Talk:Easter Bunny

Easter Bunny is pagan from The 16th Century?

I’m being accused of having a point of view Imp forcing onto the article. Or not sourcing my words.

The thing is, I am not guilty of Either.

Folks, leaving in that remark allows people who come here to support the idea that Christians stole the Easter Bunny from Pagans is real History. But there is no evidence for it, and it even contradicts the Wikipedia article itself. How can the Hare be a Pagan Symbol that remained in Christianity if the Hare was never associated with Easter till the 1500’s? It can’t be both.

Either the Easter Bunny was a pre-Christian Fertility symbol that survived Christianisation and was incorporated early on at the close of the Pagan era, or else it’s a creation of the 16th Century. There is simply no feasible way to say German Protestants were the first to connect an old Pagan Symbol to Easter.

We know that Christians prior to the Reformation did not associate Easter with hares or Rabbits, and we know the first recorded instance of the Ostern Hare is from the 1600’s.

So how is this connected to Paganism?

How is this not a neutral Point of View? SKWills (talk) 01:30, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The user removed references without explanation; this is something he must know.--The Master of Mayhem 09:14, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Allegedly, people would eat rabbit on Easter, sort of like the Thanksgiving Turkey, and the whole thing is a conspiracy of greeting card manifacturers.Ericl (talk) 16:38, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

As I have read in a flyer for an exhebition in a German chocolate museum, the Easter Bunny did not appear before the 19th century and was popularized by chocolate manufacturers and children's picture books of that time. That sounds very reasonable, maybe someone has a source for that -- 188.193.35.96 (talk) 21:47, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Catholic Encyclopedia.

I removed the link to the Catholic Encyclopedia 1907 and reference to the Rabbit as pagan Symbol. It was based on the Old History Of Religion model, and has been discredited since the 1950's. The current Catholic Encyclopedia makes no such claim.

Why do we need outdated information in Wikipedia?

Worse, it adds to the stupid "Easter is Pagan" nonsense we hear endlessly every year.

The Easter Bunny is clearly a German Protestant creation. Why link it at all to Pagan fertility symbols when the Lutherans from the 1500's wouldn't have when they made the Ostern Hare? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.24.236.160 (talk) 03:24, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Please provide a reference for that.

It is a widespread pov, that claim is a fact. Add another view, contemporary or later, to give an overview. Please don't remove facts. I'm extremely sceptical that an incontrovertible determination has been made, there are just very good guesses supported by scholarly interpretation.

The content makes no such claim, 'hares are pagan': they have an important place in a diverse range of cultures, religions, and mythologies.

Please provide a reference for that. cygnis insignis 09:36, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

SO what your saying is that the Easter Bunny evolved form a pagan fertility symbol. Doesn’t that seem odd, given the rest of the articles claim that its from the Rhineland and the first real recorded use of the Easter Bunny is in the 1500’s?

Are we to believe that Germany in the 1500’s jihad a huge Pagan contingent worshipping pagan fertility rights, and the Protestants took their Symbol? Or was the Easter Bunny a long forgotten pagan Symbol that the protestants over 1000 years later decided to revive?

All this does is add “evidence” for those who want to say Ester is a Pagan holiday stolen by Christians. it’s the same Pseudo-History you find everywhere else online.

Check the reference yourself. The Catholic Encyclopaedia you link to is from 1907, its not modern.

It just makes no sense though. Its not logical to think that Christians took a Pagan Symbol, but didn’t actually take it till the 1500’s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SKWills (talk • contribs) 19:31, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

1: How do you sign this?

2: Here is a link.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4171032,00.html

And another.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/john_mark_reynolds/2010/04/on_pagan_easter.html

Just a quick comment: This last article link is perfectly irrelevant to the topic and is certainly not a scholarly contribution. Nobody is suggesting that the entire "celebratory cause" of Easter is pagan. Of course the "reason for the season", as the good Christian who wrote said article points out, is the whole "Jesus Reloaded" idea (or "Jeebus Revolutions", if you will). That does not make the name of the holiday any less pre-Christian, nor the hare or the associated notions of springtime fertility, nor even the fact that there had already been some form of spring-time festival around the same season in place long before the Judeo-Christian holiday superseded it (which, incidently, the gent in the article freely acknowledges). Trigaranus (talk) 06:05, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The whole "Pagan symbol" nonsense is just contradictory rot. While looking for this I found another site that has now merged the two. The Easter Bunny is still pagan but they admit it wasn't incorporated in until the 1500's. Rather than drop the original idea that its Pagan, they kept it and just modified the story form Christan's stealing the Easter Bunny from pagans in the 300's, to them stealing it in the 1500's.

