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Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?

Jonathan Klawans — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 11:00:41 +0000

Read Jonathan Klawans’s article “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?” as it originally appeared in Bible Review, October 2001. Klawans also wrote a follow-up article, “Jesus’ Last Supper Still Wasn’t a Passover Seder Meal.” —Ed.

Traditional Views of Jesus’ Last Supper as a Passover Meal

With his disciples gathered around him, Jesus partakes of his Last Supper. The meal in this late-15th-century painting by the Spanish artist known only as the Master of Perea consists of lamb, unleavened bread and wine—all elements of the Seder feast celebrated on the first night of the Jewish Passover festival. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke appear to present Jesus’ Last Supper as a Seder. In John, however, the seven-day Passover festival does not begin until after Jesus is crucified. Jonathan Klawans suggests that the Passover Seder as we know it developed only after the time of Jesus. Christie’s Images/Superstock

Many people assume that Jesus’ Last Supper was a Seder, a ritual meal held in celebration of the Jewish holiday of Passover. And indeed, according to the Gospel of Mark 14:12, Jesus prepared for the Last Supper on the “first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb.” If Jesus and his disciples gathered together to eat soon after the Passover lamb was sacrificed, what else could they possibly have eaten if not the Passover meal? And if they ate the Passover sacrifice, they must have held a Seder.

Three out of four of the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) agree that the Last Supper was held only after the Jewish holiday had begun. Moreover, one of the best known and painstakingly detailed studies of the Last Supper—Joachim Jeremias’s book The Eucharistic Words of Jesus—lists no fewer than 14 distinct parallels between the Last Supper tradition and the Passover Seder.¹

The Passover Seder and Sacrifice

The Jewish holiday of Passover commemorates the Exodus from Egypt. The roots of the festival are found in Exodus 12, in which God instructs the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb at twilight on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan, before the sun sets (Exodus 12:18). That night the Israelites are to eat the lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The lamb’s blood should be swabbed on their doorposts as a sign. God, seeing the sign, will then “pass over” the houses of the Israelites (Exodus 12:13), while smiting the Egyptians with the tenth plague, the killing of the first-born sons.

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A San Francisco seder. California Rabbi Jack Frankel and his family lift the first glass of wine during a Seder meal, held on the first night of Passover (and the second night in the Diaspora). The Seder commemorates the Exodus from Egypt. Throughout the meal, the biblical story is retold; the food is linked symbolically with the Exodus. Photo by Rodger Ressmeyer, San Francisco/Corbis.

Exodus 12 commands the Israelites to repeat this practice every year, performing the sacrifice during the day and then consuming it after the sun has set. (According to Jewish tradition, the new day begins with the setting of the sun, so the sacrifice is made on the 14th but the beginning of Passover and the meal are actually on the 15th, although this sequence of dates is not specified in Exodus.) Exodus 12 further speaks of a seven-day festival, which begins when the sacrifice is consumed (Exodus 12:15).

Once the Israelites were settled in Israel, and once a Temple was built in Jerusalem, the original sacrifice described in Exodus 12 changed dramatically. Passover became one of the Jewish Pilgrimage festivals, and Israelites were expected to travel to Jerusalem to sacrifice a Passover lamb at the Temple during the afternoon of the 14th day, and then consume the Passover sacrifice once the sun had set, and the festival had formally begun on the 15th. This kind of celebration is described as having taken place during the reigns of Kings Hezekiah and Josiah (2 Chronicles 30 and 35).

As time passed, the practice continued to evolve. Eventually, a number of customs, recorded in rabbinic literature, began to accumulate around the meal, which became so highly ritualized that it was called the Seder, from the Hebrew for “order”: Unleavened bread was broken, wine was served, the diners reclined and hymns were sung. Furthermore, during the meal, the Exodus story was retold and the significance of the unleavened bread, bitter herbs and wine was explained.

The bread and wine, the hymn, the reclining diners—many of these characteristic elements are shared by the Last Supper, as Jeremias pointed out. (Jeremias’s 14 parallels are given in full in endnote 1.) What is more, just as Jews at the Seder discuss the symbolism of the Passover meal, Jesus at his Last Supper discussed the symbolism of the wine and bread in light of his own coming death.

It is not only Jeremias’s long list of parallels that leads many modern Christians and Jews to describe the Last Supper as a Passover Seder. The recent popularity of interfaith Seders (where Christians and Jews celebrate aspects of Passover and the Last Supper together) points to an emotional impulse that is also at work here. The Christian celebration of the Eucharist (Communion)—the Last Supper—is the fundamental ritual for many Christians. And among Jews the Passover Seder is one of the most widely practiced of all observances. In these times of ecumenicism and general good feeling between Christians and Jews, many people seem to find it reassuring to think that Communion (the Eucharist) and the Passover Seder are historically related.

Historical Doubts about Jesus’ Last Supper as a Passover Seder

History, however, is often more complex and perhaps a little less comforting than we might hope. Although I welcome the current ecumenical climate, I believe we must be careful not to let our emotions get the better of us when we are searching for history. Indeed, even though the association of the Last Supper with a Passover Seder remains entrenched in the popular mind, a growing number of scholars are beginning to express serious doubts about this claim.

Of course a number of New Testament scholars—the Jesus Seminar comes to mind—tend to doubt that the Gospels accurately record very much at all about Jesus, with the exception of some of his sayings. Obviously if the Gospels cannot be trusted, then we have no reason to assume that there ever was a Last Supper at all. And if there was no Last Supper, then it could not have taken place on Passover.²

The sacrifice of the Passover lamb is conducted annually on Mt. Gerizim, in Nablus (ancient Shechem), in the West Bank, by the Samaritans, a religious group that split from Judaism by the second century B.C.E. The Samaritans retained the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) as their Scripture, although with some alterations. The Samaritan Bible refers to Mt. Gerizim, not Jerusalem, as the center of worship. David Harris.

Furthermore, several Judaic studies scholars—Jacob Neusner is a leading example—very much doubt that rabbinic texts can be used in historical reconstructions of the time of Jesus. But rabbinic literature is our main source of information about what Jews might have done during their Seder meal in ancient times. For reasons that are not entirely clear, other ancient Jewish sources, such as Josephus and Philo, focus on what Jews did in the Temple when the Passover sacrifice was offered, rather than on what they did afterward, when they actually ate the sacrifice. Again, if we cannot know how Jews celebrated Passover at the time of Jesus, then we have to plead ignorance, and we would therefore be unable to answer our question.

There is something to be said for these skeptical positions, but I am not such a skeptic. I want to operate here under the opposite assumptions: that the Gospels can tell us about the historical Jesus,³ and that rabbinic sources can be used—with caution—to reconstruct what Jews at the time of Jesus might have believed and practiced.⁴ Even so, I do not think the Last Supper was a Passover Seder.

Read "Did Jesus Exist? Searching for Evidence Beyond the Bible" by Lawrence Mykytiuk from the January/February 2015 issue of BAR >>

Jesus’ Last Supper in the Gospels

While three of the four canonical Gospels strongly suggest that the Last Supper did occur on Passover, we should not get too comfortable based on that. 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” (as implied in the Greek etymology of synoptic). 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).

Against the “single” testimony of the synoptics that the Last Supper was a Passover meal stands the lone Gospel of John, which dates the crucifixion to the “day of Preparation for the Passover” (John 19:14). 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.

So are we to follow John or the synoptics?⁵ There are a number of problems with the synoptic account. First, if the Last Supper had been a Seder held on the first night of Passover, then that would mean Jesus’ trial and crucifixion took place during the week-long holiday. If indeed Jewish authorities were at all involved in Jesus’ trial and death, then according to the synoptics those authorities would have engaged in activities—holding trials and carrying out executions—that were either forbidden or certainly unseemly to perform on the holiday. This is not the place to consider whether Jewish authorities were involved in Jesus’ death.⁶ Nor is it the place to consider whether such authorities would have been devout practitioners of Jewish law. But this is the place to point out that if ancient Jewish authorities had been involved in something that could possibly be construed as a violation of Jewish law, the Gospels—with their hatred of the Jewish authorities—would probably have made the most of it. The synoptic account stretches credulity, not just because it depicts something unlikely, but because it fails to recognize the unlikely and problematic nature of what it depicts. It is almost as if the synoptic tradition has lost all familiarity with contemporary Jewish practice. And if they have lost familiarity with that, they have probably lost familiarity with reliable historical information as well.

There are, of course, some reasons to doubt John’s account too. He may well have had theological motivations for claiming that Jesus was executed on the day of preparation when the Passover sacrifice was being offered but before Passover began at sundown. John’s timing of events supports the Christian claim that Jesus himself was a sacrifice and that his death heralds a new redemption, just as the Passover offering recalls an old one. Even so, John’s claim that Jesus was killed just before Passover began is more plausible than the synoptics’ claim that Jesus was killed on Passover. And if Jesus wasn’t killed on Passover, but before it (as John claims), then the Last Supper could not in fact have been a Passover Seder.

