So It Shall Be Written...

Happy Easter everyone. It has been a weekend of holiday celebration with family, starting on Friday night with the first of two Passover Seders. Being in an interfaith relationship, it is interesting to think about both holidays, especially when they fall as closely as they do this year.


I appreciate the rituals of Passover, and it certainly inspires a lot of discussion about interpretation−these are ancient traditions that I think existed before they were ever written down (in The Haggadah). Considering my own Christian background, I am interested in the areas of overlap between the two religions; one big question that came up over the weekend: was The Last Supper actually a Seder?

The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci, 1495-1498.
Samta Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy

Jonathan Klawans, assistant professor of religion at Boston University, has offered a very detailed analysis of this debated question in the Biblical Archaeology Review. Klawas points out that three of the four canonical Gospels suggest that the Last Supper did occur on Passover:  


"The three Gospels that support this view are the three synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark and Luke. As anyone who has studied these three Gospels knows, they are closely related. In fact, the name synoptic refers to the fact that these three texts can be studied most effectively when “seen together”... Thus, in fact we don’t really have three independent sources here at all. What we have, rather, is one testimony (probably Mark), which was then copied twice (by Matthew and Luke)."


In contrast, consider the Gospel of John, which dates Jesus' crucifixion to the day of Preparation for the Passover.


"According to John, Jesus died just when the Passover sacrifice was being offered and before the festival began at sundown (see the sidebar to this article). Any last meal—which John does not record—would have taken place the night before, or even earlier than that. But it certainly could not have been a Passover meal, for Jesus died before the holiday had formally begun."


I am no theologian, but I find it all quite interesting... even more so as I start to learn more about the Jewish faith. It might be a good time for me to re-read The Bible (which I haven't really studied since confirmation and a brief religions class during college). Time to get straight on my own background, as I start to understand that which my future wife has learned.

April 9, 2012 cover of
Newsweek. All rights reserved.

On that note, there is an interesting cover story in this week's Newsweek. Forget the "hipster Jesus" on the cover, and go straight to the article, The Forgotten Jesus, which looks at how  Christianity has been given a bad name by politics, priests, and evangelists. 


Writer Andrew Sullivan further brings in to question the idea of interpretation; he tells of Thomas Jefferson, who at age 77 edited his own copy of The Bible, removing all the passages from the New Testament that he felt reflected the actual teachings of Jesus; he left behind what he felt were the "misconceptions" of Jesus' followers, including the writers of the four Gospels (the 18th century Bible is on view through May 28 at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History). 


Sullivan writes that Jefferson considered himself a true disciple of the doctrines of Jesus:


"...Not the supernatural claims that, fused with politics and power, gave successive generations wars, inquisitions, pogroms, reformations, and counterreformations. Jesus’ doctrines were the practical commandments, the truly radical ideas that immediately leap out in the simple stories he told and which he exemplified in everything he did. Not simply love one another, but love your enemy and forgive those who harm you; give up all material wealth; love the ineffable Being behind all things, and know that this Being is actually your truest Father, in whose image you were made. Above all: give up power over others, because power, if it is to be effective, ultimately requires the threat of violence, and violence is incompatible with the total acceptance and love of all other human beings that is at the sacred heart of Jesus’ teaching. That’s why, in his final apolitical act, Jesus never defended his innocence at trial, never resisted his crucifixion, and even turned to those nailing his hands to the wood on the cross and forgave them, and loved them."


It is easy to get embarrassed about how Christianity is perceived by much of the public, thanks in no small part by the interpretation of certain politicians and radical fundamentalists. Reading this article and thinking about the true meaning of the Easter holiday, reminds me how very cool the other JC was indeed...


Related articles: 


"Christianity in Crisis," Newsweek, April 2, 2012


"How Thomas Jefferson Created His Own Bible," Smithsonian, January 2012


"Was Jesus' Last Supper a Seder?" Biblical Archaeology Review, March 2010


"Was the Last Supper a Passover Seder?" Huffington Post, April 5, 2012