When speaking to you about scripture, I’ve often referred to consulting bible commentaries and articles written by biblical scholars. I thought you might find it educational to read an example of this type of material I sort through when preparing a homily. This week’s bulletin sets forth the thought of a contemporary bible scholar. It shows what these researchers do when studying our faith tradition. This work generates debate which other scholars join—all in the common enterprise of understanding what the Bible says.
Throughout the world of Catholicism, a “Eucharistic renewal” is taking place. The content of this article takes a new look at what “Mass” might have looked like in its formation. Recall, while some Christians say we base all things on the Bible, Catholicism also adds “tradition”—since living communities have had to adapt the written word over the centuries. This scholar addresses “What did Jesus do during Holy Week?” What did scripture report “theologically” (as opposed to historical fact) when it was written 25-50 years after the events described.
On Wednesday Jesus began to make plans for Passover. He sent two of his disciples into the city to prepare a large second-story guest room where he could gather secretly and safely with his inner group. He knew someone with such a room available and he had prearranged for its use.
Jesus tells his two disciples to “follow a man carrying a jug of water,” who will enter the city, and then enter a certain house. Later Christian tradition put Jesus’ last meal with his disciples on Thursday evening and his crucifixion on Friday. We now know that is one day off. Jesus’ last meal was Wednesday night, and he was crucified on Thursday. Jesus never ate that Passover meal. He had died at 3 p.m. on Thursday.
Confusion exists because the gospels say that they wanted to get his body before sundown. After all, the “Sabbath” was near. Everyone assumed the reference to the Sabbath had to be Saturday—so the crucifixion must have been on a Friday. However, the day of Passover itself is also a “Sabbath”—no matter what weekday it falls on. In the year a.d. 30, Friday was also a Sabbath—so two Sabbaths occurred back to back—Friday and Saturday. Matthew seems to know this as he says that the women who visited Jesus’ tomb came early Sunday morning “after the SabbathsS—the original Greek is plural.
John’s gospel preserves a more accurate chronology. He specifies that the Wednesday night “last supper” was “before the festival of Passover.” He also notes that when Jesus’ accusers delivered him to be crucified on Thursday morning they would not enter Pilate’s courtyard because they would be defiled and would not be able to eat the Passover that evening. John knows that the Jews would be eating their traditional Passover, or Seder meal, Thursday evening.
Reading Mark, Matthew, and Luke one can get the impression that the “last supper” was the Passover meal. Some have even argued that Jesus might have eaten the Passover meal a day early—knowing ahead of time that he would be dead. But the fact is, Jesus ate no Passover meal in 30 CE. When the Passover meal began at sundown on Thursday, Jesus was dead. He had been put in a tomb until after the festival when a proper funeral could be arranged.
Hints of this exist outside John’s gospel. In Luke, Jesus tells his followers at that last meal: “I wanted to eat this Passover with you before I suffer but I won’t eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” A later copyist of the manuscript inserted the word “again” to make it say “I won’t eat it again,” since the tradition had developed that Jesus did observe Passover that night and changed its observance to the Christian Eucharist or Mass. Another indication that this is not a Passover meal is that all our records report that Jesus shared “a loaf of bread” with his disciples, using the Greek word (artos) that refers to an ordinary loaf—not to the unleavened flatbread or matzos that Jews eat with their Passover meals. Also, when Paul refers to the “last supper” he significantly does not say “on the night of Passover,” but rather “on the night Jesus was betrayed,” and he also mentions the “loaf of bread” (1 Corinthians 11:23). If this meal had been the Passover, Paul would have surely wanted to say that, but he does not. N.B., historically, Christian communities have used both leavened and unleavened bread in different periods—Western Catholics using unleavened today while Easter use leavened.
