The Last Supper

[Josiah]

...or include speculative additions because...God didn't say...so we can...

EXACTLY! It's hard to discuss Scripture if one begins by simply rejecting the words. Like when the text says "IS" and one declares, "Actually God inspired 'is NOT' but the author didn't hear the 'not' and thus didn't pen it." Or when the text says "for all people" and one declares, "Actually God inspired 'NOT for all but only for a few' but the author wasn't paying attention and so missed all that." When some begin by denying the words, then it's impossible to discuss the words.

 

[Arsenios]

Note: Nisan 14 is the day when leaven was removed from the houses of Israel and so would be "the first day of unleavened bread" and the lamb was sacrificed on that day and the Passover meal eaten at night, which is the following day being the "second day of unleavened bread". It is helpful to keep in mind that for Jews a day starts at sunset.

You offer a neat explanation but one that I do not believe reflects either Sadducee practise or Jesus' likely affiliation (he was not a Pharisee). But if Jesus died when the Passover lamb was sacrificed on Nisan 14 then he did not eat the Passover meal the night before and you appear to be implying that Matthew wants it both ways which seems impossible. The Lord died in the daylight hours not at night and the angel of death passed over at night according to the scriptures so the analogy you are attributing to saint Matthew does not fit his narrative of the last days of Christ's Earthly life.I think you know that Catholic tradition has Good Friday, the day reflecting the week day on which the Lord died and that was preceded by Holy Thursday the day on which the Lord's supper was first eaten and followed by Holy Saturday the weekly Sabbath day on which the Lord rested in the tomb and the special Sabbath for the Passover are all regarded as reflecting what happened in the last week of the Lord's earthly life regardless of the confusion that exists between saint John's gospel account and the account in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. And the first day of the new week, the Sunday of the week after the crucifixion, is the day on which the Lord rose from the grave which is regarded as the first day of the new creation and the new holy day on which Christians celebrate the resurrection of the Lord and their own resurrection to come at the last day because of their (that is to say the faithful's) incorporation in the body of Christ. Ican if you need it give scripture references and/or quotes to help with the chronology but I imagine you already know them and do not need them as substantiation for what I've written. So what is pertinent here is that all of the ancient Churches maintain the same week days; Thursday for the holy supper, Friday for the crucifixion, Saturday as sabbath rest in the tomb, and Sunday as the beginning of the new creation and resurrection of the Lord. And I venture to say that the vast majority of Protestants maintain a similar view at least regarding Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

These week days cannot be reconciled with the double sabbath perspective you've proposed - one held by the secularised Sadducees and maintained in temple ritual despite the Law's demand that the lamb be sacrificed on Nisan 14, and a second Sabbath maintained according to Pharisee legalistic views and held either on the usual weekly Sabbath day or on a separate Sabbath day related to Nisan 14 but not on "Saturday". I think that history and the old testament scriptures make it inevitable that both Pharisee and Sadducee both agreed which day was Nisan 14 since the High Priest and his priestly assistants were the authority which had the legal right to declare the new moons and hence the beginnings of the months and specifically which day was to be Nisan 14. This being so there really is no room for the Passover lamb to be killed on any day except the legally determined day in relation to the new moon and Nisan 14 so there really isn't a case for two separate Sabbaths maintained by two separate Jewish sects and by implication two separate Passover days.

A good pastor friend of mine, an Anabaptist, believed for years in Christ's crucifixion on Wednesday, with three days in the tomb, and Resurrection on Sunday... He pounded me with proofs of this for years... Then he met a Jewish Christian who explained it to him, and showed him that there was indeed only ONE POSSIBLE date that Christ COULD have been crucified, and now his Church is taught that Christ was Crucified on Friday and arose Sunday ...

This is a very fundamental problem with logical systematization of faith...
It is subject to logical refutation...
Faith is by Revelation...
It is NOT a logical SYSTEM of fallen human thinking...

The early Church did NOT get this Faith wrong...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Albion is right,
Catholics and Orthodox too see symbolism as well as the real presence...
The holy Eucharist is a mystery at almost every level
except the simple physical partaking of bread and wine
which are called the body and the blood of Christ after the consecration.
It's a mystery and that's that.
I do wish sometimes that my own tradition had more people willing to say that
and fewer that opined about what it really means.

The Bread Consecrated IS the Body of Christ...
The bread un-Consecrated is NOT that Body...

The difference is not in the bread/Bread...
It is in the difference of the Blessing...

