Jesus and the Eucharist 4

We’ve been working our way through Brant Pitre’s recent book Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper.

Chapter three presents the subject of the New Passover. You might recall that in his second chapter, the subject of your last post, he made the point that at the time of Jesus many Jews were expecting a “new Exodus”: an end-time deliverance that would outshine the first Exodus out of Egypt. Chapter three builds on this by suggesting that the new Exodus, as with the first one, would be kicked off with a new Passover event, one that would again outshine the first. Why would this be relevant to Jesus and the Eucharist meal? Because Jesus’ last meal with his disciples in the upper room was most likely the Passover meal eaten at the start of the Sabbath on the 14^th day of the Jewish Month of Nissan. Brant states,

On that night, Jesus was not just celebrating one more memorial of the exodus from Egypt. Rather, he was establishing a new Passover, the long-awaited Passover of the Messiah. By means of this sacrifice, Jesus would inaugurate the new exodus, which the prophets had foretold and for which the Jewish people had been waiting (49).

Brant believes that knowledge of the Jewish background of the Passover both biblically and in the context of first-century Judaism is crucial for understanding the meaning of the Lord’s Supper. He takes his readers on a very brief and readable survey of the details of the Passover meal.

The Passover ceremony involved five steps as outlined in Exodus 12.

Step 1. Choose an unblemished male lamb.
Step 2. Sacrifice the lamb
Step 3. Spread the blood of the lamb on the home as a “sign” of the sacrifice.
Step 4. Eat the flesh of the lamb with the unleavened bread.
Step 5. Every year, keep a Passover as a “day of remembrance” of the exodus forever.

At the time of Jesus, a few significant changes to the ceremony had taken place. It should be emphasized when studying Jesus it is not the biblical framing of teaching, but how those teachings were interpreted and practiced in the first century that is most important. Brant notes four relevant alternations.

1. The Passover sacrifice was now made in the temple in Jerusalem. In the Bible the lambs were sacrificed and eaten in the home of the Israelites in Egypt, but at the time of Jesus these two activities were split and the sacrifice was required to be done in the Jerusalem temple by the Levites. The implication is obvious: you could only celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. This made for a very busy and bloody day of sacrifice at the temple leading up to the Passover meal. Brant points out impression that would have been left on all those who attended the Passover. This was a brutal sacrifice.

2. The Passover lamb was “crucified” in the process of the sacrifice. Brant appeals to a little known tradition that in the process of the sacrifice two stakes were thrust through the lamb which resembled a crucifixion. This element it must be admitted cannot be historically verified to represent the practice of first-century Jews. Still, if it is correct Brant is right to conclude:This an aspect of the Passover in his day that is neither mentioned in the Bible nor part of the modern-day Jewish Seder, but which as the power to shed light on Jesus’ conception of his own fate (64).

3. The Passover at the time of Jesus became a way to participate in the first Passover. The manner of this contemporizing of the event took shape in traditions that accompanied the Passover meal. The Mishnah, a third-century Rabbinic text, tells us that in the midst of the Passover meal, the son would ask the father, “Why is this night different from other nights?”. This tradition is still practiced today in the Seder. The Passover meal was a way for Jews in every generation to participate in the exodus.

4. Jewish traditions that admittedly date much later than the New Testament but might represent views in the air in the first century, link the Passover feast to the coming of the Messiah and the dawn of the age of salvation. “The Messiah comes on Passover night, and God will redeem his people on that same night” (68).

All of this then forms the frame for seeing Jesus and the Passover meal correctly. Brant suggests that the key is to pay attention to the similarities and differences between the Jewish Passover meal, as described in the Jewish sources, and the meal Jesus had with this disciples recorded in the synoptic gospels. The major observation drawn from a comparison is that Jesus alters the Jewish Passover by placing himself at its center, as the sacrificial lamb. Jesus instituted a “new Passover”.

By means of his words over the bread and wine of the Last Supper, Jesus is saying in no uncertain terms, “I am the new Passover lamb of the new Exodus. This is the Passover of the Messiah, and I am the new sacrifice” (72).

Now the pay dirt for Brant in all of this is that according to the ancient biblical tradition, the lamb was to be eaten. Central to the Passover ceremony was the consumption of the flesh of the lamb. As Brant puts it, “the sacrifice of the Passover lamb was not completed by its death. It was completed by a meal, by eating the flesh of the lamb that had been slain” (74).

