Was the Last Supper a Jewish Passover Seder? Millions of Christians who are happily and profitably discovering their “Hebraic roots” by studying, participating in, and even reenacting “Passover” services have equated it with the final evening meal Jesus had with his disciples. Indeed, many so-called “messianic” groups have developed an extensive interpretation of the traditional Jewish Passover Seder that finds all sorts of Christological meanings reflected in the ceremonies, including the death and resurrection of Jesus for the sins of humankind.

All four of our gospels report that Jesus ate a last meal privately with the Twelve, on the “night he was betrayed,” as Paul puts it. However, the Synoptics (Mark, Matthew, Luke) and John report things differently in so far as whether this meal took place on the night of Passover, or the night before. Although many have attempted harmonization, the differences in the two reports remain stark and and can not be ignored.  Scholars have exhaustively argued out every possibility pro and con.

I argue in The Jesus Dynasty (chapter 12 “Last Days in Jerusalem”) that the final meal was not a Passover Seder and offer a revised chronology in which Jesus dies on a Thursday, rather than a Friday, with the Passover Seder falling at the beginning of the 15th of Nisan, after sundown, Thursday night with that Friday, in the year AD/CE 30 being a “high day” sabbath, followed by the weekly Sabbath.

In a thoroughly comprehensive general article just published in the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (March/April, 2010) titled “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder,” Boston University professor Jonathan Klawans explores the issue in a clear and compelling way, concluding that the last meal of Jesus was most likely not a Passover Seder. I am pleased to say you can read it on-line here, but hope you will consider subscribing to BAR magazine as it continues to bring us quality articles of this type.

P.S. I hope my readers notice that I have chosen as a “Last Supper” illustration the etching by the incomparably great Albrecht Dürer in which the “beloved disciple” is sleeping as a small child, next to Jesus.

How often we have heard that “American is fundamentally a Christian nation, founded on Christian principles”? Even though such assertions are considered naive by historians, particularly as mouthed by the Pat Robertsons (700 Club), James Dobsons (Focus on the Family), and Glenn Becks (Fox News) of the world, there still seems to be, in the back of our minds, a sense that our country, with its stereotypical  “White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant” ethos, is somehow essentially “Christian” in its cultural/religious roots.

In a provocative and challenging new book Bruce Feiler, bestselling author of Walking the Bible, Abraham, and Where God Was Born, calls all of this into question. Feiler’s unexpected choice for the one whom he calls “America’s Prophet,” is neither Jesus Christ nor the Apostle Paul–but Moses!

The title of the book says it all:  America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story (Morrow, 2009). What Feiler argues is that Moses is our real “founding father,” and his dominant influence has been largely forgotten and missed by those looking back from the 20th and 21st centuries. The publisher’s blurb offers a nice summary:

The exodus story is America’s story. Moses is our real founding father.

The pilgrims quoted his story. Franklin and Jefferson proposed he appear on the U.S. seal. Washington and Lincoln were called his incarnations. The Statue of Liberty and Superman were molded in his image. Martin Luther King, Jr., invoked him the night before he died. Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama cited him as inspiration. For four hundred years, one figure inspired more Americans than any other. His name is Moses.

In this groundbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author Bruce Feiler travels through touchstones in American history and traces the biblical prophet’s influence from the Mayflower through today. He visits the island where the pilgrims spent their first Sabbath, climbs the bell tower where the Liberty Bell was inscribed with a quote from Moses, retraces the Underground Railroad where “Go Down, Moses” was the national anthem of slaves, and dons the robe Charlton Heston wore in The Ten Commandments.

“Even a cursory review of American history indicates that Moses has emboldened leaders of all stripes,” Feiler writes, “patriot and loyalist, slave and master, Jew and Christian. Could the persistence of his story serve as a reminder of our shared national values? Could he serve as a unifying force in a disunifying time? If Moses could split the Red Sea, could he unsplit America?”

One part adventure story, one part literary detective story, one part exploration of faith in contemporary life, America’s Prophet takes readers through the landmarks of America’s narrative—from Gettysburg to Selma, the Silver Screen to the Oval Office—to understand how Moses has shaped the nation’s character.

Meticulously researched and highly readable, America’s Prophet is a thrilling, original work of history that will forever change how we view America, our faith, and our future.

For Feiler Moses is more than an unacknowledged hero of the imagination of our founding fathers, but his is the unseen hand that has much to do with almost everything we assume is normal and given about American and our magnificent dream. But more than that, Feiler proposes that recapturing the story of Moses has the potential to unify our country by reminding us of our most inspirational national dreams, that potentially at least we all share.

I have found the book compelling, inspiring, and gripping. I have been reading it off and on now through the course of two very busy weeks and find it hard to put down. Bruce and I were interviewed in back-to-back programs on Israel National Radio late last year on the show “Landminds.” The programs are archived and you can listen here.