We have simple Blessed Bread...
We have Antidoron Bread...
We have Eucharistic Bread...

And yes, we also have plain unblessed bread...
It symbolizes the difference in one's self...
One person has the Blessing of having been Baptized into Christ's Death on the Cross...
Another person does not...

The flesh of the two is the same...
The Blessing is different...

You have been Blessed in the Name of the Lord!


Arsenios

 

[MennoSota]

What does the text of scripture say? Please, let us leave our traditions and biases at the door and simply engage the text.

 

[MoreCoffee]

A good pastor friend of mine, an Anabaptist, believed for years in Christ's crucifixion on Wednesday, with three days in the tomb, and Resurrection on Sunday... He pounded me with proofs of this for years... Then he met a Jewish Christian who explained it to him, and showed him that there was indeed only ONE POSSIBLE date that Christ COULD have been crucified, and now his Church is taught that Christ was Crucified on Friday and arose Sunday ...

This is a very fundamental problem with logical systematization of faith...
It is subject to logical refutation...
Faith is by Revelation...
It is NOT a logical SYSTEM of fallen human thinking...

The early Church did NOT get this Faith wrong...


Arsenios

The note at the beginning of my post is important for deciding the matters raised by Holy Week chronology. Nisan 14 is the day when leaven was removed from (technically already gone from) the houses of Israel and so would be "the first day of unleavened bread" and the lamb was sacrificed on that day and the Passover meal eaten at night, which is the following day being the "second day of unleavened bread". It is helpful to keep in mind that for Jews a day starts at sunset.

The chronology is Holy Supper on the night of NIsan14 (evening then morning is the order of day in Jewish thinking) the Crucifixion on the same day, NIsan 14, which is the day that the lamb(s) were sacrificed in the temple and the day on which the Lord Jesus Christ died, was entombed, and the tomb sealed. Then came the next day (evening then morning) which was the Sabbath - the weekly Sabbath and also the night on which the Passover meal was eaten. And then came the next day (evening then morning) which was the first Day of the New Creation - Resurrection Sunday. But for us, people who use the Roman way of reckoning days (midnight to midnight) the Holy Supper happened on Thursday Night, the Crucifixion on Friday morning and the Lord died around 3 in the afternoon of Friday and was entombed and the tomb sealed before 6 in the evening on Friday. Then came Saturday (the Sabbath for Jews) and some time in the night, before dawn and probably after midnight - most likely around 3 in the morning - the Lord rose from the dead unsealed the tomb and exited it on Sunday. Saint John's chronology and the Chronologies of Mark, Matthew, and Luke fit in this chronology - perhaps told from a Jewish perspective with days being "evening then morning" and a Roman perspective with days being "midnight to midnight". It may be that saint Luke wrote a little more Roman like in his wording and saint Matthew a little more Jewish like with saint Mark, and saint John - who wrote much later - might have leaned more to Roman phrases about day and night but whatever way each gospel author leaned about Jewish and Roman phrases for day and night the end result is what Holy Tradition has always maintained; namely that The Lord took bread blessed and broke it saying "this is my body ..." and took a cup filled with wine blessed and gave it saying "this is the blood of the new covenant ..." on Thursday night (as gentiles like us name the day) and then was arrested late at night, tried and condemned in the night, taken to be beaten, scourged, and crucified in the morning light of Friday and died on Friday afternoon around 3 PM and was buried before 6 PM and then was entombed and the tomb sealed all on Friday, and then his body rested in the tomb until the early morning hours of Sunday when he rose from the dead, resurrected as Lord and King of the new creation.

I am rambling a little I guess, I just want to be sure that the story is remembered as it is told in the four canonical gospels and remembered every year at Easter time in what Catholics (and Orthodox) call Holy Week.

 

[MoreCoffee]

This video is useful.

 

[Josiah]

What does the text of scripture say? Please, let us leave our traditions and biases at the door and simply engage the text.

I'd welcome that. The words of institution states "IS". Not "is NOT" Not "changed from/into." Not "kinda reminds me of stuff, sorta." Not, "undergoing an alchemic transubstantiation from one reality to an entirely different one, leaving behind an indistinquishable mixture of reality and Aristotelian accidents." The word is is.



.

 

[MennoSota]

The last supper was the Passover meal. The Apostles knew Jesus symbolism in the meal and Paul saw the symbolism.

1 Corinthians 5:7b
For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.