The Last Supper and Passover

[patrick457]

Sirach2:
What I hear you saying is that any reputed holy place is left up to our imagination as to whether or not it is truly authentic. How many millions have reverenced the sacred spot in the cave of Jesus’ birth, with a star marking the spot? How many have reverenced the sepulcher of Jesus? Do you honestly believe God would permit false veneration of these places without someone authenticating that these are merely a fabrication? Why tamper with the sacred beliefs of many millions of Christians? Is this wise?

I would sum my beliefs as follows:

(Warning: personal opinion)

I believe that p(name removed by moderator)ointing the exact places or the authenticity of sacred places are not important. What I believe is important is the actual events. If the location helped bring the events into your mind, even if it is not the actual spot where the event occurred historically, then I think it has served a good purpose. Genuine faith is more important than being stuck up in academic issues.

I could compare this with the issue of relics. As is common knowledge, back in the Middle Ages, there were a lot of relics, some authentic and some inauthentic. In the case of inauthentic relics, I wonder: did/would God not hear the prayers of those who prayed in front of a ‘fake’? Are the faith of those who were actually helped in some way by a certain relic somehow negated by the fact that the relic in question might not be authentic? I don’t think so.

I might not believe that, say, the biblical Mount Sinai is really the same mountain that is being called by that name today (Jabal Musa). I might not believe that the medieval Via Dolorosa is really the same route Jesus passed through on Good Friday. I might not believe that all the pieces of wood purported to come from the true Cross are authentic. But if they help to make the biblical narratives ‘come alive’, so to speak, then I think these spots have ultimately caused good. I believe God is lenient enough to take our limitations into consideration.

That’s why I personally think the whole ‘authenticity’ question regarding relics and sacred places alike is really icing on the cake. I don’t think God is limited by whether or not, say, this piece of bone is really St. Peter’s or whether that grassy knoll was where Jesus really stood when He preached this thing that one time. It would be nice - best, even - if they really are, but IMHO God can work through various ways. He is almighty, after all.

That’s just what I think of course. If the sacred places helped you in your spiritual life, then all well and good. I was just throwing this out there.

 

[Sirach2]

I would sum my beliefs as follows:

(Warning: personal opinion)

I believe that p(name removed by moderator)ointing the exact places or the authenticity of sacred places are not important.

That’s why I personally think the whole ‘authenticity’ question regarding relics and sacred places alike is really icing on the cake. I don’t think God is limited by whether or not, say, this piece of bone is really St. Peter’s or whether that grassy knoll was where Jesus really stood when He preached this thing that one time. It would be nice - best, even - if they really are, but IMHO God can work through various ways. He is almighty, after all.

Maybe folks should just stay home and not travel to the sacred places, since they might not be authentic. Guadaloupe is possibly just a fabrication. The Via Dolorosa where millions carry a cross and venerate the walk of Jesus is perhaps built over ruins. Lourdes waters are just a spring that has no bearing on faith. Etc., etc.

I marvel that you would attempt to downplay the simple faith of people by inferring that these sites, relics, devotions, are unnecessary to one’s faith. It seems like pedantry, to me. And you persist!

 

[James248]

Maybe folks should just stay home and not travel to the sacred places, since they might not be authentic. Guadaloupe is possibly just a fabrication. The Via Dolorosa where millions carry a cross and venerate the walk of Jesus is perhaps built over ruins. Lourdes waters are just a spring that has no bearing on faith. Etc., etc.

I marvel that you would attempt to downplay the simple faith of people by inferring that these sites, relics, devotions, are unnecessary to one’s faith. It seems like pedantry, to me. And you persist!

That is not what he is doing! He’s just saying that the thing you think really may be not accurate. It’s fraternal correction telling you not to seek things too sublime for you.

 

[Sirach2]

That is not what he is doing! He’s just saying that the thing you think really may be not accurate. It’s fraternal correction telling you not to seek things too sublime for you.

I call it bursting one’s bubble in the name of being P.C. If religious pilgrimages, relics, medals, and the like, are “too sublime for anyone”, then let’s do away with venerating a wooden cross on Good Friday, eliminating statutes, and a host of other things that people find devotion in.

 

[Sirach2]

Time was over for editing, so I am adding a post script.

Whether or not the Upper Room was actually located above David’s tomb, or whether or not either one of them is an inauthentic location, the bottom line is that the Last Supper was a fulfillment of the prophecy given to David in 2 Samuel 7:12-13.

