Anglo-Saxon Gospels and Easter

William Tyndale was not the first English Bible translator to use ester/easter to translate the Greek word πασχα.[i] The West Saxon (or Wessex) Gospels are believed translated around AD 990. They use “Easter” (ēasterdaeges, ēastro, ēastron). This provides a bit of insight into the use of the word “Easter” to translate what we now more commonly (in English) call Passover. Below are selections of a verse from each Gospel, with the Anglo-Saxon, Wycliffe, and King James translations, respectively.

Matthew 26:2

• Wite gē þæt æfter twām dagum bēod ēastro, and mannes Bearn byþ geseald þæt hē sī on rōde āhangen.
• Ye witen, that aftir twei daies pask schal be maad, and mannus sone schal be bitakun to be crucified.
• Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.

Mark 14:16

• Pā fērdon his leorningcnihtas, and cōmon on þā ceastre, and fundon hit eall swā hē sǣde, and gegearwodon þā ēastron.
• And hise disciplis wenten forth, and camen in to the citee, and founden as he hadde seid to hem; and thei maden redy the pask.
• And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover.

Luke 2:41-42

• And his māgas fērdon ǣlce gēre tō Hierusalem on ēasterdaeges frēolstīde. And þā hē wæs twęlfwintre, hӯ fōron tō Hierusalem tō þām ēasterlīcan frēolse æfter hyra gewunan;[ii]
• And his fadir and modir wenten ech yeer in to Jerusalem, in the solempne dai of pask. And whanne Jhesus was twelue yeer oold, thei wenten vp to Jerusalem, aftir the custom of the feeste dai.
• Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.

John 2:13

• And hit wæs nēah Iudea ēastron, and sē Hǣlend fōr tō Ierusalem.
• And the pask of Jewis was nyy, and Jhesus wente vp to Jerusalem.
• And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,

James Wilson Bright, an English professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of An Anglo-Saxon Reader, et al., edited the four editions of the Wessex Gospels that are found on Archive.org. Bright explained, “The first English version of the Gospel [preceded] the Wiclifite Bible by four hundred years...”

For any who wish further investigate the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, you will be interested in the Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, which can be found HERE.

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[i] Though these Gospels were probably translated from Latin rather than Greek. James Wilson Bright says that “the Latin manuscript used by the translator of this Gospel has not yet [1904] been identified...” However, it struck me that on one passage above – Luke 2:41-42 – it looks more like the KJV translated from the Greek, than Wycliffe translated from the Latin. (That is certainly only an impression, and contains no scholarship or research behind it.)
[ii] ēasterdaeges frēolstīde might be “transliterated” Easterday feast-tide or translated feast of Easter/Passover.

Easter in the King James Bible

Due to recent discussions, I provide an update of a previous post.
 
Acts 12:4 in the King James Version of the Bible: “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.”

This verse of Scripture has excited much discussion – often more than it should and of a nature that is not edifying. Now I add my voice, hopefully in soft rather than shrill tones that might edify the reader. Acts 12:4 has provided the anti-KJV-ist fodder to rail against the King James translation. It has incited the KJV-Only-ist to create tortured explanations of why “Easter” is correct and “Passover” would be incorrect (in this one verse).[i] The whole of it is rather simple. It could be dismissed rather easily, were it not for the extremists.

First, barring finding some source where the King James translators have explained it, we do not really know why they chose to translate πασχα (paska) as “Easter” in this passage. They translated the word as “Passover” in the other New Testament verses where it is used. While some explanations may seem plausible, they remain opinion rather than fact.

Second, a little knowledge of the development of the English language and the history of English translations apprises us that there is nothing sinister, secret, or stupid going on with the translation. Rather, it is quite simple.

Englishmen had no Jewish background. They were converted to Christianity from paganism. They had no word for the Old Testament feast of Passover. The Passover in the New Testament chronologically tied to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This they called “Ester” or “Easter.” The first translator of the complete Bible in English, John Wycliffe, used “paske” here, transliterating it over from the Greek or Latin.[ii] On the other hand, nearly 200 years later William Tyndale translated the New Testament. He chose “ester”,[iii] a word that was in common usage at that time. The word “Passover,” which is current in most modern translations, did not exist at that time. In fact, Tyndale himself coined the word “Passover” when he translated the Old Testament Pentateuch from Hebrew into English. Whatever his reasoning, Tyndale is the source of the word “Passover.”

