Easter and Passover

[Tannhauser_1509]

Many Protestants treat Easter as an optional celebration because it’s not explicitly commanded in scripture (whatever that means). Many of them have difficulty with the Nicene Fathers’ setup for determining the Easter date (first Sunday after first full moon after March 21/vernal equinox) because the method of dating deviates from the Jewish calendar and its reckoning of the Passover days. Why did the Church abandon the regular dates for Passover to coincide with Easter? That seems like the most reasonable time to celebrate the Resurrection: during the Passover season.

 

[alwayswill]

Many Protestants treat Easter as an optional celebration because it’s not explicitly commanded in scripture (whatever that means). Many of them have difficulty with the Nicene Fathers’ setup for determining the Easter date (first Sunday after first full moon after March 21/vernal equinox) because the method of dating deviates from the Jewish calendar and its reckoning of the Passover days. Why did the Church abandon the regular dates for Passover to coincide with Easter? That seems like the most reasonable time to celebrate the Resurrection: during the Passover season.

Many Protestants …
Many of them …
???

Can you give examples?

 

[Tannhauser_1509]

Well, it’s hard to p(name removed by moderator)oint a specific group because Protestantism isn’t just one thing. I used to attend a non-denominational church, and I know there were several members who disputed the authenticity of the Easter celebration and wondered why we gave that specific day over to the Resurrection. Certain fundamentalist websites also dispute Easter/Pasch, such as this one here:

gotquestions.org/date-easter-determined.html

 

[alwayswill]

Well, it’s hard to p(name removed by moderator)oint a specific group because Protestantism isn’t just one thing. I used to attend a non-denominational church, and I know there were several members who disputed the authenticity of the Easter celebration and wondered why we gave that specific day over to the Resurrection. Certain fundamentalist websites also dispute Easter/Pasch, such as this one here:

gotquestions.org/date-easter-determined.html

I read the article; twice.
What is the issue that you want to discuss?
Is it that there is no command to celebrate Easter
or different Church traditions feel it should dated differently?

Are you aware the Easter Orthodox Church calculates the date differently than the Roman Cathodic Church?
does that bother you?

5ko.free.fr/en/easter.php

How is the Date of Easter Decided?

The method for determining the date of Easter is complex and has been a matter of controversy (see History of Easter, below). Put as simply as possible, the Western churches (Catholic and Protestant) celebrate Easter on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. (See comparison charts: Catholicism and Protestantism and Christian Denominations).

But it is actually a bit more complicated than this. The spring equinox is fixed for this purpose as March 21 and the “full moon” is actually the paschal moon, which is based on 84-year “paschal cycles” established in the sixth century, and rarely corresponds to the astronomical full moon. These complex calculations yield an Easter date of anywhere between March 22 and April 25.

The Eastern churches (Greek, Russian, and other forms of Orthodoxy) use the same calculation, but based on the Julian calendar (on which March 21 is April 3) and a 19-year paschal cycle. Thus the Orthodox Easter sometimes falls on the same day as the western Easter (it does in 2010 and 2011), but the two celebrations can occur as much as five weeks apart.

In the 20th century, discussions began as to a possible worldwide agreement on a consistent date for the celebration of the central event of Christianity. No resolution has yet been reached
religionfacts.com/easter

 

[Tannhauser_1509]

I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned Protestants, because we’re getting hung up. I asked a specific question in the OP that really has little to do with Protestantism, but I thought I’d mention Protestants because they’re the main objectors.

And no, it doesn’t bother me that the Julian calendar yields different dates for the celebration of Easter. It’s the nature of schism that we’d differ (unfortunately). The Nicene Fathers never provided specific methods of computation, only the rule that it be computed apart from the Jewish calendar. Which is what my question dealt with: why did they feel they needed to celebrate Easter independent of the traditional dates for Jewish Passover?

We should also note: the Council of Nicaea, though it did not provide strict methodology, still demanded that all Christians celebrate it at the same time.

 

[alwayswill]

I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned Protestants, because we’re getting hung up. I asked a specific question in the OP that really has little to do with Protestantism, but I thought I’d mention Protestants because they’re the main objectors.

And no, it doesn’t bother me that the Julian calendar yields different dates for the celebration of Easter. It’s the nature of schism that we’d differ (unfortunately). The Nicene Fathers never provided specific methods of computation, only the rule that it be computed apart from the Jewish calendar. Which is what my question dealt with: why did they feel they needed to celebrate Easter independent of the traditional dates for Jewish Passover?

We should also note: the Council of Nicaea, though it did not provide strict methodology, still demanded that all Christians celebrate it at the same time.

" but I thought I’d mention Protestants because they’re the main objectors."

main objectors to what?

There are 300 million members in the Eastern Orthodox Church that do not celebrate Easter on the the same day as you

as far as I know; the top 6 Protestant denominations in the world all celebrate Easter on the same day as you

Anglican Communion – 85,000,000[2]
World Methodist Council – 80,500,000[3]
World Communion of Reformed Churches – 80,000,000[4]
Lutheran World Federation – 72,000,000[5]
World Assemblies of God Fellowship – 66,400,000[6]
Baptist World Alliance – 42,000,000[7]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_Protestant_churches

 

[Tannhauser_1509]

" but I thought I’d mention Protestants because they’re the main objectors."

main objectors to what?

