We live in an era of moral debauchery.  Every week we read about prominent leaders in sexual scandals – Anthony Weiner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Of greater concern is what is happening to America’s youth, who seem to have lost their moral compass according to a new book, “Lost in Transition,” by Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith who interviewed 230 adults, aged 18-23.

They were sexually active, as might be expected, but “What’s disheartening is how bad they are at thinking and talking about moral issues,” writes New York Times columnist David Brooks.  “Moral thinking didn’t enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school, or cheating on a partner.”

As one young person put it, “I don’t really deal with right and wrong that often.”  Another: “I would do what I thought made me happy or how I felt.  I have no other way of knowing what to do but how I internally feel.”

This is moral relativism and extreme individualism that’s surprising given the fact that nearly two-thirds of Americans are members of a church and 43% attended weekly in 2010 according to Gallup.

Barna Polls have long detected this trend.  In 2006 Barna reported that young adults were twice as likely to have viewed sexually explicit videos than older Americans, 2.5 times more apt to have had a sexual encounter outside of marriage, and three times as likely to see sexually graphic material online.

Just two years later things were worse. A 2008 poll found that those under age 25, which Barna calls “Mosaics,” are nine times more likely than Baby Boomers to have engaged in sex outside of marriage (38% vs. 4%), six times more likely to have lied, and three times more likely to have gotten drunk.

“We are witnessing the development and acceptance of a new moral code in America,” said George Barna. “Mosaics have had little exposure to traditional moral teaching and limited accountability for such behavior. The moral code began to disintegrate when the generation before them, the Baby Busters – pushed limits that had been challenged by their parents, the Baby Boomers.

“The result is that without much fanfare or visible leadership, the U.S. has created a moral system based on convenience, feelings and selfishness.”

Princeton Professor Robert George agrees, “There has been a massive cultural loss of faith and in the power of reason to grasp or attain moral truth.  There is a loss of trust in institutions and in our ideals.”

Asked how that could happen, given the high percentage of Americans who are active church-goers, he replied, “A lot of churches have reduced theology to a matter of feeling, particularly in liberal churches.  Even conservative churches began moving in the same direction, looking to feeling and emotion as a source of validity for moral judgment.

“Where one’s feelings and emotions have been shaped by a moral tradition that is decent and sound, one will do the right thing. For a while, we were living on the capital of the Judeo-Christian faith with its rigorous moral teaching. But that capital is being depleted, and what substitutes, is a Hollywood cultural ethos, of non-judgmental moral relativism.”

Of course this is particularly true of the youngest generation, who denounce advocates of moral absolutes as “rigid, self-righteous and homophobic.”

What can be done?  Three answers:

First, remember the importance of intact married families and regular church attendance. Children with married parents are twice as likely as those in stepfamilies to go to college. Adolescents attending church regularly complete more years of school, reports Family Research Council’s Patrick Fagan.  Children of broken homes who don’t attend church are six times more apt to repeat a grade than kids with married parents worshipping regularly.

Second, all institutions must do better with youth in “getting them interested in making a difference, in seeing how they can be a gift to the culture,” says Barna President David Kinnaman.  “Young people aspire to make a difference In the world. We have to expose them, show how their skills can be used, push them beyond their narcissism.”

Third, churches must teach that we cannot rely on our emotions, but must recover the teachings of the Judeo-Christian faith.  Robert George warns, “Too many clergy fear giving people meat, and preach against cohabitation, for example. They don’t want people to say, `My daughter is living with a young man, and they are living with integrity.’  They don’t want people to leave their churches.  They must teach counter-culturally, what it means to be disciplined.”

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
_______
Mike McManus is President of Marriage Savers and a syndicated columnist.

Editor’s note: David Crockett, perhaps best known for his role in the 1836 defense of the Alamo, also served three terms in the United States Congress between 1827 and 1835. The following excerpt from an 1884 biography by Edward S. Ellis, The Life of Colonel David Crockett, reveals how his electorate taught him the importance of adhering to the Constitution and the perils of ignoring its restrictions.

Crockett was then the lion of Washington. I was a great admirer of his character, and, having several friends who were intimate with him, I found no difficulty in making his acquaintance. I was fascinated with him, and he seemed to take a fancy to me.

One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when

Mr. Crockett arose:

“Mr. Speaker — I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this house, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

“Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and, if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.

“He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and of course, was lost.

“Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:

“Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made homeless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be one for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

“The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.

“I began: ‘Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and–’

” ‘Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.’

“This was a sockdolager… I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

” ‘Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intended by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest….But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.’

“I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any Constitutional question.

“‘No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings in Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some suffers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?’

“Well, my friend, I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.’

“‘It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any thing and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the suffers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditable; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution. So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch it’s power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you…’

“I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, for the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him: Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I did not have sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.

“He laughingly replied: ‘Yes Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around this district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied that it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and perhaps, I may exert a little influence in that way.’

“If I don’t [said I], I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.

“‘No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute to a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting up on Saturday week… Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.’

“Well, I will be here, but one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name.

” ‘My name is Bunce.’

“Not Horatio Bunce?

” ‘Yes.’

“Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.

“It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

“At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before. Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before. I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him — no, that is not the word — I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times a year; and I will tell you sir, if everyone who professes to be a Christian, lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

“But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted — at least, they all knew me. In due time, notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

“Fellow-citizens — I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.

“I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

“And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.

“It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.

“He came upon the stand and said: ” ‘Fellow-citizens — It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.’

“He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.

“I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the reputation I have ever made, or shall ever make, as a member of Congress.

“Now, sir,” concluded Crockett, “you know why I made that speech yesterday. There is one thing now to which I wish to call to your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week’s pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men — men who think nothing of spending a week’s pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased — a debt which could not be paid by money — and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificance a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.”

David Crockett was born August 17, 1786 at Limestone (Greene County), Tennessee. He died March 06, 1836 as one of the brave Southerners defending the Alamo.

Editor’s note: Crockett had settled in Franklin County, Tennessee in 1811. He served in the Creek War under Andrew Jackson. In 1821 and 1823 he was elected to the Tennessee legislature. In 1826 and 1828 he was elected to Congress. He was defeated in 1830 for his outspoken opposition to President Jackson’s Indian Bill – but was elected again in 1832.

In Washington, although his eccentricities of dress and manner excited comment, he was always popular on account of his shrewd common sense and homely wit; although generally favoring Jackson’s policy, he was entirely independent and refused to vote to please any party leader.

At the end of the congressional term, he joined the Texans in the war against Mexico, and in 1836 was one of the roughly 180 men who died defending the Alamo. Tradition has it that Crockett was one of only six survivors after the Mexicans took the fort, and that he and the others were taken out and executed by firing squad.

Abolition of the family! … The bourgeois family will disappear, in the course [of history] as its supplement [private property] disappears, and both will vanish with the destruction of capital.
The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels.

On June 25, 2011, MSNBC and the other undereducated, misinformed and politicized news media proclaimed, “N.Y. becomes sixth and largest state to legalize gay marriage.” Of course, this is the same group of fellow travelers and useful idiots who mis-apply the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution to the respective States, “”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” to deny Christians and soon Jews the freedom of worship, when the clause plainly recognizes the inalienable freedom of worship.

Either of these distortions of real Truth is more of the same Marxist double speak. The N.Y. State government has no authority to legalize homosexual marriage, whether the government was conscious of the Marxist thrust of their illegal actions or just useful idiots in the advance of Marx’s goal to destroy the family.

Pages could be, have been and should be written about the progressive Marxist destruction of the American Constitutional Republic; and, pages could be, have been and should be written about the destructive nature of the homosexualization of the culture. With regard to the illegal action of the NY State government, it is more important to understand clearly that the civil government has no authority in area of the free exercise of religion such as marriage. If it has no authority and tries to exercise power not vested to it, then the state is acting illegally.

So that you don’t buy the lie! This article focuses on the fact that intentionally or not, too many in the press, the mass media, the government, and the education establishment have confused the citizens of America about the institution of marriage.

First of all, as many of our readers already know, there are many forms of government. In our western democracy, there are at least four spheres of government: individual government, family government, ecclesiastical government, and civil government. In the United States of America, the civil government owes its existence to the consent of the governed, not the other way around, in the tradition of the Magna Carte. Furthermore, since the Rev. Samuel Rutherford wrote LEX, REX, which clarified the rule of law posited by the Magna Carte, all of these forms of government have been under God’s Law in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. When king or ruler is above the law, he often acts in imperious and dictatorial ways, for the very nature of power is to corrupt the powerful, unless it is restrained by God’s Law. In essence, God’s Law says to love your neighbor as yourself, and the civil government is subject to that divine law.

Thus, the Declaration of Independence made it clear that King George III acted illegally when he oppressed the American colonies, because he was under the Law of God. Countries that allowed men to rule above the law have produced tyrants such as Stalin, Hitler and Mao Tse Tung. Current examples include Mugabwe, Chavez and the military junta in Burma, among many others.

It must be emphasized that marriage between one man and one woman is a God ordained, God defined, biblical act. For 1800 years in western countries, marriage was a unique institution, initiated by God when he created the male and female, presided over by Jesus Christ when he blessed the act of marriage and stated that a man and a woman would leave their parents and join together to become one flesh, and sustained by the Holy Spirit who not only holds the marriage together but also produces the offspring that God creates.

The norm in most other religions is not monogamy, although many have borrowed the form of a Christian wedding. Moreover, the state’s involvement in Christian marriage is relatively recent.

