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James248
Guest
Remember the Passover sacrifice was the day before Jesus died according to Mark and Luke. Mark got his info from Peter (he was the young man who ran off naked) and Luke got his info from whoever knew Jesus.
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Michael_Mayo
Guest
Mark got his evidence from Peter?
Mark was the young man?
Where did you get those ideas?
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James248
Guest
Papias.
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patrick457
Guest
Given how the synoptics are all inter-related, you could easily say that Luke got “when they would sacrifice the Passover” from Mark - or, if you subscribe to the Griesbach theory, Mark from Luke.
Some scholars out there think that the synoptics preserve the historical detail, while John altered the chronology for theological reasons: Jesus, the lamb of God, dies on the eve of the Passover, when the lambs are slaughtered. I personally however think that perhaps the opposite is the case: the historical event (Jesus dying on Passover eve) gave rise to the theology, and it is the synoptics who altered the chronology to depict the Last Supper as a Passover meal. (Or maybe they didn’t have to do so much change after all - more on this below.)
I just think that John’s chronology makes better sense in light of how the ‘Jesus = Passover lamb’ identification was so firmly entrenched in early Christianity, not to mention that it sort of makes better sense: (1) if we are to suppose that the Seder was eaten on Thursday night as the synoptics portray it, then we would have to suppose that the priests held off eating it just so they could interrogate and condemn one rabble-rouser; (2) the synoptics themselves have the chief priests briefly hesitating whether to arrest Jesus during the feast “lest there be a riot among the people,” but for some reason they go ahead and arrest Jesus then anyway; and (3) the two astronomically most plausible years for the crucifixion to have occurred, AD 30 and 33, have the Passover (Nisan 14th) falling on a Friday.* (It would have fallen on a Thursday in AD 27, but that is usually regarded as being too early for Jesus’ death.)
- You do have to remember though that the ancient Jewish calendar was based, not on calculation, but observation: observers had to look for the first faintly glowing lunar crescent following conjunction with the sun and then work slightly backwards from there (after all, you can’t see a new moon). And this is the problem: when dates are fixed by observation, there is a range of possibilities, some more likely than others.
So, yeah, I think John’s chronology is the more reliable one here, but what about the Last Supper being a Passover meal?
All the references to ‘Passover’ aside, IMHO the synoptic accounts of the Last Supper themselves aren’t very Passover-y, unlike what some people think. They usually point to the presence of the bread, the wine and the hymn singing, but the first two are so common foodstuffs that they’re hardly an indicator of Passover, and while the ‘hymn’ is often identified with the Hallel sung at the end of the Seder, the lack of specification makes this hard to verify. (Ugh, now I’m talking like those scholars in them books …)
My pet theory is: while the Last Supper may not have been a Seder, but I see no reason why Jesus could not have modeled His last meal, the meal with which He will be remembered, after it. (After all, if He saw that He’s gonna be dead the next day …) In other words, Jesus invented a new kind of sacred meal somewhat based on and similar to, but not exactly the same as, the Seder. That might explain the Passover language of the synoptics: the Eucharist is the Passover meal for Christians. Hey, if at the Seder the Jews ate the Passover lamb, at the Eucharist we consume the flesh and blood of the Lamb of God.
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James248
Guest
I hold to the bolded option.
Basically I was influenced by this document. www.biblicalfoundations.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Supper_6-30.pdf
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patrick457
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I just found out I wrote something similar in another thread a while back. Sorry if it gets kinda repetitive, but here it is:
Actually, there’s no need to refer to the (obligatory) ḥagigah of Nisan 15 here, since there was another (voluntary) ḥagigah for Nisan 14, which one may bring along with the paschal sacrifice. However, since there was no requirement in the Torah that the ḥagigah sacrificed on the 14th be eaten at the Seder, its slaughter does not override the Sabbath or the prohibition of making an offering or eating it in a state of defilement. (Unlike the paschal offering, which even one who is ritually unclean may eat.) Therefore the voluntary ḥagigah was not brought when Nisan 14 falls on a Sabbath or by people who are defiled. For all we know, the priests could be concerned with the paschal offering of the afternoon of 14 Nisan, not necessarily the one in 15 Nisan.
Again, I may be just biased towards John here (I know, right?
), but IMHO I think John’s scenario of Jesus being crucified before the Passover may be the historical detail. Is it not possible that Mark and the other synoptics have ‘passoverized’ the historical Last Supper, because in Christian theology and liturgy the Eucharist - the body and blood of Jesus, the sacrificed lamb of God - has become the new Passover meal. I already pointed out how Mark may have ‘liturgicalized’ (is that even a word?) the passion of Jesus by assigning events to the liturgical hours. Who knows, maybe the same thing happened here?
