by KRISTINA KILLGROVE
Ever wonder why the humble egg is the focus of the most important Christian holiday? The egg is ubiquitous and cheap today, often the product of backyard coops managed by hipsters keen on urban farming. But this incredible, edible source of protein was, millennia ago, a potent religious symbol.
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Our first historical records of egg symbolism in religion date to about 500 BC. In the Achaemenid period, the Iranian calendar was influenced by Zoroastrianism, and the spring equinox – the first day of their calendar year – became a holiday. Called Nowruz, this holiday is often celebrated today by decorating, sharing, and eating eggs, and may have been celebrated similarly in the past, as a carved relief from Persepolis (dating to around 500 BC) seems to depict noblemen carrying colored eggs:
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Historical evidence of eggs being linked to Jesus, though, is kind of uncertain. There is surprisingly little in the Bible about eggs – we get passages about eggs as food (Job 6:6) and a few passages using an egg in an analogy (Luke 11:12, Isaiah 10:14). Eastern Orthodox tradition has it that Mary Magdalene was bringing cooked eggs to Jesus’ tomb; the eggs turned bright red – the color of blood – when she saw that Christ had risen. In a similar vein, another story holds that when Mary Magdalene went to Tiberius, the emperor of Rome, to tell him that Christ had risen, he insisted that “Christ has no more risen than that egg is red,” after which the egg turned bright red. But these are just traditions handed down, possibly apocryphal or used to retroactively justify the tradition of dyeing and eating Easter eggs.
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