Eostre & the Bunny

Every spring, we celebrate the return of greenery and migratory birds, and the blooming of flowers; most animals celebrate by having lots of sex. Some of us get really religious about it.

Easter is the celebration of fertility and renewed life, and every part of the secular observance reflects this.  Several gods through a wide variety of traditions enjoy individual worship in this time, many of them have a name that sounds vaguely like "Easter," including Eostre, Ostara, and Ishtar. They have been asociated for millennia with fertility, and in some cases, eggs.

At the same time, Christians reflect on the paschal sacrifice of Jesus the Christ, and the promise of renewed life. Under the influence of Imperial Christianity, efforts were made to associate the symbols so often seen during this holy season with Jesus and his mother. A lot of these combinations don't immediately make sense, but we'll dig up the details.

The accusation that Christian Easter is ripping off the "pagan" polytheistic tradition is far from true, instead it comes from Judaism in every ancient aspect--but modern traditions have incorporated ill-fitting cultural aspects of the people who celebrate it around the world.

Remembering when Easter will be two years from now is tricky, but there is a scheme to it, and the dates are predicted more than a century ahead of time. Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere). However, even among groups that stick to this scheme, there are some who don't observe the astronomical equinox, but instead rely on an ill-timed liturgy. 

The Springtime Lent also has a lot of tradition around it--especially around the beginning. The time for fasting is biblical, though the practices vary from one group to the next.

All this and more...

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[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: Hi, everyone. Hi. My name's Katie

[00:00:15] Preston Meyer: And I'm Preston, and we're the House of the Holy Watermelon Podcast. Thought we hadn't introduced ourselves in a while, right? I mean, it's not much of an introduction. You said your name, I said mine. Is that not what an intro is? It depends who you talk to. Okay, well, I have a degree in religious studies, and I don't. And together we make a fun show. Together we fight crime. We fight hate crimes. I mean, not in a terribly vigilante style way, but maybe we could. Maybe we reduce hate crimes. I like that. Why aren't we talking about today? It's topical. Easter. Easter and rabbits and bunnies. And why anybody would ever combine the two. Also bunnies and eggs. Also weird. Yeah. Weird combo, right? That's who decided that rabbits lay eggs. Chicken eggs. The Germans. We get to blame a lot of things on the Germans. Yeah, they're a pretty good scapegoat. Christmas is the way it is because of the Germans. Okay, okay. Yeah. Yes. This episode will take a similar format to rebranding the holidays. Our Christmas episode on the pagan origins of Christmas. We're going to talk about the pagan origins of Easter. Yeah. Preston actually said before we started recording that he thinks Easter is just a pagan holiday, which is a pretty powerful statement from a Christian. We'll explore that in greater detail. That's a good started for you. So Easter was originally a pagan celebration of the spring equinox, and has since morphed into the most important holiday in the Christian calendar.

[00:02:14] Katie Dooley: I don't know if morph is the right word, but here we are. It is. It is the thing. It is both of those things. What verb would you use? I don't know, okay. Syncretism feels close, but obviously that's not technically a verb. Syncretized would be the verb form. But that's not really exactly it either. It's a little bit. You'll see what I mean. All right. Well, so there are a lot of spring traditions that celebrate rebirth after a long, dark, cold winter. When we start to see plants and animals emerging from their slumber. Everything turns green. And the rabbits, especially more than everything else, are visibly getting busy. Huh huh huh huh huh huh huh. I imagine that's the same rabbits making just small and adorable and fast. Rabbits are fast. Yeah. It's it's a side. Had rabbits for a little while when I was a teenager. Nice. I have some friends that own rabbits. Yeah, yeah. This idea of rebirth will eventually be tied into the resurrection of Jesus. Yeah, it seems like it should be a natural sort of transition, and yet it really never ended up being any reasonable, sensible transition. We just still have the old tradition and the old one. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't blend quite as nicely as Christmas did. No, not at all. There was there was so much about Christmas that it's like, well, okay, let's look at the symbol. What can this symbol mean to Christians? Cool. Let's bank on that. They they did try with Easter. Well, let's take a look.

[00:04:06] Katie Dooley: All right, so pagan things that are associated with Easter. Um, Easter starts with Austra, the Germanic goddess of the dawn. Um. Or the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility and spring. This is all happening in the same part of the world, with different names and stuff. I mean to say the Anglo-Saxons are fully separate from the Germanic peoples is. Yeah, not quite right. No it's not. Um, but I did see both. Yeah. As as they evolved separately, their theology changed, their cultural meanings changed. But it's like Roman, Roman and Greek gods. Pretty much. Yeah. Records of Austra are spotty at best. Yeah. To the point where people thought she was made up by Saint Bede. Yeah. Good old Bede. Uh, Bede BD he he wrote a lot. Saint Bede that's gonna stick. Yeah, he was an English fella. So the way we say it in English is pretty authoritative. Okay, but but de is my my now my favorite way to say that name, it's for our listeners. It's spelled b e d e. Yeah. So I guess b it is appropriate. But Bede is the way Saint Pete de Saint. So most people thought she was made up by Saint Bede, BD, BD. It's kind of a weird accusation that a Christian would just make up for in gods. But yeah, you're right. I mean, yeah, there's even finding where people actually found out about her is it's not great. But we do have relics from that range from the fifth, first to the fifth century, uh, in this part of the world that have inscriptions that would let us believe that she was a worshiped goddess.

[00:06:04] Katie Dooley: So Saint Bede wasn't making it up. Other than that we have Deutscher mythology by Jacob Grimm. Yes, of the Brothers Grimm, where Austria is connected with the hair as her sacred animal. So we've got a Worcester bunny or Ulster Hall. So it's Ulster Horsa, right? Because there's a hare, not a bunny, it's hare, not a bunny. And it like links, but we'll get to that. Uh, yes. Um, a lot of people connect Ishtar to Easter. The name similarity makes it seem like. Oh, of course, it's unfortunately not to be. A lot of people have proposed it, and a lot of people have spent a lot of time arguing against this idea. Also, a lot of time you'll see memes on this. Yeah. It's not true. Yeah. That's where most of this. Yeah. They've they've been making it really hard. Yeah. Mostly it comes from a poor argument by Alexander Hislop, a Protestant minister who originally made the argument because they sound the same. It is just that simple. I guess he just didn't like Easter. I we'll talk later about more Christians that pretty much feel the same way. And he didn't have a good understanding of ancient Sumerian religion either. To be fair, most of us don't know that's true. I definitely do not. Uh, yeah. Ishtar was a fertility goddess that, like, kind of gave her some. Yeah. It's not like something wildly separate. But to say that it's connected isn't entirely fair.

[00:07:44] Preston Meyer: Etymologically, it's not connected at all.

[00:07:49] Katie Dooley: Uh. Pretty much. Yeah, it's. It starts from a different part of the world from where we get the word Easter. There could be a really distant etymological connection, just like the words, the way they're built. But culturally, we're talking about two different ideas. Um.