As translation and language progressed, the use of Easter for Passover in the New Testament dwindled. By the time of the 1568 Bishops’ Bible “Easter” is used in only two places (here and twice in John 11:55). With the coming of the King James, “Easter” remained with one solitary use, in Acts 12:4.

Why did the King James translators not change “Easter” to “Passover” in Acts 12:4 as in all the other cases? Was it an editorial oversight? Did they see something that caused them to think it best left in place?[iv] Though not specifically mentioning the word “Easter,” “The Translators to the Reader” indicates that these scholars were not rigidly tied to one word in the target language (English) for the same one word in the source language (Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek): “...wee have not tyed our selves to an uniformitie of phrasing, or to an identitie of words, as some peradventure would wish that we had done...we cannot follow a better patterne for elocution then God himselfe; therefore hee using divers words, in his holy writ, and indifferently for one thing in nature: we, if wee will not be superstitious, may use the same libertie in our English versions out of Hebrew & Greeke, for that copie or store that he hath given us.” We will probably never answer why. Rather than worry over or fight about it, just know that the context indicates that Easter refers to the Passover season, and it was a legitimate word choice. It had included that meaning for over at least 600 years by that time, and should be no cause for foul fracases (nothing wrong with healthy debate).[v]

The Deuteronomy Chapter 16 Heading, Geneva Bible 

This chapter summary is clipped from the 1560 Geneva Bible. Though the 1560 Geneva Bible did not use word “Easter” in its text, this summary at the beginning of Deuteronomy 16 shows how “Easter” and “Passover” are synonyms. (Also “Whitsuntide” and “Pentecost,” that is, the feast of weeks, verse 10.)

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[i] Including the anti-KJV speculation that ties the origin of the word and holiday “Easter” from the festival of the goddess Ēostre (largely debunked), and some KJVOs’ insistence that πασχα in Acts 12:4 actually refers to a pagan holy day rather than Passover. I do not recommend the anti-KJV and KJVO links above; they are supplied only for informational purposes. Both of them are full of misrepresentations. “There is now widespread consensus that the word derives from the Christian designation of Easter week as in albis, a Latin phrase that was understood as the plural of alba (‘dawn’) and became eostarum in Old High German, the precursor of the modern German and English term.”
[ii] The Anglo-Saxon translations of the four gospels preceded Wycliffe’s translation by about 400 years. These use ēasterdaeges, ēastro, and ēastron.
[iii] My count using StudyLight.org is 26 times in 25 verses in the New Testament (ester or esterlambe). The English-to-Latin dictionary Promptorium Parvulorum Sive Clericorum first appeared circa 1440, and is attributed to Geoffrey the Grammarian, a friar who lived in Norfolk, England. In the 1865 printing at Archive.org (p. 143), we find Eesterne (Easter) means Pascha.
[iv] If the translators judiciously followed rules 8-11, it seems highly unlikely they could have accidentally left in the word “Easter” through an oversight. For an explanation of why they might have left “Easter” in place, see Easter in KJV, Acts 12:4. On the one hand, some contemporary KJV defenders have posited that “Easter” was left in Acts 12:4 because it is the only post-resurrection historical reference to paska/Passover. On the other hand, some recent KJV detractors have suggested the High-Church Anglicans altered the translation of Acts 12:4 back to the word “Easter” to preserve a mention of their then current celebration. I checked the Easter sermons of Lancelot Andrewes transcribed at Project Canterbury. He never mentioned Acts 12:4 in any Easter sermon (Sermons of the Resurrection Preached upon Easter-Day, 1606-1618 and Sermons of the Resurrection Preached upon Easter-Day, 1620-1624), which seems odd if that were one of the reasons they kept the word “Easter” in that passage.
[v] In the related German language, Martin Luther used Ostern (Easter) in his Bible translation.