As chair of a large and thriving Department of Religious Studies in a public/state university (see the recent Profile in our UNC Charlotte magazine) I make every effort to keep my personal religious faith and our enterprise as a faculty in the area of the academic study of religion properly separated. There is some debate in our field on this question with arguments on both sides as to what extent one’s implicit religious or political views should become part of the teaching discourse. Although there is no need to avoid matters of religious faith in the classroom, and indeed such matters are part of our study, my position is that personal theology belongs elsewhere–particularly for those in public education.

That said, like Frank Moore Cross and many others in our field who were raised in Christian contexts, I have found myself more personally drawn toward the complex of ideas, concepts, tensions, and even contradictions, reflected in the Hebrew Bible, as I have noted previously in my Blog post “Reflections on the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.”

Back in 1991 I published a little book titled Restoring Abrahamic Faith with a small non-profit publisher called Genesis 2000. It was more or less in response to questions I was getting from many quarters regarding my own “beliefs.” It was mainly an attempt to save my “breath,” so I could refer it to those who were curious about my own personal faith, or the lack thereof.  Also, in the final chapter of my popular book, The Jesus Dynasty, that was intended for general audiences far beyond my academic arena, I did include, a final “Conclusion” that delved into matters of faith and the consequences of historical Jesus studies–mentioning my view of “Abrahamic Faith.” In 2008 an expanded, 3rd edition, of that 1991 1st edition was released.  It is now available either directly from the publisher (http://genesis2000.org) or through Amazon. And yes, alas, it also has a Facebook Fan page! It is not generally available in bookstores though it can be special ordered but for my Blog readers who order through the publisher, Genesis2000, or through Amazon, copies are autographed at no charge.

I am most pleased and gratified to have received a positive endorsement this 3rd edition of Restoring Abrahamic Faith, from none other than Dr. Barrie Wilson, professor of Religious Studies at York University in Toronto and author of the recent best-seller, How Jesus Became Christian. You can read all about him and his important book at his Web site: http://www.barriewilson.com/. Dr. Wilson’s book, out now in paperback, is in my view the most important book written on Christian origins, and Paul in particular, in the past decade.

Although I did not write Restoring Abrahamic Faith primarily for my academic colleagues it is surely gratifying to have someone of the caliber of Dr. Wilson to write so positively about the book. Here are his personal comments:

Hi James,

You’ve produced a superb manifesto in this book, very similar in many ways to my own personal credo. It is truly a wonderful, inspirational book that should draw people back to the fundamental biblical message, one which puts Jesus, James and John the Baptizer into context. I have added it to my “Recommended Reading” on my Web site. I think the chapter on The Messiahs is especially well done and I’ll direct my students to the book, especially for that chapter. What constitutes a Messiah, as opposed to a Savior, remains a perennial favorite amongst my students.

I personally learned a lot from the chapter on “The Plan” – hadn’t thought of thinking about the future quite that way – and “Turning To God” is very similar to the kind of message I advocate when speaking in churches/synagogues.

This coming summer I’m teaching an honors seminar on early Christianity. We’ll use The Jesus Dynasty and one of the research projects I’ll assign will have to do with what constitutes a Messiah. Those individuals will have to obtain Restoring Abrahamic Faith.

If you are interested I hope you will order a copy and let me know what you think of the ideas I present. As with many such books of this kind, readers tend to either love it or hate it, depending on one’s presuppositions and approach to matters of biblical faith. I welcome the dialog and discussions on the Facebook page are open.

Tis the Season” love it or not but for an alternative take on Jesus’ birth, December 25th, and a different kind of “Silent Night” see my essay, just up on the Web at Bible&Interpretation, a site well worth a bit of browsing:

http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/xmas357921.shtml

I love this wonderful Armenian portrayal of the meeting of Miriam with her kinswoman Elisheva in the region of Ein Kerem in the “hill country of Judea,” west of Jerusalem. Note that the unborn babies are shown in situ as if by ancient ultrasound. According to Luke’s gospel the women were separated in their pregnancies by six months and Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months, implying that she was attending at the birth of John/Yehochanan.

A few months ago I published a blog post about an anonymous evangelical Christian author who went by the pseudonym “Servetus the Evangelist” who had self-published a new and challenging biblical study on the Trinity titled: The Restitution of Jesus Christ. The original plan was that the author, a well known evangelical, would reveal his identity on the 500th anniversary of Michael Servetus’s birth, but in the meantime, as a kind of playful contest, would release weekly clues as to his identity and invite readers to make guesses.

Recently “Servetus” has announced a change of mind. He promises to reveal his identity this coming Thursday, on November 19th. The following announcement has appeared on his Website:

ANNOUNCEMENT!!! October 18, 2009
I have decided to end this contest and reveal my identity as the author of The Restitution of Jesus Christ on November 19, 2009, almost two years earlier than planned. I will tell on this webpage who I am. And I will tell about the interesting development that has caused me to change these plans. It is something totally unexpected and that I could not have foreseen. Yet I am very excited about it.

Stay tuned, we don’t have long to wait…