The meaning of Easter in an eggshell
SIR – The thing about Easter egg hunts (News focus, April 14) is that they are grounded in the symbolic meaning of the egg as the container of new life promised by the Resurrection. This central point has been missed by commentators: an egg hunt, without qualification, is surely the province of those in search of the layings of their free-range hens.
In Jewish culture, abstention from eggs during Passover is brought to an end with a symbolic single egg on a plate. Clearly the symbolic nature of the egg does not begin with or belong exclusively to Christianity; the nature of the symbolic is that it is open and available to interpretation.