Brant’s interpretation is very interesting and at many points is profound and instructive. He’s done a great service to us to so clearly spell out the Jewish context of the Passover meal and to draw out connections between Jesus’ last meal with his disciples and the practice of the Passover. Even if not all his connections can be validated, understanding the Eucharist as the Passover of the Messiah is no doubt rich in meaning.

There is one thorny historical issue in all of this that should at least be registered. The question of whether the last supper was the actual Passover meal or a meal on the night before Passover is still a scholarly quandary. John’s Gospel, on the one hand, has the meal on the night before the Passover so that Jesus dies at the time of the sacrifices. On the other hand, the Synoptic Gospels clearly have Jesus’ meal as the Passover. The historical issues are nearly intractable. And while hypotheses have been suggested to harmonize the two accounts no one hypothesis has won the day. What one can say, nevertheless, is that Jesus’ death is associated in all the Gospels with the Passover.

For earlier posts see: Jesus and the Eucharist 1, 2, 3.

Jesus and the Eucharist 3

In his second chapter Brant Pitre, begins to set the stage for his discussion of the Jewish roots of the Eucharist in his recent book. We’ve been doing a series of posts through this interesting and provocative book. Brant begins by asking “What were the Jewish people waiting for?” This indeed is an important question not only for his study, but more generally because the answer to this question will put into context the words and deeds of Jesus more generally that the Eucharist is merely on case in point.

Brant corrects the false notion that the Jewish people were only expecting an earthly, political Messiah, one who would boot out the Romans and rule over a restored political kingdom. It is true that this was an element, perhaps a central one, of first century Jewish expectation, but it is not comprehensive enough an understanding. He comments,

While some Jews may have been waiting for a merely military Messiah, this was not necessarily the case for all. According to the Jewish Scriptures and certain ancient Jewish traditions, for others, the hope for the future consisted of much, much more (41).

Brant points out that in addition to a political deliverance, the Jewish people were expecting a “new exodus”. In the pattern of the first exodus led by Moses, at the end of the age, God would bring about an even great exodus—God would return the exiles back to the Promised Land from the lands to which they were scattered. In order to do so, God would (1) raise up a “new Moses”, (2) establish a “new covenant”, (3) and build a “new temple”.

It was a hope for the coming Messiah, who would not just be a king, but a prophet and a miracle worker like Moses. It was a hope for the making of a new and everlasting covenant, which would climax in a heavenly banquet where the righteous would see God, and feast on the divine presence. It was the hope for the building of a new Temple, where God would be worshiped forever and ever. Finally, it was a hope for the ingathering of God’s people into the promised land of a world made new (41-42).

The New Exodus tradition, and its concomitant elements, that Brant argues is the appropriate background against which to understand Jesus words and deeds generally and in particular the meaning of the Last Supper.

Brant's point is certainly correct and provides a more complete conceptual background for understanding Jesus. If I were to suggest one friendly critique, I would press him on his discussion of the "new promised land" as "not necessarily identical to the earthly land of Israel" (39). While on the surface I can agree with this statement--there is a New Creation element in the New Exodus--I think it is misleading.

The new promise Land will indeed be identical to the earthly Land of Israel, but it includes more. The expectations begin with and are centered on the restoration of the Land (the land promised to the patriarchs, apportioned by Joshua, but never fully acquired) and expand out from there to the entire earth. The expectations don't contain a conception of replacement of the old earthly Land with something else.

Jesus and the Eucharist 2

Brant Pitre has written a very informative and accessible book on the Jewish roots of the Eucharist and this is the second post in a series engaging Brant’s thought-provoking volume.

In the first chapter, “The Mystery of the Last Supper”, Brant discusses his primary goal to situate Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist in its historical setting in order to show that, in spite of its seeming incongruity with Jesus’ own Jewish tradition, his teaching on eating his flesh and drinking his blood (John 6) (Brant takes this passage eucharistically – more on that in ch. 4) was meant literally. Of his purpose he writes:

My goal is to explain how a first-century Jew like Jesus, Paul, or any other of the apostles, could go from believing that drinking any blood—much less human blood—was an abomination before God, to believing that drinking the blood of Jesus was actually necessary for Christians” (18).

Brant wants to take his reader on a journey back to the first-century world of Jesus and the first Jewish believers in Jesus to help us “see things” as they saw them. Brant believes when we use an informed imagination “we will discover that there is much more in common between ancient Judaism and early Christianity”. In the end, Brant will attempt to show that a Catholic view of the Eucharist (Transubstantiation) is consistent with Jesus’ teaching in their first-century Jewish setting.

