How come Easter is so much earlier than Passover in 2008?

[Mind_your_head]

I didn't think that was possible since the two stories are so intertwined.....

[villager]

1. It's not the stories, in this case -- J.C.'s attendance at a seder notwithstanding...

It's the different calendars -- Gregorian vs. Hebrew...

Normally, they're close. Not this year. This link might help:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3043372

[rurallib]

2. easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring

since that is the way the pagans whom the holiday was appropriated from celebrated it.

[againes654]

3. Check this out

http://www.factmonster.com/spot/easter1.html

2 different Easters, I never knew.

[Cirque du So-What]

4. Well, Easter is a 'moveable feast' - the centerpiece

around which all other moveable feasts are placed.

Computus (Latin for computation) is the calculation of the date of Easter in the Christian calendar. The name has been used for this procedure since the early Middle Ages, as it was one of the most important computations of the age.

The canonical rule is that Easter day is the first Sunday after the 14th day of the lunar month (the nominal full moon) that falls on or after 21 March (nominally the day of the vernal equinox). For determining the feast, Christian churches settled on a method to define a reckoned "ecclesiastical" full moon, rather than observations of the true Moon as the Jews did at the time. Eastern Orthodox Christians calculate the fixed date of 21 March according to the Julian Calendar rather than the modern Gregorian Calendar, and observe the additional rule that Easter may not precede or coincide with the first day of the Jewish Passover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computus

[nmvisitor]

5. There's a weird rule for Easter

This year's Easter is on 03/23, which is only one day after the very earliest day on which it can fall. Easter can fall anywhere between 03/22 and 04/25, based a really odd formula: Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after (or the same day) as the spring equinox. Sounds pretty pagan to me, but then I'm an atheist.

[Sal Minella]

6. I've always been amused that the holiest of the Christian holidays depends on the pagan moon.

[aquart]

11. Easter is nine months from Christmas.

And riddled with fertility symbols. Not that that means anything to Christians.

Just as the fun stuff with the phallic Maypole is nine months from Imbolc on February 1.

One can only assume, before the Christians spoiled everything, that the annual temptations in the garden of Gethsemane were much more of a party.

[thecrow]

8. And...it's on my birthday! A once in a lifetime event!

My birthday has never been on Easter since 1913 and won't fall on Easter again until 2160 !
I think that is pretty cool :)

[aquart]

9. Happy Birthday!

[MannyGoldstein]

7. Jewish Holidays Are Based On The Lunar Calendar

Days can move around quite a bit, because 28-day months don't cleanly fit into a solar year. They drift so far apart that an entire leap month gets added every two or three years.

[Yael]

10. Adar I & II on leap years

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adar

[aquart]

13. Adar AND Adar?

And what leaps into my mind? "This is my brother, Darryl. And this is my other brother, Darryl."

Two months with the same name? Couldn't they have run, I dunno, a contest? If they just couldn't think of anything?

[Yael]

14. It is to account for the difference between the lunar and gregorian calendars

Adar II is added on leap years to bring them back into sync.

[Yael]

15. BTW -- I didn't miss the Bob Newhart reference

one of the funniest lines in teevee ever. :D

[karynnj]

12. Passover is determined by the Jewish calendar

which is a lunar calendar that corrects itself by adding a second month of Adar periodically, which I think they did this year. This is about as far off as they can be. Easter has its own determination that is not based on the Jewish calendar.