Dr. Jonathan Klawans, Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at Boston University, has authored a number of articles clearing up a common and popular misconception that the Last Supper was a Passover Seder. The upshot below is from his article here.
Klawans observes: "Although I welcome the current ecumenical climate, I believe we must be careful not to let our emotions get the better of us when we are searching for history. Indeed, even though the association of the Last Supper with a Passover Seder remains entrenched in the popular mind, a growing number of scholars are beginning to express serious doubts about this claim."
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Passover was originally an agricultural holiday. Over time, it became connected to the Exodus story and served as the festival of liberation. The Torah gives different sets of instructions about how to celebrate (Exodus 12 and Deuteronomy 16).
But in neither of these sets of instructions do we get anything like the Seder as one finds it written in any traditional Haggadah. That's because the cultic practice of the Seder is the fruit of the interpretation of a tradition by Rabbis of the first six centuries CE, setting the basis for Judaism in a post-Temple world. The Seder takes the biblical stories of the Passover, and adapts the ordinary dining experience of the day, according to its memorial and theological context, much like Jesus at the Last Supper.
(Some counter-argue that the Seder was a response to the developing practice of the Eucharist. This seems taking things too far.)
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As a Christian, it should be remembered that the celebration of the Passover preserves its memory, exactly as Jesus said – "Do this in memory of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24, Luke 22:19). The Christian Passion, however, for all the obvious reasons, obscures the magnitude and the significance of the Jewish Passover.
Mystical Christianity sees the death and resurrection of Christ as the central event not just of Israel's history, but also of humanity's and the universe's. The reduction of the Exodus event to just one of the readings at the Christian Paschal Vigil might be appropriate to the dignity of that vigil, but it isn’t really appropriate to the dignity of the Exodus as such – a true Christian experience of the Seder should serve to bring to the Christian mind an understanding of the cosmic and covenantal significance of the Exodus, on its own terms, rather than as (mere) prelude to Easter.
Without that, without some sense of a Jewish sensibility of the Passover – an awe and awareness that would have been first and foremost in the minds of Jesus and His fellow diners – one cannot share in the cosmic and covenantal significance of the Last Supper in its fullness.
For our Jewish brethren, of course, there are obvious difficulties, but that does not mean there can be no reciprocation – rather, we should acknowledge the other, much as we should acknowledge Islam as belonging to that broader Abrahamic family.
Klawans observes: "Although I welcome the current ecumenical climate, I believe we must be careful not to let our emotions get the better of us when we are searching for history. Indeed, even though the association of the Last Supper with a Passover Seder remains entrenched in the popular mind, a growing number of scholars are beginning to express serious doubts about this claim."
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Passover was originally an agricultural holiday. Over time, it became connected to the Exodus story and served as the festival of liberation. The Torah gives different sets of instructions about how to celebrate (Exodus 12 and Deuteronomy 16).
But in neither of these sets of instructions do we get anything like the Seder as one finds it written in any traditional Haggadah. That's because the cultic practice of the Seder is the fruit of the interpretation of a tradition by Rabbis of the first six centuries CE, setting the basis for Judaism in a post-Temple world. The Seder takes the biblical stories of the Passover, and adapts the ordinary dining experience of the day, according to its memorial and theological context, much like Jesus at the Last Supper.
(Some counter-argue that the Seder was a response to the developing practice of the Eucharist. This seems taking things too far.)
+++
As a Christian, it should be remembered that the celebration of the Passover preserves its memory, exactly as Jesus said – "Do this in memory of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24, Luke 22:19). The Christian Passion, however, for all the obvious reasons, obscures the magnitude and the significance of the Jewish Passover.
Mystical Christianity sees the death and resurrection of Christ as the central event not just of Israel's history, but also of humanity's and the universe's. The reduction of the Exodus event to just one of the readings at the Christian Paschal Vigil might be appropriate to the dignity of that vigil, but it isn’t really appropriate to the dignity of the Exodus as such – a true Christian experience of the Seder should serve to bring to the Christian mind an understanding of the cosmic and covenantal significance of the Exodus, on its own terms, rather than as (mere) prelude to Easter.
Without that, without some sense of a Jewish sensibility of the Passover – an awe and awareness that would have been first and foremost in the minds of Jesus and His fellow diners – one cannot share in the cosmic and covenantal significance of the Last Supper in its fullness.
For our Jewish brethren, of course, there are obvious difficulties, but that does not mean there can be no reciprocation – rather, we should acknowledge the other, much as we should acknowledge Islam as belonging to that broader Abrahamic family.
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