[HN Gopher] Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?
___________________________________________________________________
Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?
Author : vitoc
Score : 99 points
Date : 2025-04-18 03:59 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.historyextra.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.historyextra.com)
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| https://archive.is/pAaH8
| neonate wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20250418050741/https://www.histo...
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| The etymology is interesting, but this writing reads like weirdly
| bad AI.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| "Why is Good Friday called Good Friday? ... What is Good
| Friday? ... Why is Good Friday called Good Friday? ... How is
| Good Friday marked around the world? ... When is Good Friday in
| 2025?"
|
| This is SEO slop.
| citrin_ru wrote:
| SEO slop existed long before LLMs but now it is also in the
| training sets which may affect their output.
| airstrike wrote:
| It's lossy turtles all the way down
| rvba wrote:
| This feels like SEO slop boosting its ranking by being linked
| on HN.
|
| I wonder what Dang or Tomhow think about submissions like
| this
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| TLDR: "Good" can mean "Holy". That's it.
|
| This is a weird article. If you bail early, at least now you know
| the answer to the question.
| dwedge wrote:
| Thank you. I opened the page, saw the layout and ads and bailed
| within 2 seconds
| Modified3019 wrote:
| Article is weird because it's mass produced SEO slop
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Why don't we consult a rather authoritative and reliable, albeit
| 100 years old, source?
|
| https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06643a.htm
|
| Good Friday, called _Feria VI in Parasceve_ in the Roman Missal,
| _he hagia kai megale paraskeue_ (the Holy and Great Friday) in
| the Greek Liturgy, Holy Friday in Romance Languages,
| _Charfreitag_ (Sorrowful Friday) in German, is the English
| designation of Friday in Holy Week -- that is, the Friday on
| which the Church keeps the anniversary of the Crucifixion of
| Jesus Christ.
|
| The origin of the term _Good_ is not clear. Some say it is from
| "God's Friday" ( _Gottes Freitag_ ); others maintain that it is
| from the German _Gute Freitag_ , and not specially English.
| Sometimes, too, the day was called _Long Friday_ by the Anglo-
| Saxons; so today in Denmark.
|
| I should also add that Friday retains its pagan vestiges, named
| after Frigg in the German pantheon, or Venus, the Roman deity of
| erotic love, beauty and fertility, better known to some as
| Aphrodite. And likewise, April is a month that was long known as
| sacred to Aphrodite/Venus in the Roman Calendar, and many feasts
| such as the _Veneralia_ were celebrated during April.
|
| It is no coincidence that on Good Friday, Christ redeemed the
| world; since He is the Bridegroom and the Church is his holy,
| unblemished bride, it is the day of consummation: the
| consummation of His sacrifice on the Cross, the day He poured out
| His Precious Blood for us, and many theologians mark this event
| also as the seeds or birth of the Church, along with Pentecost.
|
| So I'd say that Good Friday is best Friday. And the fact that
| it's in April is really cool. And once I heard the university
| shooting up fireworks on the evening of Good Friday. I'll be
| planning on the Stations of the Cross at 3pm. Seeya there!
| textm0de wrote:
| Most likely an evolution of "God Friday", in much the same way as
| "God Be With Ye" became Good-Bye.
| layer8 wrote:
| Wikipedia disagrees:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday#Etymology
| tetris11 wrote:
| > In Germany, the day is known as Karfreitag
|
| In Germany its known as "brucketag" because Thursday was a public
| holiday and people take a "bridge-day" on Friday to extend the
| weekend.
| fabianholzer wrote:
| Well, ascension day and the corpus christ feast are always on a
| thursday and as such the friday after them are Bruckentage, but
| in my lifetime at least the good friday not once was on a
| thursday...
| qwertox wrote:
| Karfreitag can't be a bridge day since it is a public holiday
| (gesetzlicher Feiertag).
|
| Although Thursday was a regional commemoration day
| (Grundonnerstag), it wasn't a public holiday, so most people
| still worked.
| alternatetwo wrote:
| Any day between holidays and weekend is a "Bruckentag", a
| bridge day. Friday would be a bridge day, if thursday were a
| public holiday. So would monday, if tuesday were one. It's not
| a term a for specific day, but for a type of day.
| xg15 wrote:
| No, this is wrong. As the others have said, "Bruckentag" is a
| general term for _non_ -holidays, and it doesn't even apply
| here as Friday is the holiday and not Thursday.
|
| Good Friday is also still very significant in its religious
| purpose here, so calling it "bridge day", even if it applied,
| would be disrespectful.
|
| (Which doesn't keep the racing/modding community from having
| their own "Car Freitag" on that day...)
| danwills wrote:
| I find it odd how Easter, a pre-Christian Pagan festival
| (worshipping goddess of fertility: Eostre) has become seemingly-
| arbitrarily connected to the purported events at the end of
| Jesus' life.. yet it still includes a good amount of the prior
| symbolism (rabbits, eggs etc)!
|
| Still great to have a short break from work! Not arguing against
| it at all, it just seems a bit bizarre to me overall.
| GranularRecipe wrote:
| The first month after March equinox has great religious
| significance across many cultures (in the temperate zone), e.g.
| Pesach. When different cultures meet, they tend to syncretise.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Yes. And this mix continues. Even traditional that originally
| have some common root and then diverge can later
| resyncretise. For example look at Halloween being introduced
| in southern Europe thanks to US cultural influence
| larusso wrote:
| Let's talk about Christmas then. They deliberately put it at a
| time where many northern folks had their own traditional end of
| the year / longest night (opposite to midd summer) festivals.
