grim reaper

[boo]

what is the grim reaper and what is the orgin?

[WaldoMcFroog]

The grim reaper is, as Terry Pratchett would say, 'an anthropomorphic personification of an idea'.

It's simply a way for people without the capacity to understand to impose a meaningful shape on a very abstract construct. It is, of course, irrational, but entirely understandable that people might want to ascribe a higher purpose or a morality to make death (which is, of course, without conscience or moral code) less terrifying.

[Wraith]

Death, not sure of origin.

[temptress]

i don't know what the hell waldo mcfroog is waffling on about, but my parents have a grandfather clock with the personification of old father time on it, which shows a man in a big hooded cloak wielding a scyth. the point, i believe, is that he is reaping time, i.e. the beginning of life is the metaphorical (and indeed literal) sowing of seeds, and there comes a point when the crop has reached its maturity and is therefore reaped.

[WaldoMcFroog]

Sorry if I confused you with my use of words and sentences there, Temptress! There's some good stuff here on various other personifications of death:

http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/a/an/angel_of_death.html

[Rudy]

This may be a reference to the last judgement rather than death. The reaper(s) are angels directed by the "Son of man" to seperate good and evil at the end of the world. Origin the Bible (Matthew 13).

[LordyGeordie]

In Greek mythology, the father of Zeus was a god named Cronos (which actually means time in Greek). He is often pictured as carrying a sickle. Very often as new religions develop, they absorb myths from previous religions into their own. Old Father Time and the Grim Reaper developed in this way from Cronos

[tartanwiz]

He is the spirit or angel of death. The Grim Reaper figure we are familiar with, i.e. the skeletal form with scythe for reaping down souls, appeared in paintings in the Middle Ages. In other cultures, death has also been represented in skeleton form, e.g. the Aztec god of death, Mictlanticutli.