Easter Sunday explanation please

Yes, nanna, doesn't matter that we don't know the exact date. We can still celebrate the event.

eddiecat78

We are told that Christ was crucified on Good Friday and rose again three days later - which would be Easter Monday - so why is the resurrection marked on the Sunday?

Is your"why?" about church traditions, or about the historical Jesus?

Maremia

I agree with you MOnica. People trying to make sense of the events and tragedies happening around them.
Many of our ancestors were Pagan before new religions evolved.
It makes sense, to me, that we merged old and new traditions.

As no-one seems to be sure when Christ was born, it seems sensible to have fixed the date around the date of another festival in mid-winter when, in the Northern hemisphere at least, it's cold, dark and miserable and people need cheering up.

It doesn't work so well in the Southern Hemisphere though!

I love Easter, am a christian and I too always wondered about the 'after three days Jesus rose". As others have said it's based on the Jewish sundown to sunset...Friday, Sat, Sunday. In real time, Jesus would only have been in the tomb for less than 48 hours.

Curiosity isn't nitpicking!

paddyann54

Only if you believe in it!
It’s long been a pagan festival swiped by religions over the centuries ..it celebrated the coming of spring .

Not necessarily; the dates could coincide but not necessarily.

Good Friday can be fairly accurately dated now as being Friday 3rd April, 33, ie 14th Nisan. It is a moveable feast now, however.

As for Christ's birth, it is probably unlikely it was on 25th December and the date varies according to which historian claims to have worked out which Roman Emperor was reigning at that time and who ordered the census.
Shepherds would not have been tending their flocks in the field in mid-winter.

I agree with you MOnica. People trying to make sense of the events and tragedies happening around them.
Many of our ancestors were Pagan before new religions evolved.
It makes sense, to me, that we merged old and new traditions.

I believe that Christ came to earth,was crucified and died for our sins and rose again. I don’t really care about the exact date just that we do have a date to celebrate what he did for us. It is a time I feel grateful but then I feel grateful most of the time . It is just that Easter is a focus for us Christians.

I've more or less become an atheist, but do not "rubbish" Christian traditions. On the contrary, I'm very conscious of being a "cultural Christian" in that I try to live up to the ethics of Jesus without believing that he was anything more than a human teacher.
As for Easter, if people want to believe that Jesus actually died and rose again, and all the other beliefs about an afterlife, that's up to them. To me, Easter is a celebration of the return of life after the hard months of winter.

I think O'Neill was just putting in the domain of most of us, information previously known only to theologians and their students.

All religions rise from humankinds insatiable desire to understand the unknown.

The plot thickens,
Tim O'Neill is an Australian blogger and amateur historian, according to Google.

What an interesting discussion.
I've never understood athiests incessant need to rubbish the great Christian festivals like it somehow threatens their non-belief.

According to atheist historian Tim O’Neill, the idea that Mithras’ birth was associated with 25 December has no foundation. And Saturnalia started on 17 December and ended by 23 December.

Early Christians chose 25 December to celebrate the birth of Jesus most probably because that was 9 months after the date they thought he was conceived. They thought he was conceived around 25 March because there was a tradition that prophets died on the date they were conceived, and he had died at that time of year.

This date was chosen by 354 AD, which according to O’Neill ‘predates any need to co-opt pagan festivals by about 200 years’.

historyforatheists.com/2016/12/the-great-myths-2-christmas-mithras-and-paganism/

When Christianity was developing, the Romans ruled those areas.
When the Romans became Christian, Saturnalia became Christmas. The actual date of the 25th of December was celebrated as the birth date for Mithras, a Persian deity worshipped by Roman soldiers. That actual date of the birth of Jesus was not recorded, or handed down.
One example of Pagan becoming Christian.
It makes sense. Folk were celebrated anyway, let's make it our version.

paddyann54

Only if you believe in it!
It’s long been a pagan festival swiped by religions over the centuries ..it celebrated the coming of spring .

Religions do not swipte each others festivals, but there are some natural events that have seemed mysterious to people through out the world in the past . The four solstices are four of those dates, that gives us Christmas and Easter as well as midsummer and less, celerated the Autumn euinox.

Some people love to think that the Celts had some ownership of the solstices, but religion in some form existed for many thousands of years before the Celts, so their beliefs will almost certainly reflect what went on in those thousands of years.

Religions are syncretic and reflect the basic hopes and fears of humans everywhere throughout time.

paddyann54 Not according to this atheist historian...

historyforatheists.com/pagan-origins/

Only if you believe in it!
It’s long been a pagan festival swiped by religions over the centuries ..it celebrated the coming of spring .

Well said AuntieE.

What a lot of unkind replies.

The thinking in the Ancient world, alias early Christian church was indeed that you counted both Good Friday and Easter Sunday, so that makes three days, as it still usually does if we count on our fingers from today to any amount of coming days.

Please could we try to answer well-meant enquires charitably in future?

You say not nitpicking but we're not "told that he rose again three days later". I'm surprised you've never heard the phrase "on the third day he rose again". It's quite obvious what that means. Also surprised that no-one in the family could use google to explain to you all.

Happy Easter!

Anniebach

Yes, died Good Friday, 1 day,Saturday 2nd day, Easter Sunday 3rd Day

I'm not nitpicking. The question came up amongst the family and nobody knew the answer

Day 1 -- Dusk Thursday until dusk Friday
Day 2 -- Dusk Friday until Dusk Saturday
Day 3 -- Dusk Saturday until dusk Sunday

Easter Sunday is surely not a day to nitpick , the day is for rejoicing

The bible says …’On the third day he rose again’. So not quite the same as three days.

Yes, died Good Friday, 1 day,Saturday 2nd day, Easter Sunday 3rd Day

I assume Good Friday is classed as the first day?