Easter Debunked

Over at Always Hope, Charlie Peer does a little debunking of the annual "Council bans Easter" story.  Which is always a seasonal twist on the "Council/Charity/Christian bans Christmas" stories. Although there was less on the "School bans Halloween" story.

And as I mentioned yesterday, we have had our annual "Easter isn't quite right" story from an under-qualified author, which again has its parallel in the "There was no Christmas donkey".

Well, to save you the trouble of trawling the Web looking for spurious debunking stories and dodgy claims made after daft research, here's a whole bunch of untrue stories about Easter. I can guarantee that these stories are completely false, and based on either bad research or none whatsoever. Now you can relax and enjoy Easter knowing it's been thoroughly debunked.

• Caiaphas was elected High Priest under the Alternative Vote system. If they had used First-past-the-post it would have been Joseph of Arimathea.

• Based on his red hair, Judas was probably Welsh.

• Pontius Pilate invented the Pilates system to help him relax after a hard day's haranguing hoi polloi

• Several of Jesus' disciples had a fig allergy, hence his opposition to the trees

• Due to the stupidity of human beings, the press will never run out of stories of people being cruel to animals at religious festivals.

• Contrary to popular belief there were only 12 disciples and no kangaroos at the Last Supper.

• Croydon Council has banned Easter eggs from all council meetings.

• The Hot Cross Bun originated as a food to be eaten from January to April.

• The Easter Bunny was originally the Easter Badger, based on Brockworth the Saxon god of blogging. But had to be changed to the Easter Rat due to tuberculosis fears. Unfortunately the Black Death put paid to that tradition, so they changed it to a rabbit. Then myxomatosis came along, and they gave up trying.

• You can date Easter by identifying the year when a total eclipse of the sun occurred at the same time as Passover¹ ,causing the darkness that fell over the earth.

• The word "Easter" comes from the same Anglo-Saxon root as the word "Easel". In East Anglia they used to dedicate all artistic equipment to the goddess Eostre. 

And don't forget - if 23 April falls in Holy Week, the Church moves St George's Day not Easter Day. One day the newspapers will notice, and denounce the Church as being unpatriotic, in thinking that the Resurrection of Our Lord is more important than being English. It could be this year and, if it is, you read it here first.

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¹This is very bad science, religion and history.