[00:08:07] Preston Meyer: But the idea of eggs are actually associated with Ishtar. So, I mean, maybe we get the Easter egg tradition from her, but again, she's a fertility goddess and eggs and fertility are.

[00:08:21] Katie Dooley: Well, Christianity was born in the Fertile Crescent near Mesopotamia, where these gods were talked about. And so the whole eggs thing, it could just be that simple of an adoption.

[00:08:35] Preston Meyer: So this idea of eggs and Ishtar actually comes from ancient Babylonians and their fertility goddess Astarte. So again, this is, like we mentioned earlier, kind of the Greek and Roman thing where we have.

[00:08:50] Katie Dooley: Neighbors that talk.

[00:08:51] Preston Meyer: You know, we have. I was going to say Thor and Zeus, but it's not the. It's, uh.

[00:08:57] Katie Dooley: So okay, that's the one. You know, God's the same thing from very different cultures.

[00:09:03] Preston Meyer: Uh, the the Greek and Roman would be Jupiter.

[00:09:07] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:09:07] Preston Meyer: So Astarte, Ishtar to two sides of the same coin? Pretty much. And her story was that she actually hatched from an egg that fell from heaven into the Euphrates.

[00:09:19] Katie Dooley: I mean, if you're gonna be ripping through our atmosphere. Protective dome is a great way to come.

[00:09:24] Preston Meyer: Maybe she's an alien.

[00:09:27] Katie Dooley: Could be.

[00:09:27] Preston Meyer: That'd be a cool.

[00:09:28] Katie Dooley: Way, right?

[00:09:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:09:30] Katie Dooley: I mean, isn't that the whole premise of the entire Stargate series? All the foreign gods are just aliens.

[00:09:38] Preston Meyer: Oh, I don't know anything about Stargate.

[00:09:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah, they come in with great power to travel the stars, and so obviously they must be worshiped as Gods fair when actually, they're just long lived aliens. Oh. All right? Yeah. Very often. Or almost always, um, parasites. I'm trying to remember. It's been a while since I watched Stargate. I might need to get back on that. Okay.

[00:10:01] Preston Meyer: There are a few ideas behind why eggs are such a highlight of this holiday. Not just Astarte. Ishtar. Uh, eggs were actually prohibited during the Lenten season for your fasting. So Easter to get an egg and your Easter basket was a was a treat. Sure, there's also the idea that a long time ago, we didn't have industrial egg production where.

[00:10:27] Katie Dooley: They're pretty easy to come by. Now they're pretty.

[00:10:28] Preston Meyer: Easy to come by. So eggs would be scarce up until the spring season. So. Tonight's Easter.

[00:10:35] Katie Dooley: Celebrating the renewal of life and.

[00:10:37] Preston Meyer: Renewal of life.

[00:10:38] Katie Dooley: You know, skipping over the obvious thing of here's new baby, new life, new spring. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of cool. Easter eggs were decorated. Historically, for a long time they've been dyed. Christians have been doing it since at least the 13th century. The egg has been used to symbolize the resurrection. In Orthodox traditions, they may paint one or all of their eggs red specifically to represent the blood of Jesus. Differing traditions thereof one red one. All the rest are white. As you know, this is the blood that's going to wash over, clean the rest and the others is the blood of Christ covers everything. Not that they're competing ideas, but they are different manifestations of that idea.

[00:11:24] Preston Meyer: Oh, and I have even more information for you on that. Tell me.

[00:11:27] Katie Dooley: More.

[00:11:28] Preston Meyer: So my mom was raised Ukrainian Orthodox. Mhm.

[00:11:31] Katie Dooley: Uh Persson is a real work.

[00:11:33] Preston Meyer: Pysanka is huge work and she was very good at it and so was my Baba. So I Katie story time. Buckle up. My baba had five kids, three daughters. My mom is the youngest of all kids and the youngest of the daughters. The first two. Yes I know, uh, the first two daughters learned how to make pierogies, but not pysanka. And then my mom learned how to make pysanka, but not pierogies. So all of them are only like, half decent Ukrainian lives. Um. And Baba knew how to do it all because she was amazing.

[00:12:06] Katie Dooley: Is that why your mom couldn't get a Ukrainian husband? Probably.

[00:12:12] Preston Meyer: Probably.

[00:12:13] Katie Dooley: Um. Or came to a market where there was more options?

[00:12:16] Preston Meyer: Probably that. Uh. So I have all of my Baba's egg books, though, and I've done it. I've never got as good as my mom or my baba, but, uh, so there is the the red egg, but there's also a whole bunch of others that, if you're a good Ukrainian woman, will be in your Easter basket, representing, I think, different parts of the passion.

[00:12:36] Katie Dooley: So all kinds of patterns.

[00:12:37] Preston Meyer: All kinds of.

[00:12:38] Katie Dooley: Patterns, it's pretty intense stuff. We'll have some really cool pictures in our discord.

[00:12:42] Preston Meyer: I'll dig up the books and put them in discord. And then you give eggs to bless people or to receive blessings. So, for example, the died Baba mean a whole bunch of eggs and would give them to people and say would say, say a prayer for Kito this year.

[00:12:59] Katie Dooley: Nice.

[00:13:00] Preston Meyer: So, uh, and there's a myth that as long as Easter eggs are made, that good will prevail.

[00:13:07] Katie Dooley: I like it.

[00:13:09] Preston Meyer: It's kind of cute. It's about as religious as I get.

[00:13:13] Katie Dooley: Fair enough. The Catholic Church did officially adopt the Easter egg as a real symbol of the resurrection of Jesus in 1610, the year before the King James Bible was published. Oh, yeah.

[00:13:27] Preston Meyer: It's been around longer than the Bible. That's what I'm hearing. I mean, I guess.

[00:13:33] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Uh, longer than the authorized Bible of the Church of England.

[00:13:38] Preston Meyer: Which came first? Preston? The chicken. Or the Bible?

[00:13:43] Katie Dooley: No. Easy. The chicken. Okay. Ah. Of course. These eggs are laid by bunnies. So the chick in question isn't even important? Nope. Because there's nothing more fertile than a bunny. That's probably not true, but it's a very important symbol. I think around the world, mice.

[00:14:08] Preston Meyer: Might be a little more, could.

[00:14:09] Katie Dooley: Be prolific.

[00:14:10] Preston Meyer: But it's definitely a rodent. And definitely small rodents can just crank them out.

[00:14:15] Katie Dooley: Rabbits and hares are not rodents.

[00:14:18] Preston Meyer: Uh oh. I don't know where my phone is. Uh, rabbits. Rodents.

[00:14:24] Katie Dooley: Pulling up the power of Google, huh? They are close relatives to rodents, but they are not.

[00:14:32] Preston Meyer: Is a really weird word.

[00:14:34] Katie Dooley: It's the Latin.

[00:14:35] Preston Meyer: Sounds like something oral. Uh, rodents does not include rabbits. Rabbits differ from differ from rodents in having an extra pair of incisors. And in other skeletal features. Moles and hedgehogs are also not rodents. I just learned something new.

