LINKING EASTER TO THE WORSHIP OF THE BABYLONIAN GODDESS ISHTAR BASED ON NAIVE WORD-ORIGIN FALLACY

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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.









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