Does Easter really fall on the true date of Easter this year?

David Ames
David Ames Member Posts: 2,977 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Does Easter really fall on the true date of Easter this year?

Found that Easter 2019 is on Sunday April 21
Also found that Passover 2019 will begin in the evening of Friday April 19

So if [[if added to keep some purest happy]] the Crucifixion was on Friday the day before the Passover began then this year Passover begins on Saturday just as it did the Year of the Crucifixion. And this year’s Easter falls on the correct date irregardless of how you calculate the date for Easter.

Common Christian Method: In 325 CE, the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first Full Moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. From that point forward, the Easter date depended on the ecclesiastical approximation of March 21 for the vernal equinox.

The other method depends on the barley harvest. [[Something about if the barley was not ripe enough at the time of the new moon then they added an extra month around the time of the vernal equinox - that is how they kept a 360 day calendar year in step with the 365.25 day solar year]]

Re Purests: Some see the Crucifixion happening on Wednesday or Thursday.  When will Easter fall on the correct date for those Crucifixion dates?  

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Comments

  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 13,797 ✭✭✭

    Are you using the 365 or the 360? And the correct astro-nomical week of passover? I consulted the Synopticists, but finding which sect they were in was like pulling teeth.

    "If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,785

    Denise said:

    Are you using the 365 or the 360? And the correct astro-nomical week of passover? I consulted the Synopticists, but finding which sect they were in was like pulling teeth.

    You're so much nicer than I ... I was tempted to be super-precise and point out that the historical event is the resurrection of which Easter is an annual celebration. From wikipedia:

    [quote]Direct evidence for a more fully formed Christian festival of Pascha (Easter) begins to appear in the mid-2nd century. Perhaps the earliest extant primary source referring to Easter is a mid-2nd-century Paschal homily attributed to Melito of Sardis, which characterizes the celebration as a well-established one

    On Pascha: With the Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans: Translation by Melito of Sardis

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 13,797 ✭✭✭

    That's an interesting problem. I'm trying to finish up my 500 page tome on a jewish perspective on the NT ... not easy to skip to the chase, since he avoids unsupported conclusions (ergo, none). But it forced me to backtrack into Papias' Mathew-ian gospel which feeds Luke, not Matthew, and the possibility Easter (the festival) preceded the gospels.

    MJ. Smith said:

    Denise said:

    Are you using the 365 or the 360? And the correct astro-nomical week of passover? I consulted the Synopticists, but finding which sect they were in was like pulling teeth.

    You're so much nicer than I ... I was tempted to be super-precise and point out that the historical event is the resurrection of which Easter is an annual celebration. From wikipedia:

    [quote]Direct evidence for a more fully formed Christian festival of Pascha (Easter) begins to appear in the mid-2nd century. Perhaps the earliest extant primary source referring to Easter is a mid-2nd-century Paschal homily attributed to Melito of Sardis, which characterizes the celebration as a well-established one

    On Pascha: With the Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans: Translation by Melito of Sardis

    "If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.

  • David Ames
    David Ames Member Posts: 2,977 ✭✭✭

    Denise said:


    Are you using the 365 or the 360? And the correct astro-nomical week of passover?

    Both [I think – assumed that the Google date for the nominal Christian Easter used the 356.25 year and the date for the Jewish Passover used the Jewish 360 year as corrected in ancient times by the barley harvest]
    Denise said:


    I consulted the Synopticists, but finding which sect they were in was like pulling teeth.

    Have seen so called reports on the web that state that only half of the Jews in Jesus time followed the Sunset start of day with the rest using Sunrise [and I keep coming across a group called the ‘Karaites’ in connection with this subject.]
    MJ. Smith said:


    I was tempted to be super-precise and point out that the historical event is the resurrection of which Easter is an annual celebration. From wikipedia:
    On Pascha: With the Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans: Translation by Melito of Sardis [Not a link] 

    Interesting book. Will have to read it before Easter.
    On Pascha
    9 He is all things.
    He is law, in that he judges.
    He is word, in that he teaches.
    He is grace, in that he saves.
    He is father, in that he begets.
    He is son, in that he is begotten.
    He is sheep, in that he suffers.
    He is human, in that he is buried.
    He is God, in that he is raised up.
  • EastTN
    EastTN Member Posts: 1,460 ✭✭✭

    MJ. Smith said:

    ... I was tempted to be super-precise and point out that the historical event is the resurrection of which Easter is an annual celebration.

    I actually think that's a very important point.  We've been used to having a single, uniform calendar for so long that we've largely forgotten that there are different ways to measure months and years.  When the "anniversary" of an event falls depends on how you count these things.  If we moved back to an older form of calendar - one that didn't include leap years - then I might still celebrate my birthday on September 26th, but it would fall on a different actual day.  My mom might want to move it, to stay in tune with some other cycle - the solar year, or the lunar cycle - but the date we chose to count as my "birthday" would still depend on how we decided to measure things.

    I find debates about the true date of Easter hugely depressing. 

  • Milkman
    Milkman Member Posts: 4,868 ✭✭✭

    Would you recommend this to a newbie when it comes to Melito's "On Pascha"?

    On Pascha: With the Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans

    mm. 

    MJ. Smith said:

    Denise said:

    Are you using the 365 or the 360? And the correct astro-nomical week of passover? I consulted the Synopticists, but finding which sect they were in was like pulling teeth.

    You're so much nicer than I ... I was tempted to be super-precise and point out that the historical event is the resurrection of which Easter is an annual celebration. From wikipedia:

    [quote]Direct evidence for a more fully formed Christian festival of Pascha (Easter) begins to appear in the mid-2nd century. Perhaps the earliest extant primary source referring to Easter is a mid-2nd-century Paschal homily attributed to Melito of Sardis, which characterizes the celebration as a well-established one

    On Pascha: With the Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans: Translation by Melito of Sardis

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,785

    Milkman said:

    Would you recommend this to a newbie when it comes to Melito's "On Pascha"?

    On Pascha: With the Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans

    The sermon itself, yes, very much so.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Milkman
    Milkman Member Posts: 4,868 ✭✭✭

    thanks.

    MJ. Smith said:

    Milkman said:

    Would you recommend this to a newbie when it comes to Melito's "On Pascha"?

    On Pascha: With the Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans

    The sermon itself, yes, very much so.

  • David Ames
    David Ames Member Posts: 2,977 ✭✭✭

    MJ. Smith said:

    Milkman said:

    Would you recommend this to a newbie when it comes to Melito's "On Pascha"?

    On Pascha: With the Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans

    The sermon itself, yes, very much so.

    I have finished it and found it interesting. But, as anyone that reads the Bible in a year, I read it but I did not study it. [[to read is done fast, but to study take a long time.]]  The commentator was useful in explaining this type of writing and the use of the various parts.  [[And let us know where the parts ended and the next began]]  I Agree that the sermon is a good read.

  • David Betts
    David Betts Member Posts: 98 ✭✭

    Could someone please refresh my memory where I should post my reply to this question?
    If I remember correctly Logos does not want to “clog up the lines” with theological discussions, but I cannot find the link.
    A briefest summary on this for now is, "TODAY - if you hear His voice."
    That solves all calendar and “correct day” issues.

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,785

    If I remember correctly Logos does not want to “clog up the lines” with theological discussions, but I cannot find the link.

    On the first page of the forums, on the upper right under "forum guidelines". However, this thread moved quickly from a potential theological issue to the discussion of a Logos resource.

    However, IIRC historically the reason behind the guideline was not "clogged lines" but "uncivil, unchristian posts".

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."