The Easter Bunny


Throughout history the rabbit has been associated with fertility.  The rabbit is also associated with Spring because it is one of the first animals to produce a litter at that time of year.  The rabbit has been associated with the cycles of the moon because the doe’s gestation period is 30 days.  All these facts help give rise to the institution of the Easter Bunny.  Let us explain.

In pagan societies the advent of Spring was a natural time to celebrate as a community.  If anyone lives in an area like where the Mid-South Bunny Museum is located, the dawning of the Spring season is miraculous to behold as the landscape comes alive seemingly overnight with multi-greenery, fragrant blossoms, colorful flowers, and the return of singing birds.  Who wouldn’t feel like celebrating?  This awe-inspiring time of the year has led to the invention of many religious beliefs in such things as gods and goddesses who are presumed to be the powers behind these occurrences in nature.  The rabbit often played a part in these superstitions.  For instance the rabbit was always associated with the Babylonian goddess Ishtar.  So coming up with the idea of an Easter Bunny was a natural.  The same was true for eggs which are universally seen as symbols of fertility and new birth.

The roots of our present-day Easter Bunny can be traced back to Germany in the 16th century.  The Easter Bunny was originally the Easter Hare, called “Oschter Haws” (haws means hare).  Because hares’ make their nests above ground, the tradition of children making nests in their yard for the Oschter Haws to place brightly colored eggs (symbolic of all the colored eggs of the Spring season) in them on Easter day was born.  When Germans immigrated to the United States in the 1700’s they brought their traditions with them.  The Easter Hare became the Easter Bunny because rabbits were much more commonplace.  The putting out of nests was modified to become the Easter basket in which chocolate eggs and bunnies were placed.  This made it easier to conduct Easter egg hunts without the need of nests to hide them in. 

It was not until after the Civil War that the Easter Bunny became entrenched in American culture.  In 1870 President Hayes established the annual Easter Egg roll on the White House lawn which has continued until our day.  By the end of the 20th century sending of Easter cards became a tradition for many.  Today practically every large shopping mall in America has the arrival of the Easter Bunny just like they do for Santa Claus.

It is obvious to everyone that the Easter Bunny, Easter eggs, and Easter baskets have nothing to do with celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on Easter Sunday.  These things are just fun traditions for children at this time of the year.  It is strictly secular.  Since some associate these traditions with pagan religions they want nothing to do with them.  This is fine.  We see it as similar to the New Testament teaching in I Corinthians 8 concerning meat offered to idols.  It was ok, but if your conscience was weak you should not do it.

We at the Mid-South Bunny museum love the Easter Bunny, especially all the great chocolate goodies that appear in the Easter basket on Easter Sunday.
              
  The Name Easter

So how did we come to use the name Easter to describe the Christian celebration so there could be an “Easter Bunny”?  If you do a Google word search of “Origin of Easter” you will find article after article addressing this topic.  We spent many hours reading through all of it and will tell you it can be quite overwhelming because there is no consensus.  Some trace the origin of Easter back to the Anglo-Saxon goddess of Spring, Eosre.  Others trace Easter back to the Tower of Babel where Nimrod’s wife brought her son Tammuz back to life with her shed tears after he was killed by a wild boar (Tammuz is mentioned in Ezekiel 8:14).  Some say the goddesses Astartre, Ashtoreth, Aphrodite, and Venus, can each be traced to Easter.  Then there are some who say Easter comes from the German name for the month of April which is “Eostur-Monath”.  And there are other speculations.

In the statement published by the Church Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. that established the date on which Easter is to be observed in the western church, the word Easter is used.  In the first published English translation of the Bible by John Tyndale in 1525 the word “ester” was used 23 times to mean “Passover”, the Jewish celebration commemorating when the Death Angel passed over the homes of the Israelites in Egypt.  In the Authorized King James Version of the Bible, of which 90% is Tyndale’s translation, the word ester appears only once and in the form of “Easter” in Acts 4:12 which reads:     
     
      “And when he (King Herod) had apprehended him (the apostle Peter), he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternion of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people“.

The word Easter has remained in the KJV, but the New King James Version translates it as “Passover”.