Interview – Andrew Henry on Easter and “Pagan Origins”
My latest guest is Dr Andrew Henry, who is an adjunct professor at George Washington University in Washington DC and a specialist in late antique Mediterranean religion. He is also the writer and presenter of the excellent Religion for Breakfast YouTube channel, where he has several videos debunking claims about the supposed “pagan origins” of Christian festivals.
In this conversation we discuss the various claims about the supposed “pagan origin” of the date of and customs surrounding Easter. We go on to talk about why this “pagan origins” idea is so persistent and his work trying to bring a more balanced and scholarly perspective to this and associated topics regarding the history of religion.
My own video on Easter’s alleged pagan origins can be found here:
Andrew’s recent Religion for Breakfast video on the same topic is here:
And I’d strongly recommend a subscription to Religion for Breakfast for more great content.
18 thoughts on “Interview – Andrew Henry on Easter and “Pagan Origins””
What happened to the interview? I can see two videos about Easter, but no conversation with Andrew Henry.
(BTW: Thanks for all the great posts. They’ve really inspired me to broaden my interest in history).
Sorry. Fixed.
Thanks for the interesting video
Is there a video explaining medieval christian practices? You also mentioned a book but i had trouble discerning the name
Nicholas Orme, Going to Church in Medieval England (2021)
Related question: I made the mistake of replying to someone’s Facebook comment, who insisted that the empty tomb is “a historical fact”. When I objected, he insisted “it is an established fact that Jesus died by crucifixion and that the tomb where he was placed became empty… no scholar of reputation denies these claims”. What is the scholarly consensus on the post-crucifixion stories? (I know you’ve covered some of this in the past, but I don’t recall anything about the tomb specifically).
That he was crucified is something we can say about him with confidence. But the claim that “no scholar of reputation denies” the empty tomb claim is nonsense. Plenty of esteemed scholars think the empty tomb stories are a later addition to the narrative and that it’s unlikely Jesus was given any kind of formal burial. Apologists like to pretend the tomb stories are as solid as the crucifixion because that allows them to ask why it was empty (their answer, of course, being that Jesus really rose from the dead). But Ehrman and Crossan don’t think there was any such empty tomb and other scholars like Allison and Fredriksen are also sceptical. These are “scholars of reputation”, even if the apologists really don’t like to admit this.
Significantly, Paul makes no mention of the empty tomb stories. not even in his defence of the idea of Jesus’ resurrection in 1Cor 15, where it would be a good piece of evidence to present if he had known of it. That silence is strange. So is the fact that the tomb stories are highly contradictory. As Ehrman points out in How Jesus Became God, we can see remnants of an earlier tradition whereby Jesus was not lain in a conveniently available tomb at all and was instead disposed by the Temple authorities to prevent his rotting corpse polluting the Passover. Peter’s sermon in Acts 13:27-29 seems to reflect this earlier tradition:
“Those who lived in Jerusalem and their rulers…requested Pilate to have him killed; and when they had fulfilled all that was written of him they took him down from the tree and placed him in a tomb.”
Similarly, in some early manuscripts of gJohn there is a variant reading of John 19:38 that “So they (the Jewish leaders) came and took away his body.” Justin (Dialogue 97.1) says “For the Lord too remained on the tree almost until evening, and towards evening they buried him” in a context that, again, implies the “they” here are the Jewish leaders. The Gospel of Peter likewise says “And then they [the Jews] drew out the nails from the hands of the Lord, and laid him in the earth” (gPeter 6). Finally, the gnostic Secret Book of James has the risen Jesus detailing to his brother the hardships he endured in his death and says he was shamefully buried “in the sand”.
So we have elements here of an earlier tradition or traditions where (i) it is the Jewish leaders who dispose of Jesus’ body, not his followers and (ii) he is “laid in the earth” or buried “in the sand”, not neatly tucked away in a tomb, ready for a physical resurrection and subsequent bodily ascension into heaven.