If Our Lord foresaw that the “alleged” tomb would be presently located under the Cenacle, and He is able to instruct the faithful about the New Covenant being instituted there, who is to argue about its fulfillment, and/or His willingness to use this setting for instruction of the faithful?

 

[James248]

I call it bursting one’s bubble in the name of being P.C. If religious pilgrimages, relics, medals, and the like, are “too sublime for anyone”, then let’s do away with venerating a wooden cross on Good Friday, eliminating statutes, and a host of other things that people find devotion in.

Clearly you missed the point. The event is important, not its symbolic nature.

 

[Sirach2]

Clearly you missed the point. The event is important, not its symbolic nature.

Clearly you missed MY point, as well.
What I responded to was this:

The Spirit helped me understand that, since the Upper Room is directly over the tomb of David, Jesus silently proclaimed by this action that He is fulfilling the Messianic promise made to David in 2 Sam. 7:12-13.

1. When your days have been completed and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, sprung from your loins, and I will establish his kingdom. 13. He it is who shall build a house for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever. "

When we reflect on the words of Jesus, “This is the cup of My blood, the blood of the NEW and ETERNAL COVENANT…” we can connect the fact that this upper room, is the site Jesus chose to inaugurate the new covenant to fulfill God’s promise – over David’s tomb, “above” the former covenant made with Israel.

How important was it for either of you to pick apart the incidentals, when the critical message is a fulfillment of scripture? It amounts to a picking of nits. The location points to a message for those whom the Spirit enlightens, but yes, it is not really important WHERE Jesus instituted the Eucharist, the New Covenant in His blood, but that it WAS fulfilled in this action, as was promised.

 

[James248]

Maybe creating this thread was a bad idea. Maybe I was too brief. But I know from what I read: Patrick’s intent was not to be snarky.

 

[jcrichton]

Wow!

…I could not log-on for just a day and this exploded…

…from a show I watched: “…things I know… gato is cat in Spanish…”

…yet, if we add an “r” to the end of it: gato + r; we have a totally different animal!

I think that what is being (attempted) conveyed is that we do not Believe because of those things that we (science) can determine to be the correct and precise place/item…

That our Faith Transcends the accidents (as with the Body and Blood).

Yet, what is also arguable is that things do change; scholars make “educated” and totally erroneous guesses (billing them both as “facts” or “authoritative” and conclusive evidence while ignoring that cultures change, that things get lost in the shuffle (mayhem and destruction) and that even scholars can be led astray by the injection of their personal bias into their studies…

We also know that, I suspect through Divine intervention, even when seeking to destroy/raze Christianity from a culture the efforts helped to mark/highlight important Christian artifacts/sites.

So our Faith in Jesus’ Resurrection is not dependent upon the Shroud of Turin’s origins and authenticity… yet, it does serve to center our attention in God’s Marvelous Creations!

…so it is with the actual and symbolic value of all of our Judeo-Christian icons, relics, and Holy Sites!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[James248]

Wow!

…I could not log-on for just a day and this exploded…

…from a show I watched: “…things I know… gato is cat in Spanish…”

…yet, if we add an “r” to the end of it: gato + r; we have a totally different animal!

I think that what is being (attempted) conveyed is that we do not Believe because of those things that we (science) can determine to be the correct and precise place/item…

That our Faith Transcends the accidents (as with the Body and Blood).

Yet, what is also arguable is that things do change; scholars make “educated” and totally erroneous guesses (billing them both as “facts” or “authoritative” and conclusive evidence while ignoring that cultures change, that things get lost in the shuffle (mayhem and destruction) and that even scholars can be led astray by the injection of their personal bias into their studies…

We also know that, I suspect through Divine intervention, even when seeking to destroy/raze Christianity from a culture the efforts helped to mark/highlight important Christian artifacts/sites.

So our Faith in Jesus’ Resurrection is not dependent upon the Shroud of Turin’s origins and authenticity… yet, it does serve to center our attention in God’s Marvelous Creations!

…so it is with the actual and symbolic value of all of our Judeo-Christian icons, relics, and Holy Sites!

Maran atha!

Angel

No one is arguing that. The poster who was confronting Patrick was not understanding.

 

[James248]

Getting back to the original topic, I now came to the conclusion that John and the synoptics are in harmony since the Synoptics refer to the actual date and John to the collective festivities. And all the references to Preparation Day actually refer to Friday the day of the week instead of the Passover itself. So any posts?

