Happy Ishtar!

"The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre." John 20:1

The gospels of Mark and Luke read that Mary and Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb, "very early in the morning". The gospel of Matthew records, "as it began to dawn", the women arrived. We can deduce from all of the gospels that Jesus did not rise from the dead at sunrise. So, please tell me Christian, why are you engaging in this practice with no biblical support? If you truly want to observe the time that Jesus rose from the dead I believe it would be more appropriate to assemble during the darkest hour of the night. Symbolically, it was the darkness that Christ conquered. So, where does this sunrise service custom come from? There is no mention of it in early Christianity.

The sunrise service comes from sun worship most notably Baal, the sun god. In ancient cultures false pagan gods from a conquering empire would be imposed upon or sometimes freely accepted by the defeated foe. Most all of the ancient cultures worshiped celestial bodies that ruled the heavens being the sun, representing the male deity Baal in Babylon and Assyria eventually found its way into Canaan. The Persian sun god was Mithras which we find so much imagery in the Roman Catholic Church. The female counterpart to Baal, Ishtar or Ashtoreth represented the moon. The Babylonian moon goddess Ishtar became the Assyrian and Canaanite Ashtoreth. The crescent moon above the head of the pagan idol of Ashtoreth is the same crescent moon found within Islam. The Islamic, Allah, is an Arabian male expression of this same moon goddess and thus we find the crescent moon of Islam comes from the same origins as the others. These false pagan sun and moon gods have their origins in ancient Babylon during the rebellion of Nimrod. The Babylonian and Canaanite practices involved in the cult of Ashtoreth and Baal involved transvestite orgies, male temple prostitutes dressed as women and appeasement of these false gods often involved sacrificing infants by burning them alive (2 Kings 21:1-9)

Ishtar is still profoundly influencing well intended people today in the form of Easter. Easter is the Teutonic adaptation of Ishtar. Easter and Ishtar are both the female fertility goddess of Spring. The date of Easter is based upon the first Sunday after the first full moon following the first day of Spring. Do you see the interplay here of the sun and moon with the observance of Easter? Whenever Baal is worshiped then Ashtoreth is involved and vice versa. The pagan celebration of Easter is the perfect acknowledgement of both false deities. The date of the sunrise observance is based upon the lunar calendar. The scriptures and Christian antiquity do not support any of this. Passover is a fixed date on the Jewish calendar of Nissan 14(Exodus 12:1-6). Easter is not a fixed date because its based upon the pagan observance of the moon cycle.

I admonish you as Paul would admonish you: "Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." Ephesians 5:7-14