In 1837, the Rev. Henry Morris complained that the state had usurped the authority of God in marriage. Norris railed against the passage of a law on marriage by providing a detailed look at the institution of marriage. He painstakingly exegeted the scriptures in establishing his point that marriage is most importantly a religious institution, and therefore it should not be relegated to a strictly civil character:

“They took from the Clergy ‘the solemnizing of Matrimony, and put it into the hands of Justices of the Peace. . . .’ In the former instance of this desecration being ordained, the power to legislate had been seized by those who would be restrained in nothing that they imagined to do; and, in a day specified in their ordinance, ‘no other marriage whatsoever within the Commonwealth,’ but such as should be contracted. . . before a Justice of the Peace, ‘should be held or accounted a marriage according to the law of England.’ But the national principle is not yet sufficiently prostrated to make us again ripe for so arbitrary and irreligious an imposition, and therefore, by the law just come in force, you are left to form your own judgments, whether marriage is a mere civil contract, or a Divine institution ‘whether it shall be celebrated with or without any offices of religion’ whether the Church, the Conventicle, or the Register-office, shall be the place of celebration and whether the Clergyman of the Parish, the Dissenting Teacher, or the superintendent Registrar, shall officiate on the occasion.”

The Rev. Norris adds that the biblical position is that only God ordains marriage. So, in the light of history and God’s Word written, the judges in Massachusetts, California or any other state or federal court have nothing to say about Christian marriage and have no authority to define, ordain or desecrate it.

The Rev. Norris brilliantly continues in his sermon:

“by the “state of matrimony the spiritual marriage that is betwixt Christ and His Church is signified and represented. . . .”

“But that ‘the fruitful vine’. . . is not procurable by a civil contract, it cometh only of the Lord.”

His reasoning is impeccable, but many have forgotten that marriage belongs to the church. In fact, a few are very uncomfortable with that concept because of the abuse of power by some ecclesiastical authorities. Two wrongs don’t make a right, however. And they certainly don’t make a civil right to same-sex “marriage.”

With regard to the abuse of power, it must be noted that civil government is good, although there can be bad presidents, governors, judges, and other authorities. Family government is good, although there can be bad fathers and mothers. Ecclesiastical government is good, though there can be bad clergymen. The rules and the laws of the exception do not make the rule. In other words, a bad father does not give us the license to call for the abolishment of fatherhood, etc. What it does do is to give us the opportunity for checks and balances, which until recently were most perfectly expressed in our constitutional government.

The church has to reclaim marriage as its unique institution. Whatever anyone wants to do outside of the church may be their business, but it is not sanctioned by God’s Law. The state has the right to regulate only what the Constitution allows it to regulate, because there is no liberty for license. But, the state does not have the right to tell the church that any couple outside of the faith is married.

We need to stand for God’s Law in the face of the power grab by those in civil authority, who know no restraints.

New York and the other increasingly socialized states have not only violated God’s Law, they have also violated their own constitution and the will of the governed. When they do that, they are just like King George. They have abdicated their moral and legal authority and are subject to indictment, trial and just punishment.

Now, all those who freely exercise their inalienable right to religious faith, must stop acting like useful idiots and fellow travelers by going along to get along, and instead stand for your God-given rights by proclaiming loud and clear that these NY government servants have crossed the line into illegal activity that as no authority and makes them criminals.

Often, the people of faith and values do not stand up because they have been slowly boiled in the brine of socialism and so give the states powers they have no authority to use. Often the state or federal government creates the problem by violating our individual right to property, estates, income, etc through the Marxist device of illicit taxation, and then argues from the problem the state created that the state needs to govern marriage to alleviate the tax burdens the state created so that the state can encourage marriage. Such circular and dishonest reasoning has almost deceived the very electorate.

Now, the people of have and values must throw off the stupor of Marxist double speak and return to the basic principles that made them free to live at peace in the American Republic that recognizes “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The power to tax is the power to destroy. Do not let it destroy godly marriage and families!

Oh brother, it happened again.
Another false prophet—dare I say that?—predicted exactly when Christ was supposedly coming again, even though Jesus Himself said that no man knows the hour of His return, including Himself.
From the early days of the Church to the present day, hundreds of millions of Christians have affirmed, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”
But now a modern group tried to fear people into thinking they know when Jesus is coming. May 21, 2011 was the day, supposedly, of Christ’s “secret” rapture.
The latest prophets of doom managed to get their message out in an expensive series of billboards and bus ads. In my humble opinion: What a waste of money and what a mockery they made of people’s faith. (If the message said simply Judgment Day is coming—get ready to meet your Maker, then I would whole-heartedly endorse that message. It’s the specific date that was the problem.)
Before the event, I said this: “Do I think Judgment Day is coming on May 21? Well, let’s talk it over, on May 22!”
Since the return of Christ didn’t happen May 21, these people have changed the date to October 21, 2011.
Who are “these people”?
The main leader is Harold Camping, who has a network of Christian radio stations. You would think he would be gun shy about setting a date for Christ’s return.
He wrote a book about it, predicting that 1994 would be the year. I own a copy of his book explaining the details. It’s called 1994.
Another man predicted that Jesus would return in 1988, and he listed 88 reasons for it.
But you can always tell that such predictions are wrong. Why? Because they are specific.
With all due respect, how do I know that these people are always wrong? The fact that they’re setting a date in the first place violates what Jesus said.

In Matthew’s Gospel, He said about His return: “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man” (24:36-37).
I’m tempted to say to these people who give a specific date—like May 21, 2011—What part of “no” as in “no man knows the hour” don’t you understand?
I even read one such prophet who essentially said—with a straight face: Christ didn’t tell us the day or the hour of His return, but that doesn’t mean we can’t know the year, the month, or the week!
It’s tragic to me that the watching world looks at such predictions that come and go and just laugh, justifiably so, at those who think Christ will return one day.
I am as sure of the return of Jesus Christ to planet earth some day, as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow.
But I have no idea when, nor will I engage in speculation based on “jigsaw theology.”
Jigsaw theology is when you cobble a Bible verse over here with a Bible verse over there to create some sort of timeline for the Second Coming.
The group that has made the May 21, 2011 prediction says this: “The Bible has opened up its secrets concerning the timeline of history. This information was never previously known because God had closed up His Word blocking any attempt to gain knowledge of the end of the world.”
But now they knew, supposedly.
A friend of mine noted this is like modern day Gnosticism.
The Gnostics were an early Church heresy that got the basics of the faith wrong. They claimed that the way of salvation was not Christ crucified, for sinners died and raised from the dead, but rather some sort of secret knowledge.
People have been wrong often throughout Church history as to the return of Christ.
Many were convinced that Jesus would come in AD 1000, so they sold everything and went to Rome and waited. And waited.
Others sold everything they had and waited for Christ to return in America in the 1840s. And waited. The Seventh Day Adventist denomination was born out of that experience.
When Hitler was alive, some people thought he was the Anti-Christ. Can you blame them? But they were wrong.
Through the ages, even otherwise-wise servants of Christ have made the mistake of predicting a specific date of the end of the world. Included in this category are Christopher Columbus, Sir Isaac Newton, and Cotton Mather.
How come we keep repeating this same mistake? I’m reminded of the little poem by British poet Steve Turner: “History repeats itself. It has to. No one is listening.”

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Jerry Newcombe is the senior producer and host of The Coral Ridge Hour. He has also written or co-written 21 books, including The Book That Made America: How the Bible Formed Our Nation. Jerry co-wrote (with Dr. Peter Lillback) the bestselling, George Washington’s Sacred Fire. He hosts the website www.jerrynewcombe.com. Jerry wrote a book, now out of print, called Coming Again, but When? (Cook, 1999). Used copies of this book are likely available on-line for a nominal fee.

From Dr. Peter Hammond, Frontier Fellowship

We need to recognise that there is a colossal conflict raging worldwide for hearts, minds and souls. The battlegrounds in which this world war of worldviews is being fought are in the schools, colleges, on the airwaves and in the media.

Capture the Culture
Humanism is seeking to capture the culture by waging a war against the Word of God, seeking to abort God retroactively through evolutionism. Humanism seeks to kill God in the minds of children through secular humanist education, occultic books and films (such as Harry Potter, The Golden Compass and Twilight). The entertainment industry has been so subverted as to glamourise evil, popularise profanity and celebrate ugliness.

Rewriting History
Karl Marx declared that “the first battlefield is the re-writing of history.” By twisting perceptions Marxists hope to steal our children and hijack our country.

A Battle For the Mind
In the Battle For the Mind, classrooms and cinemas are battlefields. Education is a battleground. The teachers and textbooks often promote evolutionism, situation ethics, sex education and “values clarification”.

Views Not News
In all too many sections of the news media reality is being rearranged by a selective focus. Rather than news, we are more often receiving humanist views and propaganda. Even the very definition of marriage itself is under attack with pressures for same-sex “marriages”. The very foundations of our Faith and freedoms – civilization itself is under attack.

War Against God
At its heart this is a war against God and against His Word – The Bible. The question of Who is God? and How Trustworthy is the Bible? are foundational in this world war of worldviews. “Test all things; hold fast to what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22

Aborting God
The theory of evolution, as so often propagated by films, and many children’s books and in state school textbooks, is an attempt to abort God retroactively. Evolution destroys all meaning, purpose, direction, justice and hope in life. “You came from nothing. You are going nowhere. Life is meaningless!”

The Bible says: “The fool says in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.” Psalm 14:1

The Battle for Truth
Secular humanist education attempts to kill God by eradicating Him from the classroom and from the minds of the next generation. By eliminating the Bible as the basis for all knowledge, Humanists remove the very foundation of truth. They prohibit the only objective standard by which reality can be evaluated.

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world, rather than on Christ.” Colossians 2:8

Wide Gates to Hell
Dr. Martin Luther warned: “I am much afraid that schools will prove to be wide gates to hell, unless they diligently labour in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of the youth. I would advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not constantly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt.”

“Since they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, He gave them over to a depraved mind …” Romans 1:28

Ideas Have Consequences
What we see influences what we think. What we think influences what we become, and what we do. Ideas have consequences. Actions flow from thought patterns.

What form of education is moulding your children’s thought patterns?

What entertainment and news media is filling your mind?

“Be very careful then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” Ephesians 5:15-16

What, Why and How
In this world war of worldviews, we need to know what we believe and why we believe it. We need to know how to defend it in argument. We need to know the Word of God and we need to know the God of the Word. We need to know God and we need to make Him known. We need to guard our hearts and our minds and need to understand the times and know what God’s people should do.

