Ronald V. Huggins

Every year someone attempts to claim that Easter is a pagan festival derived from the worship of the Babylonian Goddess Ishtar. Very often the origin is said to derive form the idea that Roman Catholicism is a thinly veiled version of the old Babylonian mystery religion. The idea is an example of a very naive word-origin fallacy. The ancient name of Easter in the Greek and Latin Churches was not Easter but Pascha. This can still be seen in modern languages, all one has to do is check out the various translations of the today's news (Holy Saturday 2019) items on the Vatican website talking about Easter. Here for example is a picture of an item on tonight's Easter Vigil in English, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish (top to bottom left to right), and in French (separate picture). Notice that apart from English, the name for Easter derives from the ancient Latin name.

John E. Remsburg (d.1919) Mythicists often make statements about books that demonstrate they haven't read them.  In his book  Godless , Dan Barker, Christian music man turned Atheist, repeats a passage from another Mythicist about the first-century Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria.  In the process it becomes clear that both he and the author of the quotation lack basic essential knowledge of Philo and his writings:   One of the writers alive during the time of Jesus was Philo-Judaeus (sometimes known as Philo of Alexandria).  John E. Remsburg, in  The Christ , writes: “Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ's miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He