Quote:

Easter is the day Christ was Risen after his Last Supper, which was a Seder. However, the Hebrews used a lunar calendar, and the larger culture used a solar calendar, so Easter came to calculated differently.



Actually Zen, I'm fairly certain Easter IS calculated by lunar calendar*. I believe that it is the first Sunday after the 1st full moon after the vernal equinox ... which is why Easter moves around from March to April like Passover does. [And, since Mardi Gras/Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday are all tied to Easter, they move as well.]

The vernal equinox and the full moon happened last Friday, so this past Sunday was Easter.

[If I'm wrong on this let me know. I'm repeating what I learned in an astronomy class of all places.]


This year is a "leap" year in the Hebrew calendar, and so an entire lunar month is added to adjust this lunar calendar be more closely in sync with the solar year and thus aid Jewish holidays falling in specific seasons since the lunar year is only 356 days, IIRC.

If it weren't a Jewish leap year, Passover, which falls on the Full Moon, would have fallen on Thursday/Friday and would have overlapped with Easter as it often does.

So part of the difference between being a Jew and being a Christian this year is whether you buy into this year's leap month.

To each his own!



[* - actually, like the Hebrew calendar, the Easter calendar is a combination of lunar and solar elements. But, since we both would consider the Hebrew calendar a lunar calendar, and since the Easter calendar is derived from the Hebrew calendar, I'm just keeping the nomenclature consistant.]
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Amo i Gemelli!! wink