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Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

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Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#71

In Danish it’s called Langfredag (Long Friday). I believe it’s because of the drawn out suffering of the crucifixion.

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.

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#72
post #66
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Christi…

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…

It will always confuse me, that people decided to convert away from Polytheism, with all of these interesting gods to tell stories about.

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#73

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 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.

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#74

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.

“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.)

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#75

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.

In many languages "Easter" is a variation of Passover. "Pâques" 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).

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#76

The etymology is interesting, but this writing reads like weirdly bad AI.

"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.

This feels like SEO slop boosting its ranking by being linked on HN.

I wonder what Dang or Tomhow think about submissions like this

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#78

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.

In many languages "Easter" is a variation of Passover. "Pâques" 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…

In Croatian, Easter is called Uskrs, meaning Resurrection, but Good Friday is called Veliki Petak, meaning Great Friday.

Re: Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

#80
post #33

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…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre covers a lot of ground and has references (thankfully)
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