[00:14:53] Katie Dooley: Huh?

[00:14:54] Preston Meyer: Sorry. Can.

[00:14:55] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So rabbits and hares are lagomorphs. Which, if you're really into biology, is a thing you know about. And if you're not, Google it. But yeah, they're not rodents, but they're nifty. They breed crazy fast. They can have babies every month. And it's not just one at a time.

[00:15:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Their gestational period is like 30 days.

[00:15:17] Katie Dooley: Yeah. It's crazy. So they became associated with the festival of Easter because of fertility. That's her thing. So it just seems natural.

[00:15:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Having that many babies is super natural. Pew pew pew pew pew.

[00:15:37] Katie Dooley: Pew pew pew. And of course, there was a lady who gave birth to baby rabbits.

[00:15:42] Preston Meyer: Oh, right. Am I hearing about that? Yeah.

[00:15:45] Katie Dooley: I mean, it was all a sham. Yeah.

[00:15:46] Preston Meyer: She literally put rabbits up her vagina. Those poor things.

[00:15:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And then squirt them back out again in front of an audience. Oh, yeah.

[00:15:54] Preston Meyer: Poor rabbits.

[00:15:55] Katie Dooley: Right, aren't I? There's a lot of hygiene issues I have with this. I just, in addition to.

[00:16:03] Preston Meyer: Animal cruelty.

[00:16:04] Katie Dooley: All of the other things I just like if you're not worried about the feelings of animals and animal cruelty, how do you get to the point where you're also just comfortable doing that? Yeah.

[00:16:18] Preston Meyer: Let's go back to the Easter Bunny.

[00:16:20] Katie Dooley: Well, so before we get to that, okay, I want to say that everything we've talked about so far is the Easter that we know and is entirely based on other non-Christian celebrations. It's what we call the pagan stuff, except for the Easter Bunny, which you'd think just is straight up just a continuation of this idea of bunnies and eggs. But there's more. And it's just so ridiculous. The Easter Bunny was invented like the in-house Christmas tree by German Lutherans about 400 years ago.

[00:16:56] Preston Meyer: They just bought about 400 years ago.

[00:16:59] Katie Dooley: They had to distinguish themselves from the Catholics, I guess. So this is a little while after the time of Martin Luther. And they just really got onto this idea of the Easter Hare, because culture doesn't die when you change national religions. Everything that is the pagan Easter stayed with the northern Germanic people, the Anglo-Saxons. Everything it's just was still around. So they decided, well, we've got Sinterklaas and he comes through in the winter. And of course we can't forget Krampus, who also, in addition to blessing the good children, beats the bad ones. Good. So Ulster has. The Easter Hare was basically springtime Santa Claus, judging children and offering colored eggs and toys to the homes of the good children while they were sleeping, I guess.

[00:17:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the Easter Bunny shows up when you are asleep.

[00:17:54] Katie Dooley: Yeah, because you wake.

[00:17:55] Preston Meyer: Up me a basket now.

[00:17:56] Katie Dooley: And I forgot that was most of my Easter's with one half of my family.

[00:18:02] Preston Meyer: We used to have to hunt. Then I moved out. I like, here's a basket of candy and I say thank you. Right.

[00:18:11] Katie Dooley: Um, I have done a few Easter egg hunts. Um, some of my siblings will remember that we found chocolate eggs months after Easter.

[00:18:20] Preston Meyer: Oh, we have to. We have I there's a picture frame in my kitchen and it was like months later and I was like, sitting at breakfast and I was like, huh?

[00:18:31] Katie Dooley: So we used to have this, um, brass unicorn in our living room next to the fireplace.

[00:18:38] Preston Meyer: That sounds amazing.

[00:18:39] Katie Dooley: I it was cool. It was it was big. It was like, take up my whole lap. It adds an adult today. It felt bigger when I was a kid. And at some point it stopped having a horn. But there was this little divot in the in the head. And my either my dad or my stepmom put a little gold wrapped egg on his forehead and we did not see it for a long time. We looked everywhere. All around it. Parents were laughing like it's right in front of you. Well, it took forever, I believe it. So Easter egg hunts. Definitely a part of our history. I don't know how this was the point where I got sidetracked from. It's fine. It was a good story.

[00:19:19] Preston Meyer: I told my family Easter story. Now you can tell yours.

[00:19:21] Katie Dooley: So yeah, Easter Bunny would come drop off colored eggs while the kids were asleep. It's kind of interesting. Hares were often incorporated into Christian art of the medieval period. I think it's a little bit weird, but I guess a lot of people think it's perfectly normal. Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, and a whole bunch of other of the really big thinkers, kind of the guys who pushed science to start as we know it today. They were convinced that hares were hermaphroditic, just as a species. This is the way they are. This is really not typical for any mammal.

[00:19:58] Preston Meyer: I want to say something inappropriate, but I'm not. I'm not going.

[00:20:02] Katie Dooley: To. Okay. And because Self-fertilization doesn't take away your virginity. The hairs get to be associated with Mary. And so they just are often depicted in art with Mary and baby Jesus.

[00:20:18] Preston Meyer: Did you just call Mary a hermaphrodite? I think you did.

[00:20:22] Katie Dooley: There are a lot of people who think that maybe she was. And if you're leaning really hard onto some sort of scientific explanation for a virgin birth. This does it? Yeah, I guess it's tricky, but some people are satisfied with this argument, and. We're not here to to poop on anybody's face.

[00:20:49] Preston Meyer: Have you listened to some of our episodes? Because we definitely have.

[00:20:52] Katie Dooley: We poop on scam artists. Okay. It's a little bit different.

[00:20:58] Preston Meyer: And Christian nationalist.

[00:21:00] Katie Dooley: Yeah. That's not pooping on their face. That's pooping on them, as them, as people.

[00:21:07] Preston Meyer: Let's do it. Uh huh.

[00:21:11] Katie Dooley: Anyway, the Easter bunny. Is a Christian innovation. Out of all of this preexisting non-Christian cultural phenomenon. But within Christianity, it's kind of weird. It is.

[00:21:27] Preston Meyer: Weird. Now moving on to more religious or Christian things. I guess pagan is a religion.

[00:21:34] Katie Dooley: Sure it is. Well, okay. Kind of. Okay. It's religious.

[00:21:39] Preston Meyer: We've talked about this before. We're not going to dive in.

[00:21:42] Katie Dooley: Pagan is not a religion, but it is a religious category.

[00:21:47] Preston Meyer: The date of Easter is controversial.

[00:21:51] Katie Dooley: I have to Google it every year.

[00:21:53] Preston Meyer: I know how it's calculated, but that doesn't mean I know when it is. But I'll get into that. So, like with Christmas, Christianity grew in popularity and Emperor Constantine eventually converted to Christianity. And. They knew they wouldn't be able to stop these pagan celebrations outright, so they just kind of absorbed them and created Easter.

[00:22:17] Katie Dooley: Kind of I mean, a lot of this is kind of.