In his 1 Corinthians letter Paul was summarising the events, not going into every detail as recorded in the Gospels, so it’s not surprising he doesnt specifically mention the tomb. Rather he was summarising that Jesus had died, was buried (which could of course refer to the tomb) and was raised. It’s not strange at all. Even Ehrman has said you shouldnt expect to find the details of the Gospels in Paul’s letters as that wasnt the purpose of the letters.
In Acts 13: 27-29 it’s actually Paul not Peter who speaks to the gathered Jews, and here he DOES specifically refer to the tomb. So it isnt true to imply that Paul wasnt aware of the tomb. He specifically referred to it. Taken together, Paul believed Jesus was buried in a tomb.
The context of John 19: 38 shows that even if ‘they’ is correct rather than ‘he’ (and that’s debatable) the ‘they’ refers to Joseph and Nicodemus.
Justin Martyr most likely knew John’s Gospel (given his reference to Jesus as the ‘Logos’ and other themes), so it’s unlikely he would have understood ‘they’ as anyone other than Joseph and Nicodemus. He is comparing Moses’ hands being raised until the evening with Jesus being crucified in a similar position until evening, that’s the common context he is highlighting.
As for other writings, why appeal to them? Or are they more historically reliable than the Gospels?
Firstly, I’m well aware of the apologists’ counter arguments. I was noting that the claim that there is no respected scholar who doesn’t accept the empty tomb stories. Which is nonsense – there are plenty.
Secondly, yes I’m wary of any arguments from silence re Paul, especially since they are used, badly, by Mythicists. But this silence is strange. He says Jesus was “buried”, but makes no use of any empty tomb as evidence that he then rose. Given this is the whole point of what he’s trying to argue, this absence is odd, unless he didn’t know of any tomb stories.
You’re right that the Acts 13 reference is incorrect. A better example of what I’m talking about is Peter’s sermon in Acts 2:14-41. There he makes the point that “David …. died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day” (v. 29) and contrasts this with Jesus’ death and resurrection. But he doesn’t make the obvious contrasting point that Jesus’ tomb is empty, which is doubly odd given that this supposed resurrection is meant to have happened only a little over a month before. Why doesn’t he highlight the empty tomb as proof? Also what Paul is depicted saying about a tomb in Acts is not good evidence of what Paul himself knew. Acts was written by someone else using invented speech to reflect what the writer understood.
Finally, those other writings reflect alternative traditions that could be evidence of an earlier stratum of tradition. Paul’s silence and the odd silence in Peter’s sermon could do the same. Of course, none of this is definitive, but these things never are. And no, I’m not interested in a back and forth where you present more apologetics. Take that elsewhere.
It’s easy to lump together any position that argues against you as ‘apologetics’ and then refuse to deal with the legitimate points raised. Any historian could have raised the same points as they are based on the writings you were referring to. But Ill just say you seem to change how you view the accuracy of writings such as Acts depending on whether or not it supports your own view. You’ve now quoted Peter from a speech in Acts and you seem to view that as legitimately reflecting what Peter said. But you then claim that we cant trust Acts to do the same for Paul’s speech because Acts is ‘invented speech’ of the author! Very inconsistent.
I’m gong to let you out of the box one more time.
You’re clearly arguing for the truth of Christianity’s theological claims. That is Christian apologetics. Words have meanings.
I dealt with your points.
I cited the Acts 2 speech because it seems to reflect an early stratum of belief that had no tomb stories. I don’t believe it is actually what Peter said any more than any of the reported speech in Acts or any ancient text. I also made no claim to it reflecting any speech by Peter himself or if any such speech was actually made. So no, not inconsistent.
One more time: I presented the arguments against the historicity of the tomb stories to show that such arguments can be and are made by scholars and to counter the claim made to Steve Watson on Facebook that all “scholars of reputation” accept that there was an empty tomb. Of course there are counter arguments to these. I think some of these arguments are strong and others less so – I only presented them to show they exist and are held by a number of reputable scholars. This is not the place for your apologetics, especially given it’s now well off-topic. You’ve been warned about presenting apologetics here. Do it again and you won’t post comments here ever again.