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A Jewish Last Supper Celebration

What then of Jeremias’s long list of parallels? It turns out that under greater scrutiny the parallels are too general to be decisive. That Jesus ate a meal in Jerusalem, at night, with his disciples is not so surprising. It is also no great coincidence that during this meal the disciples reclined, ate both bread and wine, and sang a hymn. While such behavior may have been characteristic of the Passover meal, it is equally characteristic of practically any Jewish meal.

A number of scholars now believe that the ritual context for the Last Supper was not a Seder but a standard Jewish meal. That Christians celebrated the Eucharist on a daily or weekly basis (see Acts 2:46–47) underscores the fact that it was not viewed exclusively in a Passover context (otherwise, it would have been performed, like the Passover meal, on an annual basis).

An ancient Christian church manual called the Didache also suggests that the Last Supper may have been an ordinary Jewish meal. In Chapters 9 and 10 of the Didache, the eucharistic prayers are remarkably close to the Jewish Grace After Meals (Birkat ha-Mazon).⁷ While these prayers are recited after the Passover meal, they would in fact be recited at any meal at which bread was eaten, holiday or not. Thus, this too underscores the likelihood that the Last Supper was an everyday Jewish meal.

Moreover, while the narrative in the synoptics situates the Last Supper during Passover, the fact remains that the only foods we are told the disciples ate are bread and wine—the basic elements of any formal Jewish meal. If this was a Passover meal, where is the Passover lamb? Where are the bitter herbs? Where are the four cups of wine?^a

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The Symbolic Explanation of the Bread and Wine at Passover and Jesus’ Last Supper

We are left with only one important parallel (Jeremias’s 14th) that can be explained in terms of a Seder: the surprising fact that Jesus at his Last Supper engaged in symbolic explanation of the bread and wine, just as Jews at the Seder engage in symbolic explanations, interpreting aspects of the Passover meal in light of the Exodus from Egypt: “Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant’” (Matthew 26:26–28=Mark 14:22; see also Luke 22:19–20). Is this not a striking parallel to the ways in which Jews celebrating the Seder interpret, for example, the bitter herbs eaten with the Passover sacrifice as representing the bitter life the Israelites experienced as slaves in Egypt?

However, this last parallel between the Last Supper and the Passover Seder assumes that the Seder ritual we know today was celebrated in Jesus’ day. But this is hardly the case.

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The Development of the Modern Passover Seder

When Jews today sit down to celebrate the Passover Seder, they use a book known as the Haggadah. The Hebrew word haggadah literally means “telling”; the title refers to the book’s purpose: to provide the ordered framework through which the story of Passover is told at the Seder. Telling the story of Passover is, of course, one of the fundamental purposes of the celebration, as stated in Exodus 13:8: “And you shall tell your child on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I went forth from Egypt.’”

The text on this particular page from an illuminated Haggadah created by Zeev Raban (1890–1970) provides rabbinic commentary on a Biblical passage relating to Israel’s sojourn in Egypt. After discussing Jacob’s journey to Egypt, the text continues, “‘And he lived there’—this teaches that our father Jacob did not go to Egypt to settle there permanently, just temporarily, as it is written: ‘And the sons of Jacob said to Pharaoh: “We have come to live in this land temporarily, for there is no pasture for the flocks that belong to your servants, for the famine is harsh in the land of Canaan”’” (quoting Genesis 47:4). From the Raban Haggadah/Courtesy of Mali Doron.

The traditional text of the Haggadah as it exists today incorporates a variety of material, starting with the Bible, and running through medieval songs and poems. For many Jews (especially non-Orthodox Jews), the process of development continues, and many modern editions of the Haggadah contain contemporary readings of one sort or another. Even many traditional Jews have, for instance, adapted the Haggadah so that mention can be made of the Holocaust.⁸

How much of the Haggadah goes back to ancient times? In the 1930s and 1940s, the American Talmud scholar Louis Finkelstein (1895–1991) famously claimed that various parts of the Passover Haggadah were very early, stemming in part from the third century B.C.E.⁹ In 1960, Israeli scholar Daniel Goldschmidt (1895–1972) effectively rebutted practically all of Finkelstein’s claims. It is unfortunate that Goldschmidt’s Hebrew article has not been translated, because it remains, to my mind, the classic work on the early history of the Passover Haggadah.¹⁰ Fortunately, a number of brief and up-to-date treatments of the history of the Haggadah are now available.¹¹ A full generation later, the Goldschmidt-Finkelstein debate seems to have been settled, and in Goldschmidt’s favor. Almost everyone doing serious work on the early history of Passover traditions, including Joseph Tabory, Israel Yuval, Lawrence Hoffman, and the father-son team of Shmuel and Ze’ev Safrai, has rejected Finkelstein’s claims for the great antiquity of the bulk of the Passover Haggadah. What is particularly significant about this consensus is that these scholars are not radical skeptics. These scholars believe that, generally speaking, we can extract historically reliable information from rabbinic sources. But as demonstrated by the late Baruch Bokser in his book The Origins of the Seder, practically everything preserved in the early rabbinic traditions concerning the Passover Seder brings us back to the time immediately following the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.¹² It’s not that rabbinic literature cannot be trusted to tell us about history in the first century of the Common Era. It’s that rabbinic literature—in the case of the Seder—does not even claim to be telling us how the Seder was performed before the destruction of the Temple.^b

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Let me elaborate on this proposition by examining the Haggadah’s requirement of explaining the Passover symbols:

Rabban Gamaliel used to say: Whoever does not make mention of the following three things on Passover has not fulfilled his obligation: namely, the Passover sacrifice, unleavened bread (matzah) and bitter herbs.

(1) The Passover sacrifice, which our ancestors used to eat at the time when the Holy Temple stood—what is the reason? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, passed over the houses of our ancestors in Egypt. As it is said, “It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover…” (Exodus 12:27).

(2) The unleavened bread, which we eat—what is the reason? Because the dough of our ancestors had not yet leavened when the King of Kings, the Holy One Blessed be He revealed Himself to them and redeemed them. As it is said, “And they baked unleavened cakes…” (Exodus 12:39).

(3) These bitter herbs, which we eat—what is the reason? Because the Egyptians made the lives of our ancestors bitter in Egypt. As it is said, “And they made their lives bitter…” (Exodus 1:14).

Read Andrew McGowan’s article “The Hungry Jesus,” in which he challenges the tradition that Jesus was a welcoming host at meals, in Bible History Daily.

Rabban Gamaliel instructs his students in this illumination from the Sarajevo Haggadah. The Haggadah credits Gamaliel with introducing the requirement that the symbolic significance of the food served during the Seder be explained during the meal. Some scholars who assume the Last Supper was a Seder have suggested that Jesus deliberately explained the significance of the bread and wine in fulfillment of this requirement. But the requirement may not have even been in place in the time of Jesus. There were two leaders of the rabbinic academy called Gamaliel: One lived around the time of Jesus; the other, after the Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. Sarajevo National Museum.

On first reading, Jeremias might appear to be correct: Jesus’ explanation of the bread and the wine does seem similar to Rabban Gamaliel’s explanation of the Passover symbols. Might not Jesus be presenting a competing interpretation of these symbols? Possibly. But it really depends on when this Rabban Gamaliel lived. If he lived later than Jesus, then it would make no sense to view Jesus’ words as based on Rabban Gamaliel’s.

Unfortunately for the contemporary historian, there were two rabbis named Gamaliel, both of whom bore the title “rabban” (which means “our master” and was usually applied to the head of the rabbinic academy). The first lived decadesbefore the destruction of the Temple, according to rabbinic tradition.¹³ It is this Gamaliel who is referred to in Acts 22:3, in which Paul is said to have claimed that he was educated “at the feet of Gamaliel.” The second Rabban Gamaliel was, according to rabbinic tradition, the grandson of the elder Gamaliel. This Gamaliel served as head of the rabbinic academy sometime after the destruction of the Temple. Virtually all scholars working today believe that the Haggadah tradition attributing the words quoted above to Gamaliel refers to the grandson, Rabban Gamaliel the Younger, who lived long after Jesus had died.¹⁴ One piece of evidence for this appears in the text quoted above, in which Rabban Gamaliel is said to have spoken of the time “when the Temple was still standing”—as if that time had already passed. Furthermore, as Baruch Bokser has shown, the bulk of early rabbinic material pertaining to the Passover Haggadah is attributed in the Haggadah itself to figures who lived immediately following the destruction of the Temple (and were therefore contemporaries of Gamaliel the Younger). Finally, a tradition preserved in the Tosefta (a rabbinic companion volume to the earliest rabbinic lawbook, the Mishnah, edited perhaps in the third or fourth century) suggests that Gamaliel the Younger played some role in Passover celebrations soon after the Temple was destroyed, when animal sacrifices could for this reason no longer be offered.¹⁵

Thus, the Passover Seder as we know it developed after 70 C.E. I wish we could know more about how the Passover meal was celebrated before the Temple was destroyed. But unfortunately, our sources do not answer this question with any certainty. Presumably, Jesus and his disciples would have visited the Temple to slaughter their Passover sacrifice. Then they would have consumed it along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, as required by the Book of Exodus. And presumably they would have engaged in conversation pertinent to the occasion. But we cannot know for sure.