| In Germany we have Nikolaus on the 6.12 (goes back to a priest
| St Nikolaus who did good to people and I believe died on the
| 6th of December)
|
| But the name is striking to Santa Claus which is just a Anglo
| version of that name. Interesting is also that half of Germany
| the Christ baby brings the presents or the Weihnachtsmann. The
| Weihnachtsmann is what we would refer as Santa. But Santa and
| Nikolaus are depicted the same. There some other festivals like
| Jule from Scandinavia etc. But compared to Christmas we at
| least know that the end of Jesus (or whoever it was) happened
| at that time due to too many religions and groups in the city.
| When he was born and how old he even was...
|
| Edit: Also the fact that the holiday follows the moon calendar
| because it was the Sunday after the Paschal full moon. Which is
| celebrated by the Jewish as Passover.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > They deliberately put it
|
| Who did? When?
| knome wrote:
| The Catholic Church. The fourth century.
|
| https://www.history.com/articles/history-of-christmas
|
| >In the fourth century, church officials decided to
| institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. Unfortunately,
| the Bible does not mention date for his birth (a fact
| Puritans later pointed out in order to deny the legitimacy
| of the celebration).
|
| >Although some evidence suggests that Jesus' birth may have
| occurred in the spring (why would shepherds be herding in
| the middle of winter?), Pope Julius I chose December 25. It
| is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an
| effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan
| Saturnalia festival
| petesergeant wrote:
| The "history.com editors" using a phrase like "it is
| commonly believed" doesn't feel like a citation to me. My
| understanding is that the date is derived from the date
| of the Annunciation.
| knome wrote:
| Expecting a formally reviewed citation in response to a
| vague three word query in an informal conversation on a
| forum wholly unrelated to specialization in that topic is
| a bit silly, but if you do bother to do the legwork and
| find a citation for either what I linked or your own
| notion, it may be of interest to other readers.
| Amezarak wrote:
| This is a common theory but it's almost certainly wrong.
|
| https://www.bartehrman.com/why-is-christmas-on-
| december-25th...
|
| > However, upon closer examination, this theory
| encounters several historical and contextual challenges.
| One of the key issues is the lack of any contemporary
| evidence from the early Christian period directly linking
| the choice of December 25th for Christmas to pagan
| festivals.
|
| > But several decades earlier (c. 203 C.E.), a bishop
| from Rome, Hippolytus, wrote: "For the first advent of
| our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, was
| December 25th, Wednesday, while Augustus was in his
| forty-second year, but from Adam, five thousand and five
| hundred years." (Comm. on Dan. 23.3.) [...]
|
| > Tertullian, for example, calculated that Jesus was
| killed on March 25th. If Jesus had also been conceived on
| March 25th and you count exactly nine months later from
| that date, you then have Jesus' birth on December 25th. I
| think this is the way early Christians came to believe
| that Jesus' birth happened on December 25th.
|
| > Moreover, unlike the previous and still most popular
| theory, this one is mentioned in the early sources!
|
| > A treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which
| comes from the 4th century states: "Therefore, our Lord
| was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in
| March, which is the day of the passion of the Lord and
| his conception. For on that day, he was conceived on the
| same he suffered."
|
| Note that regardless, December 25th was regarded as the
| date by at least some Christians _long_ before the fourth
| century. As for the mention of shepherds in the article,
| we have independent attestations of shepherding in winter
| in the area, so the question of "why would they be there
| in winter" is "because that's normal".
| anon291 wrote:
| Hmm... why would the church in asia have chosen jan 6 as
| their epiphany date and main celebration of christmas if
| it were for Saturnalia. These are questions no one can
| answer, and we all just assume a Euro-centric perspective
| for little reason.
| Aloisius wrote:
| The earliest references to Epiphany come from the Roman
| Empire.
| larusso wrote:
| Well the Bible was written some 300 years after all of this
| happened. Jesus didn't own a birth certificate nor was it
| ever officially written down. As to who decides when what
| happened and wrote it down I don't know.
|
| We have historical figures where we don't know exactly when
| their born. But we don't just write a data down.
|
| Here is a link going in more detail and actually
| contradicts what I wrote. But points about the Santa Claus
| etc still stand. And I see no real hard evidence to the
| contrary either.
|
| https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-
| decembe...
| boredhedgehog wrote:
| > Well the Bible was written some 300 years after all of
| this happened.
|
| Are you perhaps confusing writing with the process of
| canonization? Common estimates would place the _writing_
| of the youngest book of the Bible at 95-120 AD.
| petesergeant wrote:
| I think it's worth pointing out you're both talking about
| the Gospel rather than the Bible, a chunk of which
| predates Jesus
| larusso wrote:
| Yes. You're correct. When I wrote written I meant put
| together. Because the process was more to put a
| compilation together. I'm not Christian and also atheist
| so please forgive any wording that my sound like a debunk
| the whole process. For me the scientific truth is not
| given that this person as stated in these gospels ever
| existed. But I'm very interested in und history and the
| history of religions. I visited many churches because of
| the combination of power, rituals and believe. Even
| though the first is graspable for me.
| Amezarak wrote:
| The formal canonicalization happened later, but most
| people were using the almost the compilation for
| centuries beforehand.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Yeah, usual dates for the new Testament are all first
| century.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible#Table_IV:_
| New...