But the Easter Bunny has no Pagan Roots.

Why include this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SKWills (talk • contribs) 19:43, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I've been meaning to dig deeper into this for some time now to assess the situation, but it seems that you may need some reminding that "pagan relics" are commonplace in modern Germanic language-speaking regions; i.e. in the Anglosphere, one encounters "Yule", "Easter", names like "Ingrid" and "Alfred", and so on. Further, something appearing on the record at a late date does not somehow negate it as having not existed prior to its appearance on the record. Finally, and most importantly, please use only reliable (in other words, for this subject matter, academic) works as references and, for the love of Wikipedia, stick to them. Thank you. :bloodofox: (talk) 01:42, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Ladies and gents, you’re asking me to prove a negative.

I’m not saying Hares were never used in Pre-Christian paganism as a Symbol, I’m saying there is no real evidence linking the Ostern Hare to Pre-Christian Paganism. How on earth can I prove there is no evidence by presenting positive evidence?

Even the examples listed here such as names like Yule or Alfred make no impact. We’re discussing the origin of the Easter Bunny. The difference is, Alfred has always been part of the German Language as a name, and so has Yule. We have a clear History of them being used consistently from pre-Christian times t the present. Meanwhile, we have no such History for the Ostern Hare.

Medieval Catholics did not associate Pascha with hares. There was no Ostern Hare in 1300 AD. The Catholic Church ( and also the orthodox, but we are discussing Germany here) simply never had this custom.

If the Ostern hare is a surviving pagan Remnant, how is its survival explained? What Is its transmission History from Pre-Christian fertility Rites to Lutherans in the Rhineland?

As it didn’t enter Protestant custom from the Catholic Church, from whence did it enter?

Ambient Culture? What evidence is there?

As Hares exist in nature, it should also be noted that the use of a Hare as a Symbol should be expected from many Cultures that are not related to each other. Its not like every instance of an Eagle being used as a Cultural Symbol means one culture got the idea from another. It means both are acquainted with Eagles. The same is true of Fish, bears, or Cats, or Dogs, or Snakes, or Lizards, or Crows.

So, why should we assume Hares would have to come to Christianity from Pagans rather than from nature and observation?

Also, while the 1907 Catholic Encyclopaedia says Hares were associated with Paganism, another interesting problem emerges. We have no proof even of this. Can anyone show any Mythology from the Teutonic or Celtic or Norse or Germanic or Anglo-Saxon cultures that actually uses he Hare as described? Because its usually connected to the goddess Eostre, but Eostre we know nothing about and have no real Mythology on either. So what evidence do we have that Pagans actually used this symbol? Any actual Mythology?

SKWills (talk) 18:36, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

May I quickly recap with you: Is the alternative explanation that you (or rather one articles produced by you) propose that the hare / bunny was introduced into early protestant Easter customs because the children wanted to know "where all the eggs were suddenly coming from"?

When I came across this debate, I went through the following motions:

1. no mythology whatsoever concerning Eostre has been preserved in the written tradition -- this is universally true for almost every Germanic deity whose myths were not recorded by Snorri or Saxo, and therefore for most of the Anglo-Saxon pantheon
2. hares are virtually absent from the gospels, certainly from the story on the passion-resurrection of Jesus -- which is why I would be surprised to find them in the centre of a new, essentially evangelical, custom
3. the only scholarly pre-humanist tradition on hares I know of (Physiologus) is limited to the supposed fact that hares cannot run fast downhill (a popular misconception dating back to classical Antiquity); on the up side, and surprisingly so, the hare was not vilified for being too sexually prolific
4. hares feature prominently in folklore, but for all I know they are absent from eastern Easter customs (?)
5. popular antiquities / folklore are a residue of customs from times immemorial; this is not to imply that a folk custom is per se ancient, but merely that it can be; as a classic example, take the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, or the various instances of pagan deities half-remembered in popular belief until well into modern times (e.g. in my region the Wüetisheer)
6. folk customs have a way of escaping literary notice for a long time, especially those that were never considered too detrimental to Christian morals; nobody is asking you to "prove a negative", but you should not assume something to be a proven negative in turn, either: the absence of references to Easter bunnies before ca. 1500 is only that, and cannot be construed as a positive indication for the absence of the custom -- this is not to claim the opposite of what you say, but simply to qualify it. The Reformation is a watershed for information, as there are only very few customs attested before 1500 at all, which of course cannot imply that there weren't any.