Creation Evangelism
In this culture war, it is vital that we understand the war between creation and evolution. Science textbooks and museums are a most strategic battleground in the world war of worldviews. Real science confirms what the Bible teaches. We need to expose the unscientific fairy tale of evolutionism.

Salt and Light
We are called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We need to preserve what is good, expose what is false, and create a thirst for the living waters of Christ. All the darkness cannot put out the smallest light.

The Great Commission
We are commanded to make disciples of all nations, teaching obedience to all things that the Lord has commanded. We must evangelise or fossilize. The last command of Christ must be our first concern. The Great Commission must be our supreme ambition. Give up your small ambitions and follow Christ.

Confront the Culture
If you are serious about missions and share our commitment to confront the culture with the claims of Christ, to win the world war of worldviews, by understanding the Biblical Worldview and how to apply the Lordship of Christ to all areas of life, then join us for the upcoming Biblical Worldview Summit (24 June – 1 July 2011) at Rocklands Conference Centre, in Simonstown.

Reclaim the Nations for Christ
Christian civilisation is under attack. Eternal destinys are at stake. The needs are urgent and desperate. The opportunities are incredible. We need to demolish the false arguments of evolutionism and secular humanism on streets, in classrooms and in parliament. We need to minister to principals and presidents, fighting for Faith and freedom, providing Christian Libraries for schools and Bibles for Africa.

Be Brave and Bold for Christ
Our vision is the fulfillment of the Great Commission. We scorn threats and treachery, and we refuse to allow disappointments and dangers to distract us. We are dedicated to transforming communities by changing lives. If you want to transform the nations for Christ, then join us for our upcoming Biblical Worldview Summit.

Visit www.frontline.org.za for more details.

May God find us faithful to His Word and effective in His service.

“And declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the Resurrection from the dead.” Romans 1:4

The bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is tremendously important. Death is man’s greatest enemy, and it has conquered all men – but Christ. Cities and nations, like people, are born and grow for a season, and then fade away. Homes, clothes, even vehicles, wear out and eventually go back to dust, just as do their owners. The Bible describes this universal reign of decay and death as “the bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:21). In science it is recognised as the Second Law of Thermodynamics – the Law of Increasing Entropy. Left to themselves, every system tends to become disordered, to run down and eventually die. All the founders of great religions and movements have died and you can visit their graves. Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, Marx, and Lenin. They are all dead and decayed in the grave. But Jesus Christ is alive!

So, what difference does that make? You may ask. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is vitally important because it demonstrates Christ’s victory over death, it gives hope to all mankind, it shows that eternal life is available to believers, it points to the ultimate triumph of God over all evil, and it provides an indisputable proof that the message about Jesus Christ, as both Judge and Saviour, is true. “Because He has appointed a Day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man Whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” Acts 17:31

The Research of Skeptics
The Resurrection is so important and foundational to Christianity that it has been targeted for the most relentless attacks. Frank Morison, a lawyer, determined to disprove the Resurrection and thereby undermine Christianity. The result of his exhaustive investigations was his conversion to Christ and the publication of his book: “Who Moved the Stone?” which decisively demonstrates the overwhelming evidence for the Resurrection.

A skeptical university lecturer, Josh McDowell, determined to disprove Christianity by investigating evidence against the Resurrection. The result was his conversion to Christ and publication of the monumental: “Evidence That Demands a Verdict” which exhaustively and conclusively presents documentation and evidence upon evidence substantiating the historical truth, factual accuracy, archeological evidence, manuscript evidence, fulfilled prophecies, transformed lives, and other indisputable evidences which support the fact of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead and the truth claims of Christianity.

Thomas Arnold, Professor of History at Oxford University, one of the greatest historians of the 19th Century wrote: “I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better, fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair enquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose from the dead.”

Simon Greenleaf, recognised as one of the most skilled legal minds ever produced, developed the Harvard Law School. He is recognised as the top authority on what constitutes sound evidence. Simon Greenleaf made a thorough and exhaustive examination of the objective evidence and the testimony of the four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In his book: “The Testimony of the Evangelists” (Baker, 1874) he concluded: “It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact.”

Simon Greenleaf declared that any court of law, if presented with the evidence of the Resurrection, would have to give a verdict in favour of the integrity and accuracy of the Gospel writers and the fact of the Resurrection.

One of the most popular books ever written, and most successful films ever produced, Ben Hur, was a result of a skeptical challenge to General Lew Wallace to the authenticity of Christ’s Resurrection, and a careful examination of the evidence.

What are the facts? The religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, who had campaigned and conspired to have Christ arrested and executed on trumped up charges, had a compelling interest in disproving any claims of the Resurrection. They had presumed that the execution of Jesus would eliminate this threat to their religious power base and silence His supporters. These Jewish religious leaders had great concerns about the corpse of Jesus and they approached the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, for a military detachment to secure the tomb (Matthew 28:62-64).

The Roman governor’s priority in the volatile province of Palestine was to preserve peace and stability. He recognised the political problems that would ensue if anything happened to this religious Teacher whom he had three times declared innocent, and ultimately washed his hands in front of the crowd declaring, “I’m innocent of this Man’s blood” (Matthew 27:24). His wife had warned him: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of Him.” (Matthew 27:19)

Pilate was only too aware that a travesty of justice had taken place, and the last thing he needed was a review of his shameful conduct and dereliction of duty in this case. Ensuring that the victim’s corpse remained buried was definitely in Pilate’s political interests as well. “‘Take a guard’, Pilate answered. ‘Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how’. So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.” Matthew 27:65

The Roman Guard
As the chief priests had approached the Roman governor, and as the Greek word Koustodia is used to describe the detachment of soldiers, it was evidently a Roman guard. If only a temple guard had been used, there would have been no need to approach Pilate to issue the order. Additionally the concern of the guards after the Resurrection to be protected from consequences from the governor (Matthew 28:14) confirms that those guarding the tomb were Roman soldiers. The detachment would have consisted of at least sixteen soldiers with four men placed directly in front of the entrance of the tomb, on duty, at any time. Under Roman military law any guard who deserted his post, or who fell asleep on duty, would face crucifixion. Typically, if Roman soldiers allowed a prisoner to escape they would face the same sentence as the prisoner – in this case crucifixion.

The seal placed on the stone at the entrance to the tomb signified the administrative authority, and only an authorised officer of Rome would be permitted to break the seal. Anyone breaking a Roman seal without permission would be tracked down and executed.

Although the intention of the religious and political leaders had been to ensure that the phenomenon of Jesus ended at the tomb, their extraordinary security measures have only served to confirm the truth that they had murdered an innocent Man and that Jesus Christ was truly the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, “the firstborn from the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth… the One Who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forever more.” Revelation 1:5, 18

Christ’s Victory Over Death
“Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. But the angel answered and said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, Who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold I have told you’. So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word. And as they went to tell His disciples, behold Jesus met them, saying ‘Rejoice!’ so they came and held Him by the feet and worshipped Him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.’” Matthew 28:1-10

Attempts to Avoid the Truth of the Resurrection
To explain away the empty tomb, the enemies of the Gospel have had to resort to some desperate deceptions. The first was to suggest that the disciples had stolen the body. This incredible theory suggests that those same disciples who had slept in the garden, fled at His arrest, denied Him before a young woman, were hiding in fear behind locked doors, could have unitedly overcome sixteen professional Roman soldiers, dared to break a Roman seal, moved a two tonne tomb stone, just to steal a corpse! A dead Messiah would have served absolutely no purpose for the disciples. What possible motivation could they have had, even had they possessed the ability to overcome the military, political and logistical obstacles? They had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Everyone of the disciples suffered severe persecution, most dying as martyrs for the Faith. Would you die for a lie?

Did Jesus Really Die?
Others have questioned whether Christ had really died on the cross. Perhaps He only fainted? This swoon theory would have us believe that the Roman soldiers, who were professional killers, (the centurion in charge, would most probably have supervised dozens if not hundreds of executions), had failed to ensure that this high profile political prisoner was not actually dead. Considering the vicious flogging which the Lord had already endured, the excruciating torture of crucifixion, and the spear thrust into His side, with blood and water flowing out, all provide convincing evidence of death.

Yet, those advocating the swoon theory would have us believe that One Who had endured such savage flogging, crucifixion, and a spear thrust to the heart, could not only have survived the legendary Roman military efficiency, but that He was revived on a cold slab in a cold tomb. Further that He somehow disengaged from the grave clothes, and one hundred pounds of spices, ointments and wrappings which had effectively mummified Him, rolled away the two tonne stone, overpowered, or eluded, the Roman soldiers, and somehow found and impressed the disciples with His Deity? These suggestions have only to be mentioned in order to be dismissed as unbelievable.

The Empty Tomb
Another desperate attempt to explain away the Resurrection of Christ has been that they went to the wrong tomb. All of them. Mary Magdalene, Peter, John, the other women, all went to the wrong tomb. And somehow neither the Pharisees, nor the Sadducees, nor the Roman soldiers, nor Joseph of Arimathea, whose tomb it was, thought to point out that the tomb was in fact still occupied! However, this theory is also impossible, as the tomb was not in a cemetery, but in a garden privately owned by Joseph of Arimathea. There was no other tomb in that garden.

The Absence of the Body
And all that the Roman and Jewish leaders had to do in order to end Christianity forever was produce the corpse of Jesus. But they couldn’t do it. Even when the Apostle Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost and proclaimed: “Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Acts 2:36. “And with great power the apostles gave witness to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” Acts 4:33. And many thousands in Jerusalem, including many Pharisees, came to faith in Jesus Christ.

The Crisis of Credibility
To the Jewish religious leaders, this was their worst nightmare, a disaster. The proclamation of the Resurrection of Christ undermined their power and credibility. Thousands of their followers now believed that they had condemned an innocent Man, the Messiah Himself. The new religion of Christianity was undermining the power base and credibility of the Pharisees and Sadducees. If the body of Jesus could have been found, Christianity could be stopped dead in its tracks and the threat to the religious status quo would have ended. Since they desperately needed Jesus’ corpse, the Jewish leaders would have used every means at their disposal to hunt it down and find it – if that was possible.

