Five facts about Good Friday you probably do not know!

March 30, 2018

As Christian communities across the globe observes the day Christ sacrifices himself on the cross to free humans from their sins, lets take a look at 5 facts associated with this day.

1. Christians do not actually believe that the day Jesus was crucified was 'Good' but it is called Good Friday for a bunch of reasons though all of them debated. The Roman Missal discuss the Friday before Easter as, he hagia kai megale paraskeue (the Holy and Great Friday). Anglo-Saxons call it Long Friday which is how it remains known in Denmark. There are some still who believe that Good replaced the word God whose name is considered too holy to be spoken out loud.

2. Good Friday re-enactments commonplace for Christians but some of the faithful go so far as to physically be nailed to crosses for a length of time to show their faith. In the Philippines the annual re-enactment draws tens of thousands of tourists. The Church condemns this practice as a distortion of the true meaning of Easter.

3. Germany bans public dancing on this day.  Good Friday is also referred to as "Gottes Freitag" which translates "God's Friday."

4. The date of the crucifixion has been debated for many years but there has been no agreement on the exact year or the day on which Jesus died. But scientists from the University of Oxford published a study in 1985, which said that evidence strongly points the exact day was Friday, 3 April, A.D. 33. The study used astronomical calculations to reconstruct the first century AD Jewish calendar and narrowed down to a date of a lunar eclipse, which Biblical and other references suggest, followed the crucifixion.

5. Many religion scholars believe Jesus was crucified by nails driven into his wrists, not hands. French physician Pierre Barbet said humans are able to bear their own weight with the strength of their bones and ligaments within the wrists, but not with palms alone. Barbet posited that if Jesus was nailed only in his hands, he would have fallen to the ground. By the time of Jesus's death, crucifixion had already been practiced for some 600 years and was a detailed procedure designed to be a very painful process for the victim.

Compiled by TNT Desk