Why are eggs and rabbits symbols of Easter?
Easter is a spring festival of fertility and reproduction, celebrated in much of the world. In Israel, this became Passover, and the events of Holy Week made it into a Christian festival as well. But underlying the Christian festival celebrating the death and resurrection of Christ (itself a metaphor for sprint) is a pagan festival celebrating the rebirth of Nature after the “death” of winter. And eggs and rabbits are both symbols of fertility and spring rebirth.
They are Pagan (that is, not Christian) symbols of fertility and Spring. “The Easter Bunny was not originally an Easter symbol. Bringing Easter eggs seems to have its origins in Alsace and the Upper Rhineland, both then in the Holy Roman Empire, and southwestern Germany, where the practice was first recorded in a German publication in the early 1600s. The first edible Easter Eggs were made in Germany during the early 1800s and were made of pastry and sugar. The Easter Bunny was introduced to America by the German settlers who arrived in the Pennsylvania Dutch country during the 1700s.[4] The arrival of the Osterhase was considered one of “childhood’s greatest pleasures”, similar to the arrival of Kriist Kindle (from the German Christkindl) on Christmas Eve. According to the tradition, children would build brightly colored nests, often out of caps and bonnets, in secluded areas of their homes. The “O_ster Haws_e” would, if the children had been good, lay brightly colored eggs in the nes
