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Tag: Jesus

Where Jesus fed the Multitude?

Where Jesus fed the Multitude?

A mosaic revealed during the excavation of the “Burnt Church” in Hippos. (photos by Michael Eisenberg via Ashernet)

A mosaic was revealed during the excavation of the “Burnt Church” in Hippos, which was built in the second half of the fifth or in the early sixth century CE and was probably burnt down during the Sasanian conquest in the beginning of the seventh century. According to the researchers, the descriptions in the mosaic, along with the location of the church, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, raise the connection to the “Feeding the Multitude,” the miracle performed by Jesus in the area, according to the New Testament. “There can certainly be different explanations to the descriptions of loaves and fish in the mosaic, but you cannot ignore the similarity to the description in the New Testament: for example, from the fact that the New Testament has a description of five loaves in a basket, or the two fish depicted in the apse, as we find in the mosaic,” said Dr. Michael Eisenberg, head of the excavation team in Hippos on behalf of the Institute of Archeology at the University of Haifa, along with colleague Arleta Kowalewska. The excavation of the church specifically was placed in the hands of Jessica Rentz from the United States, who has exposed its entire internal area.

photo - Part of the mosaic revealed during the excavation of the “Burnt Church” in HipposDuring the preservation process, headed by Yana Vitkalov from the Israel Antiquities Authority, most of the mosaic area was cleaned and preserved, and most of its decorations and two inscriptions in Greek were exposed. The first one tells about the two fathers of the church, Theodoros and Petros, constructing a sanctuary for a martyr, while the second one, which is located inside a medallion at the centre of the mosaic, exposes the name of the martyr, Theodoros. An initial reading of the inscriptions was done by Dr. Gregor Staab from the University of Cologne in Germany, expedition epigraphist.

Eisenberg continues to be cautious about the interpretation of the new mosaic. “Nowadays, we tend to regard the Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha, on the northwest of the Sea of Galilee, as the location of the miracle, but with careful reading of the New Testament, it is evident that it might have taken place north of Hippos within the city’s region.”

 

Format ImagePosted on September 13, 2019September 10, 2019Author Edgar AsherCategories IsraelTags archeology, Christianity, Hippos, history, Jesus, University of Haifa
Was the Last Supper a seder?

Was the Last Supper a seder?

“The Last Supper,” by Juan de Juanes (also known as Vicente Juan Masip), circa 1562, housed in Prado Museum. (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Nearly every year around the time of the Jewish holiday of Passover and the Christian holiday of Easter, theologians and historians start to ask the same question. Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Passover seder?

“It is all very mysterious,” said Rabbi Raymond Apple, rabbi emeritus of the Great Synagogue in Sydney, Australia.

Let’s start with the facts. There are four accounts in the New Testament that refer to the Last Supper with reference to the Passover holiday. They are Mark 14:12-31, Matthew 26:17-30, Luke 22:1-19 and John 13:1-30. But Mark, Matthew and Luke are synoptic Gospels, which means they are closely related and best studied together, making the three Gospels – according to Jonathan Klawans, a professor in Boston University’s department of religion – “one testimony, which was then copied twice.”

“Mark … fashioned and inserted a single ‘Passover’ paragraph (14:12-16) … between what we identify as 14:11-17,” explained author Michael J. Cook, a professor of Judeo-Christian studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. “So, the entire problem resides with Mark’s text.”

According to Mark’s text, Jesus prepared for the Last Supper on “the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb.”

We know that the Passover lamb was sacrificed on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan, and consumed by Jewish families either on that night or the onset of the 15th day of Nissan.

Klawans notes that there are those who can cite no fewer than 14 parallels between the account described in Mark and the modern-day Passover seder. These include the bread and wine, the hymn or blessings that were recited and the reclining diners. Jews at their seders discuss the symbolism of the Passover meal; Jesus at his Last Supper discussed the symbolism of the wine (“This is the blood of my covenant”) and the bread (“Take, eat; this is my body”).

Nonetheless, scholars Klawans, Apple and Cook all do not believe that Jesus’ Last Supper was a Passover seder, for several reasons.

For starters, the parallels that can be drawn seem to be those that are general, rather than decisive. It would not be uncanny for Jesus to eat a meal with his disciples in Jerusalem. During that meal, they would have reclined, broken bread, drank wine and possibly even sang a hymn.

“Such behavior may have been characteristic of the Passover meal, but it is equally characteristic of practically any Jewish meal [at the time],” said Klawans.

Some key Passover elements are missing from the Last Supper: the Passover lamb, references to matzah (unleavened bread), the bitter herbs, charoset, the four cups of wine, the recitation of the Four Questions and the narrative retelling of the Passover story.

Moreover, the parallels drawn between the Last Supper and the Passover seder ritual we celebrate today assume that the seder as we know it was celebrated in Jesus’ day. But this is not the case. Nearly all scholars agree that the modern Passover Haggadah and the rabbinic accounts of Passover traditions all emanate from after the destruction of the first Jewish Temple in the year 70 CE. The Gospels date Jesus’ ministry from around 26 CE to early 37 CE, with Jesus’ death coming between 30 and 33 CE.

“At that time, the core element of the Passover observance had been Jerusalem’s sacrificial cult, from 621 BCE up until 70 CE,” said Cook. “Jewish families brought lambs for sacrifice on the Temple altar as biblically prescribed.… For the ceremony, the kohanim (Jewish priests) conducted the sacrificial rite. Then families retrieved and consumed their meat as part of their Passover meal, which also included unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The Passover meals Jesus experienced in his lifetime would have had to be along these Temple-centred lines.”

Klawans said many people assume that Jesus ate matzah at his Last Supper because Catholics eat wafers as their Eucharist bread. The custom of using wafers, however, does not date back as far as one might think, but rather only to medieval times. The oldest customs in Orthodox Christian churches involve bread, and the New Testament describes bread, not unleavened bread.

“There is no reason to think the bread was matzah unless that was specified,” Klawans said.

Additionally, Klawans said it is impractical for Jesus’ crucifixion to have taken place on Passover, as the Sanhedrin (Jewish High Court of 70 elders) would not have worked on the yom tov, which was already one of the Israelites’ most important pilgrimage festivals.

Read more at jns.org.

Format ImagePosted on April 15, 2016April 13, 2016Author Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman JNS.ORGCategories Celebrating the HolidaysTags Jesus, Last Supper, Passover, seder
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