Who exactly is this Easter bunny? And how was it able to hop so prominently into view on this highest of holy days in the Christian faith, with no documented connection to the Resurrection of Christ celebrated by the faithful?
The origins of the relationship between the candy-bearing hare and the most important and oldest festival of the Christian Church is, as they say, complicated.
The relationship today is unfortunate.
While there is no biblical reference to rabbits figuring into the Easter tale, there is loose basis for its supporting role appearance on a day posturing Christ as the ultimate protagonist.
But let’s state it up front: That role is decidedly tenuous.
The rabbit is mentioned in the Bible, but the reference isn’t flattering. Leviticus 11:6: “The hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you."
Yet despite been outed as unclean so long ago, the Easter bunny continues to insinuate itself into the day’s activities, figuring prominently at untold households throughout the world as children excitedly search for the candy the animal purportedly leaves behind.
But how did this come to be? And is it proper? Why a bunny leaving candy and eggs?
A piece in the Conversation notes correctly that hares and rabbits are often conflated as the same creature. They are not the same animal. But the hare’s curious gestation abilities yield a clue into how the species cemented its role in the day’s significance.
The hare, you see, is somehow able to produce a second litter while still pregnant with the first -- yielding a ready reference to the virgin birth of Christ himself.
Those attributes of rebirth and fertility somehow suffuse the animal with a legitimate role in the drama of the Resurrection to some minds.
So, there’s that point of view.
There are others.
The Three Hares Project was formed in 2000, aimed at researching and documenting the ancient symbol of the hare in relation to religion in general. The Conversation reports that evidence of its usage have been traced to ancient China.
Titian’s painting The Madonna of the Rabbit indirectly contributed in casting the rabbit as a player in the Passion play. There’s Mary holding the rabbit in the foreground, simultaneously alluding to both her virginity and fertility. It’s a white rabbit too, a not-so-veiled reference to Mary’s purity.
But even those examples yield conundrums.
“Linking rabbits with purity and virginity is odd, however, since they’re also associated with prolific sexual activity,” The Conversation notes.
So much so that Playboy founder Hugh Hefner settled on the animal as metaphor for his empire based on an anachronistically sexist view of women as sexual objects. Enough said on that matter (it is Easter, after all).
Authorities on folklore instead turn to ancient Anglo-Saxon mythology in search of answers. Specifically, their focus of study centers on the myth of fertility goddess Ostara.
According to the Encyclopedia Mythica, Ostara represents the rising sun and thus associated with spring. A friend to all children, she changes her pet bird into a rabbit to amuse them.
That transformed rabbit “brought forth brightly coloured eggs, which the Greek goddess gave to children as gifts. From her name and rites, the festival of Easter is derived.”
Aha!
Jacob Grimm advances the theory in his 1835 book Deutsche Mythologie:
“The Easter Hare is unintelligible to me, but probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara … Ostara, Eástre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted by the resurrection-day of the Christian’s God.”
The Venerable Bede, an 8th century scholar, did his part in advancing the Ostara link in his typical venerable manner. He posited the word “Easter” as being derived from “Eostre” -- an alternative version of the name “Ostara.”
Aha?
Some (nay, untold many) would balk at such links, viewing the connection as sacrilege. Indeed, the Ostara link, while increasing in popularity as the basis of the modern-day Easter Bunny, has been historically debunked or otherwise contested as plausible theory.
The rabbit/hare/bunny emerged by the 16th century as a full-fledged bearer of Easter eggs for distribution to delighted recipients. The earliest reference of this egg-carrying manifestation appears in a 1572 German text.
“Do not worry if the Easter Bunny escapes you; should we miss his eggs, we will cook the nest,” the text reads.
Not sure exactly what this means, but is is a historical rabbit reference nonetheless.
Two centuries later, German immigrants to the United States brought the custom of the Easter bunny with them. From there emerged the earliest signs of Easter Bunny commercialism: By the end of the 19th century, sweet shops in the eastern states were offering rabbit-shaped candies — forerunners to the chocolate bunnies so many of us enjoy today.
To be sure, the Bible makes no mention of an Easter bunny (trust us on this one). But there is mention in the Christian faith of what could very well be the first Easter egg.
Spoiler alert: It wasn't delivered by a bunny.
After Christ is said to have ascended into heaven, Mary Magdalene — arguably his most loyal follower — fearlessy paid a visit to the Emperor Tiberius Caesar in Rome in proclaiming the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. She had an egg in her hand to illustrate her message.
Holding the egg aloft, she exclaimed what is now a universal Easter proclamation among the Christian flock: “Christ is risen!”
But, according to tradition, the emperor mocked her, saying Jesus had no more risen than the egg in her hand was red. You guessed it: The egg turned red as a sign from God to illustrate the truth of her message. The image of Mary Magdalene holding that scarlet egg is a fixture of Christian iconography.
Another passage describes how Mary Magdalene brought along a basket filled with hard-boiled eggs with her on Easter morning to the tomb of Jesus. One theory has it the eggs were breakfast for herself and other followers as they waited for someone to roll the stone away from the tomb's entryway.
Upon her return at the Resurrection site, the stone had rolled away, and the eggs in her basket had been transformed with bright shades of color.
Whatever its origins, the Easter Bunny is, for better or worse, here to stay on this holiest of days.
But its presence seems at odds with what those of us raised in the Christian faith were taught to believe about the significance of the day. The Easter Bunny — for all his delightful deliveries of candy and brightly dyed eggs — does nothing to prompt spiritual reflection or meditation or anything, really, except encouraging children to eat way too much candy.
In the Connecticut city of Orange, an ugly scene at an Easter celebration illustrated how some people have lost the significance of the day: The third annual Easter egg hunt at PEZ candy headquarters in Orange devolved into a rampage as people scrambled to secure the coveted eggs and candy.
Making matters exponentially worse: It was the adults in the crowd who did the rampaging, storming the field to grab candy from among the 9,000 hidden pieces, trampling children along the way at the free event.
One 4-year-old was reportedly left bloody, and a two-year-old was pushed into the mud by marauding adults, according to accounts from horrified witnesses.
Such horrific spectacles will likely be seen again as the Easter Bunny continues its usurping role on this holiest of days. While we aren't exactly sure where the Easter Bunny came from, we know where he is today: central to a seasonal $2.2 billion cottage industry centered on sale of chocolate bunnies, Peeps, marshmallows and other popular treats.
And don’t even get us started on Santa Claus. We’ll hop on that controversial toy-giving character come December.
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