Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 3
The transcript makes an argument from the name “Pascha” being Jewish (Greek used by Jews for Passover) even as the church became “at least 90% Gentile”; what does that suggest about how God intended the church to relate to Israel’s calendar, story, and symbols?
Another way to ask: Even when most Christians were Gentiles, they kept the Jewish name “Pascha.” What might that say about how God wanted the church to stay connected to Israel’s calendar, story, and symbols?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
The transcript suggests the church’s Easter celebration was intentionally tethered to Israel’s Passover story, even after the church became largely Gentile, implying continuity rather than replacement or detachment. The Jewish-rooted name “Pascha” functions as evidence that the celebration began when the church was still predominantly Jewish and carried that memory forward.
- Early Christians did not call it “Easter” but “Pascha,” “Greek for Passover,” and “Greek-speaking Jews called Passover Pascha.”
- The speaker estimates that by early second century the church was “at least 90% Gentile.”
- His argument: if it were a new Gentile invention, “why would they give it a Jewish name… [and] connect it to the Passover to which they themselves had no connection?”
- He proposes they would have chosen a resurrection-themed label (“Estosis”) if it started later.
- He concludes this Jewish naming is “strong evidence” it began in the first century.