|
| I think it's important to note the primary argument for
| even that "later" dating of the end of the
| first/beginning of the second century is that the gospels
| predict the destruction of Jerusalem. There is no "hard"
| argument on the lower bound, only the upper bound
| (earliest known physical evidence.) I don't think it's
| particularly wild to suggest, even for a secular
| historiographer, that the vague, flowery language taken
| to prophesy the destruction of Jerusalem could have been
| written without any supernatural influence. It had
| happened before, and tensions were high.
|
| Luke-Acts claims to be written by an eyewitness (the
| latter part of the narrative of Acts shifts to first
| person as he describes events he allegedly participated
| in versus just heard and read about) and John also claims
| to have been written by an eyewitness. I don't think
| there's any particularly strong argument against that,
| but the scholarly consensus goes back and forth over
| time.
| anon291 wrote:
| > hey deliberately put it at a time where many northern folks
| had their own traditional end of the year
|
| For most of history, Christianity is a mediterranean
| religion. There would be no reason to choose to put it at a
| time for Northern Europeans.
|
| For example, I am the descendants of the indigenous
| Christians of India. The historical celebration of Christmas
| is called Denha, which is the native name for Epiphany, for
| which there is widespread textual evidence (corroborated by
| similar celebrations elsewhere), and which was celebrated at
| the usual time (Jan 6). There are numerous councils of the
| Church of the east that confirm this as well. Why would they
| possibly care what Scandinavia did. The simple truth is that
| this is a really old time to celebrate the birth of Christ,
| for reasons lost to history. Unlikely that the Northern
| Europeans, who were catechized many centuries after Christ
| played a large role in it. We have records of the date in
| Asian church councils well before the Northern Europeans were
| even contacted people.
|
| The reason why Northern European traditions (trees, santa
| claus, snow, etc) became popular is due to the migration of
| Northern Europeans to America which is today synonymous with
| 'Christian' nations. even in Europe, the indigenous Catholics
| of South Europe don't always celebrate in this way.
|
| But there are universals: sweets, gift-giving, celebration,
| stars, these are all common.
| eitland wrote:
| There is an explanation elsewhere in the thread:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43730944
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| https://youtu.be/0m2ZQaxfpnY?si=t0zQAWhZEW8Uoa2z the Easter
| Bunny is not pagan, it's a much more recent tradition.
| danwills wrote:
| Thanks for the correction there! I was not aware that Easter
| Bunny was much more like Santa than something associated with
| Eostre or Pagan.
|
| I guess the bunny still got something similar to the Coke-
| branding that Santa got to help product sales, but for
| chocolate sales instead!?
|
| I retract the 'rabbits' part of what I said, but I still
| think it's ultimately a fairly weird taken-over/hybrid-
| mythology festival! I'm only able to talk about Easter as I
| know it in Aus though!.. I totally acknowledge festivals and
| their timing/meaning are very different in other places.
| defrost wrote:
| The video doesn't disprove a long standing non Christian
| association between what is now Easter and rabbits.
|
| What it does state is in agreement with the wikipedia article
| on the connection between Eostre and rabbits, namely:
| The earliest evidence for the Easter Hare (Osterhase) was
| recorded in south-west Germany in 1678 by the professor of
| medicine Georg Franck von Franckenau
|
| ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre
|
| This is the earliest still extant _written_ account of folk
| practices that had been occurring for some indeterminant
| time.
|
| We are aware that the brewing of beer predates by many
| centuries, millenia even, the earliest still extant written
| account of the practice of brewing beer.
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| Of course it is possible that the tradition goes back more
| than a thousand years from when it was first attested, but
| we have no material evidence of that whatsoever. No statues
| of a goddess surrounded by eggs and rabbits, no amulets of
| protection, no recorded myths, no references to something
| similar from Greek or Roman sources, nothing. This is in
| contrast to beer where we have actually found remains of
| beer from long, long ago.
| defrost wrote:
| It certainly existed for generations prior to when it was
| first written about .. as much of all human activity did.
|
| We have actual remains of rabbits from long long ago.
|
| The point being much human activity leaves little trace,
| we'd be wise to not assume the only human activity was
| activity that left a pyramid or giant stautue in its
| wake.
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| Yes, but traditions are also invented all the time, and
| there's no reason to assume a random tradition among
| German Protestants in the 17th century goes back over a
| thousand years without evidence.
| thayne wrote:
| It isn't arbitrary. The death and resurrection of Jesus
| happened after the Jewish passover, which happens in the
| spring. It is also easy to see how symbols of renewed life and
| fertility in the spring could be adapted to symbolize Jesus
| coming back to life.
| LtWorf wrote:
| You realise that jewish people have had easter for a certain
| number of years before christ?
| fortran77 wrote:
| Ummm, Jews don't have Easter. Right now we are in the Chol
| Hamoed part of Passover/Pesach, with the Chag resuming and
| sundown tonight and continuing for 2 days.
| LtWorf wrote:
| Yes I don't speak hebrew... It's just called "jewish
| easter" in my language. And?
| rat87 wrote:
| Yeah he worded it oddly but in other languages the word for
| Easter is related to the word for Passover or even the same
| eitland wrote:
| Which is the point:
|
| The link between the names only exist in English and
| German.
|
| In other European languages it is typically called either
| something that sounds like Pesach or it is called something
| related to the story of Christ.
| photios wrote:
| > I find it odd how Easter, a pre-Christian Pagan festival
| (worshipping goddess of fertility: Eostre) has become
| seemingly-arbitrarily connected to the purported events at the
| end of Jesus' life..
|
| The Eostre connection is unconvincing. Eostre is a Saxon
| goddess with earliest sources about her cult from 8th century
| and:
|
| - Easter has been celebrated before 8th century.
