eyebrows – a reflection of changes in US culture and Christianity, wrote Henry Bial, a theatre professor at the University of Kansas. Maybe that shouldn’t be such a shock. As he pointed out, theatre and drama have always been entwined with Bible stories.