Easter in KJV, Acts 12:4

Joseph Rawson Lumby was a member of the revision committee and worked with Westcott & Hort on the Revised Version. As co-editor of the Cambridge Bible for Schools, he edited, with commentary, The Acts of The Apostles, Chapters I–XIV in The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (J. J. S. Perowne, Gen. Ed., Cambridge: University Press, 1879, p. 147). The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges is a biblical commentary set published in parts by Cambridge University Press. Lumby is obviously not King James Only, but he gives the following reason why the King James translators chose to keep the word “Easter” in Acts 12:4 – And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.

intending after Easter (the Passover)] The rendering “Easter” is an attempt to give by an English word the notion of the whole feast. That this meaning and not the single day of the Paschal feast is intended by the Greek seems clear from the elaborate preparation made, as for a longer imprisonment than was the rule among the Jews. Peter was arrested at the commencement of the Passover feast (14th of Nisan), and the king’s intention was to proceed to sentence and punish him when the feast was at an end on the 21st of Nisan.