|
| - And it has been celebrated by people that have never heard of
| Saxons or their gods.
| pkphilip wrote:
| The connection goes further back to Asheroth - the Cannanite
| goddess of fertility.
| rolandog wrote:
| The world was not ready for such religions then [0]:
|
| > There are several reasons why the worship of Baal and
| Asherah was such a problem for Israel. First, the worship
| of Baal and Asherah held the allure of illicit sex, since
| the religion involved ritual prostitution. [...]
|
| The Asherahs/Ashtoreths probably needed better branding.
|
| [0]: https://www.gotquestions.org/Baal-and-Asherah.html
| krapp wrote:
| "the world?"
|
| Ritual prostitution was common in many ancient religions,
| and Baal and Asherah were commonly worshipped at the
| time. It only seems aberrant in hindsight because we live
| in a world formed from the strict patriarchy and sexual
| taboos of one specific Semitic religion, and a narrative
| of history written by its adherents.
|
| That said as far as I know the whole Easter/Eostre
| connection has been discredited by the actual evidence.
| Which is unfortunate because it would be such an
| enjoyable thing to annoy Christians with if it were true.
| anon291 wrote:
| No it does not. Asheroth is a Canaanite language term.
| Easter comes from the Proto-Indo-European for dawn of east,
| the direction of the sunrise. A very fitting name for the
| rising of the Son of Man. The direct cognates to Easter are
| Usas (Indic languages), East, or Aurora.
| eitland wrote:
| Remember, Easter is only called Easter (or something
| similar) in a few languages, I'm only aware of English
| and German (Oster).
| teunispeters wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre covers a lot of
| ground and has references (thankfully)
| tptacek wrote:
| The whole thing is super weird, because "Easter" isn't the
| canonical term for the day to begin with.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| embrace. extend. extinguish. Cultural assimilation by the
| missionaries to spread Christianity, is one of the major
| reason. This is why different countries have their own "local"
| version of Christianity with their own unique / weird rituals
| or practice.
| xg15 wrote:
| I find it fascinating that a lot of traditional holidays seem
| to have acquired multiple, sometimes conflicting narratives
| over the ages.
|
| Christmas is the most obvious one (what does a bearded dude on
| the north pole have to do with the birth of Jesus? For Germans
| specifically: The "Christkind" is Baby Jesus, but its also a
| kind of spirit of its own who brings presents, and for some
| reason usually depicted as a girl?)
|
| But you also have a similar thing for Carnival: Traditionally,
| it's the last feast before Lent (where Lent is _also_ an
| expanded narrative of Easter!). But there are also all kinds of
| local narratives layered on top of it, like the Rhineland
| "Session", which begins in November, is somewhat awkwardly
| interrupted by Christmas and _ends_ with Carnival as its sort
| of "grand finale".
|
| And then Easter has the triple narrative as the death and
| ascension of Jesus, the feast after the end of Lent (so a bit
| like Islam's Eid al Fitr) and the beginning of spring.
|
| In some way, it reminds me of the sprawling lore and extended
| universes/fan canons around Star Wars or other Scifi or Fantasy
| franchises, except on a much, much larger scale. I think it's
| all pretty fun.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| > For Germans specifically: The "Christkind" is Baby Jesus
|
| Well, that is a good example to see how those things develop.
| Martin Luther didn't like how saints were praised and tried
| to convince people to pray to Christ instead of Saint
| Nicolas. Which then Catholic reaches formed to the
| Christkind.
|
| (And then later Coca Cola took over spreading Santa Clause in
| their style)
| xg15 wrote:
| > _Martin Luther didn 't like how saints were praised and
| tried to convince people to pray to Christ instead of Saint
| Nicolas. Which then Catholic reaches formed to the
| Christkind._
|
| #maliciouscompliance
|
| But really, that's interesting! I didn't know Luther was
| the origin of this. Even more, it's almost a Christmas
| ritual of its own to discuss whether the presents are
| brought by Santa or the Christkind, etc. Wasn't aware that
| those tongue-in-cheek discussions have traces of the actual
| Catholic/Protestant conflict in them.
|
| > _(And then later Coca Cola took over spreading Santa
| Clause in their style)_
|
| Oh yeah, forgot the Nikolaus/Weihnachtsmann duality, which
| I think was an attempt by the church to get their saint
| back from the clutches of Coca Cola/pop culture. I guess
| they succeeded partially, because now we have both of them
| as separate characters.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| The Weihnachtsmann giving presents on 24th/25th is a lot
| older than Coca Cola and a combination of many
| traditions, but yes, the English name Santa Claus came
| via Dutch Sinterclaas to the U.S., while originating from
| Saint Nicholas, who is celebrated Dec 6th.
|
| While the Saint Nicholas celebration with Krampus etc.
| also integrated pre-Christian traditions.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| > the Rhineland "Session", which begins in November, is
| somewhat awkwardly interrupted by Christmas and ends with
| Carnival
|
| Wait, tell me more about this? I've never heard of it but
| this sounds much more similar to what is practiced by eastern
| christians. Where there is also a 40 day fast before
| christmas, then the twelve day feast ending with
| epiphany/theophany. And in those branches lent itself is
| preceded by a 3-week period of increasingly strict fast. So
| in some years depending on when easter lands you can start
| fasting again very shortly after christmas ends but is still
| understood as a completely separate thing.
|
| I don't know anything about the rhineland one but I could see
| how this could eventually mutate into one super long fast
| with a break for christmas, but also maybe isn't seen that
| way by the people doing it.
| xg15 wrote:
| Ah, no, sorry. This would be more like the opposite of
| that: An extension of _carnival_ itself into a period of
| several months.
|
| According to that timeline, carnival "really" begins on
| November 11 (11/11) with a one-day celebration, then goes
| on in a low intensity sort of way all throughout winter, to
| _end_ with the celebrations of the traditional festival.
|
| It seems to have been a 19th century invention and in
| effect decouples the celebration from its religious role.