Maybe this ‘passoverization’ was not entirely caused by the gospel writers or the early Christians; it could have been a process that started with Jesus Himself. He might indeed have patterned the Eucharist after the Seder, even if the actual Last Supper was not (historically) a Seder (although of course it was still a meal eaten during Passover season - which could have contributed to the Eucharist being passoverized).
After all, in the synoptics you have the chief priests hesitating to arrest Jesus during the Passover festival “lest there be a riot among the people” - but they go ahead and arrest Him on Passover night anyway. In addition, you might consider other factors like Jesus apparently only being with the Twelve, whereas the Passover Seder was a family gathering (then again, one might imagine that Jesus now considered the disciples His family), not to mention that the bread is referred to as artos and not as azyma (yeah, I know, this sounds like the old argument the Eastern Orthodox used against the Latin and Armenian use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist, but still) - but that being said you do have evidence from the Greek OT to support the synoptics’ use of artos.
Plus, the supposed parallels between the Last Supper and the Passover meal are actually debatable in nature: many of these are IMHO rather incidental. The fact is, we really don’t know much about the Seder as 1st century Jews would have celebrated it other than the bare essentials (there was obviously the lamb, unleavened matzo, wine, bitter herbs, a recounting of the Exodus, singing - but beyond that, not much else). The modern Jewish Seder is actually the product of later development. Many of the stuff we now associate with the Seder like the afikoman or the singing of the Mah Nishtanah or the four cups of wine actually originate later than the time of Jesus. So to draw parallels between the modern Seder and the 1st century Last Supper (something that some Christians often attempt to do) is just anachronistic.
Actually, there’s no need to refer to the (obligatory) ḥagigah of Nisan 15 here, since there was another (voluntary) ḥagigah for Nisan 14, which one may bring along with the paschal sacrifice. However, since there was no requirement in the Torah that the ḥagigah sacrificed on the 14th be eaten at the Seder, its slaughter does not override the Sabbath or the prohibition of making an offering or eating it in a state of defilement. (Unlike the paschal offering, which even one who is ritually unclean may eat.) Therefore the voluntary ḥagigah was not brought when Nisan 14 falls on a Sabbath or by people who are defiled. For all we know, the priests could be concerned with the paschal offering of the afternoon of 14 Nisan, not necessarily the one in 15 Nisan.
Again, I may be just biased towards John here (I know, right?
), but IMHO I think John’s scenario of Jesus being crucified before the Passover may be the historical detail. Is it not possible that Mark and the other synoptics have ‘passoverized’ the historical Last Supper, because in Christian theology and liturgy the Eucharist - the body and blood of Jesus, the sacrificed lamb of God - has become the new Passover meal. I already pointed out how Mark may have ‘liturgicalized’ (is that even a word?) the passion of Jesus by assigning events to the liturgical hours. Who knows, maybe the same thing happened here?Maybe this ‘passoverization’ was not entirely caused by the gospel writers or the early Christians; it could have been a process that started with Jesus Himself. He might indeed have patterned the Eucharist after the Seder, even if the actual Last Supper was not (historically) a Seder (although of course it was still a meal eaten during Passover season - which could have contributed to the Eucharist being passoverized).
After all, in the synoptics you have the chief priests hesitating to arrest Jesus during the Passover festival “lest there be a riot among the people” - but they go ahead and arrest Him on Passover night anyway. In addition, you might consider other factors like Jesus apparently only being with the Twelve, whereas the Passover Seder was a family gathering (then again, one might imagine that Jesus now considered the disciples His family), not to mention that the bread is referred to as artos and not as azyma (yeah, I know, this sounds like the old argument the Eastern Orthodox used against the Latin and Armenian use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist, but still) - but that being said you do have evidence from the Greek OT to support the synoptics’ use of artos.
Plus, the supposed parallels between the Last Supper and the Passover meal are actually debatable in nature: many of these are IMHO rather incidental. The fact is, we really don’t know much about the Seder as 1st century Jews would have celebrated it other than the bare essentials (there was obviously the lamb, unleavened matzo, wine, bitter herbs, a recounting of the Exodus, singing - but beyond that, not much else). The modern Jewish Seder is actually the product of later development. Many of the stuff we now associate with the Seder like the afikoman or the singing of the Mah Nishtanah or the four cups of wine actually originate later than the time of Jesus. So to draw parallels between the modern Seder and the 1st century Last Supper (something that some Christians often attempt to do) is just anachronistic.
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jbejon
Guest
Dear Patrick.
I’m largely in agreement with you (for whatever that’s worth) in your view of John’s historical and chronological value. The two points you suggest–namely that John provides a full chronology and provides the right timeframe for Jesus’ final week–actually have a consistency about them. The Synoptics work thematically. They want to portray the Passover as the final momentous climax of Jesus’ ministry. Hence, they omit the earlier Passovers (mentioned by John) in order to shape their Gospels as one linear progression to the (final) Passover and also ‘Passoverise’ the Last Supper.
