Suggested Comparisons for the Last Supper
Suggested Comparisons for the Last Supper
No one denies that Jesus ate a final meal with his disciples, but this claim by itself is not saying much; if Jesus ever ate with his disciples, the last time he did so was by definition a “final” one. What bears keeping in mind here, however, is that this meal would be a Jewish one, and would likely be especially remembered by his followers by virtue of it being their last table sharing together. In the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean world, sharing a meal bonded its participants in mutual loyalty. Given the tensions we have noted during passion week, and Jesus’ apparent plan to both provoke and await martyrdom, that Jesus spoke about his death at such a meal is not at all implausible.
Ignoring closer Jewish parallels, some have found pagan backgrounds for the Lord’s Supper,150 which would represent the creation of the later church rather than the disciples’ accurate memories of what happened on the night of Jesus’ arrest. For example, some have compared the Lord’s Supper to pagan cult meals151 or even suggested that the hellenistic sacramental meals were read back into the Jewish last supper tradition.152 Still further removed from a Jewish setting are occasional proposed connections153 with the Greco-Roman cult of the dead, which honored departed ancestors.154 Against connections with the cult of the dead is the antiquity of the resurrection tradition (i.e., disciples were not simply “remembering” a departed loved one), and the closer parallel in the biblical paschal tradition.155 Mention of “memory” in a passover context involved not mere recollection but more of a participatory commemoration.156
Greek associations regularly met for common meals,157 normally dedicated to the association’s patron deity (but with little further attention to the deity).158 Greek meal practice did affect contemporary Jewish banquets, including Passover customs,159 hence did indirectly influence some customs at the Last Supper; in some respects the hellenistic church also assimilated the Lord’s Supper to hellenistic meals.160 These meals do not provide the most immediate parallels for the earliest form of the Lord’s Supper tradition, however. Most scholars also recognize that before the spread of Christianity, hellenistic meals were not sacramental161 and did not communicate mystical elements of the deity.162
Others, helpfully looking closer to Jesus’ actual milieu, have compared the Last Supper with Qumran meals.163 Their meals themselves might reflect some hellenistic influence.164 Although some have viewed these meals as priestly or eschatological,165 others contend that the sacral character may be no more than in most Jewish meals,166 and the eschatological interpretation also remains unclear. 167 Nevertheless, the proposed parallels between the Qumran meals and the Lord’s Supper are not strong:168 the leader presiding over the meal and blessing bread and wine fits all Jewish meals (see below) — like most other characteristics of the meal.169 Certainly special rules obtained in the Qumran order,170 but their meals merely show that a concept related to the sacred meal was already present in Palestinian Judaism and that one need not appeal to geographically distant parallels to explain the Lord’s Supper.171
Some think that Jesus’ final meal more resembles the regular weekly gatherings of the haburoth,172 whose Pharisaic purity rules, some think, may have bound them to eating especially among themselves.173 But again, are meals of associates or students of the sages pervasive and distinctive enough as meals to warrant special attention in connection with the Last Supper?174 Palestinian Jewish families probably celebrated the more common weekly Sabbath Kiddush from a very early period.175 Diaspora Jews also apparently assembled for communal meals at times.176 What most of these meals have in common with the Lord’s Supper they also have in common with each other, as simply standard Jewish meal or banquet practice.