What is the significance of Friday the 13th?

Answer 1

The Roman authorities wanted to crack down on the Knights Templares and many of them were arrested and killed on a Friday the 13th.

Answer 2

The violent destruction of the Order of the Templars in the C14th may have contributed to the Friday 13th myth but I was always led to believe that its roots run considerably deeper. The notion that Friday 13th is unlucky stems right the way back to the New Testament of the Bible and the Last Supper. There were 13 people at the Last Supper - Jesus and his 12 disciples, which is why 13 is often considered an unlucky number in any context, whether it is connected with Friday or not. The Last Supper and the Crucifixion is marked in the religious calendar every year with Good Friday - hence it is Friday 13th which is considered to be particularly unlucky. It could also be plausible that there is some form of pagan belief about Friday 13th which pre-dates its Biblical links. The early Christian Church has a prominent history of absorbing existing pagan dates and beliefs under a different guise. This was seen as a useful way of making its own doctrine more acceptable to the people the Church was forcing its new religion upon. However I am not aware that Friday 13th carried any earlier significance for Pagans.

Answer 3

It is where all the bad luck is supposed to go on that day. I think the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition goes back to medievel times, when on friday the 13th in France a bunch of special priests were slaughtered by some evil knights.

Answer 4

My wife is paid on the 1st and 15th. The 13th being Friday, means she gets her check for the 15th two days early. Hooray for Friday the 13th!

Answer 5

Jesus was killed on a Friday and the date was supose to be the 13th.

Answer 6

A group of knights Templar's was attacked on a Friday the 13th by knights that worship in the Catholic Church and that day has forever have been blown way out of proportion..... Period end of story..........................................

Answer 7

The knights templar were massacured on friday oct 13
amen ra wss wrong though, it wasn't the catholics it was the king of france

Answer 8

I will tell what it is its the first time my truck broke down ever on the way home from work and I didnt have my cell Phone

Answer 9

It follows Thursday, the 12th and preceeds Saturday the 14th.

Answer 10

According to the 1925 book Popular Superstitions, fear of the number 13 is so widespread around the world that "it seems clear that, to the primitive mind of early Man, [13] had no real meaning--he stopped at 12. So persistent are these old instincts that, even today, we stop at `Twelve Times Twelve' in our school multiplication triplication tables, though there is absolutely no reason whatever why we should do so."
According to this theory, since 13 represented the unknown to primitive people, it was "dangerous."
According to David Emery of About.com, 13-phobia may have come from the Hindus, who apparently believed it was always unlucky for 13 people to gather in one place. A version of the same superstition also from the Vikings: Twelve gods were invited to a banquet at Valhalla. Loki, the Evil One, god of mischief, had been excluded from the guest list but crashed the party, bringing the total to 13. Loki then proceeded to incite Hod, the blind god of winter, to attack Balder the Good, who was a favorite of the gods. Hod took a spear of mistletoe offered by Loki and hurled it at Balder, killing him instantly.
Sometime after that moment in history, the superstition attached itself to the story of the Last Supper of Jesus and the 12 disciples. (Twelve plus one equals 13.) Judas, who rose first from the table, was the first to die.
On the other hand, the Egyptians at the time of the pharoahs considered 13 lucky, because they believed life unfolded in 12 stages, and that there was a 13th stage-the afterlife-beyond. That meant the number 13 symbolized death-as a happy transformation. Egyptian civilization perished, but the symbolism of the number 13 lived on as fear of death. (In Tarot decks the "Death" card bears the number 13 but retains its original, positive meaning: transformation.)
In ancient goddess-worshipping cultures 13 was also a lucky number--because it corresponded to the number of lunar (menstrual) cycles in a year (13 x 28 = 364 days). (The "Earth Mother of Laussel," a 27,000-year-old carving near the Lascaux caves in France, depicts a female figure holding a crescent-shaped horn bearing 13 notches.) Later, according to some historians, 13 got a bad name-particularly among early Christian patriarchs--because it represented femininity. Superstitions about Friday
Many people consider Friday unlucky because that's the day of Jesus' Crucifixion, but historians believe the superstition goes much farther back and has something to do with the sacrifices offered to the goddess Frigg (goddess of marriage and fertility) or Freya (goddess of sex and fertility) or both, in Norse mythology. Frigg/Freya's emblem was the fish, which was associated with the worship of love and was offered by the Scandinavians to their goddess on the sixth day of the week, Friday. But the worship of love on Fridays, according to Popular Superstitions, developed into "a series of filthy and indecent rites and practices."According to Emery, Friday was considered lucky, especially as a day to get married, because of its associations with love. In other pagan cultures, Friday was the sabbath, a day of worship. Once Christianity entered the scene, Freya-whose sacred animal was a cat--was recast in folklore as a witch. In the Middle Ages, Friday was known as the "Witches' Sabbath."
Later, early Christians began attributing just about everything terrible to Friday: Eve offering Adam the apple in the Garden of Eden; Abel's murder by his brother, Cain; St. Stephen's stoning; the Massacre of the Innocents by Herod; the flight of the children of Israel through the Red Sea; the Great Flood; the destruction of the Temple of Solomon; and the Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Babel. Which brings us to.
Superstitions about Friday the 13th
Add it up, and Friday the 13th is clearly doomed as a bad luck kinda day.Most historians believe the main reason--in addition to all the gloom and doom you just read above--stems from the Last Supper. Jesus and his 12 disciples gathered in the Upper Room, where Jesus predicted that one of them would betray him. Here is how Jesus' words are portrayed in the Gospel: "Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He spake of Judas Iscariot . . for he it was that should betray him." (John 6: 70-71)And that scene, of course, set the stage for the Crucifixion, on Good Friday.Some sources add an additional wrinkle, however. They pinpoint the origin of Friday the 13th-phobia to a specific historical event: the rounding up of the Knights Templar for torture and execution by King Philip IV of France on Friday, October 13, 1307.