Who is ishtar of easter

Once upon a time there was a Sumerian goddess called Ishtar, but her name was actually pronounced "Easter". She was the goddess of love, war, fertility and prostitutes. She was also regarded as the human personification of the planet Venus. Some say she was hatched from an egg. She was worshipped by the Philistines. Her husband Tammuz is described in the Book of Ezekiel as a false god.

And Ishtar may have been a descendant from Noah. When Tammuz died young, Ishtar - dressed in jewels and fine clothes - travelled to the underworld. She meets the goddess of death and sterility who orders Ishtar executed and her body hung on a pole for display, presaging Christ's humiliation on the Cross.

Ishtar holds her symbol. Credit: Wikimedia. Meanwhile, in Ishtar's absence, sex on earth dries up, be it among livestock or humans. Carnal desire is dead Upon her return to the surface of the earth, birds started singing again, bulls commenced rutting and men rushed home to their wives for a bit of life-making cuddle time.

Babies were born and the world kept on turning. In effect, the resurrected Ishtar became the goddess of new life. The Greeks later told a similar story about the young goddess Persephone who was dragged to the underworld by Hades, causing the world to freeze over and crops to fail.

Premise 4 Upon conversion, Constantine ushered some old deities into Christianity. Premise 5 Ishtar becomes part of the object of worship of the recently Christianized empire. And you can see why! Ishtar seems really similar to Easter, right? Based on this, I'd say so. Premise 3 When Ishtar became Easter, her fertile representatives became part of the Christian celebration.

The eggs and the bunnies seem to have a number of conflicting stories explaining their origins. Some say they come from a medieval debate about the fertility of bunnies and their relation to the cross. The Easter bunny and the eggs, while possibly pagan in origin, have nothing to do with Ishtar or Babylonian deities.

The claim has been shared thousands of times on social media every year around Easter since at least In , a Facebook post making the claim -- which also appears in YouTube videos -- was shared , times. The late Duke University professor emeritus of religion Hans Hillerbrand wrote that it is generally accepted that the Latin phrase designating Easter week, in albis, understood as the plural of alba dawn , became eostarum in Old High German, then Easter in English and Ostern in modern German.

But it is likely that he was guessing. While this explanation is often used, particularly because Eostre is associated with rabbits and eggs, it is not the most commonly accepted.