NO, EASTER WAS NOT STOLEN FROM PAGANS: It’s Easter weekend, so odds are excellent you will hear or read that the early Christians “stole” Easter from various pagan holiday practices. Rod Martin observes:

“Every year, as Christians around the world celebrate Easter, skeptics revive a familiar claim: that Easter is just a repackaged pagan festival. They point to spring fertility rites, to goddesses like Ishtar and Eostre, and to symbols like eggs and rabbits, declaring Christianity guilty of cultural plagiarism.

“But these assertions, repeated so often they’ve become clichés, collapse under any serious historical scrutiny. The truth is simple: Easter isn’t pagan, and neither are its origins. Rather, it is the central celebration of the Christian faith, grounded in real events, rooted in Jewish (not pagan) practice.”

Martin, who was a member of PayPal’s pre-IPO startup team, then addresses each of the major variations of the “Easter was stolen from pagans” claims and demonstrates their utter improbability. It’s a bit lengthy, but well-worth the reading time for those who seek the facts.