The Testimony of Eye Witnesses
However, we are not only dealing with the empty tomb, and the absence of the body, but the testimony of eyewitnesses. On at least twelve separate occasions Jesus Christ was seen after rising from the tomb. Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18; Mark 16:9); the other women (Matthew 28:8-10); Peter (Luke 24:34); the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35); ten of the disciples (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-24); all eleven disciples, eight days later (John 20:24-29); seven disciples by the Sea of Tiberius (John 21:1-23); to five hundred at one time (1 Corinthians 15:6); to James (1 Corinthians 15:7); to all eleven apostles, and others, at the Ascension (Acts 1:3-12); Paul (Acts 9:3-8); and John (Revelation 1:12-18), all saw the Lord bodily raised from the dead.

To explain away the testimony of all these eyewitnesses, enemies of Christianity suggest that these were merely hallucinations, perhaps as a result of hypnosis or hysteria. However, while hallucinations tend to be unique psychological experiences of an individual, we are here dealing with a large number of individuals, who at different times, in different groups, in different places, both indoors and outdoors, on a hilltop, along a roadside, by a lake shore, all saw the Lord. They saw Him, they ate with Him, they saw the wounds in His hands and in His side.

And far from being gullible, it would appear that His disciples were very skeptical and slow to believe. Thomas declared that he would not believe that Christ had risen unless he personally placed his fingers in the nail prints in His hands and feet and his hand in the wound in His side.

The Transformation of the Disciples
Not only do we have the testimony of the eyewitnesses, but the dramatic transformation of the disciples. The Resurrection of Christ from the dead transformed the disciples’ grief to joy, their cowardice to boldness, their skepticism to faith and their doubt to determination. It turned Saul, the persecutor of the church into Paul the apostle of the church.

It also transformed society and history. It changed the Jewish Sabbath into the Christian Lord’s Day. What else could explain the replacement of Saturday as the Jewish day of rest into Sunday as the Christian Lord’s Day? The Resurrection transformed a Jewish remnant into the worldwide Christian Church. Over 2-Billion people worldwide describe themselves as Christians who believe in the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. The very existence of the largest religious movement in the history of the world is another powerful evidence of the truth of the Resurrection.

Jesus Himself had prophesied His Resurrection from the dead. And because of His fulfillment of this, we can be absolutely certain that Jesus Christ is God with us, as He claimed. By His Resurrection we can know that our sins are forgiven through His blood sacrificed on the cross of Calvary: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that Whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:14-16

Because of Christ’s death on the cross we can rejoice that our sins are paid for – we are forgiven, justified by faith.
Because of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead we can rejoice in the prospect of eternal life.
Because of Christ’s Ascension we can know that He has all authority and that His Great Commission will be accomplished on earth.
Because of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost we do not need to trust in our own abilities, but in His power alone. “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord.”

William Sangster – the church leader and hymn writer – suffered from increasing paralysis which finally prevented him from even being able to talk. On his last Easter before he died, he wrote: “How terrible to wake up on Easter and have no voice to shout, ‘HE IS RISEN’, far worse, to have a voice and not to want to shout!”

We serve a risen Saviour! Death is defeated. Christ has risen – victorious over death, hell, satan and the grave.

Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in Christ, though he may die, yet shall he live (John 11:25).

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3

Dr. Peter Hammond
Frontline Fellowship
P O Box 74 Newlands 7725
Cape Town South Africa
Tel: 021-689-4480
Email: admin@frontline.org.za
Website: www.frontline.org.za

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By Nick Sayers

ACTS 12:3-4
King James Version — And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) 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.