Wednesday morning, Jesus still intended to eat Passover on Thursday. His two disciples had begun to make preparations. His enemies had determined not to try to arrest him during the feast “lest there be a riot of the people” (Mark 14:2). That meant he was likely “safe” for the next week, since the “feast” included the seven days of Unleavened Bread that followed the Passover meal. Passover is the most family-oriented festival in Jewish tradition. As head of his household Jesus would have gathered with his mother, his sisters, the women who had come with him from Galilee, perhaps some of his close supporters in Jerusalem, and his Council of Twelve. It is inconceivable that a Jewish head of a household would eat the Passover segregated from his family with twelve male disciples. This was no Passover meal. Something had gone terribly wrong so that all his Passover plans were changed.
Jesus had planned a special meal Wednesday evening alone with his Council of Twelve in the upper room of the guesthouse. The events of the past few days had brought things to a crisis and he knew the confrontation with the authorities was unavoidable. In the coming days he expected to be arrested, delivered to the Romans, and possibly crucified. He had intentionally chosen the time and the place—Passover in Jerusalem—to confront the powers that be. There was much of a private nature to discuss with those upon whom he most depended in the critical days ahead. He firmly believed that if he and his followers offered themselves up, placing their fate in God’s hands, that the Kingdom of God would manifest itself. He had intentionally fulfilled two of Zechariah’s prophecies—riding into the city as King on the foal, and symbolically removing the “traders” from the “house of God.”
At some point that day Jesus had learned that Judas Iscariot, one of his trusted Council of Twelve, had struck a deal with his enemies to have Jesus arrested whenever there was an opportunity to get him alone, away from the crowds. How Jesus knew of the plot we are not told but during the meal he said openly, “One of you who is eating with me will betray me” (Mark 14:18). His life seemed to be unfolding according to some scriptural plan. Had not David written in the Psalms, “Even my bosom friend, in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me” (Psalm 41:9).
Our earliest account of that last meal on Wednesday night comes from Paul, not from any of our gospels. Writing to Corinth around a.d. 54, Paul said he “received” from Jesus: “Jesus on the night he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’.” These words are repeated with only slight variations in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. What is the historical likelihood that this tradition, based on what Paul said he “received” from Jesus, represents what Jesus said at that last meal?
At every Jewish meal, bread is broken, wine is shared, and blessings are said over each—but the idea of eating human flesh and drinking blood, even symbolically, is completely alien to Judaism. Noah and his descendants were first given the prohibition against “eating blood. ” Moses likewise forbade it. James, the brother of Jesus, later mentions this as one of the “necessary requirements” for non-Jews to join the Nazarene community—they are not to eat blood (Acts 15:20). These restrictions concern the blood of animals. Consuming human flesh and blood was not forbidden, it was simply inconceivable. This general sensitivity to the very idea of “drinking blood” precludes the likelihood that Jesus would have used such symbols.
So where does this body/blood language originate? If it first surfaces in Paul, and he did not in fact get it from Jesus, then what was its source? The closest parallels are certain Greco-Roman magical rites. The symbolic eating of “flesh” and drinking of “blood” was a magical rite of union in Greco-Roman culture. And we have to consider that Paul grew up in the Greco-Roman culture of the city of Tarsus outside of Israel. He never met or talked to Jesus, but was a “visionary” connection (not Jesus as a flesh-and-blood being). When the Twelve met to replace Judas, after Jesus had been killed, they insisted that to be part of their group one had to have been with Jesus from the time of John the Baptizer through his crucifixion. Seeing visions and hearing voices were not accepted as qualifications for an apostle.
Even more telling, John recounts the events of that last Wednesday night meal but there is absolutely no reference to these words of Jesus instituting this new ceremony of the Eucharist. If Jesus in fact had inaugurated the practice of eating bread as his body, and drinking wine as his blood at this “last supper” how could John possibly have left it out? What John writes is that Jesus sat down to the supper, by all indications an ordinary Jewish meal. After supper he got up, took a basin of water and a cloth, and began to wash his disciples’ feet as an example of how a Teacher and Master should act as a servant—even to his disciples. Jesus then began to talk about how he was to be betrayed and John tells us that Judas abruptly left the meal.
