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Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

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Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#111

Post by vel0city »

lukan wrote: post #102
vel0city wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#112

Post by tptacek »

vel0city wrote: post #100
getnormality wrote: post #87

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...

> 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.

I have never been to a Catholic mass that failed to share that message. It's not a subtle detail.

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#113

Post by tptacek »

jltsiren wrote: post #109
anon291 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 oft…

The Greek and Latin term for Easter is "Pascha". People are right to flag the noodling on the Germanic/English term as basically irrelevant.

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#114

Post by tptacek »

photios wrote: post #33
danwills wrote: post #14

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.

> 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 n…

The whole thing is super weird, because "Easter" isn't the canonical term for the day to begin with.

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#115

Post by xg15 »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #106
xg15 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?)…

> 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-we…

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

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#116

Post by jltsiren »

eitland wrote: post #92
jltsiren wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 Påske, Swedish Påsk, Dutch Pasen or something completely different. Won't blame you, there is a lot of…

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 pääsiäinen 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.

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#117

Post by giraffe_lady »

xg15 wrote: post #115
giraffe_lady wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-we…

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 deco…

Oh that is still a super interesting difference, thanks!

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#119

Post by lukan »

vel0city wrote: post #111
lukan wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.…

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.

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#120

Post by elcritch »

vel0city wrote: post #100
getnormality wrote: post #87

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...

> 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.

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

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