 

[Sirach2]

Patrick457:

Then, when the Crusaders came along, they again shifted the location of David’s tomb back to Jerusalem; they began to claim that it was actually under the Cenacle, aka Upper Room. (The Cenacle was an ancient Christian site;we don’t know if it is the actual upper room Jesus held the Last Supper in, but some archaeologists do believe that it was the site of a synagogue/house church used by the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem.)** We don’t know exactly what caused the Crusaders to identify David’s tomb as being in the Cenacle. **Maybe it was done out of convenience; I mean, the Bible does say David was buried in Jerusalem, so they needed to find a location for it. And the Upper Room is an important church, so hey, why not place David’s tomb there?

Soon, the Jews themselves also began to accept this identification, and the rest is history.

So, nobody knows for sure, huh? It appears then, that my understanding was not very far off base.

 

[James248]

So, nobody knows for sure, huh? It appears then, that my understanding was not very far off base.

Could you please get back on topic instead of ridiculing Patrick?

 

[qui_est_ce]

Getting back to the original topic, I now came to the conclusion that John and the synoptics are in harmony since the Synoptics refer to the actual date and John to the collective festivities. And all the references to Preparation Day actually refer to Friday the day of the week instead of the Passover itself. So any posts?

Could you spell it out for me, please? I have been confused by this for years. People have been arguing with me about how this is a contradiction in the Bible, therefore the Bible is not believable. My only answer has been a weak the Gospel writers wrote to their audiences. John wrote many years later and made the theological connections. John was able to reveal names and details that the synoptics writers could not, due to protective anonymity.

 

[tafan]

Pope Benedict XVI gives a very interesting overview of this issue in his Jesus of Nazareth, Holy Week book. He covers the various theories, points out their strengths and weaknesses. In the end, he says we just don’t know.

 

[Sirach2]

(The Cenacle was an ancient Christian site; we don’t know if it is the actual upper room Jesus held the Last Supper in, but some archaeologists do believe that it was the site of a synagogue/house church used by the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem.)

Maybe we can put this to rest, since I did find good information in our Catholic Encyclopedia.

After the destruction they came back and congregated in the house of John Mark and his mother Mary, where they had met before (Acts 12:12 sq.). It was apparently in this house that was the Upper Room, the scene of the Last Supper and of the assembly on Pentecost. Epiphanius (d. 403) says that when the Emperor Hadrian came to Jerusalem in 130 he found the Temple and the whole city destroyed save for a few houses, among them the one where the Apostles had received the Holy Ghost. This house, says Epiphanius, is "in that part of Sion which was spared when the city was destroyed" — therefore in the "upper part (“De mens. et pond.”, cap. xiv). From the time of Cyril of Jerusalem, who speaks of “the upper Church of the Apostles, where the Holy Ghost came down upon them” (Catech., ii, 6; P.G., XXXIII), there are abundant witnesses of the place. A great basilica was built over the spot in the fourth century; the crusaders built another church when the older one had been destroyed by Hakim in 1010. It is the famous Coenaculum or Cenacle — now a Moslem shrine — near the Gate of David, and supposed to be David’s tomb (Nebi Daud).

Scholars may continue to debate this as they wish, but the Holy Spirit knows the location, and He chose to use this extant site as a teaching tool to enable me to grasp the fuller import of the fulfillment of the Messianic Promise. It was this significance that I wished to share with those who appreciate biblical truth concerning the New Covenant.

 

[James248]

Could you spell it out for me, please? I have been confused by this for years. People have been arguing with me about how this is a contradiction in the Bible, therefore the Bible is not believable. My only answer has been a weak the Gospel writers wrote to their audiences. John wrote many years later and made the theological connections. John was able to reveal names and details that the synoptics writers could not, due to protective anonymity.

This question is why we should get on topic.

 

[Sirach2]

Haydock had this commentary with regard to John’s verse 28:

Ver. 28. That they might eat the Pasch. They, who by the Pasch will always understand the paschal-lamb, look upon it certain from these words, that the Scribes and Pharisees at least, had deferred eating the paschal-lamb, till Friday the 15th day, in the evening: but there are passages in the Scripture, which shew, that the word Pasch, or Phase, comprehended not only the paschal sacrifice of the lamb, but also the sacrifices, that were to be eaten with unleavened bread, during the seven days of the paschal solemnity, as Deuteronomy xvi. 2. thou shalt offer up the Phase, or Pasch, to the Lord, of sheep and oxen.

