A professor at Cambridge has published a new book in which he argues that Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples took place on the Wednesday before Easter, not the Thursday, as church tradition has long taught. He bases his arguments on astronomical calculations and an ancient variant calendar that seems to have originated in Egypt, concluding that Jesus held his seder one day earlier than the official Jerusalem calendar would have called for. Books of this sort of scholarly speculation appear fairly regularly. But in this case the secular press, with its typical taste for controversy, has seized on the book as a potential challenge to the observances of Holy Week, and is making hay of it as another example of how churches Get It Wrong.
This is, to my mind, an excellent example of the silliness of trying to take the Bible too literally. The four canonical gospel accounts of the Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of Jesus' death and resurrection vary in many details. It has long been known that Matthew, Mark, and Luke present the Last Supper as a Passover seder and John does not. There's nothing new there. The Synoptics present it as a seder because they have a thematic and theological interest in showing how Jesus reinterprets the bread and cup of the seder meal to refer to the new covenant in his blood. John famously presents the meal as not a seder -- there is no institution of the Eucharist, no bread and cup at all, in John's Last Supper -- because he has a thematic and theological interest in narrating how Jesus dies on the cross at the very moment the Passover lambs are being slaughtered in the Temple. John's theological interest is not to show that Jesus reinterprets anew the Passover meal, but that Jesus is the new Passover meal (he earlier identified Jesus as the Bread of Life as well). It is directly connected to the verse in John 1:29 where John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God: Jesus as Lamb is a theme that runs through the entire gospel, and reaches its climax at his death on the cross. To John, the identification of Jesus as Lamb is far more important than the repurposing of the seder. The Synoptics, on the other hand, do not have John's theological focus on demonstrating that Jesus is the embodiment of the traditional symbols; to them, it is far more important to show how Jesus redirects the symbols to point to the reign of God rather than the Mosaic covenant. So for them it makes theological sense to stress that Communion is based on the seder, and they narrate accordingly. (It may also be significant that Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25, the oldest textual account of the institution of the Eucharist, makes no mention of it being a seder.) The point is that the identification of the Supper as seder or not is driven by theological, not historical, concerns. What all four (and Paul) agree on is the central point that Jesus died and was raised at Passover. That is enough.
So for a 21st century metallurgist to say that an Egyptian offshoot calendar can account for how Jesus could have had a seder on Wednesday rather than Thursday, so that all four gospels can be historically accurate, is, to my mind, simply missing the point. It is treating the gospels' carefully crafted theological symbolism with all the nuanced understanding of a baseball bat. I'd rather let the symbols be symbols, and the difference be a difference, and thank God for the richness of meaning in our communion with our Lord.
And don't even get me started on the conundrums hidden in the assumption that the date of Jesus' passion can be assigned confidently to 33 CE!
This is, to my mind, an excellent example of the silliness of trying to take the Bible too literally. The four canonical gospel accounts of the Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of Jesus' death and resurrection vary in many details. It has long been known that Matthew, Mark, and Luke present the Last Supper as a Passover seder and John does not. There's nothing new there. The Synoptics present it as a seder because they have a thematic and theological interest in showing how Jesus reinterprets the bread and cup of the seder meal to refer to the new covenant in his blood. John famously presents the meal as not a seder -- there is no institution of the Eucharist, no bread and cup at all, in John's Last Supper -- because he has a thematic and theological interest in narrating how Jesus dies on the cross at the very moment the Passover lambs are being slaughtered in the Temple. John's theological interest is not to show that Jesus reinterprets anew the Passover meal, but that Jesus is the new Passover meal (he earlier identified Jesus as the Bread of Life as well). It is directly connected to the verse in John 1:29 where John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God: Jesus as Lamb is a theme that runs through the entire gospel, and reaches its climax at his death on the cross. To John, the identification of Jesus as Lamb is far more important than the repurposing of the seder. The Synoptics, on the other hand, do not have John's theological focus on demonstrating that Jesus is the embodiment of the traditional symbols; to them, it is far more important to show how Jesus redirects the symbols to point to the reign of God rather than the Mosaic covenant. So for them it makes theological sense to stress that Communion is based on the seder, and they narrate accordingly. (It may also be significant that Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25, the oldest textual account of the institution of the Eucharist, makes no mention of it being a seder.) The point is that the identification of the Supper as seder or not is driven by theological, not historical, concerns. What all four (and Paul) agree on is the central point that Jesus died and was raised at Passover. That is enough.
So for a 21st century metallurgist to say that an Egyptian offshoot calendar can account for how Jesus could have had a seder on Wednesday rather than Thursday, so that all four gospels can be historically accurate, is, to my mind, simply missing the point. It is treating the gospels' carefully crafted theological symbolism with all the nuanced understanding of a baseball bat. I'd rather let the symbols be symbols, and the difference be a difference, and thank God for the richness of meaning in our communion with our Lord.
And don't even get me started on the conundrums hidden in the assumption that the date of Jesus' passion can be assigned confidently to 33 CE!
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ReplyDeleteWhat I wanted to say above, and said badly first time out, was that our learned co-religionist in the University of Cambridge is evidently unaware that the question of the date of the Last Supper is a very old one, due to the conflicting accounts of GsJn and the synoptics. My presumption (which I think is also Bultmann's in his commentary and Harnack's in the "Expansion of Christianity") is that the synoptics changed the day to the Thursday. This they did to suit their theological tendency. However I have seen the opposite argued-- that John, rejecting the Last Supper as the occasion for the institution of the eucharist-- moved the day. I should look to see what E.P. Sanders says... can't remember offhand. Church fathers doubtless had their say as well. In any event, these little puzzles are what make NT study so cool! Ever notice in GsJn how when Jesus gives Judas the morsel or sop, "Satan entered into him." Sort of a "demonic eucharist"! Anyway, that's a discussion for another time.
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ReplyDeleteApostle Thomas, James the Greater and Philip are the next group of three. Thomas is clearly upset; James the Greater looks stunned, with his arms in the air. Meanwhile, Philip appears to be requesting some explanation.
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