What's the point with movable Easter?

[Gorgias]

Jews use a different method of calculating Passover than the Church does.

It is using the calculator that the Church is using to determine the date of Passover.

Fair enough. Then, if we want to say when Easter is, I think it’s more reasonable to express it in terms of the Catholic formula, rather than saying “Sunday after Passover.” After all, a reasonable person would interpret that expression as “Sunday after Jewish Passover” rather than “Sunday after the Christian-calculation-of-when-Passover-should-really-be”, no?

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Jews use a different method of calculating Passover than the Church does.

It is using the calculator that the Church is using to determine the date of Passover.

Fair enough. Then, if we want to say when Easter is, I think it’s more reasonable to express it in terms of the Catholic formula, rather than saying “Sunday after Passover.” After all, a reasonable person would interpret that expression as “Sunday after Jewish Passover” rather than “Sunday after the Christian-calculation-of-when-Passover-should-really-be”, no?

It’s the Christian calculation of Passover, “really should be” doesn’t enter into it. And the only reason Easter is movable because it is calculated in relation to Passover.

I did mention that it was “the Church’s calculation” of the feast in my first post because of that type of concern, though.

 

[phil19034]

Wesrock:

Jews use a different method of calculating Passover than the Church does.

It is using the calculator that the Church is using to determine the date of Passover.

Fair enough. Then, if we want to say when Easter is, I think it’s more reasonable to express it in terms of the Catholic formula, rather than saying “Sunday after Passover.” After all, a reasonable person would interpret that expression as “Sunday after Jewish Passover” rather than “Sunday after the Christian-calculation-of-when-Passover-should-really-be”, no?

True.

But to be fair, I wasn’t the person who said Easter is the Sunday after Passover

 

[BartholomewB]

The Catholic Church uses the calculation for Passover that was in existence during the time of Christ.

Are you sure about that, Phil? I have read that, in the Herodian period, the beginning of each month was still determined by observation of the new moon, and that it was only after the destruction of the Temple (or possibly later still) that they switched to calculating the calendar in advance,.

 

[phil19034]

phil19034:

The Catholic Church uses the calculation for Passover that was in existence during the time of Christ.

Are you sure about that, Phil? I have read that, in the Herodian period, the beginning of each month was still determined by observation of the new moon, and that it was only after the destruction of the Temple (or possibly later still) that they switched to calculating the calendar in advance,.

I might be simplifying a lot. The problem was mainly leap year.

Basically, the Catholic Church go tired of waiting for the Jewish leaders to determine with Passover was. So the Church used the general way the Jews were determining it, but standardized the “exceptions” that the Jews were figuring out each year.

Later, the Jews standardize the “exception” process and didn’t follow what the Catholics did.

Again, I’m simplifying

 

[BartholomewB]

Basically, the Catholic Church go tired of waiting for the Jewish leaders to determine with Passover was.

What date would that have been, roughly, when the Church got tired of waiting?

 

[phil19034]

phil19034:

Basically, the Catholic Church go tired of waiting for the Jewish leaders to determine with Passover was.

What date would that have been, roughly, when the Church got tired of waiting?

I don’t remember exactly, but I think it was shortly after the Jews tossed them out of the synagogues.

 

[mythbuster1]

It’s the Sunday after Passover as calculated by the computus. Three years out of 19, the Catholic Passover occurs a month before the Jewish Passover due to different starting points in the Metonic Cycle (corresponding to different lunar leap years).

 

[childinthefaith]

Easter is the new Passover which Jesus ernestly desired to celebrate and which we are still celebrating.

Thank you I did not ever really consider the dating of Liturgical Holidays, cause before I was a Catholic, we didn’t pay much attention except to Easter + Christmas, and would’ve never questioned “why” (x) date.

This, however, makes sense as to why Easter is not the same date annually like Christmas. Would’ve never thought about it, or known…
Thx again!

 

[dochawk]

I believe that the Church has stated that we do have the right to change Easter to a fixed date

The date of Easter is more discipline than theology, with the point being to get a common date.

Nice set the astronomical calculation (first Sunday following the full moon following the equinox).

At the time, this was difficult to calculate by observation, and Alexandreia produced tables based on the calendar in use to calculate it, a 14 year cycle.

That (pagan) Julian calendar, however, had too many leap days (no provision for skipping leap years), and the tables got out of whack with the calendars.

It was Rome that put out a new calendar. Being post-schism, the Orthodox rejected it.

For me, this is a head-scratcher, as generally it is the Orthodox saying that we must stick with the councils, and the west claiming the ability to ][progress|innovate|evolve|enhance].

Last year, both calendars missed the correct date . . .

Anyway, I was posting to point out that in areas where Christians are predominantly on the old calendar, the RCC uses that date for Easter these days, for unitiy’s sake.

[my personal solution is to toss tables entirely and use the actual event, which is trivial to calculate these days, but . . .]

IIRC, Easter is always the Sunday following the first full moon after the calendar’s spring equinox.

No, that’s when it is supposed to be. The west currently uses an 84 year table with usually gets it right, but not always (such as last year).

Passover has a different lunar calculation, so sometimes the coincidence is there, and sometimes not. [whether by tables or Nicean calculation]

Does anyone have an Easter birthday? I do, but that birthday only rarely falls on Easter, twice so far in my lifetime, and again only if God is willing.