According to scholar Jonathan Klawans, ancient Jews—including the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes—cared as much about matters of Jewish theology as about laws and practices. Read more >>

Why the Synoptic Gospels Portray the Last Supper as a Passover Meal

Having determined that the Last Supper was not a Seder and that it probably did not take place on Passover, I must try to account for why the synoptic Gospels portray the Last Supper as a Passover meal. Of course, the temporal proximity of Jesus’ crucifixion (and with it, the Last Supper) to the Jewish Passover provides one motive: Surely this historical coincidence could not be dismissed as just that.

Another motive relates to a rather practical question: Within a few years after Jesus’ death, Christian communities (which at first consisted primarily of Jews) began to ask when, how and even whether they should celebrate or commemorate the Jewish Passover.¹⁶ This was a question not only early on, but throughout the time of the so-called Quartodeciman controversy. The Quartodecimans (the 14-ers) were Christians who believed that the date of Easter should be calculated so as to coincide with the Jewish celebration of Passover, whether or not that date fell on a Sunday. The Jewish calendar was (and is) lunar, and therefore there is always a full moon on the night of the Passover Seder, that is, the night following the 14th of Nisan. But that night is not always a Saturday night. The Quartodeciman custom of celebrating Easter beginning on the evening following the 14th day apparently began relatively early in Christian history and persisted at least into the fifth century C.E. The alternate view—that Easter must be on a Sunday, regardless of the day on which the Jewish Passover falls—ultimately prevailed. Possibly the Gospels’ disagreements about the timing of the Last Supper were the result of these early Christian disputes about when Easter should be celebrated. After all, if you wanted to encourage Christians to celebrate Easter on Passover, would it not make sense to emphasize the fact that Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples just before he died?

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Related to the question of when Christians should recall Jesus’ last days was a question of how they should be recalled. Early on, a number of Christians—Quartodecimans and others—felt that the appropriate way to mark the Jewish Passover was not with celebration, but with fasting. On the one hand, this custom reflected an ancient Jewish tradition of fasting during the time immediately preceding the Passover meal (as related in Mishnah Pesachim 10:1). On the other hand, distinctively Christian motives for this fast can also be identified, from recalling Jesus’ suffering on the cross to praying for the eventual conversion of the Jews.¹⁷

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.

Jesus is the Paschal lamb in the Gospel of John, which associates the crucifixion, rather than the Last Supper, with the Passover festival. According to John, Jesus died on the “day of Preparation for the Passover” (John 19:14), when the Passover sacrifice was being offered but before the festival began at sundown.
In Matthias Gruenewald’s altarpiece (1510–1516) for the monastery of Isenheim, Germany (but now in the Unterlinden Museum, in Colmar), the crucified Jesus is explicitly linked with the Paschal sacrifice. To the right of the cross stands a wounded lamb, which carries a cross and bleeds into a chalice. The disciple whom Jesus loved comforts Jesus’ mother at left. Mary Magdalene kneels at the foot of the cross, her alabaster ointment jar beside her. At right, John the Baptist points to Jesus. His prediction that Jesus will overtake him (“He must increase, but I must decrease,” John 3:30) is inscribed beside him in Latin. Giraudon/Art Resource, NY.

The German New Testament scholar Karl Georg Kuhn has argued that the Gospel of Luke places the Last Supper in a Passover context in order to convince Christians not to celebrate Passover. He notes that the synoptic Last Supper tradition attributes to Jesus a rather curious statement of abstinence: “I have earnestly desired to eat this Paschal lamb with you before I suffer, for I tell you that I shall not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God…[and] I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes” (Luke 22:15–18; cf. Mark 14:25 [“I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God”]=Matthew 26:29). The synoptics’ placement of the Last Supper in a Passover context should be read along with Jesus’ statement on abstinence; in this view, the tradition that the Last Supper was a Passover meal argues that Christians should mark the Passover not by celebrating, but by fasting, because Jesus has already celebrated his last Passover.¹⁸ Thus, until Jesus’ kingdom is fulfilled, Christians should not celebrate at all during Passover.

New Testament scholar Bruce Chilton recently presented an alternate theory. He argues that the identification of the Last Supper with a Passover Seder originated among Jewish Christians who were attempting to maintain the Jewish character of early Easter celebrations.¹⁹ By calling the Last Supper a Passover meal, these Jewish-Christians were trying to limit Christian practice in three ways. Like the Passover sacrifice, the recollection of the Last Supper could only be celebrated in Jerusalem, at Passover time, and by Jews.^c

Without deciding between these two contradictory alternatives (though Kuhn’s is in my mind more convincing), we can at least agree that there are various reasons why the early church would have tried to “Passoverize” the Last Supper tradition.²⁰ Placing the Last Supper in the context of Passover was a literary tool in early Christian debates about whether or not and how Christians should celebrate Passover.

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Other examples of Passoverization can be identified. The Gospel of John, as previously noted, and Paul (1 Corinthians 5:7–8) equate Jesus’ crucifixion with the Passover sacrifice: “Our Paschal lamb, Christ has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” This too is a Passoverization of the Jesus tradition, but it is one that contradicts the identification of the Last Supper with the Seder or Passover meal.

Both of these Passoverizations can be placed in the broader context of Exodus typology in general. W.D. Davies and N.T. Wright have argued that various New Testament sources depict the events of Jesus’ life as a new Exodus. Early Christians interpreted Jesus’ life and death in light of the ancient Jewish narrative of redemption par excellence, the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Surely the depiction of the Last Supper as a Passover observance could play a part in this larger effort of arguing that Jesus’ death echoes the Exodus from Egypt.²¹

This process of Passoverization did not end with the New Testament. The second-century bishop Melito of Sardis (in Asia Minor) once delivered a widely popular Paschal sermon, which could well be called a “Christian Haggadah,” reflecting at great length on the various connections between the Exodus story and the life of Jesus.²²

Passoverization can even be found in the Middle Ages. Contrary to popular belief, the Catholic custom of using unleavened wafers in the Mass is medieval in origin. The Orthodox churches preserve the earlier custom of using leavened bread.²³ Is it not possible to see the switch from using leavened to unleavened bread as a “Passoverization” of sorts?

Was the Last Supper a Passover Seder? Most likely, it was not.

Interested in Jesus’ Judaism? The Bible History Daily post “Was Jesus a Jew?” includes the full article “What Price the Uniqueness of Jesus?: To wrench Jesus out of his Jewish world destroys Jesus and destroys Christianity.” by Anthony J. Saldarini as it originally appeared in Bible Review.

When Passover Begins: The Synoptics versus John

	14th of Nisan (Ending at Sundown)	15th of Nisan (Beginning at Sundown)
	Day of Preparation for Passover. Passover lamb sacrificed in late afternoon.	Passover holiday begins and a festive Seder meal is held at night. Passover lamb is consumed.
Matthew 26–27, Mark 14–15 and Luke 22–23	Jesus and his disciples prepare for Passover.	Jesus and his disciples hold a Last Supper at the time of the Passover Seder. Jesus is arrested that night. He is killed the next morning, which is the day of the 15th of Nisan.
John 19	Jesus crucified while the Passover lambs are being sacrificed. (The Last Supper is not mentioned by John, but it would have taken place the night before the crucifixion or even earlier.)

“Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?” by Jonathan Klawans originally appeared in Bible Review, October 2001. The article was first republished in Bible History Daily in October 2012.

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.

Notes

a. Some may also ask, where is the unleavened bread? The Gospels do not specify that Jesus fed his disciples unleavened bread, which is what Jews would eat at Passover. This however does not preclude the possibility that Jesus used unleavened bread at the Last Supper, as Jews commonly refer to unleavened bread (called in Hebrew, matzah) as simply “bread.” See, for example, Deuteronomy 16:3 and Nahum N. Glatzer, The Passover Haggadah (New York: Schocken Books, 1981), pp. 24, 64.

b. See Baruch Bokser, “Was the Last Supper a Passover Seder?” Bible Review, Summer 1987.

c. See Bruce Chilton, “The Eucharist—Exploring Its Origins,” Bible Review, December 1994.

1. The book first appeared in 1935 and was revised and translated various times after that. The 14 parallels are listed in the 1960 third edition, which was translated into English in 1966. See Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, 3rd ed. (London: SCM Press, 1966), esp. pp. 42–61. His 14 parallels may be summarized as follows: (1) The Last Supper took place in Jerusalem, (2) in a room made available to pilgrims for that purpose, and (3) it was held during the night. (4) Jesus celebrated that meal with his “family” of disciples; and (5) while they ate, they reclined. (6) This meal was eaten in a state of ritual purity. (7) Bread was broken during the meal and not just at the beginning. (8) Wine was consumed and (9) this wine was red. (10) There were last-minute preparations for the meal, after which (11) alms were given, and (12) a hymn was sung. (13) Jesus and his disciples then remained in Jerusalem. Finally, (14) Jesus discussed the symbolic significance of the meal, just as Jews do during the Passover Seder. For brief surveys summarizing the question see Robert F. O’Toole, “Last Supper,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1992), vol. 4, pp. 235–236 and Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), pp. 423–427.

2. For a representative statement denying the historicity of the Last Supper traditions, see Robert W. Funk and The Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), p. 139.

