Jesus’ Last Supper Still Wasn’t a Passover Seder Meal
An update to Jonathan Klawans’s Bible Review article “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?”
Many people still assume that Jesus’ Last Supper was a Seder, a ritual meal held in celebration of the Jewish holiday of Passover. In this exclusive guest post, Boston University Professor of Religion Jonathan Klawans provides an update to his popular Bible Review article questioning this common assumption. This post was originally published in Bible History Daily in 2016.—Ed.
Every spring, as the Boston snow begins to melt, the emails start coming in. Some are positive, others negative—but all exhibit continued curiosity and excitement about the Passover Seder meal and its relationship to Jesus’ Last Supper. And if they are writing to me about this, it’s because of the piece I wrote in Bible Review back in 2001.
And it’s a question I do revisit myself annually: part of the way I prepare myself for Passover each year is to read a few new articles that have appeared—and of course I read those emails too (though I don’t answer the nasty ones!).
Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Passover Seder meal? Here, we see Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting The Last Supper, which was completed around 1498.
No, there will be no exciting turnarounds in this posting. Yes, readers have asked some good questions. And some scholars have offered vigorous defenses of the Last Supper/Seder connection. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that the Last Supper was not a Passover Seder meal.
First, very little, if anything, of the rabbinic Seder practices can be read back to the early part of the first century C.E. Second, Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples did not take place on the first night of Passover. There is a real difference between John and the synoptics on this question, and John’s chronology continues to make much more sense to me: Jesus was tried and killed before the holiday began. By Seder time, he was buried.
Perhaps one of these years I’ll revise the piece from beginning to end. But in lieu of that, below are some bibliographic updates and a few additional points to ponder.
To my mind, the most important development in the last fifteen years has been the appearance of a number of resources to help readers of English understand better the history of the Passover Haggadah (the book that lays out the rituals practiced and passages recited over the course of a traditional Passover Seder meal):
- Joshua Kulp, “The Origins of the Seder and the Haggadah,” Currents in Biblical Research 4.1 (2005), pp. 109–134. This bibliographic essay provides helpful definitions of the key Hebrew terms (including Seder and Haggadah) and provides a sound history of scholarship, summarizing some of the key debates. [Disclaimer: I was the soliciting editor of this article during my ten-year stint as an editor for CBR.]
- Joshua Kulp and David Golinkin, The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History and Commentary (Jerusalem: The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 2009). This beautifully illustrated volume includes a full Haggadah and a lengthy discussion of all the academic issues surrounding the history of the Haggadah and the celebration of the Passover Seder. [I had nothing to do with this one!]
- Shmuel Safrai and Ze’ev Safrai, Haggadah of the Sages (Jerusalem: Carta, 2007). This is the English edition of a modern Hebrew academic commentary on the Passover Seder (the 1998 fuller Hebrew edition is cited in my article in n. 11).
- Joseph Tabory, The JPS Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2008). This too is a modern academic edition of the Haggadah with an English introduction and running commentary.
Readers who delve into these sources will find a great deal of information about all aspects of Passover and the Seder. Regarding our topic, most of what you will find in these sources will be in agreement with the approach that separates the Last Supper from the Passover Seder. This is because it remains the case that scholars of early rabbinic literature (and not just the most skeptical of them) have come to a general consensus that the rabbinic Seder ritual was developed after 70 C.E. (and therefore almost two generations after Jesus’ death in the early 30s C.E.). If the Seder didn’t really exist until after 70 C.E., it could not have been practiced whenever Jesus had his Last Supper, Passover or not.
Passover is the celebration of the Israelite exodus from Egypt. For more on the Exodus, check out the Bible History Daily Exodus page for dozens of free articles and video lectures on the flight of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and their miraculous escape across the Red Sea.
For readers who want to consider an academic counter-argument, the most forceful one I know is by Joel Marcus of Duke University Divinity School: “Passover and Last Supper Revisited,” New Testament Studies 59.3 (2013), pp. 303–324. In this article Marcus does everything he can to take various parallels between Jewish and Christian traditions and turn them in favor of the argument that Jesus’ Last Supper was a Passover Seder meal. For instance, he calls attention to the so-called “ha lachma” (Aramaic for “This is the bread”), a brief passage traditionally recited at the opening of the Seder: “This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in Egypt…” This statement does indeed parallel the Eucharistic words, grammatically (“This bread is…”). Is it possible that the ha lachma tradition (which can only be traced back to medieval manuscripts) is in fact an ancient tradition that sheds light on the Eucharistic words of Jesus? Yes—anything is possible. But it is much more likely, in my view, that a medieval Jewish tradition that parallels a Christian tradition is responding to Christianity.
This is what we need to remember: Judaism and Christianity continued to influence each other, long after the death of Jesus. Passover and Easter continued to influence each other too. The dialogue—and competition—between these holidays left imprints on the respective rituals, as well as on the traditional sources (such as the Gospels and the Haggadah) describing these practices. The “Passoverization” of Christian rituals and texts—as discussed in my BR article—continued long after Jesus’ death
Is it possible to identify the first-century man named Jesus behind the many stories and traditions about him that developed over 2,000 years in the Gospels and church teachings? Visit the Jesus/Historical Jesus study page to read free articles on Jesus in Bible History Daily.