Mark’s gospel is very close in its theological ideas to those of Paul. It seems likely that Mark, writing a decade after Paul’s account of the last supper, inserts this “eat my body” and “drink my blood” tradition into his gospel, influenced by what Paul has claimed to have received. Matthew and Luke both base their narratives wholly upon Mark, and Luke is an unabashed advocate of Paul as well. Everything seems to trace back to Paul. As we will see, there is no evidence that the original Jewish followers of Jesus, led by Jesus’ brother James ever practiced any rite of this type. Like all Jews they did sanctify wine and bread as part of a sacred meal, and they likely looked back to the “night he was betrayed,” remembering that last meal with Jesus.
Is there anything that might shed light on the original practice of Jesus’ followers. Yes. The Didache was found–dates to the early 2nd century, and its full title meaning: “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”–an early Christian “instruction manual.” It has a section on the Eucharist—the sacred meal of bread and wine. It offers the following blessings over wine and bread:
“With respect to the Eucharist you shall give thanks as follows. First with respect to the cup: “We give you thanks our Father for the holy vine of David, your child which you made known to us through Jesus your child. To you be the glory forever.” And with respect to the bread: “We give you thanks our Father for the life and knowledge that you made known to us through Jesus your child. To you be the glory forever.”
Notice there is no mention of the wine representing blood or the bread representing flesh. And yet this is a record of the early Christian Eucharist meal! Evidently this community of Jesus’ followers knew nothing about the ceremony that Paul advocates. If Paul’s practice had truly come from Jesus surely this text would have included it. N.B., unless assumed to be known.
In Jewish tradition it is the cup of wine that is blessed first, then the bread. That is the order we find here in the Didache. But in Paul’s account of the “Lord’s Supper” he has Jesus bless the bread first, then the cup of wine—just the reverse. It might seem an unimportant detail until one examines Luke’s account of the words of Jesus at the meal. Although he basically follows the tradition from Paul, unlike Paul Luke reports first a cup of wine, then the bread, and then another cup of wine! The bread and the second cup of wine he interprets as the “body” and “blood” of Jesus. But with respect to the first cup—in the order one would expect from Jewish tradition—there is nothing said about it representing “blood.” Rather Jesus says, “I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom comes.” This tradition of the first cup, found now only in Luke, is a leftover clue of what must have been the original tradition before the Pauline version was inserted, now confirmed by the Didache.
Understood in this light, this last meal makes historical sense. Jesus told his closest followers, gathered in secret in the Upper Room, that he will not share another meal with them until the Kingdom of God comes. He knows that Judas will initiate events that very night, leading to his arrest. His hope and prayer is that the next time they sit down together to eat, giving the traditional Jewish blessing over wine and bread—the Kingdom of God will have come.
In the gospel of John, a “beloved” disciple is mentioned half a dozen times, and was seated next to Jesus, leaned back and put his head on Jesus’ breast during the meal. Even though tradition holds that this is John the fisherman, it makes much better sense that such intimacy was shared between Jesus and his younger brother James. No matter how ingrained the image might be in Christian imagination, it makes no sense to imagine John son of Zebedee seated next to Jesus, and leaning on his breast.
Before Jesus’ death, the gospel of John tells us that Jesus put the care of his mother into the hands of this “disciple whom he loved.” How could this possibly be anyone other than James his brother, who was now to take charge of the family as head of the household?
Jesus led his band to Gethsemane. Judas got the authorities who could now grab him when no crowds were near. Jesus’ disciples were tired. Sleep was the last thing on Jesus’ mind, and he was never to sleep again. His all-night ordeal was about to begin. He began to feel very distressed, fearful, and deeply grieved. He wanted to pray for strength for the trials that he knew would soon begin. Mark tells us that he prayed that if possible the “cup would be removed from him.” Jesus urged his disciples to pray with him but the meal, the wine, and the late hour took their toll. They all fell asleep.