3. For an excellent treatment of what we can and cannot know of the historical Jesus, see the recent book by my colleague Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999).

4. For an excellent summary of Judaism in Jesus’ time—one which makes judicious use of rabbinic evidence—see E.P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 B.C.E.–66 C.E. (London: SCM Press, 1992). For more on the use of rabbinic sources, see Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1977), esp. pp. 59–84.

5. There are those who attempt to harmonize John and the synoptics by supposing that they disagreed not about when the Last Supper occurred, but about whether the date of Passover was supposed to be calculated by following a solar calendar or a lunar one. Annie Jaubert presents this theory in her book, The Date of the Last Supper (Staten Island: Alba House, 1965). This view cannot be accepted, however. It is too difficult to conceive of Passover having been celebrated twice in the same place without any contemporary or even later writer referring to such an event. Surely it would have been remarkable if two Passovers were held in the same week! Moreover, while we do know of solar calendars from the Book of Jubilees and the Temple Scroll, we do not know how any of these calendars really worked. Jubilees’s calendar, for instance, explicitly prohibits any form of intercalation (the adding of extra days in a leap year). And without intercalation, by Jesus’ time, Jubilees’s 364-day solar calendar would be off not just by days, but by months. It is only by hypothesizing some manner of intercalation that we can even come up with the possibility that in Jesus’ time the two calendars were both functioning, but off by just a few days. Thus in the end, Jaubert’s book presents a good theory, but it remains just that, a theory. For more on these questions, see James C. VanderKam, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Measuring Time (London: Routledge, 1998).

6. On the question of Jewish authorities and their role in Jesus’ death, see John Dominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995).

7. For more on the parallels between the Didache and the Jewish Birkat ha-Mazon, see Enrico Mazza, The Celebration of the Eucharist: The Origin of the Rite and the Development of Its Interpretation (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), esp. pp. 19–26 (where he discusses these parallels) and pp. 307–309 (where he provides translations of the texts).

8. A useful version of the traditional text of the Haggadah, with introduction and translation, can be found in the widely available edition of Nahum N. Glatzer, The Passover Haggadah (New York: Schocken Books, 1981). Those interested in appreciating how the Haggadah brings together material from various historical periods might look at Jacob Freedman, Polychrome Historical Haggadah for Passover (Springfield, MA: Jacob Freedman Liturgy Research Foundation, 1974).

9. Finkelstein published his theories in three articles: “The Oldest Midrash: Pre-Rabbinic Ideals and Teachings in the Passover Haggadah,” Harvard Theological Review (HTR) 31 (1938), pp. 291–317; “Pre-Maccabean Documents in the Passover Haggadah (Part 1),” HTR 35 (1942), pp. 291–332; and “Pre-Maccabean Documents in the Passover Haggadah (Part 2),” HTR 36 (1943), pp. 1–38. Glatzer summarizes some of Finkelstein’s claims in The Passover Haggadah, pp. 39–42.

10. Goldschmidt, The Passover Haggadah: Its Sources and History (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1960). Glatzer’s edition of the Haggadah (cited above) is based in part on Goldschmidt’s research, but the first edition of Glatzer’s Haggadah was published in 1953, years before Goldschmidt’s final 1960 version of his article.

11. See especially the collection of essays, Passover and Easter: Origin and History to Modern Times, ed. Paul F. Bradshaw and Lawrence A. Hoffman (Notre Dame, IN: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1999). Those who read Hebrew will want to consult Shmuel Safrai and Ze’ev Safrai, Haggadah of the Sages: The Passover Haggadah (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Carta, 1998).

12. Baruch Bokser, The Origins of the Seder (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1984).

13. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sabbath, 15a.

14. This view can be traced back well into the middle ages—it is advocated in a 14th-century Haggadah commentary by Rabbi Simeon ben Zemach Duran. This view has also been advocated more recently by, among others, Daniel Goldschmidt, Joseph Tabory, Israel Yuval and Baruch Bokser. Bokser, Origins of the Seder, pp. 41–43, 79–80, and 119 n. 13; Goldschmidt, Passover Haggadah, pp. 51–53. See also the articles by Joseph Tabory and Israel Yuval in Passover and Easter, esp. pp. 68–69 (Tabory) and pp. 106–107 (Yuval). Goldschmidt, Tabory and Yuval go even one step further, suggesting that Jeremias had it backwards. It was not that Jesus was reinterpreting a prior Jewish tradition. Rather, Rabban Gamaliel the Younger required the explanation of the Passover symbols as a way of countering Christian manipulation of these symbols.

15. Tosefta Pesahim 10:12; see Bokser, Origins of the Seder, pp. 41–43, 79–80.

16. Jeremias, Eucharistic Words, pp. 66 and 122–125.

17. On the Quartodecimans and on fasting before Easter, see Bradshaw, “The Origins of Easter” in Bradshaw and Hoffman, Passover and Easter, pp. 81–97.

18. See Karl Georg Kuhn, “The Lord’s Supper and the Communal Meal at Qumran,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament, Krister Stendahl, ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), pp. 65–93. Kuhn builds here on work of B. Lohse, published in German (and cited in his article). See also Jeremias, Eucharistic Words, pp. 216–218.

19. Bruce Chilton, A Feast of Meanings: Eucharistic Theologies from Jesus Through Johannine Circles (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), esp. pp. 93–108.

20. The term “Passoverize” is used by Mazza, in his brief treatment of the issue; see Celebration of the Eucharist, pp. 24–26.

21. See especially W.D. Davies, Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1964), pp. 25–92.

22. Commonly entitled “On the Passover,” the sermon survives in numerous copies and fragments in Coptic, Greek, Syriac, Latin and Georgian. The oldest copy, from the third or early fourth century, is in Coptic. See James E. Goehring and William W. Willis, “On the Passover by Melito of Sardis,” in The Crosby-Schoyen Codex MS 193, James E. Goehring, ed. (Leuven [Louvain]: Peeters, 1999).

23. On the medieval debate between the Catholic and Orthodox churches on this matter, see Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 2, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600–1700) (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1971), pp. 177–178. On the archaeological evidence pertaining to this dispute, see George Galavaris, Bread and the Liturgy: The Symbolism of Early Christian and Byzantine Bread Stamps (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1970).

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Jesus’ Last Supper Still Wasn’t a Passover Seder Meal

Jonathan Klawans — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 11:00:47 +0000

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.

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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

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.

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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.

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Josephus on the Essenes

BAS Staff — Thu, 30 May 2024 04:00:46 +0000

Steve Mason argues that the texts of Josephus cannot be relied upon to support the conclusion that the Essenes were the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the inhabitants of Qumran. Imaginary portrait of Josephus by Thomas Addis Emmet, 1880.

Flavius Josephus was a first-century Jewish historian, politician and soldier whose literary works provide crucial documentation of Roman Palestine in the first century A.D. At age 29, he was appointed general of the Jewish forces in Galilee. He was eventually captured by Vespasian, who was at that time the supreme commander of the Roman army. Josephus capitulated and sought to ingratiate himself with the Roman general, eventually becoming part of the imperial court in Rome. He was an eyewitness to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple by the Roman army in 70 A.D. He spent the rest of his life in Rome pursuing his literary career, the surviving results of which comprise a vital source of historical information.

Josephus’s commentaries on the laws and characteristics of the Essene community have been invaluable to scholars studying ancient Jewish laws and customs. They have also been the subject of much debate, particularly as they pertain to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Researchers have relied heavily on Josephus’s works as they try to determine who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, who inhabited Qumran, and whether or not the authors of the scrolls and the community at Qumran were in fact one and the same.

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Professor Steve Mason asserts in his article “Did the Essenes Write the Dead Sea Scrolls? Don’t Rely on Josephus” (BAR, November/December 2008) that the texts of Josephus cannot be relied upon to support the conclusion that the Essenes were the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the inhabitants of Qumran. So what does Josephus have to say about the Essene community? Following is a translated excerpt from The Jewish War, in which Josephus provides his main description of this fascinating group.

This deliberately literal translation of the Greek is from Steve Mason, Flavius Josephus: translation and commentary, vol. 1b: Judean War (Leiden: Brill, 2008).

The Jewish War, Book II, Chapter 8

(8.2)

119 For three forms of philosophy are pursued among the Judeans: the members of one are Pharisees, of another Sadducees, and the third [school], who certainly are reputed to cultivate seriousness, are called Essenes; although Judeans by ancestry, they are even more mutually affectionate than the others. 120 Whereas these men shun the pleasures as vice, they consider self-control and not succumbing to the passions virtue. And although there is among them a disdain for marriage, adopting the children of outsiders while they are still malleable enough for the lessons they regard them as family and instill in them their principles of character: 121 without doing away with marriage or the succession resulting from it, they nevertheless protect themselves from the wanton ways of women, having been persuaded that none of them preserves her faithfulness to one man.