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnevalssession
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Oh that is still a super interesting difference, thanks!
| ckxmaz wrote:
| It holds for other christian holidays as well, like xmas.
|
| This is a tactic of zero sum conquering ideologies:
|
| - you take the symbolism of the oppressed and make it evil in
| your ideology, ie. the pentagram as a symbol of health and
| women turned into a christian satanic symbol
|
| - you take the oppressed culture's holidays and make them your
| own, easing the usurping, I know secularists and people of
| other religions who celebrate xmas "just because"
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > I know secularists and people of other religions who
| celebrate xmas "just because"
|
| At this point I consider "Christmas" a global secular
| holiday.
|
| I put the people who whine about the religious aspect of
| Christmas into two boxes: Either they're playing power /
| politics games, or they're like the people who think that
| Betamax / CCS / ect were better.
| blast wrote:
| Christmas trees too, and Christmas lights for that matter.
| mongol wrote:
| This is a better case for parent's point. We know pretty well
| when in the year Jesus died. We don't know when he was born.
| That it happened Decemver 25th is a choice by the early
| church
| ImJamal wrote:
| We have a good estimate of when Jesus was born and it is
| around December 25th.
|
| The way this is determined is that in Luke 1:5 it says John
| the Baptist's father was a priest in the Abijah division.
| Further in Luke it says that an angel came to John's father
| while he was serving in the temple that his wife will get
| pregnant.
|
| Also in Luke, it says in the 6th month of John's mother's
| pregnancy Mary conceived.
|
| When you look into when the Abijah priests served (in
| Chronicles) and convert it to our calendar instead of the
| Hebrew calendar you can calculate and end up at the end of
| December.
|
| I don't have all the math, but you can calculate it if you
| want to, but there is a decent reason to think it was the
| 25th or thereabouts.
| swat535 wrote:
| I've spent a fair amount of time studying ancient Sumerian
| culture and religion as a hobby, and the often repeated claim
| that "Easter comes from Ishtar" just doesn't hold up to even
| minimal scrutiny. It's one of those internet factoids that
| sounds plausible on the surface but completely falls apart
| under actual historical or linguistic analysis.
|
| There's no serious academic support for a connection between
| the Christian holiday of Easter and the Mesopotamian goddess
| Inanna/Ishtar. The religious practices, beliefs, and festivals
| associated with Inanna bear no resemblance superficial or
| otherwise to Easter. They differ entirely in form, function,
| and meaning.
|
| The only myth from that tradition that bears a remote
| resemblance is Inanna's descent into the underworld: she's
| stripped of her powers, confronts her sister Ereshkigal, is
| executed, and later resurrected. It's a compelling narrative,
| and yes, there's a resurrection motif but it serves a totally
| different purpose. It was a cosmological myth, tied to the
| movement of Venus in the night sky, not a theological
| cornerstone or community wide festival.
|
| Inanna's rituals were centered on themes like war, sexuality,
| and divine kingship. Easter, by contrast, is about death and
| rebirth in a very different theological context. The comparison
| isn't apples to oranges, it's apples to machine learning
| models.
|
| Also worth noting that the whole "Easter sounds like Ishtar"
| thing is shaky at best. The similarity is phonetically weak,
| especially when you consider historical pronunciations. Plus,
| "Ishtar" isn't even the most common or original name for the
| goddess Inanna (Sumerian) and Astarte (Phoenician/Canaanite)
| were more widespread depending on the period and region.
|
| The connection between Easter and Ishtar is a modern myth. It s
| based more on a coincidence in English phonetics than on
| anything rooted in actual history or comparative religion.
| rat87 wrote:
| Note https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre not Ishtar.
| While we don't have much evidence for a goddess called Eostre
| she appears to have been the origin for the name of Easter in
| English and maybe German. That is according to an 8th century
| English Monk(don't have any other sources, so I think it
| might not be universal believed by historians). But on the
| other hand there's not much evidence much besides the name
| (and only in English and maybe German) transferred and
| despite claims of some bunnies and eggs appear to be much
| later customs. Also in most languages Easter is related to
| the name for Passover which is the religous holiday most
| linked to Easter (in English we also have Paschal which can
| refer to both holidays)
| bee_rider wrote:
| It will always confuse me, that people decided to convert
| away from Polytheism, with all of these interesting gods to
| tell stories about.
| jltsiren wrote:
| But this was about Eostre. Whatever the name meant and
| wherever it came from, it was pretty clearly the origin of
| the word "Easter". And there is reasonable evidence of a
| Germanic goddess with a name something like Eostre or Ostara,
| related to various Indo-European dawn goddesses, such as Eos,
| Aurora, and Ushas.
| anon291 wrote:
| The 'evidence' of a Germanic goddess named Eostre comes
| from Christian writings who concede that this is where the
| name comes from. This entire 'conspiracy' is utterly made
| up
| jltsiren wrote:
| You need to look at the bigger picture.
