How did Easter Eggs ever become associated with Jesus' Resurrection?

Question

and how about that fuzzy bunny character?

Answer 1

A better question to ask yourself is "How did Jesus' resurrection ever become associated with the pagan fertility rites of Spring?"

Answer 2

The bunny, I think, is just associated with spring and rebirth.
The eggs, those probably stem from the roasted eggs at Passover (the Last Supper was one of the evening Passover meals) which symbolized the birth of the Israelites as a nation upon leaving slavery in Egypt.
Jesus died and rose to save those who believe from sin, thus His Resurrection is the birth of the Christian faith. Eggs are for both births a symbol of new birth and such.

However, this is just an educated guess, it doesn't say anything in the Bible about the Resurrection other than the women finding the empty tomb.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

The meaning of many different customs observed during Easter Sunday have been buried with time. Their origins lie in pre-Christian religions and Christianity. All in some way or another are a "salute to spring," marking re-birth. The white Easter lily has come to capture the glory of the holiday. The word "Easter" is named after Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. A festival was held in her honor every year at the vernal equinox.

People celebrate the holiday according to their beliefs and their religious denominations. Christians commemorate Good Friday as the day that Jesus Christ died and Easter Sunday as the day that He was resurrected. Protestant settlers brought the custom of a sunrise service, a religious gathering at dawn, to the United States.

Who is the Easter Bunny?
Today on Easter Sunday children wake up to find that the Easter Bunny has left them baskets of candy. He has also hidden the eggs that they decorated earlier that week. Children hunt for the eggs all around the house. Neighborhoods and organizations hold Easter egg hunts, and the child who finds the most eggs wins a prize.

The Easter Bunny is a rabbit-spirit. Long ago, he was called the" Easter Hare." Hares and rabbits have frequent multiple births so they became a symbol of fertility. The custom of an Easter egg hunt began because children believed that hares laid eggs in the grass. The Romans believed that "All life comes from an egg." Christians consider eggs to be "the seed of life" and so they are symbolic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Why we dye, or color, and decorate eggs is not certain. In ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Persia eggs were dyed for spring festivals. In medieval Europe, beautifully decorated eggs were given as gifts.

Answer 4

Hard-boiled eggs, dyed deep red to symbolize the redeeming blood of Christ, are an Eastern Orthodox tradition at Pascha (We Orthodox don't call it "Easter", the pagan term. We call it "Pascha" for "passover"). The egg is further symbolic in that it is an emblem of the Resurrection: it contains life motionless; in the same manner, after being motionless in the grave, the resurrected come forth with new life. On Easter and the following weeks until Pentecost, the greeting "Christos Anesti!" (Christ is Risen!) and the reply "Alethos Anesti!" (Indeed He is Risen!) are heard among the faithful. This is repeated, at our church, in Greek, Russian, Romanian, Arabic and English.

An interesting piece of Greek folklore provides another explanation for the eggs of red color. According to the story, one of the Apostles told a woman that Christ had risen. Not believing the Apostle, she glanced down at her apronful of eggs and said, "If these eggs turn red I will believe He is risen." Apparently she soon believed, because the eggs all turned red. Another story is that Mary Magdalene, carrying a basket full of eggs, was told by Emperor Tiberius Caesar, "I'll only believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead if all those eggs turn red." The eggs immediately turned red.

When Orthodox Christians celebrate Pascha (Easter), at the end of the service, the priest gives us each a red egg. At that point, we eat the egg and break our 40 day fast from all animal products.

Answer 5

Since the resurrection was seen by many early pagan converts to christianity as the renewal and another version of the 'resurrected god', the leaders of the church at that time (about 500AD) incorporated many of the traditions that these converts were used to into the christian tradition. Eggs are a universal symbol of rebirth, renewal and fertility - it was the tradition to offer colored eggs to the Mother Goddess of many lands (Ishtar in the middle east, Eostre in Germany- both of these old goddesses could/did give their names to Easter) Rabbits/Hares are also symbols of spring and fertility, and also associated with the old pagan rites of spring, so they were included. Just how the "Easter Bunny" came about is cause for speculation, no one really knows.

Answer 6

A lot of pagan cultures had something associated with eggs, but the one that is associated with Easter is the feast of spring equinox for the central Europeans. They use to use eggs as a representation of new life of the spring goddess. Then when Christianity hit central Europe the Germans and the poles started associating the egg with the resurrection of Christ and that is why they paint them and bless them.

Answer 7

Since the beginning of time, Spring has been one of the most important holidays. That's not hard to understand, since people had to survive the terrible winters without today's warm clothing and well heated houses.
The holiday was called The Rebirth. Beautiful flowers popped up, little chicks were born, tiny rabbits were born. It was a wonderful time of year.
When Christianity took hold, records were not kept. Everything was guesswork, so the church leaders had to come up with details of the life of Christ. They selected the great Pagan holiday The Return of Light as the time Jesus was born ( actually, even the time of year is not known ),
The other great pagan holiday, The Rebirth was adopted as the time that Jesus was " reborn" ( brought back from the dead ).

Answer 8

Eggs are a symbol of fertility, as is "resurrection," when life appears to magically renew itself in the springtime (and bunnies have always been especially prolific). Any sensible person celebrates the return of warmth and activity after usually dreary winters - even Christians, who got all of their symbols and myths directly from older traditions such as paganism.

Unfortunately, Christians had a psychotic need to feel superior to those they considered rivals, so they changed a few details of the old stories and then persecuted anyone who disagreed with them, up to and including killing them despite their so-called Commandment against doing that.

Answer 9

In certain versions of the Bible, there is mention of Jesus's friend, Mr. Fluffkins. He was a bunny-shaped angel sent down to be emissary to the woodland critters, that just so happened to be there when the tomb was found to be empty. Because the Catholic Church doesn't recognize bunnies as being important, they have stripped Mr. Fluffkins, and his book in the bible, out of most versions. As for the eggs, Mr. Fluffkins was a pot-smoking art teacher on the side who specialized in Faberge Eggs...

Answer 10

Something about people stealing eggs from Christan farms and smashing them so they hid their eggs (I don't know if that's actually true or an urban legend) also as for the bunnies I guess because Easter is close to the start of spring and the babies represent the new life