There are 300 million members in the Eastern Orthodox Church that do not celebrate Easter on the the same day as you

as far as I know; the top 6 Protestant denominations in the world all celebrate Easter on the same day as you

Anglican Communion – 85,000,000[2]
World Methodist Council – 80,500,000[3]
World Communion of Reformed Churches – 80,000,000[4]
Lutheran World Federation – 72,000,000[5]
World Assemblies of God Fellowship – 66,400,000[6]
Baptist World Alliance – 42,000,000[7]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_Protestant_churches

I KNOW! Please, if you’re only interested in trapping me in my words, then stop responding. I asked a question that it seems you’re hardly interested in responding to.

 

[dmar198]

[Some people] have difficulty with the Nicene Fathers’ setup for determining the Easter date (first Sunday after first full moon after March 21/vernal equinox) because the method of dating deviates from the Jewish calendar and its reckoning of the Passover days. Why did the Church abandon the regular dates for Passover to coincide with Easter? That seems like the most reasonable time to celebrate the Resurrection: during the Passover season.

Wikipedia’s article on the First Nicene Council has a section on this issue. Wikipedia has no authority by itself, but one can cite it for its sources, and in this case it cites some very interesting primary documents on this point. Three sentences related to your question are these:

“[Some Christians] justified this break with [Jewish] tradition by arguing that it was in fact the contemporary Jewish calendar that had broken with tradition by ignoring the equinox, and that in former times the 14th of Nisan had never preceded the equinox.”

And: “[Some early Christians] argued that contemporary Jews were identifying the wrong lunar month as the month of Nisan, choosing a month whose 14th day fell before the spring equinox.”

And: “[Some Christians]…[did] their own computations to determine which month should be styled Nisan, setting Easter within this independently computed, Christian Nisan, which…always locate[d] the festival after the equinox.”

One of the footnotes it cites in this section is from Anatolius of Laodicea, a bishop from the 200s who made some of the arguments mentioned in the Wikipedia article. Relevant comments from him are preserved in Eusebius’s History of the Church History Book 7 Chapter 32 beginning at paragraph 14.

He says, for example: “we maintain that those who place the [month of Nisan] in [March], and determine by it the fourteenth of the passover, commit [a] blunder.” source

And: “this is not an opinion of our own; but it was known to the Jews of old, even before Christ, and was carefully observed by them. This may be learned from what is said by Philo, Josephus, and Musæus; and not only by them, but also by those yet more ancient, the two Agathobuli, surnamed ‘Masters,’ and the famous Aristobulus…” source

This early bishop also created a table of Easter dates for many years into the future which were very influential. source

 

[alwayswill]

I KNOW! Please, if you’re only interested in trapping me in my words, then stop responding. I asked a question that it seems you’re hardly interested in responding to.

Then please clearly state the question without adding
“Protestants because they’re the** main **objectors.
Many Protestants treat Easter as an option
Many of them have difficulty with the Nicene Fathers’ setup for determining the Easter date”
and linking to a Protestant website

What is the issue that **you **want to discuss?
Is it that there is no command to celebrate Easter
or different Church traditions feel it should dated differently?

 

[Tannhauser_1509]

What is the issue that **you **want to discuss?
Is it that there is no command to celebrate Easter or different Church traditions feel it should dated differently?

No and no. dmar198 responded to my question in the manner I had hoped others would. Again, we should probably just ignore the bits about Protestantism if they bother you. I wasn’t trying to stir contention.

 

[Wesrock]

I’m interested in the question, too. Why do we determine the date the way we do, and (perhaps more interestingly) why does this differ from the way Jews calculate the date of Passover, to which the Resurrection is intrinsically linked? One would think Easter would always be either the Sunday after Passover or two days after Passover (or the fixed solar calendar date, if we remembered).

 

[The_Reginator]

I’m interested in the question, too. Why do we determine the date the way we do, and (perhaps more interestingly) why does this differ from the way Jews calculate the date of Passover, to which the Resurrection is intrinsically linked? One would think Easter would always be either the Sunday after Passover or two days after Passover (or the fixed solar calendar date, if we remembered).

How is the time of Passover calculated? Is it fixed or does it wander too?

 

[Tannhauser_1509]

How is the time of Passover calculated? Is it fixed or does it wander too?

Whereas the Roman calendar (which the Church adopted) is a solar calendar, based on the movements of the earth around the sun, the Jewish calendar is lunar, based on the movements of the moon around the earth. Jewish Passover is fixed in the Jewish calendar, but “moves around” in our calendar because ours is based off an entirely different method of dating. Jewish Passover always begins the 15th day (I think) in the month of Nisan; in our Gregorian calendar, our dates for Passover will change year to year, usually in March and April.

 

[alwayswill]

Whereas the Roman calendar (which the Church adopted) is a solar calendar, based on the movements of the earth around the sun, the Jewish calendar is lunar, based on the movements of the moon around the earth. Jewish Passover is fixed in the Jewish calendar, but “moves around” in our calendar because ours is based off an entirely different method of dating. Jewish Passover always begins the 15th day (I think) in the month of Nisan; in our Gregorian calendar, our dates for Passover will change year to year, usually in March and April.

start with vernal equinox. (the first day of spring) which is a SOLAR event
then go to the first full moon ; which is a LUNAR event ; after the northern vernal equinox and that is 15th day of the month of Nisan, which is the start of Passover