Re: Easter

-John Croft wrote:

> Re: Easter
>
> Gegory wrote
> > Some wild-looking
> > cognates were suggested by the New Age sites (such as Egyptian
> > Astarte) but also some reasonable ones, such as Aurora , from
> > PIE "aus-", for "east".
>
> Gregory, Astarte was not an Egyptian, but a Syro-Phoenician

Goddess.

> In Hebrew she was known as Ashtoreth, which seems to have been a
> deliberate pun on her name to turn her into an abomination. In
> Babylon she was none other than Ishtar, who appears in Iranian as
> Esther, from which she re-entered into the Bible in the story of
> Ruth, and hence into modern names.
>

Oops! I would like to blame this mistake on my wacky, New Age sources.
However, going back through them, it appears that I am to blame for
the mix-up. For example, one of the websites I found was

http://www.goddesses.com/HappyEostre.html

It made the following (dubious) assertion, that "the Gemanic/
Anglo-Saxon equivalents of the goddess Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtaroth,
Ashteroth, were Eostre/Ostara." However, it DID identify Astarte
correctly as Phoenician. I got mixed up when I wrote my comment
and question, because I was remembering a remark from the beginning
of the webpage that Eostre was an equivalent of "the Egyptian goddess
Nut." I had the two statements confused.

Boy, it's a good thing I don't do this for a living!

Best, Gregory