There are two points of reflection that I wish to make. First, I am not Catholic. I have never believed in Transubstantiation and still don’t. My own view of the Eucharist is probably somewhere between Zwingli and Calvin. Nevertheless there is a great deal to be gained from reading Brant’s engagement with ancient Judaism and the Gospels both on the question of the Eucharist, but also a proper approach to reading the canonical Jesus in his context. Brant has given me a newfound appreciation for the Catholic doctrine. Reading his book I’ve come to see a biblical foundation for the view and while I am not convinced—this is a whole other issue related to conversion for to be convinced would mean a need to convert to Catholicism—on exegetical grounds, I now better understand and respect the view.

Second, in light of my previous post about Love Wins and the question Rob Bell raised about Jesus’ purpose and the meaning of the Jesus story, I think Brant’s discussion of Jesus humanity is instructive. He states,

For anyone interested in exploring the humanity of Jesus—especially the original meaning of his words and actions—a focus on his Jewish identity is absolutely necessary. Jesus was a historical figure, living in a particular time and place. Therefore, any attempt to understand his words and deeds must reckon with the fact that Jesus lived in an ancient Jewish context . . . this means that virtually all of his teachings were directed to a Jewish audience in a Jewish setting (12).

If this is the case, then it seems overly reductionistic to narrow the meaning of Jesus’ story to “love of God for every single one of us”. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so” is no doubt true, but a childish (I don’t mean this negatively) abbreviation of the Gospel. Jesus did not present his mission or his message in these terms. Brant points to Jesus’ announcement of his mission and message in Luke 4 to show just how Jewish Jesus’ framework was. Here in his hometown as Jesus began to reveal his identity as Messiah he appealed to the Jewish Scriptures, Isaiah 61:1-4 particularly) and announced that the “anointed one” is here. “Jesus proclaimed to his fellow Jews that their long-held hope for the coming of the Messiah had been fulfilled—in him” (12-13).

Jesus and the Eucharist 1

My friend and Catholic New Testament scholar Brant Pitre, for whom I have the greatest respect, has just released an interesting, accessible and important book on the Lord’s Supper (i.e. the Eucharist, for those of us low church folks!). The book is Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper.

I grew up a Protestant low church Baptist so my understanding of the Lord’s Supper has always been very Zwingli-ish. In other words, I have understood the Lord’s Supper as primarily memorial. In the Lord’s Supper we “remember” and reflect on the death of Jesus. Brant’s provocative thesis in the book is that the traditional Catholic view of transubstantiation, which believes that the bread and wine in communion are transformed literally into the body and blood of Jesus, is rooted in Jesus’ own teaching and first century Jewish context. The book presses me, and all readers, to consider a fresh Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist. However, this is more than a book about the Eucharist.

In the book, Brant shows the importance of understanding the Jewish context of Jesus. This, for me, is a lesson nearly as important as his thesis on the Eucharist. I will be reflecting on the book in a series of posts.

Brant begins in this introduction with a somewhat darkly comical but yet poignant story of a pre-martial interview with his soon-to-be wife's family's Baptist pastor over 15 years ago. Upon hearing that Brant was a Catholic, the meeting turned from a pre-marital interview into a theological interrogation. As Brant recounts it, the pastor "grilled me on every single controversial point in the Catholic faith". pulled no punches in his questions of Brant over all things Catholic: Mary, the Canon of Scripture, the Pope and the Eucharist.

On the latter topic, the Eucharist, the pastor asked/asserted "How can Catholics teach that bread and wine actually become Jesus' body and blood? Do you really believe that? It's ridiculous!" Brant reflected on the fact that in the moment he was unable to provide a biblical and theological response. He left the meeting devastated. To make matters worse, the pastor said to Brant's fiance that "he has serious concerns about yoking you with an unbeliever".

Brant reflected that this experience was a "major turning point" in his life. He shares that this event became one of the reasons he is a biblical scholar today. Brant writes, "In effect, my exchange with the pastor poured gasoline on the fire of my interest in Scripture". One of the major lessons he learned as he pursued a biblical studies in undergrad, graduate and post-graduate work was this:

If you really want to know who Jesus was and what he was saying and doing, then you need to interpret his words and deeds in their historical context. And that means become familiar with not just ancient Christianity but also with ancient Judaism.