[00:22:23] Preston Meyer: Easter's date is not only confusing, like Preston said, but controversial.

[00:22:29] Katie Dooley: Yeah, that it took a lot of arguing. And I mean, we still have disagreements today on when and how we should calculate the date of Easter. It's kind of interesting.

[00:22:41] Preston Meyer: The first debate was whether Easter should always be on a Sunday or on the 14th of Nisan. Am I saying that that's.

[00:22:49] Katie Dooley: A fair enough pronunciation in English?

[00:22:50] Preston Meyer: So this is the first day in the Jewish lunar calendar where the Paschal lamb is slaughtered for Passover.

[00:22:59] Katie Dooley: Yeah, there's a lot of people anciently, modernly, who really don't like the idea of Passover being the same day that we celebrate Easter. I don't know why that is.

[00:23:12] Preston Meyer: I don't know enough about Passover. That will have to be this time next year.

[00:23:16] Katie Dooley: We'll talk about it a little bit more. Okay. But there's a lot of people who think that's actually a really nice idea, very convenient and easy to track on a calendar that doesn't have the same fluctuations that we're currently experiencing with calculating Easter.

[00:23:33] Preston Meyer: So Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. This was determined at the Council of Nicaea. And Easter can therefore then range between March 22nd and April 25th in any given year.

[00:23:53] Katie Dooley: So I don't see the problem. If you observe the equinox and look up to notice the full moon. Easy.

[00:24:01] Preston Meyer: It's just like such a month. It's the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. It's a lot like a lot of boxes. You got to check the beauty.

[00:24:11] Katie Dooley: Of the message of the soldiers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, right.

[00:24:18] Preston Meyer: So the the. Wow. This is the first time you've sang Broadway on our podcast and I'm quite pleased. So the controversies, the dispute with how the first full moon after the spring equinox was determined. So people agreed.

[00:24:41] Katie Dooley: Do you just not look up and see?

[00:24:43] Preston Meyer: I don't know, um, but there's some days where it's like gray area.

[00:24:47] Katie Dooley: Sure.

[00:24:49] Preston Meyer: Anyway.

[00:24:49] Katie Dooley: But if you're looking at like the first Sunday.

[00:24:51] Preston Meyer: I guess.

[00:24:52] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Is it close enough or are we going to put it off a week? It's close enough.

[00:24:56] Preston Meyer: So I, I just I guess people way back then had trouble calculating it, but it was more or less solved by the century. Yeah.

[00:25:02] Katie Dooley: We've been doing it for a while. Yeah.

[00:25:04] Preston Meyer: So people just like didn't like how it was calculated. But the Council of Nicaea was in the three hundreds, I believe. Yeah, yeah. So we.

[00:25:10] Katie Dooley: 25.

[00:25:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So we agreed since then that it was the first Sunday after the first full moon, after the spring equinox, but it was just how it was calculated. People didn't like how it was being calculated with the date to add extra layers of confusion. The Julian um, calendar, which is held by Eastern Orthodox churches, have it later, just like Christmas.

[00:25:31] Katie Dooley: Yeah, but so to make it more confusing. Okay, Julian, Christmas is two weeks after Gregorian Christmas. But Julian Easter is almost always one week after Gregorian Easter.

[00:25:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's always later. And you're right, it's about a week. Yeah.

[00:25:51] Katie Dooley: And that's because they still follow the same scheme, but their calendar makes it funky.

[00:25:57] Preston Meyer: Because the spring equinox and the moon doesn't change. You see.

[00:26:00] Katie Dooley: You'd think so. But liturgically speaking, there is an official liturgical equinox day that is not necessarily matched with the astronomical equinox. Yeah, it's frustrating and confusing. Yes.

[00:26:15] Preston Meyer: And controversial?

[00:26:16] Katie Dooley: Sure.

[00:26:17] Preston Meyer: How many times can I say controversial in this episode?

[00:26:22] Katie Dooley: Uh, we've we've talked about this a couple of times. We we probably do need to have an episode about calendars. I think people listen.

[00:26:28] Preston Meyer: Maybe maybe it's a bonus episode because it's not actually religious, but we talk about.

[00:26:32] Katie Dooley: It a lot.

[00:26:33] Preston Meyer: That's fair. If you're listening, drop a line in our discord or on our social media if you want an episode on calendars, if you want a bonus episode on calendars. Let us know. Calendar.

[00:26:43] Katie Dooley: We'll get it figured out.

[00:26:47] Preston Meyer: So what does Easter look like as a Christian holiday if not bunnies and eggs?

[00:26:51] Katie Dooley: Well, that depends a lot on the various denominations. Most non-imperial Protestant traditions really minimize what Easter is. Just have the Good Friday Easter Sunday thing. Recognize the death, recognize the resurrection, celebrate that he suffered for sins. And that's what Easter is. That is the heart of Easter. And then it gets complicated because we find ways to celebrate things in fancy, fancy ways.

[00:27:21] Preston Meyer: Yes. So the Easter Tide season can, if you wanted to be celebrated for up to three months.

[00:27:28] Katie Dooley: Yeah. The liturgical churches, the, the imperial tradition churches, they've got a whole big thing. The first thing that I am able to find on regular religious paper religious calendars is Fat Thursday. Oh, a full week almost before Ash Wednesday, which I'll get into a little bit later. We're going to go chronologically.

[00:27:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:27:54] Katie Dooley: It's observed in Poland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and places where people who have left those countries have emigrated to. In Syria, they call it Drunkard's Thursday. Basically, it's a great time to really dig in and celebrate that. You can eat before this month long, fast.

[00:28:17] Preston Meyer: And it's fattening yourself up for a hibernation.

[00:28:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's basically the same thing with, uh, Lundi Gras and Mardi Gras.

[00:28:25] Preston Meyer: Which literally translates to Fat Monday and Fat Tuesday.

[00:28:28] Katie Dooley: Exactly. Um, some places you'll hear it called Shrove Monday and Shrove Tuesday and basically, yeah, continuation the very last days before you have to swear off all the things you love for lent.

[00:28:42] Preston Meyer: And I mean, I think most people are familiar with the New Orleans celebration of Mardi Gras as the biggest, most recognizable in the world. But yeah, you're supposed to just be bad and then you're supposed to be really good.

[00:28:54] Katie Dooley: Yeah, in England, they actually have a couple of very precise traditions. There's Collop Monday. It's a day for bacon because you don't get bacon during lent.

[00:29:07] Preston Meyer: I feel like you would like Collop Monday.

[00:29:10] Katie Dooley: I have had a collop Monday.

[00:29:12] Preston Meyer: I know you have. I know you have.

[00:29:17] Katie Dooley: Uh, that was not a great choice. But yeah.

[00:29:23] Preston Meyer: Would you do it again long term?

[00:29:25] Katie Dooley: Uh, would I do it again? Probably not. It may. Well, okay. I can't say it's contributed to specific health issues, but it might in the future.

