While rabbits and eggs have nothing to do with Jesus, the word “Easter” is actually based on the ancient German word for “rise” so it is synonymous with resurrection. This is the reason we call the direction the sun rises in, “east” in English. English is a Germanic language, not a Latin one so it uses a different word for Easter from Latin-based languages like Spanish, French, etc. Latin languages use a variation of Pascha, the Latin/Greek translation of Pesach. Pesach is the Hebrew word for Passover a.k.a “The Festival of Unleavened Bread”. Some say Easter is a pagan holiday because it is related to the Babylonian fertility goddess Ishtar. The Ishtar connection with Easter is a false cognate. Those language groups aren’t even in the same family, since the word Easter is from English and German.
First thing, Passover is the true holiday from the bible. Jesus’ last supper was the Passover cedar, and Jesus rose on the day of the First Fruits offering which is received after the sabbath following Passover (Lev 23:9-14). Jesus called himself the bread of life (John 6:32-40) which is a reference to unleavened bread. Leaven is often used as an analogy for sin (Gal 5:7-10, 1 Cor 5:5-7), so Jesus is saying that he is a sinless person, which sets him apart from the rest of humanity. This is just like how unleavened bread (matzah) is distinguished from leavened bread (chametz). Passover points to Jesus’ blood being the agent that liberates believers from sin and removes their leaven, saving them from the consequences of sin which is death. Just like how God spared the firstborn sons of Israel from the final plague with the blood of lambs on the doorpost, because of Jesus’ blood we are spared condemnation for our sins. In addition, the Israelites were instructed to eat the Passover lamb without leaving anything behind and burning up anything that wasn’t eaten. (Ex 12:10, Ex 23:18). This is like how God’s presence inside of believers (the holy spirit), purifies them daily by burning away sin (or yeast) and making them like Jesus, the unleavened bread. Lastly, the Israelites had to eat the lamb without breaking its bones (Exodus 12:46, Num 9:12, Ps 34:20), which is connected to the fact that Jesus, was crucified without breaking any bones according to John 19:36. With all that being said it is not sinful to celebrate Easter when it is put in a biblical context and points to Jesus alone. Rabbits and eggs have nothing to do with Passover so those things are not necessary and for some believers, those things are considered sinful because of their pagan origins, much like Santa Claus and pine trees on Christmas. Early Christians adopted eggs because of their association with phoenix legends, and the Phoenix is known for “rising” from the ashes, just like how Christ “rose” from the dead. So it seems more like cultural appropriation rather than pagan worship. Pagans worshipped everything under the sun, including the sun, so it’s really hard to find anything that wasn’t worshipped by somebody in history.
Our word ”Easter” comes from the Saxons and is similar to the German cognate “ostern”, which is derived from the old Teutonic form of “auferstehn”, which means resurrection. English is a Germanic language meaning its main words are derived from German. So Easter coming from the German word Ostern makes sense. Ishtar, Astarte, and other names are Babylonian and are a part of the Akkadian language which is in the Semitic language family, not the Germanic one, so this connection to Ishtar is a false connection. In Hebrew, Passover (The Festival of Unleavened Bread) is called Pesach (פֶסַח). This is transliterated into the Greek word Páscha (Πάσχα) which carries over to Latin as the same word. So Latin-based languages and a few others, refer to the holiday Easter with a transliterated form of Pascha. In Latin languages: Portuguese it’s Páscoa, Italian is Pasqua, in Spanish it’s Pascua, and in French it’s Pâques. Other non-Latin Languages like Finnish (Pääsiäinen), Dutch (Pasen), and Indonesian (Paskah) also use variants of Pascha. English and German use Easter/Ostern to refer to the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ. Some other languages also use their native word for resurrection to describe easter, like Serbian (Uskrs or Vaskrs), Vietnamese(lễ Phục sinh), Chinese(Fùhuó Jié/复活节), and Korean(Buhwalchol/부활절). These are the native words for the “rise” or “resurrection” in these languages.
As for the English translations of Pesach in the Bible, there was a process involving many different bible translators over a few hundred years. John Wycliffe, the earliest translator to publish a complete New Testament in English (1382), translated from the Latin Vulgate, Pascha to Pask. In addition, when Martin Luther translated the Bible into German (New Testament in 1522), he used the word Oster to refer to Passover. Lastly, William Tyndale who translated the New Testament into English from Greek (1525) uses the word “ester” to refer to the Passover. He coined the term Passover to describe how God “passed over” the houses marked with the blood of the lamb (Exodus 12). Ester and Oster are both based on the root word aus which is used for shine, dawn, and east. The usage of “ester” was retained in the 1534 revision of the New Testament. Later the “a” was added to “ester” and it became Easter. Luther and Tyndale were the first to use a translation of Pascha into a different word rather than transliteration from it.
If Easter originated from Ishtar/Inanna which comes from Akkadian, then Latin languages would also use a variation of Ishtar rather than Pesach (Passover). This is because Latin gets its alphabet from Greek, and the Greeks got it from the Phoenicians who used the same proto-Sinaitic script alphabet as Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, etc. Instead of Páscha the Latin/Greek would have to be a cognate of Ishtar if it truly came from that source. Since that isn’t the case, there is no direct connection between the Semitic Akkadian word “Ishtar” and the Anglo/Saxon word “Easter”. So the Easter to Ishtar thread is a false cognate from a linguistics standpoint.
The theory connecting Ishtar to Easter was started by a British bishop named Alexander Hislop in the 1800s. He also called Christmas a pagan holiday as well. His argument was based mainly on phonetics because the old Germanic deity Eostre sounded like Astarte, Ishtar, and Ashtoreth (various names for the love goddesses in the Ancient Near East). He believed that Ishtar and Easter were cognates. Cognates are words that sound similar and have the same meaning but are used in different languages. In Spanish and English, some words sound the same and mean the same thing like celebración (celebration) and academia (academy). There are also examples of words that seem like cognates because of similar sounds and meanings but have different etymologies (word origins) and therefore not related to one another. For example, the Spanish word “embarazada” means pregnant but to an English speaker, it looks like it means embarrassed. These false cognates can be within the same language or from different languages. Even if Easter came from the name of an old Germanic goddess (Eostre), its use today doesn’t apply to that. Just like modern Westerners don’t think about worshipping the sun on Sunday or the moon on Monday. Nor do we think about honoring Julius Caesar in the month of July. Some words have ancient meanings tied to ancient religions like the days of the week in most Western languages, but that doesn’t mean that modern speakers are automatically worshipping Norse gods on those days. No one is complaining about Thursday being a reference to Thor. Likewise, with Spanish speakers and the Roman gods, since their days are named after Roman deities. History and word origin are unavoidable aspects of linguistics and every word has some cultural baggage from some ancient culture, despite any secularization with modern usage, that’s just linguistics. Even some Hebrew words are borrowed from the Canaanite language. The words for the sun (shemesh | שֶׁמֶשׁ) and Moon (yareach | יָרֵחַ) in Hebrew are the same words that the Canaanites used and they worshipped the sun and moon as gods. Easter bunnies and the like may or may not be pagan, but those traditions have nothing to do with Jesus or the bible, so those are not related to Resurrection Day/Easter for a Biblical Christian. Those are simply the “traditions of men”.
One final note, the First Fruits offering occurred during the week-long Passover celebration and takes place on the first day after the Passover Sabbath, which means this was the day Jesus rose from the dead (Matt. 28:1-10). Paul tells us that Christ is the “first fruit” of those who will be raised from the dead (1 Cor 15:20-23). Passover was the 14th day of the first month of the Hebrew calendar (Lev. 23:4-8), and then the next day was the beginning of the seven-day Pesach (Festival of Unleavened Bread). This was the day Jesus was crucified (Good Friday). The first and seventh days of Pesach were Sabbaths. The First Fruits celebration was on the first day after the first Pesach sabbath (Lev 23:9-14), according to Pharisaic tradition, but the First Fruits was given after the weekly Sabbath for Sadduceeic tradition. Since Sadducees were the ruling party in the first century, the official First Fruits celebration was on the 17th day (Sunday) because it was after the weekly sabbath (Saturday). Different sects of Jews had different days for Passover, this may explain why the gospel of John has Passover happen a day after the other Gospels because he is referencing the national Passover (Sadducees) as opposed to the sectarian Passover (Pharisees). Pentecost occurred fifty days after that Sabbath (Lev 23:15-16) so the first of those 50 days counting down to Pentecost started with First Fruits. This means the resurrection inited a 50-day count down until the holy spirit distribution on Pentecost in Acts ch. 2.
Just as the first fruits offered to God under the old covenant anticipated the fuller harvest to come, we can expect the same final harvest in the final resurrections (John 5:25-30, Revelation 20) since Jesus is the “first fruit” of the resurrection as Paul says in 1 Cor 15:20-23. In addition, the holy spirit was distributed to God’s people on Shavuot or Pentecost (Acts 2), receiving the holy spirit marks those who are saved for that final harvest of those who will receive eternal life. The Feast of Weeks (Shavuot) is 50 days after the first Sabbath of Passover (or 49 days after the First Fruits). This is also known as Pentecost (from the Greek term pentekostos, or fiftieth), which was the grand celebration at the end of the grain harvest (Lev. 23:15-22). So Jesus connects Passover, First Fruits, and Pentecost, together. Easter is just a one-word term that sums them all up into the event of his death as our Passover lamb, resurrection as the First Fruit of all who receive eternal life, and the distribution of the holy spirit on Pentecost marking God’s children and distinguishing them from the word as Paul writes in Romans 8:5-11. Enough with this “Easter is pagan” nonsense, celebrate Jesus without painting eggs and talking about magic bunnies if it offends you, it’s that simple. If Christians can celebrate Christmas without Santa Claus, pine trees, and Yule Logs, then they can celebrate Easter without bunnies and eggs.
Sources:
There is a book that explains more by Eusebius of Caesarea, called An Ecclesiastical History to the Twentieth Year of the Reign of Constantine, 4th ed., trans. Christian F. Cruse (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1847), 221.
Some resources on the subject
Beyond Ishtar The Tradition of Eggs At Easter