New King James Version — So when he had arrested him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover.
The dominant strength of English
English has risen to become the dominant world language. Because most Christianised nations use English as their chief means of communication, for English-speaking believers, it is crucial to understand the history of our language accurately ourselves, before presenting vaguely constructed etymologies, particularly when expounding the words in the Bible. Many cults, which prefer old wives’ tales over the word of God, despise the very word Easter believing it to be a Christianised pagan festival of the spring goddess Ishtar. Many good Christians feel obligated to their conscience to reject celebrating Easter because they too believe it to be based on idolatry and paganism. The traditions which have been added to Easter have not helped either. Most English-speaking people associate chocolate eggs and rabbits with Easter as much as they do the celebration of Christ’s resurrection
Hebrew Pesach became Greek Pascha
In most languages the word for Easter is exactly the same as the word for Passover, so he relationship between the feast of Passover, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is directly linked. A few examples are; Latin Pascha, French Pâques, Italian Pasqua, and Dutch Pasen. All these words mean both Easter and Passover, only the context formulates the difference. With the exception of English and German, all other European languages do not have separate words for Easter and Passover, but simply use a single term derived from fPesach, the Hebrew word for Passover. In one way, this is an advantage to the believer, who immediately associates Jesus Christ as the Passover Lamb. Whether reading the New or Old Testaments, the association between Christ and the Passover is clearly seen. This was also the case in the original Greek language which uses the Greek word Pascha for both Passover and the resurrection of Christ. This has been the same for 2000 years in the Greek. Even if you look up a Modern Greek dictionary it will tell you that Pascha means both Easter and Passover. 1 This was also the case in English until Tyndale coined the term Passover. But as we shall see, the English rendition of Easter and Passover in the King James Bible is superior and needs to be exalted into its rightful place in English Bible versions, dictionaries and Christian literature again. This does not conclude that the English is superior to the original Greek, which is a form of Ruckmanism, 2 but in this particular instance there is a special feature in the KJV, which is made clear in the original Greek when read in context, but is made abundantly clear by the scholarship of the KJV translators. Just as most Bibles include things like capitalisation of deity or have the words of Christ in red, and other helps, so too did the KJV translators make the Old Testament Passover and New Testament Easter easier for the reader to understand in context.
Latin
When the Bible was being translated into the Latin language in the fourth century, when translating the word Pascha, which can mean both Passover and Easter in Latin, Jerome simply used the same Greek word without creating a new Latin word in its place, thus Pascha was basically un-translated.
Wycliffe
In the first translation of the entire Bible into English, the hand-written Wycliffe Bible in 1382, appears basically the same un-translated Latin word, Pascha. 3 When we come to the Latin word Pascha it is transliterated without an English equivalent. The words used were Pask and Paske, still a basic type of the Hebrew word Pesach and the Greek Pascha. Later when Roman Catholic scholars translated the Douay-Rheims Bible from the same Latin Vulgate in the 17th century they used the word Pasche, which gave it a more English feel, but was still in essence un-translated. Wycliffe’s version translated Acts 12:4:
And whanne he hadde cauyte Petre, he sente hym in to prisoun; and bitook to foure quaternyouns of knyytis, to kepe hym, and wolde aftir pask bringe hym forth to the puple.
So we can see the English language in the 1300s had the same characteristics as most foreign languages do today, concerning the translation of Pascha as meaning both Easter and Passover. Then Tyndale gave us a greater advantage by using the word Ester (Easter) in his translation and then later inventing the term Passover. Ultimately this gave us two separate words for two distinct occasions. It must be noted that the Anglo Saxon term Easter was used much more frequently in common literature to denote the Passover and the celebration of the resurrection than the Latin Pask ever was. Pask was basically a synonym for Easter (meaning both Passover and Easter) but was mainly used by the clergy.
Anglo Saxon Roots
easterly
eastanwind – east wind
eastcyning – eastern king
eastdael – eastern quarter, the East
easte – the East
eastende – east-end, east quarter
Eastengle – the East Anglians: East Anglia
Easteraefen – Easter-eve
Easterdaeg – Easter-day, Easter Sunday
Easterfaestan – Easter-fast, Lent
Easterfeorm – feast of Easter
Easterfreolsdaeg – the feast day of Passover Eastergewuna – Eastercustom (appearsonlyin the 9th century sermons of Aelfric where he is referring to Christian Easter practices)
Easterlic – belonging to Easter, Paschal
Eastermonath – Easter-month, April
Easterne – east, eastern, oriental
Easterniht – Easter-night
Eastersunnandaeg – Easter Sunday
Eastersymble – Passover (lit. Easter gathering)
Eastertid – Eastertide, Paschal season
Easterthenung – Passover
Easterwucu – Easter Week
So as we can see, the word Easter in Anglo Saxon was used for both the Jewish Passover and the celebration of the resurrection, and also was very commonly used.
William Tyndale—a brilliant scholar
William Tyndale was a brilliant scholar and was first to incorporate Easter in an English Bible and he also invented the word Passover. William Tyndale translated and printed the New Testament in English and the first five books of the Old Testament between 1525 and 1535 in Germany and the Low Countries while in exile. He was the first person to ever print an English translation. He worked from the original Greek and Hebrew texts at a time when knowledge of those languages in England was rare. He was educated at Oxford University and later at Cambridge where he also lectured and became skilled in not only Hebrew and Greek, but also Latin, Italian, Spanish, and French with such fluency that Herman Buschius, a friend of Erasmus, stated that: “which ever he spoke you would suppose it his native tongue”.4
Tyndale was responsible for the insertion of both Easter and Passover in the English Bible. In his 1525 New Testament, Tyndale used the English word Easter to translate the Greek word Pascha. Pascha, being formerly transliterated in Wycliffe’s version, was for the first time in a Bible translation, translated into a unique English word. 5
As we can conclude from the Anglo Saxon terms mentioned above, English people celebrated the season around the Jewish Passover as Easter. Also it must be pointed out that Tyndale used Easter as a synonym expressing the Jewish Passover and never in association with a pagan festival. Some modern day scholars conclude that the word Easter has pagan origins, but the facts are that the word Easter and also the celebration of Easter are entirely Christian. Easter was not only a synonym for Passover, but also a descriptive word revealing the New Testament fulfilment of the Passover, in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. The Greek word Pascha occurs twenty-nine times in the New Testament, and Tyndale has Ester (or Easter) fourteen times, Esterlambe eleven times, Esterfest once, and Paschall Lambe three times. In 1525, Tyndale’s New Testament was printed. Fiveyears later in 1530 he printed the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Old Testament. When Tyndale was working on the New Testament, the word Ester (Easter) was adequate to translate Pascha, but when he started the Old Testament book of Exodus, in 12:11 he discovered the word Easter, which means resurrection, was inappropriate. This problem involved the translating of the Hebrew word Pecach, which if translated Easter, meaning resurrection, would form an anachronism (from the Greek ana, “against,” and chronos, “time”), which is something located at a time when it could not have existed or occurred. Basically, if he used the English word Easter, which describes Christ’s resurrection, in the translation of the Old Testament, he would be speaking of an event that had not yet happened. The Easter lamb or resurrection lamb was a logical translation to Tyndale in the New Testament setting, but seemed rather odd in the Old Testament. So Tyndale with his astounding linguistic ability formed the word Passover, and used it in all twenty-two places of the Old Testament Pentateuch. The word Passover comes from the idea that God passed over the houses of the Israelites, who had marked their doorposts with blood in obedience to God, and the children of Israel were spared when Gods mote the firstborn sons of the Egyptian taskmasters on the eve of the Exodus. The sons of Israel were thus redeemed from the land of sin, Egypt, and redeemed from Pharaoh to serve Jehovah. The Hebrew word Pecach was understood by the Israelites at the time to mean skip over or to limp. So Tyndale used two words “pass” and “over” meaning to skip over or limp over, which shortly became the one word Passover in the 1530 Pentateuch, but Ester (Easter) remained in Tyndale’s revision of the New Testament in 1534. Brilliantly, Tyndale’s Passover also incorporates the pass sound as in Pask and Pascha. Interestingly, the word Passion which means suffering, seems to have evolved from Pascha. Perhaps Gibson should have called his film The Pascha of the Christ!
Since the time of the King James Version until the early twentieth century, the term Easter was commonly identified by believers solely as the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Before Tyndale, Easter was the chief word used for the Jewish Passover by Christians. This is because Easter and Passover are the same season, Jews celebrating the shadow, and Christians celebrating the fulfilment. The word Easter has illustrated to the Englishman much more than simply the Passover celebration, but through Tyndale’s addition of Easter, construction of the word Passover, and later with the King James’ translators correctly re-applying Easter only once in Acts 12:4, it gives significant insight into revealing the fulfilment of the Passover in Christ. It exalts Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection above all. In past times Easter to the English speaker not only saw Christ as the Passover lamb but clearly defined the difference in the celebrations, one containing the promise and one fulfilling the promise. Modern criticism has blurred that revelation.
After 1611, the Old Testament Easter, which formerly meant both Passover and Easter, became solely the old covenant Passover, a trend Tyndale had begun to accomplish. Because Luther’s version was printed before Tyndale’s, Tyndale would have had the advantage of being able to cross reference and improve any inconsistencies.
Martin Luther
Luther’s translation was a strong influence on Tyndale’s New Testament. Because of persecution in Catholic England, Tyndale left England for Germany. It is strongly believed that he met with Luther in Germany in 1525, as many of Tyndale’s beliefs were, in essence, Lutheran. By the end of the year, Tyndale had printed the New Testament in English. It is likely that Tyndale’s use of Easter in his New Testament is also indebted to his knowledge of Luther’s German translation, which uses Oster (pronounced Ouster) in the same way as Tyndale uses Easter. Because the English Anglo Saxon language originally derived from the Germanic when the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes came to England in the 5th and 6th centuries, there are many similarities between German and English. Many English writers have referred to the German language as the Mother Tongue! The English word Easter is of German/Saxon origin and not Babylonian as Alexander Hislop falsely claimed, and as we shall see later. The German equivalent is Oster. 6 Oster (Ostern being the modern day correspondent) is related to Ost which means the rising of the sun, or simply in English, east. Oster comes from the old Teutonic form of auferstehen/auferstehung, which means resurrection 7, which in the older Teutonic form comes from two words, ester meaning first, and stehen meaning to stand. 8 These two words combine to form erstehen which is an old German form of auferstehen, the modern day German word for resurrection. 9 The English Easter and German Oster go hand in hand.
Tyndale with his expertise in the German language knew of the Easter-Oster association. Luther obviously defined Oster both as synonym for the Jewish Passover and aphrase used for the resurrection of Christ. In Luther’s German New Testament we find Ostern, Osterlamm, Osterfest, Fest, and only once das Passa (Hebrews 11.28). In His Old Testament he used the German word Passaopffer (an obvious forerunner for Tyndale’s Passover), Osterfest, Ostern, and Osterlamm once each. In Exodus 12:11 Luther rendered Passah with a marginal note referring to the Osterlamm. Even in contemporary German the phrase das jüdische Osterfest (the Jewish Passover) demonstrates that the German Oster can mean both the Jewish and Christian festivals. In fact the meaning of the German word Ostern is today just as the English word Easter was until the KJV translators skilfully put it in its correct semantic range in Acts 12:4, thus separating forever the Old Easter and the New Easter as we shall see.
Early English Examples
Before the 1530s, England always used the word Easter for both the Jewish Passover and the Resurrection celebration. Sometimes clergy used the Latin Pask or Paske, but predominantly Easter. Here are two non-biblical examples of Easter and Passover being synonyms.
In the Peterborough Chronicle of 1122 we read:
On this geare waes se king Heanri on Christesmaess en on Norhtwic, and on Pax-hes he waes on Norhthamtune” (This year King Henry was in Norwich for Christmas and in Northampton for Easter).
A 1563 homilist spoke of “Easter, a great, and solemne feast among the Jewes”. Today, Pascha vaguely remains an adjective meaning Easter, as in Paschal candle. In Scotland and the North of England, children hunt for Pasch eggs.
Early Biblical Examples
In the 1537 Matthew’s Bible which incorporated Tyndale’s work on the Pentateuch, the word used was Passeover, but there were references to Ester in the chapter summaries in Leviticus 23, Numbers 9 and Deuteronomy 16.
In the 1539 Great Bible they used Passeover 14 times, while Ester appears 15 times all in the New Testament. The Great Bible translates Acts 12:4 this way:
And when he had caught hym, he put him in preson also, and dely-vered him to. iiii. quaternions of soudiers to be kepte, entendynge after Ester to bringe him forth to the people.
In the 1557 version of the Geneva Bible, every place had Passeover except Acts 12:4, where it had Easter, which was identical to how the King James Version translated it.
In the 1560 version of the Geneva Bible, which became the most popular of the Geneva bibles, the word Easter was completely substituted with Passeouer on all occasions. The Geneva Bible of 1560 does not use Easter anywhere. Acts 12:4 reads:
And when he had caught hym, he put hym in prison, and delivered hym to foure qua-ternions of souldiers to be kept, intendying after the Passover to brying hym forthe to the people.
In the 1568 Bishops’ Bible, Easter appears twice,in John 11:55 and Acts 12:4.The Bishops’ Bible of 1568 translates Acts 12:4:
And when he had caught him, he put him in prison also, and delivered him to foure quaternions of souldiers to be kept, intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.
In the 1611 Authorised Version, Easter appears once in Acts 12:4.
The King James Version
Until 1611, English-speaking people had always associated the word Easter with the celebration of Passover and the prophetic implications which occurred at Christ’s death and resurrection. They saw that the Old Testament shadow was the Passover and that the New Testament fulfilment was Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection called Easter. The King James Bible finalised 86 years of change in the use of Easter and Passover. After seeing what Tyndale had begun and the refining of the word Easter within almost a century of various translation attempts, the KJV translators caused the semantic range of Easter to be translated only once as Easter in Acts 12:4. This was because in every instance in the New Testament except Acts 12:4, the Greek word Pascha represented the pre-resurrection Passover, i.e. the Jewish celebration. In other words Christ had not yet died as the Passover lamb for the whole world. But in Acts 12:4 it is a post-resurrection Passover, where Christ had died and was risen.