So, we are supposed to believe that rabbits and eggs (fertility symbols), which have no connection to Jewish/Christian religion (it’s never even discussed in any part of the Bible/Torah), supposedly belong to Christians and not to polytheist/pagans, who actually have fertility symbols of rabbits in their beliefs? The only place that the word ‘Eostre’ exists is in this area of the world where these tribes pagans live at the time, and Bede even acknowledges their worship to a Goddess of the same name but somehow you conclude that it’s not pagan? The word Eostre doesn’t exist in the Hebrew language, right? So, it had to come from the peoples that lived in that area. The Jewish/Christians called the celebration of this time of year ‘Pashca’, not Eostre. Even to find the origin of the word itself, Easter, it shouldn’t be called Easter, it would be known as Pashca or Passover. So, how is this name carried along with these traditions that have no connection to Jewish traditions? How is it that everywhere else in the world that Passover/Pashca traditions is celebrated, it’s continued to be called Passover/Pashca which has totally different celebrations. But only in this area, where these pagan people have a Goddess by the same name, is the word CHANGED to Easter. We make a decision because there is lack of evidence, when it is because of Christians that we lack historical evidence? They destroyed everything they could of the Pagan beliefs. Even with the Norse beliefs, there is only a few text that survived. Everything else has been verbally passed down through stories, just as Indigenous American tribes have done. I guess what they say is true, the victors rewrite history.
Given that we have no actual evidence connecting any supposed pagan traditions or beliefs around eggs and rabbits to the much later Christian Easter traditions about them, why should we assume a derivation from the former to the latter? Are you saying its impossible that two sets of traditions could arise independently at two very different points in time? And this is what the actual evidence indicates did happen. The Easter eggs tradition appears to have arise independently out of the Lenten fast of eggs and the “Easter Bunny” tradition is a very modern derivation from one of several animals associated with early spring – the hare – which became associated with Easter, along with the Easter Fox, Easter Goose, Easter Stork etc. It’s strange how you “pagan origins” people always ignore those other Easter animals.
The name is pagan. As we discuss at length. The name, in English, comes from the month name “Eostremonath”, which was the month in which Easter usually fell. And the month name was distantly derived, as Bede tells us, from the festivals of the obscure goddess Eostre. So the name of the feast in English comes from the month name and so, very indirectly, from the goddess’ name. That’s the only pagan connection we can trace.
Yes, that’s the weak excuse you “pagan origins” people always use. The problem us we do have evidence of the origin of the name, the eggs and the bunny and only the name (very indirectly) has a pagan connection.
Yes. See above. Did you actually listen to what we said? We discussed all this.
“it shouldn’t be called Easter”
Guess what? In Dutch, Frisian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish it isn’t. And it’s celebrated in those countries in about the same way – including eggs. Oh wait – we Dutch have a hare iso a bunny. Now what?
Which for me makes the connection between Easter and Ishtar even more ridiculous, because it hinges on a superficial similarity between the goddess’ and the festival’s name *in English*. This turns into rubbish as soon as you speak any other language.
It almost seems as if only people who are ignorant of the fact that other languages than English exist could even make this connection in the first place.
Of course, the really important languages for this matter are Latin and Greek, and in both the feast is called Pascha. I should very much presume that Hebrew-speaking Christians – they’ve got their own auxiliary bishop within the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, so apparently they exist… – call it by the same name.
Well, we can then, with some respectful distance, add the English and Germans, who apparently call it Dawn (which is what “Easter”, goddess or no goddess, seems to actually *mean*), and a couple of the Slav people who apparently call it what in English would be “Highday” and less often “Highnight” (not unlike the Germans who call Christmas what in English would be “Hallownight”). These do make their senses, but the distance to the actual name “Pascha” is respectful.
Greetings Tim
This comment may be off topic but I was wondering about a tidbit on Saint Patrick; that his driving of the snakes from the isle was a metaphor for driving away the pagans. Does this stand up to scrutiny?
No. It’s a silly modern invention. Very recent.
(Late) thanks.