And 1 Paralipomenon xxxv. 8. They gave to the priests to make the Phase, or Pasch,* in altogether two thousand six hundred small cattle, and three hundred oxen.* The oxen, therefore, were also given, to make up the Pasch, and were comprehended by the word Pasch, or Phase.

It might, therefore, be these paschal sacrifices, and not the paschal-lamb, which the priests designed to partake of, and therefore would not enter into the palace of Pilate.

This would account for the time lapse, since the paschal lamb would not be eaten until the end of the “pasch”.

It’s your call to accept this version, or not. But it makes sense to me.

 

[patrick457]

A few things I’d like to say.

First off, sorry if I came across as condescending or insulting. It is not my intention to offend people or to threaten anyone’s faith. Far from it.

Second, I wasn’t addressing the theological explanation Sirach was giving.

So, nobody knows for sure, huh? It appears then, that my understanding was not very far off base.

Obviously I wasn’t there when the Crusaders placed David’s tomb in the Cenacle, so I can’t claim to read what was going in their minds, but if I were to hazard a guess, I think it’s related to how ‘Mount Zion’ shifted from being the name of the Eastern Hill / Temple Mount to being that of the Western (aka Southwestern) Hill.

2 Samuel 5:7 records ‘Zion’ as the name of a Jebusite fortress that was conquered by King David and which he turned into the ‘City of David’ (Ir David). This stronghold, as mentioned, was on the lower part of ancient Jerusalem’s Eastern Hill. After this Jebusite city was conquered by the Israelites, it expanded northward towards the uppermost part of the Eastern Hill. This highest part - also known as ‘Mount Moriah’ - became the site of Solomon’s Temple. Then during the reign of Hezekiah, the city expanded further westward, enclosing a previously unwalled suburb in what is now the Old City of Jerusalem, west of the Temple Mount. The Judahites later begin to poetically apply the name ‘Zion’ to the Temple Mount or even to Jerusalem as a whole: you can see this usage in the Psalms and in the later parts of Isaiah (60:14), as well as in 1 Maccabees (4:37, 60: 5:54; 7:33).

This is where things get a little confusing. At some point, people apparently started calling the Western Hill ‘Mount Zion’ because it is much more higher and broader than the Eastern Hill and thus, for them, seemed the worthier location for the by-then forgotten palace of David. This identification was most certainly in place by the Byzantine period: there was this church that once stood on or near where the Cenacle is, called Hagia Sion ‘Holy Zion’. From the same time period, you have Eusebius saying that Golgotha is located to the north of ‘Mount Sion’ - the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is located to the north of the Western Hill.

 

[patrick457]

Getting back to the original topic, I now came to the conclusion that John and the synoptics are in harmony since the Synoptics refer to the actual date and John to the collective festivities. And all the references to Preparation Day actually refer to Friday the day of the week instead of the Passover itself. So any posts?

This theory is possible, but then again AFAIK there’s really no contemporary source that used the word paraskeuē by itself in the sense of ‘Friday’ - that sense came later.

By itself, paraskeuē was used as a kind of Greek equivalent to the Hebrew ‘ereḇ or Aramaic 'rūbhtā “eve(ning).” Sure, you could get ‘Friday’ from a phrase like ‘preparation/eve of the Sabbath’, but as John says paraskeuē ton Pascha “preparation of the Passover” in 19:14, I think the primary sense of paraskeuē in his gospel is ‘(Passover) eve’. It just so happened that that Passover fell on a Sabbath (note that John doesn’t even directly refer to the Sabbath in his passion narrative, so IMO his references to the paraskeuē hark back to 19:14’s “preparation of the Passover”). Note: the Syriac translations of John apparently understand the phrase in 19:14 ‘the day before the Passover’ and translate it accordingly ('rūbhtā d’pasḥa ‘the eve(ning) of Passover’).

I’m in the minority here, but personally I tend to trust John more in matters of chronology, if only because he has the coherent, linear timeline compared to the synoptics. I know a lot of people tend to prefer the synoptic chronology and order of events, but I personally think that John may have the more historical detail. If there’s someone who moved things here, I think it’s more likely to be the synoptic evangelists than John - after all, they are known to move around episodes.