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The original account of Jesus riding on a donkey on Palm Sunday, in Mark 11:8-9, does not say that the people used palm leaves (NAB): "Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord."

The time of the Passover is too early for leafy branches (except palms), which the author of John's Gospel recognised, changing this reference to 'palm branches', thus creating our modern tradition of Palm Sunday.

John Shelby Spong (Jesus for the NonReligious) says that Mark's Gospel seems to have taken the reference to 'leafy branches' from the traditional Jewish observance of Sukkoth at an entirely different time of year:

The ]ewish eight day celebration of the harvest, known as Sukkoth, and also called the Festival of the Tabernacles or Booths, was probably the most popular holiday among the Jews in the first century. In the observance of Sukkoth, worshippers processed through Jerusalem and in the Temple, waving a bunch of leafy branches made of willow, myrtle and palm. As they waved these branches in that procession, the worshippers recited words from Psalm 118, the psalm normally used at Sukkoth. Among these words were "Save us, we beseech you, O Lord." Save us in Hebrew is hosianna or 'hosanna'. This is typically followed by "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. (Psalm 118:25-6)."

The author of John's Gospel is known to have copied the account in Mark's Gospel, but amended this detail in order to make it more realistic. It is because of John's awareness and correction of the original error that we have palm leafs on Palm Sunday.

A:

palms are used on palm Sunday to symbolize the palms that were laid on the ground for Jesus when he entered Jerusalem and after they are finished with the palms the burn them for the ashes for ash Wednesday

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Wiki User

11y ago
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14y ago

Palm Sunday is celebrated because that is when Christ rode into town on a donkey shortly before His crucifixion. The people threw down palm leaves and branches on the road in front of Him as He entered town, hence the term Palm Sunday.

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12y ago

We have palm Sunday because that is what the people put on the ground for Jesus when he came into town. So we celebrated the coming of Jesus.

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Anonymous

Lvl 1
3y ago

Here is a theory put forth by the late Charles Vernoff (head of the department of Religion at Cornell College, Mount Vernon Iowa): A central ritual of the Jewish fall festival of Succot is to shake a lulav, that is, a palm frond bundled with myrtle and willow branches and held against a citron, a primitive kind of lemon, while reciting a series of prayers called the Hoshanot. The key phrase, repeated again and again in these prayers, is "hosha na" which means "save us." The modern version of the Hoshanot is attributed to Rabbi Elazar Hakalir, possibly as early as the first century, but he was building on earlier traditions. These are prayers for physical salvation, save us from plague, enemies and above all, drought, save us as you saved our ancestors, etc. Vernoff suggests that the festival of Succot itself was seen as a festival celebrating the coming redemption, a theory with strong backing in the Torah, with strong messianic connections. Enough so that if people thought the Messiah was coming, they would start reciting Hoshanot and waving palm fronds. One piece of archaeological evidence of this is that, when Simon Bar Kochba conquered Jerusalem from the Romans (temporarily) in the second century, he was proclaimed as Messiah, and he minted coins that featured the lulav as a central symbol. The story of Palm Sunday fits right into this theory.

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Q: Why do you have palm Sunday?
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