[00:29:35] Preston Meyer: So I'll remind me you were, like, gifted a bunch of bacon and needed to be cooked and eaten immediately.

[00:29:41] Katie Dooley: Oh, almost. Yeah.

[00:29:42] Preston Meyer: It was. Yeah.

[00:29:43] Katie Dooley: I waited till what was basically the end of the window before really committing to a thing, and it came time where I just didn't have anybody to come help me eat that bacon.

[00:29:54] Preston Meyer: I'm proud of.

[00:29:55] Katie Dooley: You. It was great. I, I believe it. And in East Cornwall this is like really localized. Uh, they do pies in Monday where it's just pea soup. Wow.

[00:30:08] Preston Meyer: I could give up pea soup for lent, no problem. Right, I, I don't it's good, but it's not great.

[00:30:15] Katie Dooley: Uh, my my first stepdad. Liked pea soup, and the whole house just smelled terrible when he made it. Oh, that's in the past. I will never be nearby when somebody makes pea soup again. If I can help it. Okay. It's. I don't know why anybody would make pea soup today.

[00:30:39] Preston Meyer: Pea soup is not bad, but it's not like, again, I wouldn't gorge myself and then be upset I didn't have it for 40 days. My mom makes a really good bacon pea soup. Okay, bacon pea soup.

[00:30:50] Katie Dooley: I mean, this. I could give it another shot. Okay. It's been a while. Okay? It does have negative memories attached, but maybe I can get over that. Okay.

[00:30:59] Preston Meyer: I'm just. I'm saying it's a thing people eat, and that's fine, but not so much that you need a whole day. Yeah.

[00:31:06] Katie Dooley: I'm willing to recognize that. Sometimes you need to try a thing a second time from a second cook and decades later, and sometimes admit that, yeah, you were right. It was bad the first time, but it's the chef's fault.

[00:31:24] Preston Meyer: Following Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday is Ash Wednesday. This is the first day of lent, and you'll often see folks with marks of crosses on their foreheads and done in ashes. These ashes are collected from palm leaves burned from Palm Sunday the previous year. I also I couldn't find any record of this, but I remember I didn't grow up religious, but I grew up Irish dancing, and there's a lot of Catholics in Irish dance. And so I remember going to dance class on Ash Wednesday and everyone would. Crosses on their forehead and then they sweat them off. But I remember one of the dancers and again, this is like decades ago, telling me that when when you're not supposed to like, wipe it off when it comes off, then you have been forgiven of your sins. That feels weird, but I didn't see any record of it. But I distinctly remember that conversation because I went looking for it. So I.

[00:32:22] Katie Dooley: Don't know. It feels like a thing that people would say, I don't know. I it's also not a thing I've heard before.

[00:32:29] Preston Meyer: If you're Catholic and listening, let me know.

[00:32:32] Katie Dooley: Every year, without fail, I am always a little surprised to see somebody with a smudge on their forehead. I always lose track of the fact that it's Ash Wednesday that day, and then you see people with a mess on their forehead. Um, and I was going to a Catholic university a couple years ago. Right. So I was surrounded by people with this ash cross on their forehead. And there was even one year where I had completely forgotten that Ash Wednesday was a thing at all. And like, what's going on? And and then slowly, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is a thing. Because, you know, didn't grow up doing the Catholic thing. I went to Catholic school for a couple of years as a kid, but the the Ash cross isn't usually done to elementary school kids.

[00:33:21] Preston Meyer: I was going to say I didn't know about it until, well, then I went to secular school. I went to public school. Uh, yeah. I didn't know about it until I was dancing with kids who went to Catholic school at all. Yeah, I mean, I still, I mean, I guess I work from home, but I still don't see it that often out in public, except for, like I said, the handful of times dance class would fall on a Wednesday.

[00:33:42] Katie Dooley: Well, there's a very good chance you're going to see it more in public in coming years. There's this growing movement of taking the priests out of their. Parishes. I don't know why that was a hard thing to remember, homes. Um. And the priests leave. And don't only do this ash forehead thing in in church, they do it in town squares, transit stations. They're doing it all over the place. They're calling it Ashes to Go.

[00:34:14] Preston Meyer: I saw something about that.

[00:34:16] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And it's getting more and more popular because everyone's so rushed to get everything done that it sure would be handy if I could get my ash cross while taking care of the train.

[00:34:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um.

[00:34:28] Katie Dooley: It's convenient, I guess so.

[00:34:31] Preston Meyer: Then of course, Ash Wednesday starts lent. Imperial tradition. Christians observe lent as a time to try really hard to be good Christians to make up for the rest of the year, like kids in Santa Claus.

[00:34:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it does feel that way because you got to get those eggs on Easter.

[00:34:50] Preston Meyer: Got to get those eggs. It's a 40 day fast, and it is modeled after Jesus's 40 day fast in synoptic gospels.

[00:34:58] Katie Dooley: I thought it was really interesting. I've I've been wondering for a while, though. Never enough to to look it up until recently for you, dear audience, I needed to know finally had the time dedicated to it. The word lent is just the Dutch word for the spring season. Oh.

[00:35:16] Preston Meyer: That's anticlimactic.

[00:35:17] Katie Dooley: Right? So it was the same meaning in Old English. It's just almost completely fallen out of our language, apart from the people who celebrated as a religious thing. So that's kind of nifty in other languages. Most people call it the fasting season or the 40th. For those 40 days, 40th feels weird, but that's what I was told is it's not just the 40, but the 40th. Okay, yeah, I'm sure there's probably a language out there where they just say the 40, but most seem to be the the 40th. And nobody can really say without controversy when the lent tradition as we know it today began. But it was definitely firmly in place by the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE.

[00:36:02] Preston Meyer: All right. That brings us to Palm Sunday. This is Jesus has seven days left, guys. No, five days left.

[00:36:10] Katie Dooley: Math is hard. Math is five is the magic. Number five.

[00:36:13] Preston Meyer: Is math. He's got five days left. Clock is ticking. Commemorates his arrival in Jerusalem. And it's called Palm Sunday because his followers laid palm leaves on the ground to welcome him into the city.

[00:36:24] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:36:25] Preston Meyer: And these are the palm leaves that then get burnt. Yeah.

[00:36:27] Katie Dooley: You save them for a while.

[00:36:29] Preston Meyer: For, like, a whole year to dry out.

[00:36:30] Katie Dooley: Exactly. Yeah. Because you don't want to burn something that's not ready to burn to ashes.

[00:36:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:36:37] Katie Dooley: Way too smokey. Yeah. There. There are a few other minor days in between. So the next big part of this week is Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday. Um, the celebration of Jesus Last Supper. There have been a lot of papers that I've read that argue, like, was it really a Thursday? Does the math add up?

[00:36:59] Preston Meyer: Well, I read something that said that he was almost definitely crucified on a Wednesday. Yeah, I don't again, I don't know how you'd figure that out with any definitive answer, but, um, much like his birth. Sorry, I interrupted.

