Posts Tagged ‘Easter’
History of Pentecost
Reading Time: 3 minutesHISTORY OF PENTECOST The Feast of Pentecost is taken from the Greek word πεντηκόστη, which means “the 50th,” referring to the fiftieth day after the Jewish Passover and the Christian Easter. In the Jewish calendar, this aligns with the harvest festival Shavuot, known as the “Feast of Weeks,” which occurs seven weeks (7 ×…
Read MoreHistory of Easter: The Players – Where are They Now?
Reading Time: 5 minutesHISTORY OF EASTER: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PLAYERS AFTERWARD Podcast version ou may be asking yourself, “Self,” you ask, “where are they now?” And well you might ask. What happened to our players AFTER the events in the Easter story?
Read MoreHistory of Easter: Why Bunnies and Eggs?
Reading Time: 4 minutesHISTORY OF EASTER: WHY BUNNIES AND EGGS? Podcast version he most joyous of Christian festivals and one of the first celebrated by Christians across the Roman Empire commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is set on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. Why is Easter celebrated then,…
Read MoreHistory of the Trial: How many did Jesus have?
Reading Time: 6 minutesTHE TRIAL OF JESUS Podcast version eginning Thursday night and extending into Friday morning of Holy Week, Jesus’s trial, which led to his crucifixion, was, in reality, a series of about half a dozen trials distributed across several locations in Jerusalem. Some of these locations are captured in the tradition of the Via Dolorosa, the…
Read MoreHistory of Maundy Thursday: Shere or Green Thursday?
Reading Time: 3 minutesHISTORY OF MAUNDY THURSDAY Podcast version mid the bustle of Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter, Maundy Thursday is easy to overlook. Few calendars label it, and some churches don’t observe it at all, though it may be the oldest of the Holy Week observances. It’s worth asking why and how generations of Christians…
Read MoreHistory of Holy Wednesday: Why was it called Spy Wednesday?
Reading Time: 2 minutesHISTORY OF HOLY WEDNESDAY Podcast version ednesday of Passion Week – called “Passion” from the Latin passio, meaning suffering – is called Holy Wednesday. Alternatively, it is called Good Wednesday in the Western Church or Great and Holy Wednesday in the Eastern Church. It was previously called “Spy Wednesday” and focused on Judas Iscariot.…
Read MoreHistory of Herod Antipas: Why Jesus called him That Fox
Reading Time: 2 minutesHISTORY OF HEROD ANTIPAS Podcast version erod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great (whom we met in the Christmas story) and Malthake. After his father died in 4 B.C., he was made tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea in the Trans-Jordan area of Israel, which he ruled as a client state of the…
Read MoreHistory of Pontius Pilate: His Background Before Good Friday
Reading Time: 4 minutesHISTORY OF PONTIUS PILATE Poscast version he Roman governor who presided over Jesus’s trial and ordered his crucifixion had a complex background. The name Pontius Pilate provides two valuable clues to his background and ancestry. The family name Pontius was that of a prominent clan among the Samnites, the hill cousins of the Latin Romans. They…
Read MoreHistory of Palm Sunday
Reading Time: 4 minutesHISTORY OF PALM SUNDAY Podcast version oly Week, or Passion Week, starts this weekend with Palm Sunday. Why was this week so important that three of the gospel writers (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) devote a full third of their contents to reporting this week, and the fourth gospel (John) dedicates its entire last half? Jerusalem, which had a normal…
Read MoreHistory of Easter: The Sanhedrin – Who Was This Council?
Reading Time: 4 minutesHISTORY OF THE SANHEDRIN Podcast version he Greek word Συνέδριον, sunedrion, means literally “sitting together” and is usually translated as “council.” The New Testament refers to it alternately as “the Great Law-Court,” “the Court of Seventy-One,” and “the rulers and elders and scribes.” It was the supreme theocratic court of the Jews. The Sanhedrin…
Read MoreHistory of Easter: Historical Climate
Reading Time: 3 minutesHISTORICAL CLIMATE OF EASTER Podcast s Passion Week begins this weekend, what was the historical climate of Easter Week almost 2,000 years ago surrounding the last week of the life of Jesus of Nazareth? All men die; Jesus was a man destined to die, not merely in the conventional sense but in a distinct…
Read MoreScience of The Spring: What is the Vernal Equinox?
Reading Time: 5 minutesSCIENCE OF THE SPRING Podcast version n Colorado, we have a saying: “We begin the first day of Spring like we began the Fall: with snow.” This symmetry is relevant because the beginnings of Spring and Fall coincide with the Equinox. This word consists of two Latin root words, aequus and nox, meaning…
Read More