The Greek word Pascha appears 29 times in the Greek New Testament. In 28 of those instances it is referring to the Old Testament Passover. But in Acts 12:4 it is referring to the New Testament celebration which was the Lord’s Supper. Christ had become the Lamb of God and replaced the old Passover sacrifice with the new covenant in His blood. Therefore the old Passover type was replaced with the celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ which is the fulfilment called Easter, meaning resurrection.
Because the KJV translators rendered this word once, in Acts 12:4, with the understanding that it was the Christian resurrection celebration being celebrated and not just the old Passover, it stands to be the most accurate of all the English translations concerning this topic. After 1611, with the predominance of the KJV and with the process of time, Passover became known as an Old Testament word, and Easter became known as a New Testament word. The only other time Pascha is mentioned in the post-resurrection semantic range is in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us”. Tyndale’s Bible has, “For Christ our Easter lamb is offered up for us”. Obviously, with the semantic range of the Old Testament Passover, and the New Testament Easter, this scripture is correctly translated Passover by the KJV translators, as it alludes to the Jewish custom of carefully putting away from their houses all leaven upon the approach of the feast of the Passover, thus making the word Passover more appropriate than Easter or Easter lamb in the context. A paraphrase would be “For Christ our fulfilment of the Old Testament Pascha is sacrificed for us”. Tyndale was correct to translate Easter lamb and not Passover because the terms were not clearly defined until 1611.
Hislop’s Clumsy Scholarship
With this in mind, let’s look at what Hislop claimed about the KJV in his The Two Babylons:
Every one knows that the name ‘Easter’ used in our translation of Acts 12:4, refers not to any Christian festival, but to the Jew-ish Passover. This is one of the few places in our version where the translators show an undue bias. 10
Linguists and true Assyriologists would laugh at the claims made by Hislop’s pseudo-scholarship. Since it does not hold up under basic scrutiny, its claims about Easter must be abandoned. Firstly, while Hislop boldly claimed Easter was pagan, he offered no real proof. Alexander Hislop also stated:
Then look at Easter. What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very fore-head. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by La-yard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, “the priests of the groves”. Some have imagined that the Druidical worship was first introduced by the Phoenicians, who, centuries before the Christian era, traded to the tin-mines of Cornwall. But the unequivocal traces of that worship are found in regions of the British islands where the Phoenicians never penetrated, and it has everywhere left indelible marks of the strong hold which it must have had on the early British mind. 11
It must be noted that most cults such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists gravitate warmly to Hislop’s false ideas. While he does offer some sound information about pagan traditions becoming Roman Catholic practice in his book, he fails to recognise that biblical Christian traditions that were formed from the Word of God were initiated by Jehovah God Himself and have no roots in paganism whatever. Hislop fails to see that the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, etc, were ordained by God who did not borrow ideas from Israel’s pagan neighbours.
Hislop’s Claims: Based Merely On Phonetics
Hislop’s whole theory is based merely on phonetics and not on historical verification. His whole argument is based on the false notion that Easter sounds like Ishtar and he therefore concludes that they must be related. Any linguist knows that this type of conclusion is unreasonable. Then without a single shred of evidence Hislop denounces the entire biblical Christian celebration of Easter as pagan because of this phonetic similarity. This is absurd, even if he was right, which he wasn’t, do we need to throw out the entire celebration of Easter because an English word has roots in the name of a pagan god? Is that enough ground to wipe Easter off our church calendars? What about every other language that doesn’t use the word Easter, are they wrong also or just German and English speaking people?
Hislop claims that the word Easter is of British origin, he then goes on to theorise that the word somehow became tied to the Hebrew word Ashtoreth which then somehow became attached to the Greek Astarte and which is the same as the Babylonian Ishtar. Hislop performed all these linguistic gymnastics without any understanding at all of the Germanic roots of Easter thus proving his ignorance of the matter. While Hislop has absolutely no evidence to support his theory, there is a library of evidence against his theory. The main one being that Hislop fails to recognise the relationship between the word Easter and the German Oster. The fact that this essential piece of information is not mentioned even once in Hislop’s book proves without a shadow of a doubt that he did not understand the basic etymology of Easter. This demonstration of the Ester/Oster bond again reinforces the Saxon and Germanic etymology, in preference to some ancient Babylonian goddess. This is plain for all to see and elementary to skilled linguists. Hislop stated:
But the unequivocal traces of that worship are found in regions of the British islands where the Phoenicians never penetrated, and it has everywhere left indelible marks of the strong hold which it must have had on the early British mind. 12
This statement demonstrates that Hislop was surprised that the word Easter is used so frequently in England, concluding that the influence of the Phoenicians must have been much greater than previously thought, thus demonstrating again that he knew nothing of the link to the German Oster which all evidence leads to. C.F. Cruse in 1850 AD pointed out three years before Hislop wrote The Two Babylons, that
Our word EASTER is of Saxon origin and of precisely the same import with its Ger-man cognate ostern. The latter is derived from the old Teutonic form of auferstehen / auferstehung, that is—resurrection. 13
The etymology of Easter is easily traced to the German word for resurrection, not to some fabricated pagan goddess, for which there is not a crumb of evidence. A child could understand how Easter came from Oster, but skilled linguists grapple to decipher Hislop’s confusion, because like evolution, it is an inexhaustible myth, i.e. a wild goose chase! You can spend forever going through names of Istar in Latin, Hebrew, Greek, etc, and you will be none the wiser.
Jehovah initiated Easter, not pagans
According to scripture, Jehovah initiated both Passover and Easter. The Hebrews didn’t need the intermediary of pagans. Moses states in the book of Exodus that God gave the Passover Feast to the Jews, and that God gave the specific date upon which the Passover was to be celebrated, the 14th of Nissan (formerly called Abib, before the Exodus). The Jews did not borrow the Passover feast or the Passover date from anyone, but got both the feast and the date of the feast directly from Jehovah God. The Easter celebration, which is the Christian fulfilment of the Jewish Passover, occurred on the very same date as the Jewish celebration, the 14th of Nissan. Christians did not need to copy the Resurrection idea or the Resurrection date from pagans. Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ literally rose from the dead in fulfilment of the Passover on that day. Hislop speculates that the Christian celebration was not based upon the Jewish Passover, but that Christians somehow abandoned the fulfilment of the Jewish Passover and instead celebrated an unknown fertility festival. There is no evidence for this apart from what Hislop theorised. If you’re a Bible believer, you believe the Bible—if you’re superstitious, you believe Hislop.
Ralph Woodrow who repented of writing many Hislop-style books pointed out that Hislop theorised that Nimrod, Adonis, Apollo, Attes, Ball-zebub, Bacchus, Cupid, Dagon, Hercules, Januis, Linus, Lucifer, Mars, Merodach, Thithra, Molock, Narcissus, Oannes, Oden, Orion, Osiris, Pluto, Saturn, Teitan, Typhon, Vulcan, Wodan, and Zoraster were all one and the same god! By mixing myths, Hislop supposed that Semiramis was the wife of Nimrod and was the same as Aphrodite, Artemis, Astarte, Aurora, Bellona, Ceres, Diana, Easter, Irene, Iris, Juno, Mylitta, Proserpine, Rhea, Venus, and Vesta. With these types of generalisations one must seriously consider whether Hislop’s book has any redeeming qualities at all. 14
King James Translators
In stark contrast, let’s take a quick look at the scholarship of some of the King James Version translators.
Lancelot Andrews, 15 one of the chief translators of the Authorised Version, spoke 15 European languages which were, at the time, the majority of the modern languages of Europe. He had private devotions all written in Greek. He is still regarded as one of the greatest scholars ever!
William Bedwell 16 was an eminent Oriental scholar whose fame for Arabic learning was so great that scholars sought him out for assistance. He was the first person who considerably promoted and revived the study of the Arabic language and literature in Europe. In 1612, he published in quarto an edition of the Epistles of St John in Arabic with a Latin version. He compiled an Arabic lexicon (dictionary) in three volumes, and also began a Persian dictionary. He was educated in cognate languages and thoroughly conversant in the science of Semitic linguistics, i.e. he knew a great deal about Hebrew’s sister tongues and other biblical languages—Arabic, Persian, Syriac, Aramaic, Coptic, etc.
Miles Smith 17 deeply studied the 100 church fathers from 100 to 300 AD and 200 more who wrote from 300 to 600 AD in Greek and Latin and made his own comments on each of them. He was well acquainted with the marginal comments in the Hebrew language. He was fluent in Hebrew also an expert in Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic, so that they were almost as familiar as his native tongue.
Henry Savile 18 was famous for his Greek and mathematical learning at a young age. He was Queen Elizabeth’s tutor in Greek and Mathematics. He translated countless ancient works from Latin and Greek his chief work being the first to edit the complete work of Chrysostom, the most famous of the Greek church fathers, in eight large folios. A folio was the size of a large dictionary or encyclopaedia.
John Bois 19 had read the entire Bible by the age of five in Hebrew! By the age of six he wrote Hebrew in a reasonable and stylish character. He was also just as skilled in Greek by his mid teens. He was known to study continually from 4am to 8pm—i.e. 16 hours straight. He had a library which contained one of the most complete and costly collections of Greek literature that had ever been collated. He left over 30,000 pages of writing when he died. He could read the Greek New Testament like he read English.
This is a small portion of the testimonies of the 57 translators who translated the KJV. How sad that in this day and age we trust someone like Hislop who was uneducated in the basics of linguistics and barely knew any English etymology at all let alone any ancient Semitic languages fluently.
Many Bible critics and translators today who perhaps know how to use a Strong’s or Vine’s, or took a year or two of Greek or Hebrew at a Bible school, have followed in Hislop’s footsteps. What a shame that believers devote so much time arguing against Easter, something that Christ himself instituted, or waste so much time attacking the KJV Bible.
It also seems strange if not blasphemous that we as Bible-believing Christians could think that the King James Version translators would insert the name of a pagan deity in place of the word Pascha. Imagine if we placed Krishna or Allah in its stead.
To think that the world’s most famous translation could get it so wrong here is sheer ignorance on our behalf. To believe that Tyndale, Cranmer, Martin Luther, Coverdale, Matthews, the translators of the Great Bible, and the Bishops’ Bible, the King James Bible, were referring to a pagan god of the spring called Ishtar is so absurd that it becomes humorous when examined.
If this hearsay is true, then Luther and Tyndale who named Christ the “Easter-lamb” were being blasphemous, as it would be like calling Christ the “fertility goddess lamb!” Imagine calling Christ the “Allah-lamb”, or the “Buddha-lamb”. But I suppose that is why people have rejected Easter, for conscience sake. But with the information provided, it is time for Christians to examine Easter in a logical way and not follow conspiracy theories, which is usually the practice of cults. Modern biblical criticism, more than anything else, has weakened and almost destroyed the high view of the Bible previously held throughout Christendom.
Modern Versions
The modern KJV 21st century version and the Third Millennium Bible both read Easter in Acts 12:4, while every other modern translation has Passover. While it was correct to translate Pascha as Passover in the 16th century, it is not factual to state that Easter is an erroneous translation of Pascha today. I believe that the word Easter should be resurrected (no pun intended) from its current state in modern translations, dictionaries, and in our personal worship. The celebration of Easter should be a time of jubilation, not a time to talk about myths, fables and old wives’ tales. Just as the Jews remembered the Passover, so too should Christians remember Christ at communion. So next time you break the bread and drink the wine at Easter, consider the Passover lamb, and the celebration of Easter, which has been a part of Christianity since the resurrection of Christ.
In Summary and Conclusion
The early church never debated whether or not to celebrate Easter, but only debated the day to celebrate it on. The King James translators concluded that the insertion of the words in Acts 12:3 “Then were the days of unleavened bread” just before the inclusion of the word Easter was enough evidence to prove that Luke was talking about the Christian Pascha i.e. Easter, the celebration of the resurrection. 20
Footnotes:
1. Divry’s Modern English-Greek and Greek-English desk dictionary 1974. p 99 & 634
2. Ruckmanism is the false teaching that the King James translation is superior to any Hebrew or Greek text, and is alone the Word of God.
3. Christopher De Hamel, The Book. A History of The Bible (London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 2001) Most extant Wycliffe Bibles contain Catholic liturgy which Wycliffe would have opposed, and because of this some assert that Wycliffe’s version was completely wiped out, and that the existing Latin versions are later Catholic corruptions, and thus, Wycliffe may have translated from the Hebrew and Greek. So to date most historians will affirm that Wycliffe did not translate the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew, but from the Latin Vulgate. Thus existing versions are a translation of a translation.
4. Life of Tyndale, Demaus, p130
5. http://www.trinitarianbiblesociety.org/site/articles/easter.asp
6. Langenscheit’s German-English English-German dictionary, 1963 p167
7. Cassell’s German and English Dictionary by Karl Bruel, 1952 p48
8. Cassell’s German and English Dictionary by Karl Bruel, 1952 p182
9. Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Translated by C.F. Cruse, Hendrickson Publishers, p437
10. The Two Babylons, Alexander Hislop p103. (Chapter III, Section II, Easter.) First published as a pamphlet in 1853—greatly expanded in 1858)
11. The Two Babylons, Alexander p103.
12. The Two Babylons, Alexander p103.
13. Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Translated by C.F. Cruse, Hendrickson Publishers, p437
14. The Babylon Connection? Ralph Woodrow
15. cf. http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/transla1.htm
16. cf. http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/transla5.htm
17. cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Smith
18. cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Henry_Savile
19. cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bois
20. http://www.lamblion.net/Articles/ScottJones/easter_or_passove.htm