[00:37:14] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So this the day of the Last Supper. Then he goes to trial that night and the following morning, and then he gets crucified on Good Friday. Skipped over what Maundy actually means. It refers to the ceremonial washing of feet of a of a poor person, and commemoration of Jesus washing his apostles feet, um, which a lot of churches are happy to reenact. Um, usually you'll see the Pope go and wash somebody's feet that day. Just an interesting tradition. Um, and the word Maundy comes from the Latin word for command, because he commanded people to go and serve and.

[00:37:51] Preston Meyer: Look after those different and less fortunate than you.

[00:37:55] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Which is a pretty great tradition.

[00:37:59] Preston Meyer: That lots of Christians choose not to do.

[00:38:02] Katie Dooley: Yeah. That's not the subject of today's discussion, but it is a thing that is real. Good Friday is a pretty good day. What? Uh, I have to go by this idea.

[00:38:17] Preston Meyer: Well, I was I had to Google this. I always wondered, and much like Preston wondering about lent and never knowing, I was wondering why it was called Good Friday. What makes it so good?

[00:38:26] Katie Dooley: Well, there's a few things. It's good that Jesus suffered for us rather than suffering generally, that he did this great act for us. And so this idea of piety is really important rather than, oh, yeah, good thing he died.

[00:38:46] Preston Meyer: Yes. And this good means pious as opposed to. Or the other. The other word I saw was holy good as in holy or good as in pious as opposed to like. Or we had gone.

[00:38:58] Katie Dooley: No, we could just flip a couple of Fridays names. Maybe this could be Black Friday, the day the sky went dark when he died versus the Good Friday when everything's on sale after Thanksgiving.

[00:39:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I like it. I don't know who you got to pitch that to, but.

[00:39:12] Katie Dooley: Oh, I got to sell it to the whole world. Whole world all at once. Everybody's got to be in on it or it won't work. Okay.

[00:39:18] Preston Meyer: Share on Facebook.

[00:39:19] Katie Dooley: Like communism, it doesn't work if not, everybody's committed to the idea.

[00:39:24] Preston Meyer: Okay, I like rent. Went on a mini rant and then pressed and didn't explain it to me. So then it is followed by Easter Sunday. So. Easter Sunday is the day he is resurrected. Yeah. This is what we celebrate. Yeah, but other records say he was resurrected three days later. Yeah. So let's say he died on a Friday afternoon.

[00:39:49] Katie Dooley: See, so the error you've already made is the assumption that the important basis for this timeline is the date of death. So everything should be calculated from what we know is the day he was raised from the dead, because the Bible does explicitly tell us he. On the first day of the week, they showed up to an empty tomb, which is Sunday. Correct? So? So then Friday could be the problem. It could have been a Thursday.

[00:40:16] Preston Meyer: Maybe that's why I saw that he had to be crucified on Wednesday. It still doesn't matter, right?

[00:40:23] Katie Dooley: But so the people who argue for a Wednesday crucifixion are looking for three complete, clear days in between the crucifixion and and raising from the dead.

[00:40:34] Preston Meyer: And I have no problem with them saying Sunday, but then ditch the three days.

[00:40:38] Katie Dooley: Sure.

[00:40:39] Preston Meyer: Because now we have Easter Monday, which I'm pretty sure is just a bank holiday.

[00:40:43] Katie Dooley: It is. Easter Monday is only a bank holiday, and we've talked about this before. The religion of our banking system. Very powerful, yes, but not actually important to the faith community of Christianity.

[00:40:58] Preston Meyer: So my question goes unanswered.

[00:41:02] Katie Dooley: Repose your question.

[00:41:04] Preston Meyer: When did he die and when was he resurrected?

[00:41:07] Katie Dooley: Okay, so he definitely was resurrected either right at the beginning of Sunday morning or at the end of that night before Sunday morning, somewhere in that.

[00:41:18] Preston Meyer: So that they could find an empty tomb on a Sunday. Yeah.

[00:41:22] Katie Dooley: So there's a lot of a lot of arguing among every kind of scholar in this field on what day would have been the correct date of crucifixion.

[00:41:36] Preston Meyer: And is it, you know, numbers in the Bible. That's probably an entire episode for us. But are they just saying three because three is so symbolic in the Bible, even though it makes all of these dates very screwed up?

[00:41:50] Katie Dooley: That's an interesting question. Generally, it was expected in Judaism at the time that if somebody were to hit their head and go into a minor coma. A couple of days, they could get back up and you'd you'd think maybe they're dead, but you give them a few days to know for sure. After three days. I mean, you need water in that time or you'll die. So it was basically the three days is enough to know that somebody is dead. And if they get up after that, it's a miracle.

[00:42:25] Preston Meyer: Okay, so, uh, what I'm hearing is that the three is mostly symbolic.

[00:42:30] Katie Dooley: No, it's for what they had of science at the time. It was pretty scientific, but, I.

[00:42:37] Preston Meyer: Mean, or one of these is a lie, though, is what I'm saying, right? Either he wasn't crucified on a Friday or he wasn't resurrected after three days, or he wasn't raised on a Sunday because the math doesn't work, right? I just want to know which one's the lie.

[00:42:51] Katie Dooley: Preston, that's a really tricky thing. We are. We're very sure. The Bible says he was found at the empty tomb on Sunday.

[00:43:02] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:43:02] Katie Dooley: The rest is fuzzy. All right. And it's like there's even arguments about how to interpret the way they describe what would typically look like a Friday. Paraskevi is the word for preparation, which is the name for Friday in, um, Old Greek. He was crucified on Paraskevi, but from the Jewish perspective, this could be the traditional day of preparation for the Sabbath. Or it could have been the preparation for a special Sabbath, because Passover does that. It's. It's tricky business.

[00:43:39] Preston Meyer: Okay? As long as I'm not misunderstanding anything, we just don't know.

[00:43:46] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean, a lot of people are going to be. Of course, this is the sure thing, but there is so much scholarship that says it's too complicated to know with real certainty. It's very frustrating.

[00:43:59] Preston Meyer: As long as my math is right that Monday is three days after Friday.

[00:44:04] Katie Dooley: Yeah, okay. The math adds up. Monday is three days after Friday.

[00:44:08] Preston Meyer: Not crazy. Yeah. Not being gaslit.

[00:44:11] Katie Dooley: Right. But like there's the question, does it need to be three clear full days in between plus the half day on either side or is it. The whole 72 hours is enough kind of funny business. It's. All up to interpretation.

[00:44:30] Preston Meyer: So again, we said Easter Monday is just the main colony.

[00:44:33] Katie Dooley: Yeah, but it's nice to have that holiday.

[00:44:35] Preston Meyer: It's nice to have the holiday. And then the last celebration is Pentecost Sunday, also known as Whit Sunday. And this takes place 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus. Yeah.

