For: Easter egg (media)

Easter eggs are specially decorated eggs given to celebrate the Easter holiday or springtime. The oldest tradition is to use dyed or painted chicken eggs, but a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as jellybeans. These eggs are often hidden, allegedly by the Easter Bunny, for good children to find on Easter morning. Otherwise, they are generally put in a basket filled with real or artificial straw to resemble a bird's nest.

History and folklore

The ancient Persians painted eggs for Nowrooz, their New Year celebration, which falls on the Spring equinox. The Nawrooz tradition has existed for at least 2,500 years. The decorated eggs are one of the core items to be placed on the Haft Seen, the Persian New Year display. The sculptures on the walls of Persepolis show people carrying eggs for Nowrooz to the king.

The only medieval source of information on Eostre, a Germanic goddess known from the writings of Bede who attributes her name to the festival, does not mention eggs at all. Some believe that Eostre was associated with eggs and hares. The Wikipedia article on Eostre notes that Bede may have merely speculated about the origin of the term "Easter" without having any definite information.

There are also good grounds for the association between hares (later termed Easter bunnies) and eggs, through folklore confusion between hares' forms (where they raise their young) and plovers' nests. In the 18th Century Jakob Grimm theorised a pagan connection to Easter eggs via a putatively Germanic goddess called Ostara.

The Western name for the festival of Easter derives from the Germanic word Eostre. It is only in Germanic languages that a derivation of Eostre marks the holiday. Most European languages use a term derived from the Hebrew pasch meaning Passover. In Spanish, for example, it is Pascua; in French, Paques; in Dutch, Pasen; in Greek, Russian and the languages of most Eastern Orthodox countries: Pascha. Some languages use a term meaning Resurrection, such as Serbian Uskrs.

At the Jewish Passover Seder, a hard-boiled egg dipped in salt water symbolizes both new life and the Passover sacrifice offered at the Temple in Jerusalem.

Christian practice

The egg is widely used as a symbol of the start of new life, just as new life emerges from an egg when the chick hatches out. The egg is seen as symbolic of the grave and life renewed or resurrected by breaking out of it. The red supposedly symbolizes the blood of Christ redeeming the world and human redemption through the blood shed in the sacrifice of the crucifixion. The egg itself is a symbol of resurrection: while being dormant it contains a new life sealed within it.