|
| The English word "east", and the equivalent words in most
| European languages, ultimately mean something related to
| the dawn or sunrise. There is plenty of evidence for
| various Indo-European dawn goddesses with names linguists
| generally consider related to Eostre.
|
| Dawn goddesses were generally part of an older layer of
| mythology that became less relevant over time. They were
| often replaced with other deities that inherited some of
| their aspects, or they gained new aspects while keeping
| the name.
|
| We know that both Old English and Old High German had one
| of the spring months named after something related to the
| east and/or dawn. We know that European agricultural
| societies tended to have spring festivals. We know that
| as Christinanity spread, it absorbed pagan festivals and
| pagan traditions, and sometimes even kept the names. Such
| as something similar to "Yule" instead of "Christmas" or
| "Navidad".
|
| Maybe Anglo-Saxons never had a goddess specifically
| called Eostre, and maybe their spring festivals were not
| specifically about worshipping a particular god. But some
| European languages chose to use a Germanic name for the
| Paschal season, and that name seems to be connected to
| some pagan spring festivals. Whose names are ultimately
| related to a dawn goddess their distant ancestors
| worshipped.
| tptacek wrote:
| The Greek and Latin term for Easter is "Pascha". People
| are right to flag the noodling on the Germanic/English
| term as basically irrelevant.
| eitland wrote:
| You are watching this through English language glasses and
| it also seems you haven't thought this through:
|
| In every European language I checked except German, Easter
| is named something completely different. Either something
| that sounds like it is inspired by Pesach (the Jewish
| passover) like our Norwegian or Danish Paske, Swedish Pask,
| Dutch Pasen or something completely different.
|
| Won't blame you, there is a lot of channels pushing
| nonsense about Christianity. That said, I recommend
| everyone who initially believed this to take a step back
| and reconsider sources that pushes ideas that falls flat
| the moment one looks at them :-)
| jltsiren wrote:
| More like through Finnish language glasses.
|
| We were talking specifically about Easter, which is
| related to but also different from other Paschal
| traditions. For example, Finnish paasiainen was not a
| traditional spring festival, because it's too early for
| that. Our ancestors had their spring festivals in May,
| and the traditions now continue in other May festivals,
| such as May Day and Ascension Day.
| eitland wrote:
| > We were talking specifically about Easter, which is
| related to but also different from other Paschal
| traditions.
|
| Here is from the top level comment in this thread:
|
| > I find it odd how Easter, a pre-Christian Pagan
| festival (worshipping goddess of fertility: Eostre) has
| become seemingly-arbitrarily connected to the purported
| events at the end of Jesus' life..
|
| They are clearly thinking about paske and (it seems to
| me) confusing the 2000 year old celebration (with even
| older Jewish roots) with this goddess that is only
| mentioned some 800 years after Christians started
| celebrating paske.
| elcritch wrote:
| While English "Easter" might've had some relation to a
| Germanic Eostre goddess, the much more clear relation for
| Christians would be for "austron" as the word for dawn, and
| the east, etc. Traditionally all churches faced east as
| Christian's was supposed to return from the East like the
| sunrise:
|
| > Old English Easterdaeg, "Easter day," from Eastre
| (Northumbrian Eostre), from Proto-Germanic _austron-,
| "dawn," also possibly the name of a goddess whose feast was
| celebrated in Eastermonad (the Anglo-Saxon month
| corresponding with April), from _aust- "east, toward the
| sunrise" (compare east), from PIE root *aus- (1) "to
| shine," especially of the dawn.
|
| However it'd be inaccurate to infer that Easter is a pagan
| holiday or something. Rather the medieval Christian
| missionaries were very adept at building on concepts and
| repurposing traditions from cultures to help relate the
| Gospel.
|
| > Today, the problem of pagan parallels does not concern me
| at all. Here is why: First, even if parallels do exist
| between the myths of the gods and the resurrection of
| Jesus, that does not require us to reduce the resurrection
| to fiction. Such parallels might be--as [C. S.] Lewis
| observed decades ago--expressions of innate human longings
| for atonement and new life.
|
| Assume for the sake of argument that Jesus was the
| incarnation of the immortal creator of the universe, then
| it would be natural that said creation would have echoes of
| this event and people would relate to them . It'd actually
| be a bit incoherent to not relate concepts of spring,
| renewal, sunrise, as very physical aspects of our human
| being to such a theology.
|
| 1: https://worldviewbulletin.substack.com/p/the-
| resurrection-an...
| croes wrote:
| And why the eggs and the Easter Bunny?
| rawgabbit wrote:
| The holy day of Christian Easter coincides with the Jewish
| Passover as Jesus celebrated the Last Supper before his death
| and resurrection. Passover or Seder is on the eve of the 15th
| day of Nisan which is the first full moon after the beginning
| of Spring.
|
| By the time of the first Nicea ecumenical council, Christians
| argued against using the Jewish calendar as by the 300s, it
| dated Passover before the spring equinox. The early church was
| now the official religion of the Roman Empire who followed the
| solar calendar.
|
| In other words Easter and Passover has always been associated
| with Spring.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover_Seder
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_of_Easter
| empath75 wrote:
| > I find it odd how Easter, a pre-Christian Pagan festival
| (worshipping goddess of fertility: Eostre) has become
| seemingly-arbitrarily connected to the purported events at the
| end of Jesus' life.. yet it still includes a good amount of the
| prior symbolism (rabbits, eggs etc)!