[00:44:46] Katie Dooley: So like Passover, Pentecost is not an originally Christian idea. I mean, very little of Christianity is original to Christianity, but so Passover celebrates the idea that God delivered Israel and by connection and extension, all of his covenant peoples in the eyes of the Christian interpretation of Scripture. And so this idea is not just saving the covenant people from slavery in Egypt, but slavery to the devil and sin and negativity in general around the world through all time. And so Christianity is really happy with this idea. It works really nicely. It suits it. And then Pentecost is seven weeks later. And another Jewish holiday. It's about the giving of the law in the desert and a little bit of we're still in the desert.

[00:45:50] Preston Meyer: That's Shabbat.

[00:45:51] Katie Dooley: It is Shabbat. Well done.

[00:45:53] Preston Meyer: Thank you.

[00:45:53] Katie Dooley: Because you're not even reading it?

[00:45:55] Preston Meyer: No, I just know things. Now pressed.

[00:45:57] Katie Dooley: The. The Christian use of Pentecost celebrates the day that Jesus ascended into the heavens, leaving the apostles to leave the church on their own. And there's an important part of the story that an awful lot of Christians forget and we'll use. Well, the absence of this passage in their personal theology to say why this fella named Jesus is actually Jesus reborn and is the Messiah. So the passage in the book of acts has Jesus going up into the heavens, like just ascending.

[00:46:35] Preston Meyer: Like that's the visual in my brain.

[00:46:38] Katie Dooley: But not that fast. You got it. It's a spectacle to see him elevated into heaven. Wow. But without the hum of an elevator. And then a couple of angels are talking to the people nearby. Like, see that? That's how he's going to come back. It's in the Bible. If you believe the Bible is authoritative, you don't get to believe that a baby is Jesus. Come back.

[00:47:03] Preston Meyer: Okay?

[00:47:04] Katie Dooley: But it happens all the time. And then as after he's ascended, then there's a great outpouring of gifts of the spirit that the Holy Ghost has been bestowed upon the church. And they're speaking in tongues, not like weird gibberish like you'll see in a lot of modern evangelical traditions.

[00:47:27] Preston Meyer: This is this is where we get the term Pentecostal Christians, because the gifts of the Holy Spirit are on these Christians and no one else.

[00:47:34] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So if you read the story, which you'll get to in our Bible study soon, these people are like speaking in Greek and every other language under the sun. To all of the people who happen to be visiting the city at the time. And so everyone's like, this dude, speak in my language. Wouldn't have expected that. That's almost exactly what it says in the book Quantum Mania.

[00:48:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, okay.

[00:48:04] Katie Dooley: And so. It's weird how this really important passage for Christian theology gets ignored by an awful lot of Christians.

[00:48:14] Preston Meyer: I want to say something mean.

[00:48:17] Katie Dooley: Some people are bad at the things that they think are important. I was just.

[00:48:24] Preston Meyer: So. Speaking in tongues is made up is what I want to say.

[00:48:28] Katie Dooley: I mean, as we see Shyamala Hamla oh yeah.

[00:48:31] Preston Meyer: As we see it today.

[00:48:33] Katie Dooley: That's Eastertide. It's a few months, really, 90.

[00:48:37] Preston Meyer: Days if you go from the beginning of lent to.

[00:48:40] Katie Dooley: Yeah, 40 days before. 50 days after. Yeah. It's convenient round numbers. We like that.

[00:48:46] Preston Meyer: I love a good number in religious studies. Um, can I get 90 days off of work?

[00:48:52] Katie Dooley: That'll be tricky. Okay. Most of these 90 days are not their own holiday. But you can try. You are your own boss.

[00:49:01] Preston Meyer: I am, but can anyone get 90 days off? Oh, so it's tricky.

[00:49:07] Katie Dooley: I would say try it. And if you can do the three months without work, the other nine months might be more work.

[00:49:16] Preston Meyer: Don't lose your job because of us.

[00:49:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah, there are Christian groups that don't celebrate very much of what we've described as at all. Um, famously, I would say the Jehovah's Witnesses are pretty prominent in this list of groups that don't do that. Um, they do a special Saturday mass that they call Passover. It's the one day where they pass around the emblems of Christ's atonement, the bread and the wine. And I mean, that's basically the deal. Most evangelicals Restorationists Adventists don't really do the whole liturgical deal. It's just here's our Easter Sunday thing or Saturday and some of the Adventist groups like the seventh day Adventists, I guess specifically. A lot of these churches that refuse to do an Easter. Um, and they'll call it Passover. To avoid any confusion is because they do see Easter as a strictly pagan holiday. And I mean, to be fair, after everything that we've talked about today, it feels like they're not wrong. I mean.

[00:50:29] Preston Meyer: Again, like you mentioned at the top of the episode, it is a very distinct split between secular and religious. Yeah. For Easter. And I'm sure people some people do it both, but Christmas is a much nicer blend. Yeah. Of things. Um.

[00:50:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I well, I think it's funny that our secular Easter really leans hard on the pagan Easter. And yet the only real difference is that we don't send kids out with the hope that they're thinking of being genetically prolific.

[00:51:10] Preston Meyer: Now, I don't know. Okay. I mean, I guess you were kind of raised non-religious, too, for a long.

[00:51:18] Katie Dooley: Time. Yeah.

[00:51:19] Preston Meyer: And so I think of, like, I'm thinking of Charlie Brown.

[00:51:22] Katie Dooley: Okay. I don't remember the Charlie Brown Easter.

[00:51:25] Preston Meyer: So there's Charlie Brown Christmas. Yeah. And at the very end, Linus quotes passages from the Bible. Sure. But it's all about making this tree nice and stuff. But it is like a. I'm pretty good blend of secular and religious.

[00:51:41] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:51:41] Preston Meyer: And we can even see that in something. An old secular novel like Charles Dickens, uh, Christmas Carol is mostly a secular story, but there's little bits of. Christian stuff in there.

[00:51:54] Katie Dooley: Just a little bit.

[00:51:55] Preston Meyer: Though. Yeah. And so we have that. And then it's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. It's the Easter one. And it's I mean, Snoopy's the Easter Beagle there waiting for the Easter Beagle to show up. That's there's zero. Religion in it.

[00:52:10] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:52:11] Preston Meyer: And is it? I remember when I first learned about the crucifixion of Jesus. I was 11 and it traumatized the fuck.

[00:52:21] Katie Dooley: Out of me. I mean, that's pretty gruesome part of history.

[00:52:23] Preston Meyer: And I think and so I wonder if that's part of the reason it's so separated, maybe because the religious Easter, like we said with our friend Jack, is not a happy story. Yeah. Whereas the birth of a little baby is is.

[00:52:39] Katie Dooley: Um, it's a happy story, right?

[00:52:41] Preston Meyer: And so I wonder if that's not part of the reason that we have such a like, how do you blend a crucifixion in a little, buddy?

[00:52:50] Katie Dooley: Well, you don't. It doesn't make you it doesn't even make sense to what I'm saying.

[00:52:54] Preston Meyer: That's what I'm saying is that that's why we have this hard line. Because it almost can't be. It can't be.

[00:53:00] Katie Dooley: Um.

[00:53:02] Preston Meyer: I'm doing a thing with my hands.