I think the burden of proof is fairly balanced in this instance. I would be very curious to read more recent folklorists on the topic (e.g. Alois Doering) or to find early protestant references to the hare. So far, the academical mainstream still seems to favour the non-Christian hypothesis. (And a hypothesis it is.) Trigaranus (talk) 19:43, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... add to that St Ambrose. Apparently he used some form rabbit allegory. This should be checkable somewhere online... Trigaranus (talk) 20:09, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

So not only an we not remove the claim that hares wee pagan Symbols, something we have no actual evidence for, but I cant even add one sentence explaining we don’t have evidence hat links Pagan customs to Protestant ones form the 1500’s?

Why is it so wrong to put into the article the fact that we don't have any evidence to back up a link between the Easter Bunny and Pre-Christian Pagan culture? SKWills (talk) 18:10, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Almost everything on this page is apologia, and not even a very laudable attempt. However, before I get into the main gist of the argument, I will preface it with this. I do not think anyone in recent memeory said 'Let's combine pagan teachings with Christian teachings'. However, it is a verifiable historical fact that many non-Christian cultures kept their original customs even after converting to christianity in some form. Thewre are many customs that people today think of as Christian that are in fact tied to pre-existing beliefs. In this case, it seems as though not even the slightest attempt has been made at research before stating that the claims of the non-Christian, origins of the easter bunny are false. The main reason I say this is that there is a large body of evidence that shows that Easter itself is of non-Christian origin. Just for brevity's sake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eostre

Following that, it is not at all unlikely that the bunny, too, would have non-christian origins, as follows. I'm going to list just a few quotes here, and these are from known authors and researchers.

“The hare, the symbol of fertility in ancient Egypt, a symbol that was kept later in Europe…Its place has been taken by the Easter rabbit” - Encyclopedia Britannica, 1991 ed., Vol. 4, p. 333

“The Easter bunny is not a true Christian symbol” - John Bradner, Symbols of Church Seasons and Days, p. 52

“Although adopted in a number of Christian cultures, the Easter bunny has never received any specific Christian interpretation” - Mirsea Eliade, The Encyclopedia of Religion, p. 558.

“In Germany and Austria little nests containing eggs, pastry and candy are placed in hidden spots, and the children believe that the Easter bunny, so popular in this country, too, had laid the eggs and brought the candy” - Francis X. Weiser, Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs, pp. 235

I quote this one because it is very clear this researcher knows of the German path of the easter bunny. It is also clear, as you read on, that he didn't just track it back that far and then give up. “The Easter bunny had its origin in pre-Christian fertility lore… The Easter bunny has never had religious symbolism bestowed on its festive usage… However, the bunny has acquired a cherished role in the celebration of Easter as the legendary producer of Easter eggs for children in many countries” - Francis X. Weiser, Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs, pp. 236

There is also the matter of what historians knew at the time when the easter bunny was being imported into the United States. "The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility." (Karl Joseph Simrock, Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie, p. 551.) He wrote this over a period of time from 1853 to 1855.

This here, is the crux of the matter. Calling the easter bunny 'pagan', in a derogatory way, makes it seem as if there is some sort of evilness behind it, which seems to be what people are taking exception to. However, the fact still remains that the easter bunny is of pre-Christian origin. At the very least since there is ample proof for the non-Christian origin, and none for a Christian origin, there should be a section as there is in the article for Easter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter#Controversies - 99.152.197.82 (talk) 01:57, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Repetition

As it stands, the sections on "Origins" and "Eggs" repeat each other quite a bit in regards to the German origin of the rabbit. On a sidenote, there needs to be some consistency on how to type the name in German. Not knowing any German, I am not the person to decide this.217.12.20.48 (talk) 09:33, 22 March 2011 (UTC)Anonymous Coward, 22/3/2011, 10:30 AM

I'm a bit sick of seeing the "pagan" card played in terms of history. It's done because paganism has been largely discredited, but in cases like these is a diversion. The history of the Easter rabbit has nothing whatever to do with paganism, so the paganism card is irrelevent.

The rabbit constellation has been around since at least 4300 BCE, and is associated with Osiris in Egyptian mythology. That is a fact. The word "Osiris" gradually became corrupted into the word "Easter". That is a fact. The rabbit (or hare) of the rabbit constellation belongs to a myth wherin a bird is turned into a rabbit, and turns back into a bird a the vernal equinox and lays eggs. That is a fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gsmonks (talk • contribs) 05:52, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

My favorite part of this post is "The word "Osiris" gradually became corrupted into the word "Easter". That is a fact." :bloodofox: (talk) 17:57, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

For crying out loud. Pre-schismatic Christian sources indicate that the "Easter Bunny" WAS DINNER in a number of regions of the Roman use. (Ever heard of a Thanksgiving turkey?) This article looks like a pagan tract. Be serious.