Does ‘palm branches’ in Palm Sunday draw meaning from Jewish culture, or Greco-Roman culture that the Jews adopted?
score:6
This use of Palm branches was common among ancient Greeks, Romans and Hebrews. It seems from the Hebrew use, palm branches symbolized ’rejoicing’ during the Feast of Tabernacles. During the feast Hebrew people were commanded to take branches of palms, with other trees, and rejoice before God.(Leviticus 23:40) However this was just not palm branches, but other ‘leafy branches’ as well, along with fruits. Later on the specific use of palm branches also agrees closer to with the meaning used in Greece, for example in 142 BC, when Simon Maccabees liberated Jerusalem from the Greeks:
On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the year 171,[c] there was a great celebration in the city because this terrible threat to the security of Israel had come to an end. Simon and his men entered the fort singing hymns of praise and thanksgiving, while carrying palm branches and playing harps, cymbals, and lyres. (1 Maccabees 13:51)
Before the time of the Maccabees, Greek Hellanodikai ( judges at the Olympics) awarded winners with ‘palm branches’ and crowns (source).
Most vivid and powerful was the waving of palm branches by the Romans as they celebrated military successes with palm branches and most relevant to Palm Sunday, welcomed royalty by waving them.
Some times the best historical records are printed on coins as they do not deteriorate as much as paper. According to ancient coins:
Palm fronds had been used for centuries before the Romans as an attribute of winged Νικη (Nike), the goddess whose name is the Greek for Victory. The Hellenic bronze coin on the near right is from Sinope, 120-63 BCE, and shows Nike carrying her palm frond over her shoulder. Her name has been anglicized into a well-known brand of sportswear. (source)
Waving and use of palm branches during the time of Christ was a multicultural symbol symbolizing victory, praise and the presence of royalty. It also shows us that although God speaks to any given people within their culture and that His word condescends into it, speaking in familiar ways, the culture itself does not have to have any ‘deeper meaning’ beyond what it meant at the time. With a basic understanding of historical culture, Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem when greeted by throngs of people making a make-shift carpet for him out of the branches and coats, or in Revelation where the saints are holding them before the throne. It simply meant he was being treated as the 'future King' in the gospels and as the 'present king' in revelation.
More post
- 📝 Should we pray for someone's salvation?
- 📝 Who first understood the "authorities" in Romans 13 as spiritual, not secular, authorities?
- 📝 What exactly does the Catholic Church mean by the "Virginity" of Mary?
- 📝 Why did Jesus change Peter's name, according to non-Catholic theology?
- 📝 Is there any protestant method how to deal spiritual dryness?
- 📝 Is a belief that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not three persons, but one, Modalism?
- 📝 Which translation of Augustine's Confessions is the easiest to read in English?
- 📝 Who talked to Moses in Exodus 33:9?
- 📝 How to interpret Genesis 1:1, given it is a Young Earth, and Old(er) Universe?
- 📝 How many authors wrote the Old and New Testament?
- 📝 What could be the reason for Jesus not telling His disciples to write down whatever He was teaching them?
- 📝 According to Catholicism, will those who are alive on the Day of Judgement die physically?
- 📝 What is the context of Chesterton's quote, "When we bind our hearts, we free our hands"?
- 📝 How do Mormons understand Revelation 22:3?
- 📝 Did Abraham have faith in the future coming of Christ?
- 📝 CS Lewis said time would probably continue in Heaven...But how?
- 📝 What is an overview of Christian beliefs on the essential features and functions of an Apostle?
- 📝 Obligation to get married with partner?
- 📝 Can I still be a Catholic if I don’t believe everything in line with the church?
- 📝 Can Requiem Masses be said for the souls of the unbaptized?
- 📝 Was Galileo mentioned during Vatican II?
- 📝 Sense of humor that Jesus had
- 📝 Can a pope name his successor?
- 📝 According to the RCC is it allowed to have more then one wife?
- 📝 Did St. John Vianney Ever Directly Say Anything About Scruples?
- 📝 Jehovah's Witnesses's teaching on the Church
- 📝 Is there a basis for Christian holidays in the Bible?
- 📝 Where did Martin Luther say that he placed "his Christ higher than any dogma or council"?
- 📝 What is the Biblical argument against Limited Atonement?
- 📝 What does the Church say about the statements that the Pope Benedict XVI made in the book "God and the World"?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Does ‘palm branches’ in Palm Sunday draw meaning from Jewish culture, or Greco-Roman culture that the Jews adopted?
- 📝 How does the Protestant OT canon differ from the Jewish scriptures?
- 📝 From a Fundamentalist standpoint, what does the phrase "Inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God" mean?
- 📝 From where does the doctrine that there is no time in heaven originate?
- 📝 Does Christianity allow eating pork and horse meat, which even though it is prohibited by the Jewish Law?
- 📝 What does Bible say about possibility of seeing/hearing people on Earth from heaven?
- 📝 Does Acts 15:21 assume new believers would learn and follow the law from synagogues on sabbath?
- 📝 What is the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation and how does it differ from transubstantiation and a more general protestant sacramental view?
- 📝 How does the doctrine of the URC differ from its predecessors?
- 📝 Does the Bible forbid a man from dressing like a woman?
- 📝 From a Trinitarian perspective, does the term 'only begotten Son' make sense outside of the concept of the incarnation?
- 📝 What's the origin of this approach of trying to obtain meaning from the individual letters of Hebrew words?
- 📝 Does the Christian Old Testament have the exact same list of books as the Jewish Bible?
- 📝 From where does the tradition come that Mary rode on a donkey to Bethlehem prior to the birth of Jesus?
- 📝 How does one discern between thoughts inspired by the Holy Spirit and those produced from themselves
- 📝 Without Hell, from what does Jesus save?
- 📝 From a LDS perspective, when does the Holy Ghost get a Physical Body?
- 📝 Where does God draw the line when it comes to Sin?
- 📝 How does the relationship of the Church of Scotland to the state differ from that of the Church of England?
- 📝 Does the Lutheran view of pope as AntiChrist stem from doctrine of justification?
- 📝 Does The Book of Mormon contain Jewish literary techniques?
- 📝 Does the Holy Spirit's procession from the Father and Son infringe on the co-equality of the Trinity?
- 📝 Why does the Eastern Orthodox Church dislike the idea that the Spirit proceeds from the Son?
- 📝 Does Irenaeus indicate that people were raised from the dead in the 2nd century?
- 📝 How does the view of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints about Jesus Christ differ from Protestant Trinitarian Christology?
- 📝 How does societal consecration to Mary differ from individual consecration?
- 📝 From a Fundamentalist viewpoint, what does it mean to "take the Bible literally"?
- 📝 How does the ancient Jewish Wedding tradition foreshadow Christ and the church?
- 📝 From a Lutheran perspective, does Hebrews 6 mean that some who fall away can never be restored?
- 📝 From a Catholic perspective, why does Wisdom merely "infer" the things to come?