We modern people love fairy tales. I think we find comfort in them. There’s a tale of people gathering around the light of their laptops around this time every year to welcome the arrival of spring. The situation is as follows.
Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, there lived a group of evil priests who sought power above all else. They hypnotized people with fantastic stories about talking snakes. king of shepherds. A man who came back from the dead.
That’s true. Because we are so small, we are at great risk. I didn’t have to make up a new story to say that. The more you listen to the stories of the past, the more vividly they come to you.
Every year around this time, people gather for a festival celebrating the undead man. They called it “Easter” and it was a very happy day. People sang songs and drank wine. They feasted on people of high and low status alike. They told the children that if they were so good, they too would not die.
But they were all deceived.
Because, in reality, the Easter story was a clever ruse, a kind of spell cast by the evil priests to hide their true nature. As long as people are distracted by this fantasy, they will continue to focus on life “after death” and let the priests escape. genuine life on earth. To give their story a ring of truth, the priests covered it with fragments of old stories told by other priests from other lands.
But even though the priests were smart and powerful enough to cover the whole world with this elaborate deception, for some reason they forgot to change the names of things. “Easter” was just an oblique rendition of another name, “Ishtar.” -Up Goddess. Once upon a time, Ishtar’s fertility ritual marked the beginning of spring, when things would grow.
That is why the Sons of Reason were able to see through the priest’s tricks and revolt. The rebellion began about 1600 years after the priests began telling the story.now we say our Stories, true stories: There were no talking snakes or humans coming back from the dead. God never existed. We are all here alone, quivering monkeys who have learned to tell stories, and if we can’t tell the real story, we’ll make it up.
This modern folklore resurfaces every year in the form of memes.most popular version The piece is accompanied by a photograph of the Barney Relief, a terracotta sculpture from the Fertile Crescent that depicts a naked, winged female figure, believed to be Ishtar herself. Memes of 2013 are Posted Visit the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Rational Science Facebook page. Dawkins is a famous atheist. write The foundation’s website states, “Critical thinking is humanity’s true savior.”
In every respect, the Easter story that arises from Ishtar’s corpse is error. Historically, its details have been debunked many times by Assyriologists studying ancient Mesopotamia. It starts with the fact that “Ishtar” is almost certainly not pronounced as “EESH-tar” and ends with the fact that “Easter” is English. words. This is not related to the Akkadian “Ishtar” or the Semitic “Astarte”, but to the Anglo-Saxon word for sunrise and east.
Even as a fairy tale, this story is seemingly absurd. The Catholic Church could orchestrate a massive deception across Europe, replacing its own festivals with other festivals imported from Assyria – changing their names for whatever reason, while modifying them to reflect the new religion. The idea of ignoring what you do is incredible. In fact, it is as implausible as the idea that the Galilean fishermen could convincingly fake a resurrection.
But as a myth, it reveals what, in fact, is Ishtar’s Easter origin story. Like all myths, it expresses ideas about human nature. In it, humans end up huddled under layers of self-deception, reduced to weak, fragile animals who wrap themselves up to protect themselves from the cold. Peel away centuries of stargazing and legend and you find a trembling naked, confused savage, staring at the overlapping seasons, trying feebly to impose some order on an indifferent world. Masu. That’s the moral of this story.
It’s crazy to want to believe that – desperately trying to convince gullible people that what you call “critical thinking” belongs to them, weaving it into a pseudo-historical puppet show. It would be strange to try to perform it every year. “The true savior.” There are deceitful priests in this world, but most of them do not wear cassocks or stoles.
It’s interesting, if all you wanted to say was that humans are very vulnerable, or that what we celebrate at Easter was already hinted at in history and ritual before the crucifixion. Then the truth is, that’s enough. In the languages of the Bible, and all modern languages derived from the Bible, Easter is not called “Easter.”it is called Pakesor pashaor pasquale — Greek variant pashawhich comes from Hebrew. Pesach, meaning “Passover.” Although Easter falls on the date of another spring festival, Easter does not begin in Iran. It begins in Egypt.
“If I see blood, I will pass by you.” Jews remember this moment in the first month of the calendar year, just after the vernal equinox, when the day finally begins to be longer than the night. They, too, tell stories of people huddled, fearful, and ever-vigilant amid the whispers of death. They ate with their shoes on, had travel gear in hand, and were ready to sprint at a moment’s notice. And outside their home, in bone-chilling silence, passed the avenging angel of the carnage.
That’s true. Because we are so small, we are at great risk. I didn’t have to make up a new story to say that. If you listen closely, you can hear the old stories as vividly as ever. “We must eat quickly.” Hurry. Please bring only what you need. The desert ahead is dangerous. It’s something taken for granted in old stories, and even in our warmth and comfort, it’s still painfully obvious. You never know when that dreaded day will come, whether it’s a pain spasm, a crash on the highway, or an unthinkable phone call. we know this. Unfortunately, we know.
But it’s no miracle. The miracle will happen a few sentences later and will be told to those who have already had the courage to see the situation as it really is, those who are brave enough to mount a real rebellion. A great light will shine upon those who walk in darkness, saying, “There is no plague that will destroy you.”
We are in awe of our own survival precisely because we are already aware of how close to extinction we are. But it shouldn’t come close to you. ” If we assume that nothing could exist and that there is life instead of nothing, then every breath depicted is a flicker of this miracle. Every moment of life is a shadow cast by invisible wings.
In another room, in another land, Jewish fugitives gathered to eat together in commemoration of Passover. Death was waiting outside. Their teacher knew it wouldn’t save him. And on the night of his betrayal, he took bread and broke it and said, “This is my body, which was given to you.” He said that the next time you eat this, your hunger and thirst will be gone forever.a passover Mysterious.
Every year, around this time, the men of the dust come hungry, hobbled, and full of sorrow to hide from the shadow of death. And this is a miracle. That it doesn’t suffocate us. Everyone knows what kind of slaughterhouse we live in, what kind of cliff awaits us at the end. But we won’t die from it. “If I see blood, I’ll pass you by.” Today marks the end of winter. Today is the beginning of spring. Alleluia: Our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let’s observe the festival.
Editor’s note: This essay was originally published in Spencer Klavan magazine.substack.