(8.3)

122 Since [they are] despisers of wealth—their communal stock is astonishing—, one cannot find a person among them who has more in terms of possessions. For by a law, those coming into the school must yield up their funds to the order, with the result that in all [their ranks] neither the humiliation of poverty nor the superiority of wealth is detectable, but the assets of each one have been mixed in together, as if they were brothers, to create one fund for all. 123 They consider olive oil a stain, and should anyone be accidentally smeared with it he scrubs his body, for they make it a point of honor to remain hard and dry, and to wear white always. Hand-elected are the curators of the communal affairs, and indivisible are they, each and every one, [in pursuing] their functions to the advantage of all.

(8.4)

124 No one city is theirs, but they settle amply in each. And for those school-members who arrive from elsewhere, all that the community has is laid out for them in the same way as if they were their own things, and they go in and stay with those they have never even seen before as if they were the most intimate friends. 125 For this reason they make trips without carrying any baggage at all—though armed on account of the bandits. In each city a steward of the order appointed specially for the visitors is designated quartermaster for clothing and the other amenities. 126 Dress and also deportment of body: like children being educated with fear. They replace neither clothes nor footwear until the old set is ripped all over or worn through with age. 127 Among themselves, they neither shop for nor sell anything; but each one, after giving the things that he has to the one in need, takes in exchange anything useful that the other has. And even without this reciprocal giving, the transfer to them [of goods] from whomever they wish is unimpeded.

(8.5)

128 Toward the Deity, at least: pious observances uniquely [expressed]. Before the sun rises, they utter nothing of the mundane things, but only certain ancestral prayers to him, as if begging him to come up. 129 After these things, they are dismissed by the curators to the various crafts that they have each come to know, and after they have worked strenuously until the fifth hour they are again assembled in one area, where they belt on linen covers and wash their bodies in frigid water. After this purification they gather in a private hall, into which none of those who hold different views may enter: now pure themselves, they approach the dining room as if it were some [kind of] sanctuary. 130 After they have seated themselves in silence, the baker serves the loaves in order, whereas the cook serves each person one dish of one food. 131 The priest offers a prayer before the food, and it is forbidden to taste anything before the prayer; when he has had his breakfast he offers another concluding prayer. While starting and also while finishing, then, they honor God as the sponsor of life. At that, laying aside their clothes as if they were holy, they apply themselves to their labors again until evening. 132 They dine in a similar way: when they have returned, they sit down with the vistors, if any happen to be present with them, and neither yelling nor disorder pollutes the house at any time, but they yield conversation to one another in order. 133 And to those from outside, the silence of those inside appears as a kind of shiver-inducing mystery. The reason for this is their continuous sobriety and the rationing of food and drink among them—to the point of fullness.

(8.6)

134 As for other areas: although there is nothing that they do without the curators’ having ordered it, these two things are matters of personal prerogative among them: [rendering] assistance and mercy. For helping those who are worthy, whenever they might need it, and also extending food to those who are in want are indeed left up to the individual; but in the case of the relatives, such distribution is not allowed to be done without [permission from] the managers. 135 Of anger, just controllers; as for temper, able to contain it; of fidelity, masters; of peace, servants. And whereas everything spoken by them is more forceful than an oath, swearing itself they avoid, considering it worse than the false oath; for they declare to be already degraded one who is unworthy of belief without God. 136 They are extraordinarily keen about the compositions of the ancients, selecting especially those [oriented] toward the benefit of soul and body. On the basis of these and for the treatment of diseases, roots, apotropaic materials, and the special properties of stones are investigated.

The Dead Sea Scrolls have been called the greatest manuscript find of all time. Visit the BAS Dead Sea Scrolls Page for dozens of articles on the scrolls’ significance, discovery and scholarship.

(8.7)

137 To those who are eager for their school, the entry-way is not a direct one, but they prescribe a regimen for the person who remains outside for a year, giving him a little hatchet as well as the aforementioned waist-covering and white clothing. 138 Whenever he should give proof of his self-control during this period, he approaches nearer to the regimen and indeed shares in the purer waters for purification, though he is not yet received into the functions of communal life. For after this demonstration of endurance, the character is tested for two further years, and after he has thus been shown worthy he is reckoned into the group. 139 Before he may touch the communal food, however, he swears dreadful oaths to them: first, that he will observe piety toward the deity; then, that he will maintain just actions toward humanity; that he will harm no one, whether by his own deliberation or under order; that he will hate the unjust and contend together with the just; 140 that he will always maintain faithfulness to all, especially to those in control, for without God it does not fall to anyone to hold office, and that, should he hold office, he will never abuse his authority—outshining his subordinates, whether by dress or by some form of extravagant appearance; 141 always to love the truth and expose the liars; that he will keep his hands pure from theft and his soul from unholy gain; that he will neither conceal anything from the school-members nor disclose anything of theirs to others, even if one should apply force to the point of death. 142 In addition to these, he swears that he will impart the precepts to no one otherwise than as he received them, that he will keep away from banditry, and that he will preserve intact their school’s books and the names of the angels. With such oaths as these they completely secure those who join them.

(8.8)

143 Those they have convicted of sufficiently serious errors they expel from the order. And the one who has been reckoned out often perishes by a most pitiable fate. For, constrained by the oaths and customs, he is unable to partake of food from others. Eating grass and in hunger, his body wastes away and perishes. 144 That is why they have actually shown mercy and taken back many in their final gasps, regarding as sufficient for their errors this ordeal to the point of death.

(8.9)

145 Now with respect to trials, [they are] just and extremely precise: they render judgment after having assembled no fewer than a hundred, and something that has been determined by them is non-negotiable. There is a great reverence among them for—next to God—the name of the lawgiver, and if anyone insults him he is punished by death. 146 They make it point of honor to submit to the elders and to a majority. So if ten were seated together, one person would not speak if the nine were unwilling. 147 They guard against spitting into [their] middles or to the right side and against applying themselves to labors on the seventh days, even more than all other Judeans: for not only do they prepare their own food one day before, so that they might not kindle a fire on that day, but they do not even dare to transport a container—or go to relieve themselves. 148 On the other days they dig a hole of a foot’s depth with a trowel—this is what that small hatchet given by them to the neophytes is for—and wrapping their cloak around them completely, so as not to outrage the rays of God, they relieve themselves into it [the hole]. 149 After that, they haul back the excavated earth into the hole. (When they do this, they pick out for themselves the more deserted spots.) Even though the secretion of excrement is certainly a natural function, it is customary to wash themselves off after it as if they have become polluted.

(8.10)

150 They are divided into four classes, according to their duration in the training, and the later-joiners are so inferior to the earlier-joiners that if they should touch them, the latter wash themselves off as if they have mingled with a foreigner. 151 [They are] long-lived, most of them passing 100 years—as a result, it seems to me at least, of the simplicity of their regimen and their orderliness. Despisers of terrors, triumphing over agonies by their wills, considering death—if it arrives with glory—better than deathlessness. 152 The war against the Romans proved their souls in every way: during it, while being twisted and also bent, burned and also broken, and passing through all the torture-chamber instruments, with the aim that they might insult the lawgiver or eat something not customary, they did not put up with suffering either one: not once gratifying those who were tormenting [them], or crying. 153 But smiling in their agonies and making fun of those who were inflicting the tortures, they would cheerfully dismiss their souls, [knowing] that they would get them back again.

(8.11)

154 For the view has become tenaciously held among them that whereas our bodies are perishable and their matter impermanent, our souls endure forever, deathless: they get entangled, having emanated from the most refined ether, as if drawn down by a certain charm into the prisons that are bodies. 155 But when they are released from the restraints of the flesh, as if freed from a long period of slavery, then they rejoice and are carried upwards in suspension. For the good, on the one hand, sharing the view of the sons of Greece they portray the lifestyle reserved beyond Oceanus and a place burdened by neither rain nor snow nor heat, but which a continually blowing mild west wind from Oceanus refreshes. For the base, on the other hand, they separate off a murky, stormy recess filled with unending retributions. 156 It was according to the same notion that the Greeks appear to me to have laid on the Islands of the Blessed for their most courageous men, whom they call heroes and demi-gods, and for the souls of the worthless the region of the impious in Hades, in which connection they tell tales about the punishments of certain men—Sisyphuses and Tantaluses, Ixions and Tityuses—establishing in the first place the [notion of] eternal souls and, on that basis, persuasion toward virtue and dissuasion from vice. 157 For the good become even better in the hope of a reward also after death, whereas the impulses of the bad are impeded by anxiety, as they expect that even if they escape detection while living, after their demise they will be subject to deathless retribution. 158 These matters, then, the Essenes theologize with respect to the soul, laying down an irresistible bait for those who have once tasted of their wisdom.

(8.12)

159 There are also among them those who profess to foretell what is to come, being thoroughly trained in holy books, various purifications, and concise sayings of prophets. Rarely if ever do they fail in their predictions.

(8.13)

160 There is also a different order of Essenes. Though agreeing with the others about regimen and customs and legal matters, it has separated in its opinion about marriage. For they hold that those who do not marry cut off the greatest part of life, the succession, and more: if all were to think the same way, the line would very quickly die out. 161 To be sure, testing the brides in a three-year interval, once they have been purified three times as a test of their being able to bear children, they take them in this manner; but they do not continue having intercourse with those who are pregnant, demonstrating that the need for marrying is not because of pleasure, but for children. Baths [are taken] by the women wrapping clothes around themselves, just as by the men in a waist-covering. Such are the customs of this order.