[00:53:04] Katie Dooley: That can't be meshed.

[00:53:05] Preston Meyer: They can't be mashed.

[00:53:05] Katie Dooley: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's I think it's really interesting that over hundreds of years of the imperial tradition church trying so hard to crush so many ideas, the the Easter Bunny made it through. Well, okay, the Easter Bunny came out.

[00:53:25] Preston Meyer: Relatively new, but.

[00:53:25] Katie Dooley: The Easter Bunny as the Easter Bunny is a Lutheran invention which feels so weird.

[00:53:32] Preston Meyer: They were weird people. I'm kidding.

[00:53:33] Katie Dooley: But the Ulster has the the Easter season's special Bunny Hare. Hare is such an old idea that we've just always had, and we could never get rid of it. And then eventually some new group came and made it full on official. Yeah.

[00:53:54] Preston Meyer: It is an interesting holiday. Yeah, well, I hope you all got lots of chocolate.

[00:54:00] Katie Dooley: Right. Maybe a little bit of some good healthy egg protein.

[00:54:05] Preston Meyer: Um.

[00:54:09] Katie Dooley: I think it's really interesting. I remember a lady that I used to visit occasionally when I lived in new Jersey. It was the tradition to have cold ham on Easter. Now, this was strictly forbidden in the Passover tradition. And all of the people who celebrated Passover anciently, because Ham is not known to eat. But it was kind of this idea that you don't cook during Easter, so you'd get a cured ham and dice it up and mix it into a salad or something, or I.

[00:54:41] Preston Meyer: I should have talked to my mom before this, but yeah, like they like her mom was an immigrant to Canada from Ukraine and they like very much observed Ukrainian Easter and Ukrainian Christmas. And yeah, they used it. I won't say weird traditions, but they but they were strict about, like, what you were allowed to eat. And remember, fish was a big thing. Sure. Yeah. Um. Yeah, they were very strict. And like I said, their Easter baskets, they were really strict on what you had to give the priest. Mhm. Um, my mom knows Ukrainian enough to pray in Ukrainian and to thank a priest for an egg. Nice. And that's kind of all she knows. But. But enough that it was that traditional that.

[00:55:27] Katie Dooley: Right. So.

[00:55:28] Preston Meyer: And I think there's a lot of ritual around Easter.

[00:55:31] Katie Dooley: Sure. So after I got back home and spent holidays with my family again, I noticed that we pretty often have ham for Easter, and I think that's a pretty common tradition that it's not a bird or a beef roast. It's a ham. Very, very often.

[00:55:48] Preston Meyer: I'm going to talk to him. We have turkey at Easter. Yeah, okay.

[00:55:52] Katie Dooley: I mean, I'm not saying everybody does because my family does. That's a perfectly good reason.

[00:55:58] Preston Meyer: No. Like ham. Uh.

[00:56:00] Katie Dooley: But it reminds me that there was a vision that Peter had. That makes sense. Connecting the ham to Easter a little bit, that Peter had this vision that, um, Jesus came to him with a sheet full of all these animals that weren't supposed to be eaten pig, lobster, whatever. And Peter's like, no, no, no, don't eat that. That's gross. That's dirty. And Jesus said, no, no, I cleaned it. It's good to go. And three times Peter's like, no, no, no, not for me. Peter's really.

[00:56:34] Preston Meyer: Good at denying things three times.

[00:56:38] Katie Dooley: You could say that. And eventually he's like, okay, I'll eat. And then ham is officially fine for Christians to eat.

[00:56:50] Preston Meyer: I think. Pork gives me nightmares.

[00:56:54] Katie Dooley: Oh, yeah. Tell me more.

[00:56:56] Preston Meyer: I. I've had some incredibly violent dreams. And then when I wake up, every time I've had pork the night before for dinner. And the first time, the first two times, I thought it was because. Because you can't. You can eat all Alberta pork. Not well done, right?

[00:57:16] Katie Dooley: Cause we're super clean.

[00:57:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the first two times they were not well done pork. And I thought it was just because it wasn't. Well done. Pork. Uh huh. No, I don't I don't know how your brain works with the food you digest, but I literally had pork this week, and I had a very violent dream. Huh. And Bryan Bryant, my husband, our sound guy, is like, maybe it's because you think every time you eat pork, you're gonna have a nightmare. And I was like, no, I didn't even think about it until I woke up from the nightmare, huh? And was like, oh, I had for dinner.

[00:57:50] Katie Dooley: Well, now I'm curious if anybody else has had this experience.

[00:57:54] Preston Meyer: It might not be caught, but I'm pretty sure your food can give you nightmares.

[00:57:57] Katie Dooley: I know that there is this weird connection between your brain and your stomach. I do know that much. Do I know anything? Enough about it to explain it. No. I'm a religion dude, not a biology dude.

[00:58:09] Preston Meyer: And so I don't mind a good pork chop or a pork tenderloin, but now I don't. I don't like mine rings.

[00:58:15] Katie Dooley: I need more data.

[00:58:18] Preston Meyer: Like what? Kind of like, do you mean meat? More pork.

[00:58:21] Katie Dooley: Oh, okay. So more data from you is good. Okay. But I want to hear from our audience. If any of you have any comparable experience with pork, I need to know.

[00:58:31] Preston Meyer: Or I just want to know any food related nightmares.

[00:58:34] Katie Dooley: Sure. Yeah. Let's open it up. Okay, I need data.

[00:58:36] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:58:38] Katie Dooley: This is a thing I want to know more about.

[00:58:40] Preston Meyer: Okay. This has turned into.

[00:58:41] Katie Dooley: Could you imagine if there was? It wasn't. The whole pigs are dirty because they sleep in their own, but because everyone. But because they become violent when they eat ham. Could you imagine if that was a thing back then that they.

[00:58:55] Preston Meyer: Maybe we feel like you're like a demon because you're getting bad visions?

[00:59:01] Katie Dooley: Sure.

[00:59:02] Preston Meyer: Like, literally one of my dreams. The lady was stoned to death, and I was like, that's fucked up.

[00:59:07] Katie Dooley: Sure, I need to know more. I.

[00:59:12] Preston Meyer: All right, you got very passionate about that.

[00:59:16] Katie Dooley: I'm very curious.

[00:59:18] Preston Meyer: The end of our Easter episode again. I hope none of you have pork nightmares and you all get some Easter candy, whether you observe it or not. Thank you to our patron, Lisa. Follow us on all our social media and be sure to DM us or post in our discord about some of the questions we've asked today. So DM us on Facebook or Instagram if you want to support the podcast monetarily, which we would love. Um, you can join our Patreon. We have a bonus episode here and we have our book club tier. And if you know, like any of that, which I don't know why you wouldn't, we also have our spread shop where you can buy some sweet, sweet, holy watermelon merch.

[00:59:59] Katie Dooley: And all the links are in our show notes. Thanks for joining us. Peace be with you.

[01:00:05] By the late Middle Ages Christian poverty.