Q: I don\u2019t remember reading about Ash Wednesday in the Bible. Where did the practice come from?<\/p>\n
A: That\u2019s true; there is no mention of Ash Wednesday in the Bible. But there is a tradition of donning ashes as a sign of penitence that predates Jesus. In the Old Testament, Job repents \u201cin dust and ashes,\u201d\u009d and there are other associations of ashes and repentance in Esther, Samuel, Isaiah and Jeremiah. By the 10th century, the monk Aelfric tied the practice, which dates to the eighth century, to the period before Easter, writing, \u201cNow let us do this little at the beginning of our Lent that we strew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of our sins during the Lenten fast.\u201d\u009d By the 11th century, the practice was widespread throughout the church \u201d\u201d until Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, threw the practice out in the 16th century because it was not biblically based. There\u2019s no Lent in the Bible, either, though many Christians see it as an imitation of the 40 days Jesus spent fasting and battling with Satan in the desert.<\/p>\n