|
| This is an oft-repeated canard for which there is basically no
| evidence. In particular, there's no evidence for "easter
| bunnies" prior to 17th century protestant Germany, who then
| brought it to the US, when they migrated to Pennsylvania (ie:
| The Pennsylvania Dutch). Those aspects of the celebration
| aren't Christian or pagan, they're secular things that people
| do because it's fun for the kids, and that has always been the
| case.
| rat87 wrote:
| Easter is not a Pagan holiday. Its only named similarly in
| German and English. If it's linked to any other religious
| holiday it would be the Jewish holiday of Passover, in most
| languages it's name is based on Paschal/Pesach(passover) and
| the last supper was likely a passover meal. Early Christians
| timed Easter based on the Hebrew calendar/Passover
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I don't think it is odd at all. In a choice between "our
| religion can't gain the membership to survive" vs "ok, we can
| bend the structure of our religion a little to make it more
| palatable for this huge amount of people", I think the choice
| is obvious.
|
| You might find it odd that Christians think they came up with
| Easter (or Christmas, or the Epiphany...) though.
| bashmelek wrote:
| A lot of these things come from folk practices that the
| Church would permit but then direct towards something
| acceptable.
| eitland wrote:
| With Easter, unlike Christmas, there isn't the same doubt
| about which time of year it was as it was around the time of
| the (much) older Jewish Passover celebration.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| "Easter" or something similar, is only the name in English and
| German, which weren't spoken at the time the celebration of the
| holiday began. There is some evidence that that germanic name
| came from a pagan goddess with a fertility celebration around
| the time that the resurrection celebration occurred in the
| Christian calendar, but the celebration itself didn't originate
| with that pagan celebration. (And the elements other than the
| name you refer to have no evidence of connection to the pagan
| goddess, and appear to have attached to Easter later, not been
| brought in with the name.)
| dismalaf wrote:
| In many languages "Easter" is a variation of Passover. "Paques"
| in French for example, Pascha in Greek and Russian, Pascua in
| most Latin languages. In others (aome Slavic languages) it's a
| variation of "Great Day" ("Velikonoce" in Czech for example). "
| And so on. English and German are the only languages I know
| with a weird word for Easter.
|
| Edit - also Passover is Pesach in Hebrew. So Pesach -> Pascha
| in Greek, then onwards to other languages. Or just "Great Day"
| (which finishes off Great and Holy week which is what the week
| leading up to Easter is in most languages).
| senko wrote:
| In Croatian, Easter is called Uskrs, meaning Resurrection,
| but Good Friday is called Veliki Petak, meaning Great Friday.
| dismalaf wrote:
| My bad, went by Google for that one (they listed Croation
| as similar to Czech, which I know a bit).
| ati wrote:
| Same in russian - Velikaya Pyatnica, Great Friday.
| eitland wrote:
| In Norwegian and Danish it is paske and in Swedish it is
| pask.
| anon291 wrote:
| It's literally only called Easter in English.
|
| That being said, the actual etymology for Easter is from the
| month of April in the anglo-saxon calendar: Eosturmonath.
| Easter of course is a name for the entire season of Easter (up
| until Pentecost), which lasts a bit over a month and usually
| coincides with Eosturmonath.
|
| But fittingly, Easter etymologically comes from the Proto-Indo-
| European word for 'Dawn', symbolizing literally the East, from
| which the sun rises. The Indian name Usha literally comes from
| the same word, and would directly translate into Easter.
|
| The first mention of Eostre as a goddess is post-Christianity,
| by Bede. He writes:
|
| > Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal
| month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs
| named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that
| month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name,
| calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of
| the old observance
| eitland wrote:
| As has already been mentioned by others mostly everything
| except the name is different.
|
| When it comes to the name, the name isn't anything similar in
| for example Nordic languages:
|
| Paske (Norwegian, Danish) or pask (Swedish). Finnish seems to
| have a similar sounding name. Same with Dutch.
|
| German has Ostern, but I the few others I checked were
| completely different.
|
| That means even the name similarity only exist in a few
| languages.
|
| And at the time the Christian celebration of Easter started
| these languages didn't even exist. The closest language I could
| find to early Christian history on DeepL was Greek and in Greek
| the name of Easter seems to be Paskh.
|
| With that, this idea should be debunked sufficiently I think.
| hagbarth wrote:
| In Danish it's called Langfredag (Long Friday). I believe it's
| because of the drawn out suffering of the crucifixion.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| It's more about it being a long day for the faithful.
| Traditionally, you may have attended three hours agony,
| fasting, in addition to the liturgy (there's no
| transubstantiation), etc.
| morninglight wrote:
| Because the stock market is closed?
| ReptileMan wrote:
| In my country it is called literally Crucifixion Friday
| thih9 wrote:
| > (...) the meaning of the name Good Friday can be understood as
| historically meaning 'holy'. The use of 'good' denotes that this
| is a day of religious observance (...)
| thrance wrote:
| It's actually called holy Friday (Vendredi Saint) in France.
| zanellato19 wrote:
| In Brazil too. Sexta feira Santa
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| English-speaking eastern christians call it this too. But
| every day of holy week is named like that, holy tuesday, holy
| saturday, etc. Easter/Pascha is the one exception in the
| week.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| At risk of being a pedant, Pascha would not be the
| _exception_ to Holy Week but rather _after the conclusion
| of_ Holy Week. The end of week is sundown on Saturday.
|
| After Holy Week has ended on Saturday, The Resurrection
| (i.e. Pascha), occurs on the _first_ day of the week -
| Sunday. :)
| getnormality wrote:
| Growing up Catholic, I always figured that it was meant to be
| paradoxical, to drive home the Christian message. This horribly
| sad event that is so painful to imagine happening, this event was
| the most important Good thing that happened in human history. So
| we have to call it Good Friday.