For more, read Steve Mason, “Did the Essenes Write the Dead Sea Scrolls?” Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2008.

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The Bible History Daily feature “Josephus on the Essenes” was originally published in July 2012.

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Did the Essenes Write the Dead Sea Scrolls? Don’t Rely on Josephus

What Jesus Learned from the Essenes: The Blessing of Poverty the Bane of Divorce

Josephus vs. Jeremiah: The Difference Between Historian and Prophet

Will the Real Josephus Please Stand Up?

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Clean or Unclean?

Jennifer Drummond — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 05:48:30 +0000

A Mikveh, ritual bath, at Qumran

Second Temple Judaism has become almost synonymous with the idea of ritual purity. From various sources, including Rabbinic writings, the works of Josephus, and the biblical texts themselves, we learn that ideas concerning the clean and unclean were constantly in the minds of the Jewish people of the first century. This had as much to do with the geo-political situation of the era as it do the interpretation of scripture.

Since the time of the Babylonian Exile, Jews had lived outside of Israel. While the Jewish remnant was allowed to return home and rebuild their temple following the edict of Cyrus, many Jews chose to stay in Persia and make a new life. This situation is illustrated beautifully in the Book of Esther. Nehemiah was even able to obtain the prestigious position of the King’s Cupbearer. Following Alexander and the rise of the Hellenistic empires of his successors, Jews spread out all over the known world during the Diaspora. With that, naturally, came a growing sense of identity as a people group. No matter where they lived, the Jews were God’s covenant people and would remain so. By adhering to the purity laws of the Torah, the Jewish people were able to strengthen their cultural identity as a separate people living amid other nations. The Book of Daniel, which is commonly believed to have been written in the early second century B.C.E., conveys this idea well, with Daniel’s refusal to eat unclean food and engage in unclean practices within the court of Babylon.

By the first century, however, these notions took on a much more political role within the lives of the people of Judea. God had yet to fulfill his promise to the prophets and restore the Kingdom of Israel. In place of the promised Davidic king, a pagan governor ruled the land on behalf of an emperor across the Mediterranean. The “unclean” was constantly in their midst, exercising power and control. In effect, ritual purity became an act of defiance that separated the Jewish people from their gentile overlords. As an example, Josephus relates how hard it was for Herod Antipas to find Jews that would live on the defiled soil of Tiberius, a town the client king had built in honor of the Roman Emperor (Antiquities 18.36–38).

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The main religious factions of the day each had their views concerning ritual purity. For the Sadducees, who were mainly comprised of a familial priesthood concerned with attending to the Temple and all that entailed, purity was crucial for their identity as priests. In order to do their jobs they had to keep to all of the various ritual purity laws written in the Torah, particularly those that concerned the priesthood in the Book of Leviticus.

In the gospels, the Pharisees question Jesus on a number of issues, including his ideas about ritual purity. Image: “The Pharisees Question Jesus,” by James Tissot (public domain).

The Pharisees and the Essenes, however, believed the Levitical purity laws of the Torah should be practiced by all the Jewish people. This belief was likely influenced by the text of Exodus 19:6, in which all of Israel is called be a “kingdom of priests and a holy people.” For the Essenes, who viewed themselves as spiritual successors to the corrupt priests of Jerusalem, ritual purity was a constant effort. As described by Josephus, they always ate their meals in a state of purity, immersing themselves before every meal and only eating food prepared by priests. Members of the community also swore to never eat the food of the non-initiated. These same concerns seem evident at Qumran as well, as the Dead Sea Scrolls describe similar practices among that community.

According to Josephus, the Pharisees were among the most scrupulous in their observance of ancestral purity laws. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the Pharisees did not seclude themselves in an extreme effort to avoid the unclean. As such, the rabbis and the people who adhered to their teachings did what they could to remain a ritually pure people living alongside unclean pagans.

Within the Gospels, this underlying agenda is prevalent within the episodes dealing with notions of purity. At times the apparent lack of concern shown by Jesus and his followers provokes the Pharisees, who seemed genuinely puzzled by it. Jesus, in turn, questions the Pharisees about their great concern for ritual purity while neglecting the more fundamental demands of ethical holiness and social justice.

Regardless of religious party, however, a vision of a people set apart by God and fit to dwell in the midst of his holiness was central to the piety of Second Temple Judaism.

To learn more about ritual purity and its role in Jesus’ ministry, read “Jesus and Ritual Impurity” by Matthew Thiessen, published in the Fall 2021 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

——————Subscribers: Read the full piece, “Jesus and Ritual Impurity” by Matthew Thiessen, published in the Fall 2021 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Purity and Impurity in Iron Age Israel by Avraham Faust

Did Jesus Oppose the Purity Laws?
by Paula Fredriksen

Ancient Israel’s Stone Age: Purity in Second Temple times by Yitzhak Magen

Stepped Pools and Stone Vessels: Rethinking Jewish Purity Practices in Palestine by Cecilia Wassén

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Defining Biblical Hermeneutics

Ellen White — Sun, 02 Aug 2020 07:00:43 +0000

This vellum copy of the Gutenberg Bible is owned by the Library of Congress. The Gutenberg Bible, the Vulgate (Latin) translation, is the first book printed using moveable type. Printed in the 1450s in Mainz Germany, this is one of only 48 copies that still survive (11 in the United States), and is considered to be one of the most valuable books in existence. Photo: Raul654’s image is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

For as long as there have been Biblical texts, there have been Biblical hermeneutics, or Biblical interpretations. One definition of hermeneutics (given by Bernhard W. Anderson in a piece he wrote for Bible Review) is that Biblical hermeneutics are “modes of [Bible] interpretation[s].” In another Bible Review article, James A. Sanders offered a Biblical hermeneutics definition as “interpretive lens[es]” through which one reads the Bible. Going a step further, the Merriam-Webster dictionary extends its hermeneutics definition to include not only the methods or principles of the interpretations but also the study of those very Biblical interpretations. In short, the hermeneutics of the Bible are the many ways people read the Bible.

Biblical hermeneutics even take place within the Biblical text itself. In the Hebrew Bible, the authors of the Psalms and the prophets often referred back to the Torah and incorporated their own interpretations and understanding of the text from their social locations

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In the years leading up to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E., several different Jewish groups had risen to prominence, including the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. Although they were all Jewish, each group had very different Biblical hermeneutics. Definition of what happened to the soul after death, proper temple sacrifice and the importance of studying the law differed among these groups because of their varying approaches. Christianity also began as a Jewish sect, but as Jesus’ followers developed their own hermeneutics in relation to the law and the role of the messiah, it became a distinct religion.

Today there are many hermeneutics applied to the Bible. These methodologies range from historical-critical, to post-colonial, to rhetorical, to cultural-critical, to ecological to canonical-critical. These are all types of Biblical hermeneutics. Part of the reason that so many hermeneutics exist is that interpreters have different goals. For example, if you want to understand how Moses’s life in the wilderness differed from daily life in the ancient Levant, you would use an archaeological/anthropological hermeneutic. However, if you want to understand the gender politics between Miriam and Moses in the wilderness, you would use a feminist or womanist approach to the text. Different hermeneutics lead to different types of interpretations. Cheryl Exum famously wrote two articles on Exodus 1-2:10 focusing on the women in the narrative. Her conclusions in these articles appear contradictory, but that is because she used two different hermeneutics (rhetorical and feminist) and each method focused on different elements of the text, which led to different interpretations of the text.

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Even archaeology, which is the focus of BAR, is a Biblical hermeneutic. By studying the remains of ancient people and how they lived, and comparing their finds to the texts, archaeologists are able to offer exciting new interpretations. For example, the sacrifice of Isaac is one of the most interpreted stories throughout history. The disturbing narrative about a God who orders his follower to sacrifice his son, but ultimately withdraws this command at the final moment, has caused great discomfort in readers for several reasons. Many of these reasons revolve around the modern revulsion regarding child sacrifice. The world of archaeology provides insight into the practice (or non-practice) of sacrifice in the ancient world, as well as the hilltop altars, which appear in the story. For more on this topic see “Infants Sacrificed? The Tale Teeth Tell” by Patricia Smith in the July/August 2014 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

There are many ways in which you can approach the text, and your method will determine your interpretation. It is important then to be transparent about what is essential to you as a reader and recognize how that impacts the interpretations that you develop. Your interpretive goal will ultimately determine your Biblical hermeneutic.

FREE ebook: The Holy Bible: A Buyer's Guide 42 different Bible versions, addressing content, text, style and religious orientation.

Ellen White, Ph.D. (Hebrew Bible, University of St. Michael’s College), was the senior editor at the Biblical Archaeology Society. She has taught at five universities across the U.S. and Canada and spent research leaves in Germany and Romania. She has also been actively involved in digs at various sites in Israel.

Read how noted scholars arrive at a definition of Biblical hermeneutics:

Bernhard W. Anderson, “The Bible: Word of God in Human Words,” Bible Review, June 1997.

James A. Sanders, “’Spinning’ the Bible,” Bible Review, June 1998.

This Bible History Daily article was originally published in July 2011. It was updated and expanded by Dr. Ellen White on October 13, 2014.