Why We Should Not Passover Easter Part 2

by Nick Sayers

In Part 1, we traced the history of the English Bible and discovered that the etymology of Easter is not from pagan origins but is of an entirely Christian derivation.
Our word Easter is of Saxon origin and of precisely the same import with its German cognate Ostern. The latter is derived from the old Teutonic form of auferstehen / auferstehung, that is – resurrection. 1
Most claims that “Easter”, in Acts 12:4 was a mistake or a mistranslation in the King James Bible, stem from the “pagan origins” myth. However there is also another reason why some reject Easter being inserted here. The phrase, “Everyone knows that Pascha means Passover and not Easter” is often claimed with pulpit thumping assertion in many anti Easter articles on the Internet. Yet, modern Greek dictionaries define ‘Pascha’ as ‘Easter’, and if you asked any modern Greek what Pascha means every one of them will say that Pascha means Easter, the very opposite to what some “Greek experts” within the assembly of textual critics will assert. Many of God’s people repeat what these “experts” affirm, as I myself once did, either claiming Easter to be Pagan or citing the “inaccuracy” of Acts 12:4. But as we shall see, Easter in Acts 12:4 in the KJV was not a mistake, but merely a cue for readers to consider the timing of Herod’s captivity of Peter and his desire to bring him before the people, just as what happened to Jesus not many years prior, also at Passover – though the use of Easter would make them consider Christ our Passover and the resurrection.
The Greek Pascha appears 29 times, 28 as Passover and once as Easter:
“Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) 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.” (Acts 12:4 KJV)
Luke formulated Pashas’ semantic domain 
With our current western way of thinking, we sometimes separate Pascha into two distinct time periods, one being Passover and the other Easter. It helps to know that in NT times, Jews were celebrating the Passover and the Christians were celebrating the Resurrection (Easter) at the same period of time. It would appear that the rationale of the KJV translators in using the word “Easter” and not “Passover”, was that Herod would have thought in terms of the Jewish designation, and was waiting until after the festival to bring Peter before the Jews, as his desire was to please the Jews, while Luke the writer of Acts, made it perfectly clear by stating “then were the days of unleavened bread” that he was speaking of the Christians’ Pascha, and was making mention that the Passover feast day had already taken place and the feast of unleavened bread was taking place. Luke forced the semantic domain of Pascha by making this statement, and wasn’t referring to the Passover feast day which was on the first day of the feast, but stated that Peter was taken during the days of unleavened bread which was the seven-day period after the feast.
Even the liberal Bible translator and scholar Philip Schaff said,
            “Easter is the resurrection festival which follows the Passover proper, but is included in the same festive week”. 2 
Luke didn’t have separate words in Greek to specify the difference between the Passover proper and the Resurrection celebration (Easter), so he used “Pascha” and added “then were the days of unleavened bread” emphasizing the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. He followed this pattern throughout the book of Acts. Luke would not have added it for some trivial reason. Rather he was inserting information that would place the Greek “Pascha” into context. In Greek literature (and the Textus Receptus itself),
“The use of the word Pascha in early Christian writings dealt with the celebration of Easter, and not just the Jewish Passover.” 3
Luke rarely went out of his way to explain the OT practices of the Jews in Acts. For example in chapters 1 and 2 (and right through Acts) things like “a Sabbath day’s journey” from Jerusalem “the day of Pentecost was come” are written without any explanation whatever. So the addition of the words; “then were the days of unleavened bread” indicate that there was something Luke wanted the readers to know about the particular chronology of the occurrences in the 12th Chapter of Acts. Had Luke not included these words, there would be no doubt as to it meaning the Jewish feast and the thought of a Christian feast would only come to mind in the knowledge that historically the early church did celebrate Easter more or less during the same festival week. Also it would not have been necessary to make any distinction at all, as the KJV translators did. But the fact remains that Luke did mention it and the very learned KJV translators did see that its insertion was vital to explain the context correctly.
 The KJV translators were well aware that Tyndale changed many of his references from Easter to Passover in his editions of the NT after he invented the word Passover, and also how Pascha was used for both Easter and Passover in early church literature, as the previous article2 uncovered. Yet they were also especially familiar with the disputations about Easter in the first few centuries of Christianity. Dr. G. W. H. Lampe has correctly stated, “Pascha came to mean Easter in the early church.” Dr. Lampe lists several rules and observances by Christians in celebration of their Pascha or Easter. He also points to various Greek words such as “paschazo” and “paschalua” that came to mean “celebrate Easter” and “Eastertide.” 4 
Likewise, Dr. Gerhard Kittel notes,
Pascha came to be called Easter in the celebration of the resurrection within the primitive Church. 5
It must be remembered that the Pascha was the most important feast of the Jews. The early Church, including Luke, would have initiated the trend of not celebrating the old shadow Pascha but celebrating the new Pascha. Alfred Edersheim, a Messianic Jew in the 19th century, said of the Last Supper:
           It was to be the last of the old “Pascha’s”; the first, or rather the symbol of promise, of the new. 6 
He clearly knew that every Pascha from the time of the Cross was to be the new Pascha and not the old. John Owen wrote:
There was also a signal vindication of the truth pleaded for, in an instance of fact among the primitive churches. There was an opinion which prevailed very early among them about the necessary observation of Easter, in the room of the Jewish Passover, for the solemn commemoration of the death and resurrection of our Saviour. And it was taken for granted by most of them, that the observance hereof was countenanced, if not rendered necessary to them, by the example of the apostles; for they generally believed that by them it was observed, and that it was their duty to accommodate themselves to their practice… By the later second century, it was accepted that the celebration of Easter was a practice of the disciples and an undisputed tradition. That Easter was to be observed by virtue of Apostolical tradition was generally granted by all. 7
Again, Philip Schaff observed:
From some hints in the Epistles, viewed in the light of the universal and uncontradicted practice of the church in the second century it may be inferred that the annual celebration of the death and the resurrection of Christ, and of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, originated in the apostolic age. In truth, Christ crucified, risen, and living in the church, was the one absorbing thought of the early Christians; and as this thought expressed itself in the weekly observance of Sunday, so it would also very naturally transform the two great typical feasts of the Old Testament into the Christian Easter and Whit-Sunday. The Paschal controversies of the second century related not to the fact, but to the time of the Easter festival, and Polycarp of Smyrna and Anicet of Rome traced their customs to a … difference in the practice of the apostles themselves. 8
The Quartodecimans
Schaff indicates that historically there was never any debate within the early church over a pagan Easter, nor whether or not it should be celebrated, but primarily what day it should be celebrated on. In Bible times, the 14th of Nisan could fall on any day of the week, but some in the church felt that the 17th (also known as the feast of first fruits), the date Jesus arose from the dead, should be the proper day that Easter be celebrated and the Lord’s Supper taken. But that could also fall on any day of the week. Finally it was concluded that the Sunday following the 14th should be the day. This practice was followed by most churches except for the Quartodecimans (derived from the Vulgate Latin: “quarta decimal”, meaning fourteen) who kept Easter on the Passover day, the 14th. They were generally considered legalists by most of the church fathers.
Around 120 A.D., Polycarp, who was a disciple of John, went to see the Christian leader Anicetus to discuss the proper date for this celebration:
            Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome to confer with him about the controversy over the date of Easter. 9 
Those in Asia celebrated it on the moveable week-day of the 14th of Nisan (the Jewish Passover) while those in Rome did it on the first Sunday after Passover. They decided to let each group continue as they had been doing, rather than cause a split.
We read in Eusebius:
A question of no small importance arose at that time [i.e. about A.D. 190]. The dioceses of all Asia, as from an older tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon, on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should always be observed as the feast of the life-giving pasch, contending that the fast ought to end on that day, whatever day of the week it might happen to be. However it was not the custom of the churches in the rest of the world to end it at this point, as they observed the practice, which from Apostolic tradition has prevailed to the present time, of terminating the fast on no other day than on that of the Resurrection of our Saviour…. These words of the Father of Church History … tell us almost all that we know concerning the paschal controversy in its first stage. A letter of Irenaeus is among the extracts just referred to, and this shows that the diversity of practice regarding Easter had existed at least from the time of 120 A.D.. Further, Irenaeus states that Polycarp, who like the other Asiatics, kept Easter on the fourteenth day of the moon, whatever day of the week that might be, following therein the tradition which he claimed to have derived from St. John the Apostle, came to Rome circa 150 A.D. about this very question. 10
Paul had prophetically given good advice to the Roman church on these matters:
One man esteems one day above another: another esteems every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regards the day, regards it to the Lord; and he that does not regard the day, to the Lord he does not regard it….But why do you judge your brother? or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (Romans 14 5-6;10).
Interestingly Paul scolded the Galatian church in Asia for lapsing into ritualism saying:
“But now, after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you again desire to be in bondage? You observe days, months, seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have laboured for you in vain.” (Galatians 4:9-11)
Quartodecimans were looked upon by the early church much the same as Seventh Day Adventists are seen today, trying to impose concepts from the dispensation of the Law into the dispensation of grace. Unfortunately many Quartodecimans were persecuted and killed for this belief. 11 
Quartodecimanism was almost thoroughly snuffed out at the Anti-Semitic ecumenical Council of Nicea:
When the question arose concerning the most holy day of Easter, it was decreed by common consent to be expedient, that this festival should be celebrated on the same day by all, in every place. …it seemed to everyone a most unworthy thing that we should follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this most holy solemnity, who, polluted wretches having stained their hands with a nefarious crime, are justly blinded in their minds. It is fit, therefore, that, rejecting the practice of this people, we should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite, in a more legitimate order, which we have kept from the first day of our Lord’s passion even to the present times. Let us then have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble of the Jews. 12
Although sometimes incorrect, the Council of Nicea’s final decision on Easter was in accord with the majority of the early church fathers, which is what really matters. Once the churches became unified about Easter in the fourth century, the date was more consistent until the West’s adoption of the revised Gregorian calendar in the sixteenth century. Although Britain didn’t accept the calendar until 1752, most of Europe had accepted a different calendar during the generation of the translators. This observance and its basic structure survives with us up to our time, with Easter Sunday being resurrection Sunday, representing the 17th of Nisan, and Good Friday being the date which is a representation of the 14th of Nisan, although in 32 AD the day Jesus died was a Thursday. 13 
These calendar modifications in Europe would have also caused many of the world’s finest mathematicians, theologians and scholars to be examining these trends, including the KJV translators.
The translator who kept Easter 
King James Bible translator Sir Henry Savile was briefly mentioned in our last article. He was an expert on the Greek language, mathematics, and church history and had been personal tutor in Greek and mathematics to Queen Elizabeth. He also founded the first chairs of Geometry and Astronomy in Oxford. His greatest work, besides his work on the King James Bible, was translating the complete works of the most famous Greek Church father John Chrysostom from Greek into English. During his compilation of 15,800 manuscript sheets, he scoured all the great Libraries of Europe, buying the oldest and purest of the Chrysostom manuscripts. Savile’s edition of Chrysostom has been called “the one great work of Renaissance scholarship carried out in England”, and was the most considerable work of pure learning undertaken in England at that time. Power and Glory – Jacobean English and the making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicolson Page 167
Savile, who frequented Europe, was considered by some as the “greatest scholar of his age”. Adam Nicolson, who wrote a book about the translators, dispelled the myth that the King James Bible emerged from an isolated and insular England, by saying,
“A river of European influences runs through it (the version), and through no more open conduit than Henry Savile.” 14
Savile translated Acts 12:4, as a member of the Oxford translation committee assigned to translate Acts, the Gospels and Revelation. Savile was often called in by King James to translate church books into Latin, Italian or French. 15 Chrysostom, whose works Savile translated from Greek into English, was staunchly opposed to Quartodecimanism, which occurred mainly in Asia. While Irenaeus claimed it had roots in apostolic tradition via John, the majority of the church practised Easter on the Sunday after the Passover feast. In his 1612 edition of Homilies 27 Volume 6, which is Discourse I in Patrologia Graeca’s Adversus Iudaeos, Savile gives the title: Chrysostom’s Discourse Against Those Who Are Judaizing and Observing Their Fasts, revealing Savile’s depth of knowledge of the Easter controversies. Interestingly, the earliest book with mathematical content to be printed at Oxford was Compotus manualis ad usum Oxoniensum, printed by Charles Kyrforth in 1520. This book explained how to make calculations for the date of Easter. The second mathematical book to be published in Oxford was Sir Henry Savile’s lectures on Euclid’s Elements, printed in 1621. 16 
If one were to search the biographies of Christian history to select a person equipped to translate Acts 12: 4 into English from Greek it would be hard to discover anyone more able than Savile. Obsessed with Chrysostom, an enemy of Quartodecimanism, Savile was intimately acquainted with the Easter controversies. He was a noted mathematician with a mind for detail and chronological events, and one of the greatest English Greek scholars who personally tutored the Queen of England. I doubt you would find anyone more appropriate than Savile.
Translator’s oversight? 
Bancroft, one of the translators penned the Rules to be observed in translation. He lists some very interesting procedures that demolish myths about private interpretation, or a translator’s oversight in regard to Easter.
Rule 8 states:
 Every particuler man of each company to take you same chapter or chapters, and having translated or amended them severally by himselfe where he thinks good, all to meete together, confer what they have done, and agree for their Parts what shall stand. 
Thus the translators of Acts, for example, all personally translated the book by themselves, and then their particular group corporately amalgamated those personal translations into one copy which was wholeheartedly agreed to by the entire group.
Rule 9 requires:
 As one company hath despatched any one book in this manner they shall send it to the rest to be considered of seriously and judiciously; for His Majestie is verie carefull of this point. 
So once the group had reached a consensus, they then sent their manuscript of Acts off to the rest of the translators to be examined by each group.
Rule 10 records:
 If any Company, upon you review of you books so sent, really doubt, or differ upon any place, to send them word thereof, note the place, and withal send their reasons; to which if they consent not, the difference to be compounded at you generall meeting, which is to be of the chiefe persons of each company, at you end of your work. 
In addition there was a chance to respond to reviewers in front of a committee.
Rule 11:
 When any place of speciall obscuritie is doubted of, letters to be directed by authority to send to any learned man in the land, for his judgment of such a place. So if agreement could not be reached, further authorities in the land were to be consulted on particular matters. This reveals that great lengths went into the translation’s accuracy. 17  
In relation to the previous article, there is also confirmation for the fact that the KJV translators defined Easter as the “Resurrection of Our Lord”, in their frequent mention in their various lists and tables in the Preface of the KJV itself which show us that to the translators, Easter was the holiest day of the year, and they knew exactly what it was, the Resurrection Day.
In the preface, which is in the front of the original 1611 bible, Easter is referred to in “An Almanacke for xxxix yeeres”3 and a date provided for each of those years. This indicates that Easter, in this case, refers to the Easter celebration by Christians for Christ’s resurrection and not to the Jewish Passover. Also the following page, which is a table “To finde Easter forever”, refers to the Christian Easter. In addition, the table “Proper Lessons to be read for the first lessons, both at Morning and Evening prayer”, refers to the Christian Easter and also includes other days such as ‘Whitsunday’ and ‘Trinitie Sunday’ which are Holy Days determined by the date of Christian Easter. This is also true in the table “Proper Psalmes on Certaine Dayes” and on the following page events before and after Easter are described. 18 
Thus when Easter was referred to in any of the 1611 KJV prefaces or tables it was referring to what we know today to be Easter. It never refers to Easter as Passover and when Passover is referred to it is the Jewish Holiday. From the above, one must conclude that when Easter was inserted by the KJV translators, it was done so by design showing their trend of using Easter as a post-resurrection Pascha, and Passover as a pre-resurrection Pascha, also causing the definition of Easter as the Jewish Passover to become obsolete, as the Oxford Dictionary would later define Easter in the multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary, and also showing a second meaning “2. The Jewish Passover (obsolete)” 19 thus agreeing with Savile, who was an Oxford man himself. The above also backs up our previous article about Easter that the KJV translation ended an 86-year trend that began with Tyndale.
Conclusion: 
Scott Jones wrote:
“It doesn’t take a savant to figure it out: the death of Jesus Christ – “Christ our Passover” (1 Cor. 5:7) – occurred before the days of unleavened bread. The resurrection of Jesus Christ occurred during the days of unleavened bread, and Luke went out of his way to explain to his readers, “then were the days of unleavened bread.”20
As we enter the Easter season again, let us keep Easter “not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:8) (i.e. Easter without legalism, without pagan myths, without conspiracy theories, and without degrading the Authorized Version).
It would be so much more edifying for the church to learn of subjects such as the Passover Lamb fulfilled in Christ, or the fulfilment of the 69 weeks of Daniel’s prophecy on the 10th of Nisan, the Lord’s supper, the blood, the resurrection etc, which no doubt many have been doing, however should do so with even more boldness, proclaiming them without unnecessary doubting or confusion. History reveals that the majority of Christians worldwide have celebrated Easter, because
Jesus (not Pagans) said:
            Do this in remembrance of Me cf. Luke 22:19 with 1 Corinthians 11:24.
Paul stated,
            Therefore whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Footnotes:

1) Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Translated by C. F. Cruse, Hendrickson Publishers, p 437
2) Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol II, Chapter 5, Footnote 320
3) Dr. Walter Bauer’s, A Greek-English Lexicon Of The New Testament And Other Early Christian Literature – Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957, 633.
4) G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961, 1048-1049
5) Gerhard Kittle, Theological Dictionary Of The New Testament, Vol. II. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965, 901-904
6) Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Hendrickson Publishers, Book 5, Chapter 10, p 817
7) John Owen, The Works of John Owen, A Discourse Concerning Evangelical Love, Church Peace, and Unity, p 185-186 www.johnowen.org
 Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol I, Chapter 9, p 385
9) www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/25451/Saint-Anicetus  
10) Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., V, xxiii):
11) www.ccel.org/ccel/wace/biodict.html?term=Honorius,%20Flavius%20Augustus,%20emperor
12) Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History
13) While I believe this view, which is also the view of Dave Hunt, some claim Wednesday to be the day including Chuck Missler. Philip Powell of CWM also argues for a Wednesday crucifixion.
14) Adam Nicolson Power and Glory: Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible p166
15) The Cradle King A life of James VI & I by Alan Stewart, page 230
16) http://www.maths.ox.ac.uk…out/oxford-figures/ch1-6a
17) http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/transrul.htm  
18) http://dewey.library.upen…bible&PagePosition=17
19) Oxford Dictionary (Vol. 5, p. 37),
20) http://www.lamblion.net/Articles/ScottJones/easter_or_passove.htm

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