Anyway…
@All,
I wanted to make some general comments about the Gospels’ narratives here. I’m personally very encouraged by the Gospel’s narratives. They read exactly like genuine historical accounts. They contain some unusual details and some apparently awkward-to-resolve details, and they clearly haven’t been tidied up over the years. No-one has felt the need (or been allowed) to insert explanations or smooth off the rough edges. They are as they are.
As to possible resolutions of the issues involved, one possibility is to regard John’s references to the Passover not as the first meal of the Passover week (eaten after the sunset of the 14th Nisan), but the second meal of the Passover week (eaten after the sunset of the 15th). Brant Pitre among others defends this option. He also provides a good overview of the subject. You can listen to interview here normally (brantpitre.com/interviews.html), but it’s down at the moment. There’s an alternative here (store.catholicproductions.com/blogs/blog/the-dating-of-the-last-supper-interview), though I haven’t listened to all of it as yet. Sounds good so far though.
A different solution altogether is to posit two different Passovers. On this view, the Synoptics and John sound as if they require there to have been two different Passover meals eaten on two different days precisely because there were. Colin Humphreys has written a book about it, which you can download here (tuhosakti.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/the-mystery-of-the-last-supper.pdf). Humphreys thinks Jesus observed the Passover on 13th Nisan based on a pre-exilic calendar. (The official calendar employed in Jesus’ day was post-exilic.)
I personally favour a hypothesis proffered back in the 1950s by a scholar named Annie Jaubert. Benedict XVI mentions it, but doesn’t (I think) finally settle on it. I have a write-up of it here (academia.edu/24267678/A_Chronology_of_Jesus_Ministry). The Passover-contradiction-type stuff appears towards the second half of the article.
Hope that helps,
James.
I’m largely in agreement with you (for whatever that’s worth) in your view of John’s historical and chronological value. The two points you suggest–namely that John provides a full chronology and provides the right timeframe for Jesus’ final week–actually have a consistency about them. The Synoptics work thematically. They want to portray the Passover as the final momentous climax of Jesus’ ministry. Hence, they omit the earlier Passovers (mentioned by John) in order to shape their Gospels as one linear progression to the (final) Passover and also ‘Passoverise’ the Last Supper.
Anyway…
@All,
I wanted to make some general comments about the Gospels’ narratives here. I’m personally very encouraged by the Gospel’s narratives. They read exactly like genuine historical accounts. They contain some unusual details and some apparently awkward-to-resolve details, and they clearly haven’t been tidied up over the years. No-one has felt the need (or been allowed) to insert explanations or smooth off the rough edges. They are as they are.
As to possible resolutions of the issues involved, one possibility is to regard John’s references to the Passover not as the first meal of the Passover week (eaten after the sunset of the 14th Nisan), but the second meal of the Passover week (eaten after the sunset of the 15th). Brant Pitre among others defends this option. He also provides a good overview of the subject. You can listen to interview here normally (brantpitre.com/interviews.html), but it’s down at the moment. There’s an alternative here (store.catholicproductions.com/blogs/blog/the-dating-of-the-last-supper-interview), though I haven’t listened to all of it as yet. Sounds good so far though.
A different solution altogether is to posit two different Passovers. On this view, the Synoptics and John sound as if they require there to have been two different Passover meals eaten on two different days precisely because there were. Colin Humphreys has written a book about it, which you can download here (tuhosakti.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/the-mystery-of-the-last-supper.pdf). Humphreys thinks Jesus observed the Passover on 13th Nisan based on a pre-exilic calendar. (The official calendar employed in Jesus’ day was post-exilic.)
I personally favour a hypothesis proffered back in the 1950s by a scholar named Annie Jaubert. Benedict XVI mentions it, but doesn’t (I think) finally settle on it. I have a write-up of it here (academia.edu/24267678/A_Chronology_of_Jesus_Ministry). The Passover-contradiction-type stuff appears towards the second half of the article.
Hope that helps,
James.
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Wesrock
Guest
In his “Jesus of Nazareth” series, Pope Benedict (not exercising his magisterial authority) seems to favor John’s timeline and doesn’t feel it necessary to try to reconcile the two timelines such that the Passover was celebrated over two days by the Jews or what have you. He writes much on the Last Supper being celebrated on the night before the normal passover meal, but stresses that Jesus was still celebrating and instituting the new Passover meal, which is why the synoptic tradition, recognizing that it was still a Passover celebration, calls it the Passover even though it wouldn’t normally be celebrated until the following night. John, emphasizing Jesus as the Lamb of God/Passover lamb, stresses that Jesus died when the lambs were slaughtered.
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