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Biblical Pharisees and Jewish Halakhah

Biblical Archaeology Society Staff — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 16:13:18 +0000

Were the Biblical Pharisees really as bad as the New Testament makes them seem? Professor Roland Deines thinks not. Photo courtesy Roland Deines.

The common perception of Biblical Pharisees is that they are a bunch of hypocrites. They taught others to follow Jewish halakhah (law) closely and interpreted detailed rules from the scriptures, but their own practice was showy and meaningless—or at least that’s what the New Testament (especially Matthew’s gospel) would lead us to believe. Josephus, too, and even some rabbinic traditions portray the Pharisees in a negative light, according to Biblical scholar Roland Deines of the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom).

And yet, Deines says, the Biblical Pharisees were popular in the first century; they were the people’s party. Why would the people follow a bunch of hypocrites?

As Roland Deines explains in a BAR column, the New Testament and Josephus include polemical texts against the Pharisees rather than objective descriptions. In fact, it was the Pharisees’ take on Jewish halakhah that made them so popular.

The strict (and extensive) purity laws of Jewish halakhah made it both costly and time-consuming to follow—putting the Biblical instructions out of reach for most common people. For example, if impurity touched the outside of a pottery vessel, it needed to be broken and the contents thrown away. Instead, the Pharisees interpreted these laws in a way that made purity accessible to more people. According to the Pharisaic interpretation, the inside of the aforementioned vessel remained pure and the contents could still be used.

Although this sort of legalistic interpretation may seem like nit-picking to some, the Pharisees made purity attainable for all of Israel, not just the elite.

——————

For more of Roland Deines’s explanation about the popularity of the Biblical Pharisees and their take on Jewish halakhah, see Roland Deines, Biblical Views: “The Pharisees—Good Guys with Bad Press” in the July/August 2013 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. This Bible History Daily post was originally published in August 2013.

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First Person: Was the Dead Sea Scroll Community Celibate?

Hershel Shanks — Fri, 13 Jul 2018 13:24:03 +0000

One of the many fascinating questions about the Dead Sea Scroll community living at Qumran is whether its members were celibate. Did they marry and have children or not?

According to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus and the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, the Essenes were indeed celibate.¹ The Roman philosopher and naturalist Pliny the Elder agrees and seems to locate an Essene community at Qumran. The question, of course, is whether the Qumran community was in fact Essene.

The Essenes were a Jewish religious group, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees (and a number of other smaller ones). Whether the Qumran community was Essene is a much-debated question. According to a recent comprehensive review of Dead Sea Scroll research by leading Israeli Scroll scholar Devorah Dimant, the Qumran community probably was Essene.² “In my judgment,” she writes, “the fundamental identity has stood the test of time.” But that doesn’t tell us whether the Qumran community, even if Essene, was celibate.

Tending in the opposite direction, two major Dead Sea Scrolls, the Damascus Document and the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa I), speak of women and children. The Damascus Document spells out special rules for a community consisting of families.

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The Damascus Document discovered at Qumran. Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem.

For a time, the burials of women and children in the large cemetery adjacent to Qumran were thought to weigh against the argument that the Qumranites were celibate. But it turned out that these were burials of medieval-period Bedouin, so the cemetery seems to argue in the opposite direction.

In the end, the question of the Qumran community’s celibacy remains just that—a question or “a thorny problem,” as Dimant characterizes it. “Unsolved difficulties remain.”

And this is just one of the remaining difficulties concerning Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, which over time have multiplied rather than resolved, in Dimant’s view. What seemed clear in early analyses now seems more complicated. Perhaps, for example, there were two Dead Sea Scroll groups or one group with two aspects—one apocalyptic reflecting commonalities with later Christian groups and one more halakhic or legal, reflecting commonalities with contemporaneous Judaism.

The nature of the Qumranites’ relationship with contemporaneous followers of Temple Judaism is another matter that must now be treated with more subtlety, Dimant believes. The break is not so clear-cut.

Visit the Dead Sea Scrolls study page in Bible History Daily for more on this priceless collection of ancient manuscripts.

What is clear, however, is that the Qumranites adopted a 365-day calendar, rather than the lunar calendar of Temple (and modern) Judaism. This meant that the Qumranites observed holy days on different dates than followers of Temple Judaism. This is not unique, however; the 365-day calendar is also found in other texts such as 1 Enoch, which is a nonsectarian text. In Dimant’s view, the Qumranites’ different calendar does not necessarily imply a religious schism. She quotes the British Qumran scholar Sacha Stern approvingly: “The notion that the calendar was critical to Qumran sectarianism remains no more than a modern scholarly assumption.” Dimant goes on to wonder whether terms such as “schism” and “rift” are really “appropriate” when describing the relationship between the Qumran group and mainstream Temple Judaism.

This introduces another kind of scholarly divide—between those who emphasize the apocalyptic aspect of the scrolls and find a strong similarity to “the beliefs and organization of early Christian groups” and those who, in contrast, emphasize the Qumranites’ devotion to halakhah (legal rules), as illustrated by six partially surviving copies of the so-called Halakhic Letter (4QMMT) that lists legal disputes mainly concerning cultic purity between the Qumran group and presumably mainstream Judaism. (Incidentally, BAR was successfully sued in an Israeli court for copyright infringement by Ben Gurion University scholar Elisha Qimron for publishing his reconstruction of MMT prior to his official publication of it.) Another Qumran commitment to Jewish halakhah is reflected in the Temple Scroll, the longest of all the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is in the form of a divine address to Moses concerning the construction and operation of the Temple. It is entirely confined to legal matters.

In the end, Dimant refers to the “unsettled scene of Qumran research.” The issues are complex; Dimant cautions against “the reaching of sweeping and simplistic conclusions.”

“First Person: Was the Dead Sea Scroll Community Celibate?” by Hershel Shanks was originally published in Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2017.

Notes:

1. Josephus, Antiquities 18.21 and Jewish War 2.120–121; Philo, Hypothetica 11.

2. Devorah Dimant, History, Ideology and Bible Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), pp. 1–24.

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on May 8, 2017.

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Ancient Jewish Theology and Law

Robin Ngo — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 14:29:19 +0000

According to scholar Jonathan Klawans, ancient Jews—including the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes—cared as much about matters of Jewish theology as about laws and practices.

In his Biblical Views column “Theology Versus Law in Ancient Judaism” in the January/February 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Boston University professor of religion Jonathan Klawans recounts a conversation had among a group of mostly Jewish married couples:

One of the non-Jewish spouses in the group said something to the effect that he had considered converting to Judaism but decided he could not. Someone asked, “Why not?” To which he replied, “Oh, I can’t convert to Judaism. I don’t believe in God.” Someone else present immediately slammed his hand on the table in objection, “And what does that have to do with it?”

For Klawans, this story is representative of a common belief that in Judaism, it’s more about what one does than what one believes. In Klawans’s interpretation, what Jews do is informed by Jewish laws and practices, and what they believe is informed by Jewish theology. This view—to which many modern Jewish intellectuals subscribe—can be attributed to the great 18th-century German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, who considered Judaism a religion of revealed law. Drawing from Mendelssohn, some scholars today believe, according to Klawans, that Second Temple period Jews—including the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes—were primarily concerned with defining laws and practices and less so on developing fixed beliefs in Jewish theology.

That different Jewish sects disagreed over laws and practices is well attested. Manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls suggest that the ancient Jews argued over matters concerning the calendar, diet, purity rules and sacrificial procedures. In Rabbinic literature, the Pharisees and especially the Sadducees are said to have been greatly concerned with legal matters.

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Just as much scholarly attention should be paid to divergences in ancient Jewish theology as to those in ancient Jewish law, Klawans says.

For instance, disagreements between the Pharisees and Sadducees over the afterlife are attested in Rabbinic literature and the New Testament and by Josephus. The Wisdom of Ben Sira (also known as the book of Ecclesiasticus) and the Community Rule scroll from Qumran—associated by some scholars with a community of Essenes—describe different ideas of fate and free will.

What are the implications of shining a greater light on ancient Jewish theological debates? Learn what Jonathan Klawans concludes by reading his full Biblical Views column “Theology Versus Law in Ancient Judaism” in the January/February 2015 issue of BAR.

BAS Library Members: Read the Biblical Views column “Theology Versus Law in Ancient Judaism” by Jonathan Klawans in the January/February 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Many assume that Jesus’ Last Supper was a Seder, the ritual Passover meal. Examine evidence from the synoptic Gospels with scholar Jonathan Klawans >>

Sectarianism in the Second Temple Period

Biblical Archaeology Society Staff — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 13:08:56 +0000

This post was originally published on Professor Schiffman’s website as the second part of a series of articles on schisms in Jewish history. Bible History Daily republished this article with the consent of the author. Visit lawrenceschiffman.com for print and multimedia resources on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Babylonian Talmud, Jesus, Hellenism, Christianity and more.

<< Schisms in Jewish History: Part 2 Schisms in Jewish History: Part 4 >>

Building Complex at Qumran.