But we can’t only think about influence—we must also remember difference. Joseph Tabory (for instance, to consider one of the writers listed above) says little about the Last Supper per se in his edition of the Haggadah. Nevertheless, he does point out one key difference: While the Last Supper traditions focus on the meaning of the wine (alongside the bread), the Passover traditions feature wine without offering any explanation for it even while other symbols are explained carefully (Tabory, JPS Commentary, pp. 13–14). This is a telling difference indeed!
When we find similarities, we must consider the possibility that influence has moved in either direction, even in periods long after Jesus’ death. When we find differences, we must remember that not everything in these two traditions necessarily has much to do with the other.
If we cannot figure out precisely how Christians and Jews may have influenced each other with regard to Passover and the Last Supper, it becomes all the more difficult to figure out what the earliest practices of each may have been. All this in turn limits our ability to know what Jesus would have done on Passover night (had he lived another day). And the likelihood that Jesus died before that partially-prepared-for Passover had begun also renders it most unlikely that his Last Supper was even a celebration of Passover, let alone a Seder.
But why should historical skepticism ruin anyone’s holiday? Happy Easter and Chag Sameach (Hebrew for “Happy Holiday”) to any and all who celebrate!
“Jesus’ Last Supper Still Wasn’t a Passover Seder Meal” by Jonathan Klawans was originally published in Bible History Daily on February 12, 2016.
Jonathan Klawans is Professor of Religion at Boston University. He is the author of Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism (Oxford Univ. Press, 2012), Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (Oxford Univ. Press, 2005) and Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford Univ. Press, 2000), which received the Salo Wittmayer Baron Prize for the best first book in Jewish studies.
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Luke 22:7-23New International Version (NIV)
The Last Supper
7 Then came the day of UNLEAVENED BREAD on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8 Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”
9 “Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked.
10 He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, 11 and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 12 He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.”
13 They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.
14 When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. 15 And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
17 After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. 18 For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.[a] 21 But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. 22 The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed. But woe to that man who betrays him!” 23 They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this.
Footnotes:
This seems quite clear to me. The last supper was the passover meal. The scriptures DO mention unleavened bread and wine. Jesus was the lamb to be slain. Why the debate?
I note as well that as the Passover feast and ceremonies were well known they would not have been repeated in any detail in the gospel but clearly the “bones” of the celebration is obvious in the text.
Just Looking for something in English … All responses and explanations have Biblical language Which I cant understand. I want to know the truth of Gods past How come every where I go Nobody has a real or true answer To my question WHEN did Jesus die And When did he rise Come on We have lived for Centuries And don”t have an Answer >>>> Really ???
Visit this link for some information based on the scriptures about when did Jesus die. Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week – Sunday. https://brotheryo.blogspot.com/2013/03/v-behaviorurldefaultvmlo.html
The Seder during the time of Jesus was done on the wrong day. Jesus’s Seder was done on the correct day according to Exodus 12. The Jews had the Paschal Supper on the first day of Unleavened Bread or the day after Passover, which was not according to the Law of Moses. John’s gospel takes note of the Jews’ inconsistencies of the time and changes the name from the LORD’s Passover to the Jewish Passover. If Jesus didn’t keep the commands to eat the Passover on the correct day he broke the Law of Moses and was a sinner and not the Messiah.
Jesus and his group may have been the only ones that had passover right if the original Passover was under the sun calendar not these used to day . here’s a little proof when Moses and Aron were called out of there homes just after midnight Aron should have died if under today’s standards but he didn’t because under the sun calendar it was morning .there seems to be a concerted effort to hide this .but to do so would mean that possible truth might be lost . to walk with god you walk in truth and sacrificial love not not hiding it thru extortion .jim
Luke is very clear that the Last Supper WAS a genuine Passover Seder. This is our starting point. It is also the most complete record: Kiddush wine to start with, matzah broken and passed around (No Afikomen!!), a supper with the lamb that the disciples had procured and probably included the bitter herbs required in Exodus, and the glass of wine after the supper. This is the heart of the Seder. It is complete as is and can be used today. The current 15 part Seder and Haggadah narration booklet, if developed at Yavneh after 70 CE, then here is my conclusion: the 3-part matzah tas and 3 pieces of matzah, with the host breaking the middle one in two parts, passing one part around to be eaten and the other ‘buried’ in a napkin for later on after the supper to become the Afikomen…. all of this was started by Messianic Believers in Yeshua not very long after the Resurrection to illustrate the death, burial and Resurrection of Yeshua!! How did this become part of the Rabbinic Passover Seder?? The influence of the Messianic Believers in Jerusalem became very strong as their numbers approached a significant percentage of the Jerusalem population. For the most part, the Messianics were respected by the population and persecution came and went. James (Yaacov), leader of the Jerusalem Messianic Synagogue, was highly respected by the people to the point of jealousy such that he was murdered by non-believing Jewish leadership. I believe the 15 part Seder came from the Messianic Jewish Synagogue and was used widely by the population such that by post 70 CE, it had become the standard. The revamp of Judaism into the Rabbinic at Yavneh by Yochanan ben Zakhai & Co just continued on with the 15 part Seder that had become the standard by that time.
The reason why the synoptic gospels appear to be against John, in terms of when the Passover was kept, is because of a basic misunderstanding of how Passover evolved from its beginnings with Moses, down through to the first century.
The original Passover was celebrated *on the evening beginning Nisan 14th*, when the death angel passed through Egypt. The following evening was the “night to be much observed” and marked the beginning of the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a feast which lasted for a total of seven days. The original Passover was a family affair, kept at home.
In the time of King Hezekiah and again in the time of King Josiah, when the purity of the Israelites was an issue because of their sins, both Hezekiah and Josiah instituted a national observance. This observance required that the Israelites come to the Temple so that the priests could sacrifice the Passover lambs on their behalf, to avoid the issues with ritually impure people sacrificing their own Passover lambs and eating them at home.
This observance, together with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, was renamed “Passover”. The instructions in Deuteronomy 16 for the Feast of Unleavened Bread were edited to reflect the new usage of the term “Passover.” Here, we are told that the Israelites are to “sacrifice the Passover” in the “place where the Lord shall choose to place his name there” (Deut. 16:2) — e.g. in Jerusalem, at the Temple.
In Jesus’ day, there were many Jews who observed the national Passover by sacrificing at the Temple on the afternoon of Nisan 14th (in the bible, days are reckoned as beginning at evening and going from one evening to the next, so this afternoon was after the *evening* portion of Nisan 14th). But, there were also many Jews who kept the home-based observance. Jesus and his followers were among them.
The Gospel account of John noting that the day Jesus was crucified was the “preparation day of the Passover”. It was simply the “preparation day” of the national observance that began that evening. But Jesus and his followers had already eaten a Passover seder the previous night.
Why is every element of last supper confirmation that the last supper was not pesach, ie no lamb to eat, they wandered outside after meal, priests not commanded to slaughter lambs till the next day, bread is daily bread “ artos ” not unleavened “ lechem bread, contest rules out that it had to be unleavened ( could be but not required, pesach is family meal, , sandals on and ready becomes shoes off we some washing to do, when did the disciples go to prepare??? On the 13 or 14th of first month??? I can go forever because His paths are beyond tracing::::—- my question is , who started this nonsense anyways—-some one find a flaw in what I present….not something that just needs further diving into the text…tell me something from the scriptures that need the substance to to become an element in the shadow picture…???
Many years ago, my teacher, Rabbi Mayer Gruber, mentioned that in the Book of Jubilees there is mention of different Jewish calendars. He thought that might be a helpful approach to the conflict between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John. That is the Gospel of John is using the Jerusalem Temple calendar and the Synoptics are using a different Jewish calendar.
I agree that Christ didn’t eat the Passover Seder that year because He WAS to be the Passover Lamb. The Last Supper was not Passover Seder. It was the establishing of the New Covenant, which is Himself, i.e. “…new testament in my blood”.
His death was the end of the Old Covenant. He lamented about desiring to eat this Passover with them, knowing He wouldn’t because He would die before the meal w
Since the 7 feasts are “shadows” of the realities that were (Passover, Unleavened Bread, Wave Sheaf and Pentecost) and are to be (Trumpets, Day of Atonement and Tabernacles) fulfilled by Christ. They are important markers of the ministrations of Christ in Plan of Salvation.
I have read different write-ups about the dates, customs, calendars, etc, and they confuse my simple mind. So I look at what happened to Christ and see the spiritual intent behind each of the fulfilled spring festivals.
Jonathan Klawans writes:
“There is a real difference between John and the synoptics on this question, …”
So many people have believed that there is a difference in chronologies between the Synoptics and John. It’s just not so! The chronologies are in complete agreement, if one only reads what is written and not what they think is written.
————————-
For over 40 years, I believed that the Last Supper was not the biblical time for keeping Passover. About 35 years ago, I was compelled to study the issue in depth. My findings resulted in my need to change my practices for keeping Passover.
But since my Church believed that the Jews were in error, I could not use Jewish writings or commentaries as proof of the correct time. Thus, I had to rely upon the Bible, almost exclusively.
I did find the biblical proof that supports the Passover to be at the time of Jesus Christ’s death, and therefore, he could not have eaten it the night before.
Since then, I’ve found many proofs to support that conclusion. Here are two:
* Jesus said he would, by no means, eat this Passover (Luke 22:15-16).
* Jesus told his disciples to “prepare the passover” on the 13th–contrary to the command of God (Matthew 26:19-20; Mark 14:13-17) {“prepare the passover”, of course, was assumed to mean the killing of the Passover lamb; but that is proved contradictory in the end.}
When we understand that what Jesus meant by “this Passover” was in reference to the next day, not that meal set before him, the synchronicity of the Gospel accounts begins to clear.