Most notable is the month "Nisan," the first month of Spring, corresponding to the Mosaic month of "Abib." In the modern Jewish calendar, Passover occurs on the fourteenth day of Nisan. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, writing in about 90 A.D., gives us an astronomical reference for the month of Nisan....

"In the month of Xanthicus, which is by us called "Nisan," and is the beginning of our year, on the 14th day of the lunar month, when the Sun is in Aries (for in this month it was that we were delivered from bondage under the Egyptians, the law ordained that we should every year slay the sacrific which I before told you we slew when we came out of Egypt, and which was called the Passover....)"

In the time of Josephus, the Sun was in the constellation Aries at the time of the Vernal Equinox, the first day of Spring in the northern hemisphere. And so in the traditional Jewish observance, the Passover feast begins with the Full Moon during the month of the Equinox.

What's in a Name?

The early church celebrated Passover in a similar manner to Jewish observances, though the customs changed over time. But our Christian Easter observance is still based on the Hebrew Passover observance. For example, many churches observe the solemn, penitent "Holy Week" observance before Easter, based on the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Many people today argue that "Easter" is really a pagan holiday, with bunnies and eggs symbolizing heathen fertility rites, not the resurrection of Jesus.  Entire books have been written to show that the name "Easter" is derived from the name of the Babylonian fertility goddess "Ishtar" or "Astarte." Eggs and bunnies are clearly not of Biblical origin. But the name issue is mostly a matter of the semantics of the English language since other European languages paint a different picture.

The Hebrew word for "Passover" is "pesach." In Greek, the translated word is "pascha." Throughout church history, this name has been associated with the feast of Christ's resurrection. This name of this feast is translated in the following ways in the languages of the traditionally Christian nations of Europe:

Spanish   = Pascua
Italian   = Pasqua
French    = Paque
Russian   = Pascha
Swedish   = Pask
Norwegian = Paske
Dutch     = Pasen

However, in the English language, the feast of Christ's resurrection is commonly called "Easter." For example, in Acts 12:4 in the King James Bible, the word "Easter" is given as a translation of the word "pascha." If you read old-fashioned English writings, it's not uncommon to see the Easter feast called "The Pasch" (pronounced "pask") and Jesus often figuratively referred to as "the paschal lamb" and so forth. However, the word "Pasch" is out of style in our shallow generation of English speakers.