|
| Like many folk etymologies, it sounds like it's not quite right,
| but it was intuitive at the time...
| vel0city wrote:
| > to drive home the Christian message
|
| For "the Christian message" the death of Christ is the ultimate
| _good_ thing. According to Christianity his death brings
| everyone 's salvation, not the resurrection. This is my body
| which is given for you.
|
| Sad so many Catholic churches fail at actually sharing that
| message.
| lukan wrote:
| The whole suffering jesus on the cross everywhere is failing
| to bring that message across to me.
|
| Im german it is Karfreitag (Karfriday) btw. and the whole
| week, Karwoche (Kar week). And that means sadness. Lamenting.
| vel0city wrote:
| In Christian ideology, his suffering and death was the
| suffering and death _we_ were all supposed to have. He took
| that suffering and death so we don 't have to, the "perfect
| lamb".
|
| Looking at just that suffering on that one day is missing
| the context for everything else after, at least according
| to Christian ideology.
|
| Also, an important part of the completion of previous
| prophecies for those looking at the older books. Jesus
| wouldn't have been the savior if those things didn't happen
| to him, according to the texts.
| lukan wrote:
| Oh thanks, but since I was also raised catholic, I am
| aware of the theory.
|
| Still, the main visible symbol, is rather one of death
| and suffering to me.
|
| Jesus does not look happy on those crosses, where he also
| has a face.
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| Thankfully mine made this exact point in the homily. Also
| great to see it made on HN of all places!
| tptacek wrote:
| I have never been to a Catholic mass that failed to share
| that message. It's not a subtle detail.
| getnormality wrote:
| Yes. GP is one of the most baffling comments I've ever read
| on HN. I really have no idea how one manages to arrive at
| that opinion.
| vel0city wrote:
| Maybe I'm being less charitable to Catholic churches on
| that. Truly a lot of Christian churches have failed on
| their messaging to others from what I've seen, and it's
| probably not just a Catholic thing. It's not like Joel
| Osteen is really sharing a truly Christian life and
| theology.
|
| The fact there's a lot of people in this thread with this
| understanding should point to a lot of people not getting
| it though. I mean this is a whole thread of people not
| getting why it's "Good Friday" yet the Catholic Church has
| supposedly been preaching this point for over a thousand
| years.
|
| I'm truly not anti-Catholic. I do think Catholics are
| unfairly painted by a lot of Protestants. As someone who
| walks between both worlds on a daily basis there's a lot of
| untruths and misunderstandings about Catholics out there.
| tptacek wrote:
| :homer-into-the-hedges:
|
| It's cool, I'm just saying: Catholics definitely believe
| this; it's "Good Friday" because "Good" was synonymous
| with "Holy", so there's not much debate around that. All
| the denominations agree about the holiness of the event!
| elcritch wrote:
| In Eastern Orthodox churches the main hymn we sing is:
|
| > Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by
| death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life! [1]
|
| It's sung about a hundred times in Pascha (Easter) liturgy,
| so _very_ well emphasized in the eastern traditions.
|
| Though in eastern churches the emphasis was less on a
| juridical understanding of the passion wherein Christ
| fulfilled a legal requirement. Rather it's more emphasized
| that Christ's very nature destroys death by taking on death.
| That mental framework always appealed to me more. The early
| Egyptian (Coptic) church father Athanasius [2] was pivotal in
| refining the philosophical concept [3]. Athanasius was also
| the first recorded to record the full list of the 27 books of
| the New Testament.
|
| 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paschal_troparion 2: https
| ://www.copticchurch.net/pdf/theology/incarnation_st_ath... 3:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_of_Alexandria
| vel0city wrote:
| I love hearing more about the viewpoint of Coptics, they're
| seemingly underrepresented in viewpoints in a lot of
| discussions in the US!
|
| Your comments mirror a lot from my Egyptian friends. Thanks
| for sharing.
| elcritch wrote:
| I have some Coptic friends as well. They're fantastic,
| and very proud of their Coptic heritage.
|
| Alexandria was also very influential in early church
| theology and one of the primary bishopric "sees".
| Interestingly they call their head bishop "pope".
|
| Also Coptic and Ethiopian iconography are gorgeous.
| They're simplistic, almost cartoonish, but very artistic
| and emotional [1, 2, 3].
|
| 1: https://images.squarespace-
| cdn.com/content/v1/5537d482e4b0cd... 2:
| https://www.pinterest.com/pin/848717492273364910/ 3:
| https://www.axiawomen.org/wow/holy-week-and-easter-icons
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Page is catastrophically broken. Scrolling doesn't work at all.
| Reader mode helps.
| layer8 wrote:
| You are probably using an ad blocker.
| philsnow wrote:
| I was surprised to learn that markets (NYSE and NASDAQ) at least
| are closed on Good Friday.
|
| Some article ascribed it to superstition about a previous crash
| that had happened on some previous Good Friday, but debunked
| there being any connection.
| otterley wrote:
| In light of recent market turmoil, I would call today "not bad
| Friday."
| bmk44 wrote:
| In Polish, it is called "Wielki Piatek" which translates as
| "Great Friday". Simiarly; the week is "Wielki Tydzien",
| translates as "Great Week". I always understood it in the similar
| vein as the Jewish "High Holidays" as the most important
| observation of the year.
|
| The discrepancy between "Holy Week" and "Good Friday" always
| irked me when I learned these terms in English.
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