In that case, you;'re not old enough to be posting here. Please come back when you turn three.

:crazy_face:

The Catholic Church uses the calculation for Passover that was in existence during the time of Christ.

Had a single method been in use at the time, that might be an arguable position (and there wouldn’t have been as much dispute as to when to place it among the early Christians)

 

[Beryllos]

In that case, you;'re not old enough to be posting here. Please come back when you turn three.

:crazy_face:

Is this like February 29th babies?

 

[dochawk]

Yes, but yours seems to work far better . . .

 

[njlisa]

So we need to stay in sync with Jewish celebrations?

@BlueKumul

Christianity is intimately connect with Judaism. Jewish prophets prophesied that the messiah would come.

Don’t forget, Jesus was a Jew in a Jewish world. Jesus and his apostles went to Jerusalem. He spent Passover with his apostles. Jesus instituted the Eucharist at a Passover seder. That’s our Holy Thursday.

Pentecost (Shavout) is a Jewish pilgrimage festival. The newly given gifts of the Spirit enabled St. Peter to speak so that all the Jews could understand.

 

[BlueKumul]

Because we use a standard calendar based on the sun all the way? But we don’t pay attention to the moon unless we’re doing astrology.

 

[phil19034]

But we don’t pay attention to the moon unless we’re doing astrology.

That’s far from true. Boating (for example) depends greatly on the lunar calendar because of the tides.

While we might not use the lunar calendar for dates today, we surely keep track of it.

As far as Passover is concerned, it has always been based on the Moon. Let’s remember, Easter in many (if not most) other language uses the same name as the Jewish Passover.

Spanish:

• Passover = Pascua
• Easter = Pascua de Resurrección

My point: Easter IS the Passover. So we Christians are TRYING to celebrate it using the same calculation the Ancient Jews used, because we only know the date based on the Lunar Calendar. We don’t know when the first Passover took place otherwise.

In other words, we TRY to set up the liturgical Calendar to reflect the true dates of when things happened or dates that at least correspond to the actual date. For example Christmas, Dec 25 was picked because we have some evidence to estimate when Zachariah would have been in the Temple, hence we have and idea regarding when Elizabeth became pregnant with him. We also know how many months older John the Baptist is than Jesus.

So we are able to p(name removed by moderator)oint the date of Jesus’s birth to be in late December or early Jan due to Scripture and historical records regarding when Zachariah would have been in the Temple.

My point: we have no reference as to when the first Passover was, other than the Lunar calendar. We don’t know the year (according to the Gregorian Calendar), so we cannot convert the date. Therefore, we do our best to celebrate it using the lunar calendar.

God Bless

 

[BartholomewB]

That’s far from true. Boating (for example) depends greatly on the lunar calendar because of the tides.

Good point !

My point: Easter IS the Passover. So we Christians are TRYING to celebrate it using the same calculation the Ancient Jews used,

Phil, as I mentioned in an earlier comment on this thread, I have reason to believe that this information is probably incorrect. What the history books say is that, for as long as there was a Temple priesthood in a position to exercise its authority, the beginning of each new month was proclaimed when the first sliver of the new moon became visible in the evening sky over Jerusalem. It was only later that the Jewish calendar was determined by calculation rather than by observation. If you have found evidence to the contrary, I would very much like to see it. Technically, of course, there was nothing to prevent the Temple priests from doing the calculations, if they had chosen to. The Callippic cycle, for instance (76 mean solar years = 940 average lunar months) had been known for over 300 years by the time of Annas and Caiaphas, but they evidently thought it their duty to go on doing things the traditional way.

 

[JSRG]

Why is the date of Easter changing every year according to the Moon’s phases? It looks like astrology.

It is no less dependent on the phases of the Moon than Passover is! Without getting into the complexities of the Hebrew Calendar, essentially Passover is to take place in the spring and under a full moon. The date chosen for Easter was the Sunday after Passover. Thus, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. In other words, the first Sunday after Passover.

You might ask why Passover and Easter can diverge so much in some years, then. Originally, Christians did in fact just look at whenever Jews celebrated Passover and choose their date of Easter based on that. But eventually they decided to move to their own calculations. The reason they can diverge by about a month in some years is that there are errors in the calculation of the Hebrew Calendar that have accumulated over time (much like how they had to transition from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar, because of the centuries the calendar ended up being about 10 days off!) which lead to Passover being a month later than it needs to be in some years.

Shouldn’t the date be always the same, as it’s the case with Christmas?

As noted, the date of Easter is based on Passover (or when Passover is supposed to be, anyway), which moves around each year.

 

[dochawk]

As noted, the date of Easter is based on Passover (or when Passover is supposed to be, anyway),

again, only “sort of”.

That is how it was defined at Nice, but today the RCC uses an 84 year cycle which *usually does that, but sometimes misses the “correct” date (like last year)

 

[BlueKumul]

In Russian it’s Pascha as well. Then in Polish it’s Wielkanoc, literally “great night”

 

[phil19034]

Phil, as I mentioned in an earlier comment on this thread, I have reason to believe that this information is probably incorrect. What the history books say is that, for as long as there was a Temple priesthood in a position to exercise its authority, the beginning of each new month was proclaimed when the first sliver of the new moon became visible in the evening sky over Jerusalem. It was only later that the Jewish calendar was determined by calculation rather than by observation.

I should have said “a similar calculation” instead of “the same calculation”