The major sects of the Second Temple period first appear in our sources in the aftermath of the Maccabean Revolt (168–164 B.C.E.). Yet in truth, the process of Hellenization began much earlier. The rise of the Maccabees (Hasmoneans) was occasioned by ferment in Jewish religious thought, which led to a crisis regarding the extent and the manner in which the Jews were going to accommodate themselves to Hellenism. The Maccabees settled matters only partially, eliminating extreme Hellenization as a possibility. Yet their successful revolt left open a number of options regarding Hellenism and also brought to the fore various other issues in Jewish religious thought and in the development of Jewish law. As a result, recognizable groups, known usually by the somewhat inaccurate term “sects,” came to the fore. We will discuss here the major groups, yet it should be borne in mind that numerous smaller and even undocumented sects existed in this period. Further, most of the Jewish population in Palestine was only tangentially connected to the issues these sects debated.

Best known among these groups are the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees represented a group of lay teachers of the Torah who, along with the Sadducees, formed a coalition in the gerousia (“council of elders”) of the Hasmonean kings. The Pharisees were linked to the urban middle classes and took their name from their life of separation from ritual impurity and untithed produce. The Sadducees were named for Zadok, the high priest under Solomon, and were a priestly group. They were close to the aristocratic families who had intermarried with the high priestly families. Whereas the Pharisees had traditions which were passed on from generation to generation, the Sadducees claimed authority only for the written text of the Bible. For this reason, they have often been regarded as a literalist sect. Both sides claimed to possess the correct interpretation of the Torah. They disputed also regarding many matters of Jewish law which emerged from the interpretations they espoused.

New Testament scholar Roland Deines believes the Biblical Pharisees were good guys with bad press. Learn more in Bible History Daily.

From later sources, it appears that the Pharisees and Sadducees also disagreed about fundamentals of Jewish belief. The Pharisees believed in the division of body and soul and resurrection, which the Sadducees rejected. The Pharisees believed in angels and the Sadducees did not. They had different views on the question of free will. In their ways of life, the Sadduceees lived a more Hellenized life, whereas the Pharisees attempted to limit Hellenistic influence to what is usually called material culture—such matters as vocabulary, technology and architecture.

At the same time, other Jews not involved in the mainstream of Hasmonean politics organized groups of believers. Josephus and Philo describe at length the sect of the Essenes. Many scholars have identified the Essenes with the sect that left its library in the caves of Qumran, usually termed the Dead Sea or Qumran sect. Philo and Josephus, as well as the scrolls, describe groups which separated from the dominant trends of Judaism of their times, organizing into smaller groups devoted to the attainment and preservation of purity and holiness. These groups had complex systems of admission and penal codes for those who violated the regulations. They stressed immersion and prayer alongside the study of the Torah. They looked forward to apocalyptic wars from which they would emerge victorious and their enemies, the Jerusalem establishment, defeated.

The various groups we have surveyed and a number of additional sects vied with one another for the allegiance of the Jewish populace in the last two centuries B.C.E. Much polemic and even invective passed between the groups. Yet it is important to note that at no time did any group assert the non-Jewishness or illegitimacy of the status of the members of the other groups. No such issues were raised. Hence, these controversies did not lead to the separation of anyone from the Jewish people. Ultimately the Pharisees would pass their traditions on to the tannaim, the teachers of the Mishnah, and they would be molded into Rabbinic Judaism. Nonetheless, the disputes among the sects in many ways enriched Judaism, as can be seen from tracing the entry of some of these ideas into the Talmudic tradition. Yet in our haste to affirm the validity of Jewish religious pluralism, we should remember that the ultimate result of the heritage of disunity in Second Temple times was the inability of the Jewish people to join together in the face of Roman rule. Had a unified stand been taken, either to revolt in full force or to reach an accommodation with the Romans, the great disaster of the total destruction of the Temple, Jerusalem and Judea in the course of the Great Revolt might have been avoided.

Lawrence H. Schiffman is the Judge Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies in New York University’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. He is also the director of the Global Institute for Advanced Research in Jewish Studies. He has extensive experience analyzing and publishing the Dead Sea Scrolls, including positions as co-editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (2000) and editor-in-chief of the Center for Online Judaic Studies from 2005 to 2008.

Lawrence H. Schiffman on Schisms in Jewish History

Part 1: The Limits of Tolerance: Halakhah and History

Part 2: The Samaritan Schism

Part 3: Sectarianism in the Second Temple Period

Part 4: The Jewish-Christian Schism

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How Jewish Is the New Testament?

Biblical Archaeology Society Staff — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:43:31 +0000

Edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler

(New York: Oxford Univ. Press,
2011), xxviii + 637 pp., $35
Reviewed by James D.G. Dunn

This excellent volume consists of introductions and notes on the New Revised Standard Version text of the New Testament, together with 30 brief essays by some 50 Jewish scholars. Appendices provide timelines, lists of rabbis, calendar, weights and measures, etc.
The explanatory footnotes, together with more extended notes at the top of many pages, amount to small commentaries. For example Mark’s introduction, text and notes runs to more than 40 pages. The amount of information packed into the footnotes, regularly citing Jewish and rabbinic sources (though not modern bibliography), is impressive.

The notes well represent the character and quality of New Testament scholarship (not just Jewish scholarship) today. None of this can be regarded as one-sided, far less as Jewish propaganda, though the Jewish perspective gives many observations a special relevance. For instance, Aaron Gale, commenting on “the strong anti-Pharisaic rhetoric in Matthew” points out that “adherents of a particular group or set of beliefs often polemicize most strongly against those who share similar, but not identical, beliefs.”

Other good examples of the extended notes are on the “Parable of the Good Samaritan,” the “Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector,” “Sexual Mores,” “Headcovering” and “Slavery in the Roman Empire.”

The essays cover a wide range of topics, for example, “Food and Table Fellowship” (David Freidenreich), “Jewish Family Life in the First Century C.E.” (Ross Kraemer), “Divine Beings” (Rebecca Lesses), “Afterlife and Resurrection” (Martha Himmelfarb), “Midrash and Parables in the New Testament” (David Stern) and “Jewish Responses to Believers in Jesus” (Claudia Setzer).

Specially to be recommended is Amy-Jill Levine’s “Bearing False Witness: Common Errors Made About Early Judaism.” It starts from the observation that “many pastors and religious leaders strip Jesus from his Jewish context and depict that context in false and noxious stereotypes.” She goes on to give five reasons and ten illustrations of the anti-Jewish stereotypes that are still found in some Christian preaching and teaching, including the antithesis between law and grace, the misconception that purity laws were burdensome, that Judaism was misogynistic and that Judaism regarded God as distant. The essay in itself makes the volume worthwhile.

The choice of essay topics is, however, also occasionally puzzling. In particular, it is unclear why there is an article on “Judaism and Jewishness” (Shaye Cohen) and another on “Ioudaios” (Joshua Garroway). And “Judaizers” are not the obvious companions to “Jewish Christians” in a single article (Charlotte Fonrobert). Much more appropriate would have been a different essay on “Judaizers, God-fearers and Proselytes.” “Jewish Movements of the New Testament Period” (Daniel Schwartz) could have helpfully dealt with more than Pharisees and Sadducees. Although there is another essay on “The Dead Sea Scrolls” (Maxine Grossman), an essay on the post-biblical Jewish literature (1 Enoch, etc.) would have been welcome.

An essay on the first-century figure whom Christianity has ignored almost completely, James the brother of Jesus, principal leader of the mother church of Jerusalem, would also have been a valuable addition—forwarding the volume’s goal to make today’s readership more alert to the Jewish character of Christianity’s beginnings.

But even with all that, the volume is a splendid contribution to the growing and growingly fruitful dialogue between non-Jewish and Jewish New Testament scholars. More important still, the volume underlines just how Jewish the New Testament was, and still is!

James D.G. Dunn is Emeritus Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the department of theology and religion at Durham University in England.

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sadducees Archives - Biblical Archaeology Society

Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?

Traditional Views of Jesus’ Last Supper as a Passover Meal

The Passover Seder and Sacrifice

Historical Doubts about Jesus’ Last Supper as a Passover Seder

Jesus’ Last Supper in the Gospels

A Jewish Last Supper Celebration

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The Symbolic Explanation of the Bread and Wine at Passover and Jesus’ Last Supper

The Development of the Modern Passover Seder

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Why the Synoptic Gospels Portray the Last Supper as a Passover Meal

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When Passover Begins: The Synoptics versus John

Notes

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Jesus’ Last Supper Still Wasn’t a Passover Seder Meal

Related reading in Bible History Daily

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Josephus on the Essenes

The Jewish War, Book II, Chapter 8

(8.2)

(8.3)

(8.4)

(8.5)

(8.6)

(8.7)

(8.8)

(8.9)

(8.10)

(8.11)

(8.12)

(8.13)

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

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Clean or Unclean?

Members, read more in the BAS Library:

Defining Biblical Hermeneutics

Biblical Pharisees and Jewish Halakhah

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

First Person: Was the Dead Sea Scroll Community Celibate?

Notes:

Ancient Jewish Theology and Law

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Sectarianism in the Second Temple Period

Lawrence H. Schiffman on Schisms in Jewish History

How Jewish Is the New Testament?

Edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler