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Bread and Wine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

J. C. O'Neill
J. C. O'Neill
Affiliation:
New CollegeEdinburgh EH1 2LX
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Extract

The Christian practice of meeting for worship and receiving token pieces of bread and token sips of wine seems unlikely to have had Jewish precedents. You don't eat in a synagogue; you eat at home. To be sure, specific acts of eating bread and drinking wine are given religious significance in the setting of the Passover meal, but that is not quite the same, although perhaps we might suppose the Christian practice to have evolved from the Jewish meal.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , May 1995 , pp. 169 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1995

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References

1 This passage cited by Billerbeck, Paul, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munich: Beck, 1924) ii. 812–815Google Scholar. Fora recent discussion of Passover see Sanders, E. P., Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE – 66 CE (London: SCM, 1992), 132–138Google Scholar and especially 511 note 39.

2 Marshall, I. Howard is an honourable exception, ‘ (Mark adds πρὠτη) by itself would mean Nisan 15, but the addition to the phrase indicates that Nisan 14 is meant, and this meaning if found in Jewish usage (M.Ex. 12:15;Jos Bel. 5:99; SB II, 813–815)…’ (The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text, The New International Greek Testament Commentary, Exeter: Paternoster, 1978, 791)Google Scholar. I have tried above to meet his argument for taking the words to refer to Nisan 14.

3 Semitic languages use the cardinal for the ordinal. Note the superscription to Ps 23 LXX: , ‘for Sunday’; Mark 16.2 ; Luke 24.1; John 20.1, 19; Acts 20.7; 1 Cor 16.2.

4 See Black, M., ‘The Arrest and Trial of Jesus and the Date of the Last Supper’, New Testament Essays: Studies in Memory of Thomas Walter Manson 1893–1958, ed. Higgins, A.J.B. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959), 19–33Google Scholar. He cites Didascalia Apostolorum 21 (ed. R. H. Connolly, Oxford, 1929); Epiphanius Panarion 51.26.1, that the Passover was eaten two days earlier, on Tuesday evening; and Victorinus of Petau, tractatus de fabrica mundi 3 (ed. Haussleiter), which says that Jesus was arrested on the fourth day, Wednesday. Note also the fasts on Wednesday and Friday, Didache 8.1.

5 See also Kilpatrick, G. D., The Eucharist in Bible and Liturgy, The Moorhouse Lectures 1975 (Cambridge: CUP, 1983), 43–44.Google Scholar

6 See further objections to dating the crucifixion on Nisan 15 in O'Toole, Robert F., ‘Last Supper’, The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), iv. 234–241 at 235–236.Google Scholar

7 ‘The Last Supper’, ExpT 64 (1952–1953), 4–8Google Scholar, expanded and refined in his book, The Eucharist in Bible and Liturgy: The Moorhouse Lectures 1975 (Cambridge: CUP, 1983), Lecture V.Google Scholar

8 See Stauffer, E., γαμ⋯ω, end, Kittel, TWNT1 (1933), 654–655Google Scholar; TDNT1 (1964), 656–657.1 have argued the case more fully in ‘What is Joseph and Aseneth about?’, Henoch, forthcoming.

9 The sacral character of the Qumran meals is denied by many scholars, most recently by O'Toole, Robert F., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, iv. 237Google Scholar. See Schiffman, Lawrence H., Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony and the Penal Code, Brown Judaic Studies (Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1983), 191–210Google Scholar; he argues that even the Messianic Banquet, lQSa 2.11–22 is not sacral ‘even while Messianic’ (200). For a measured defence of the case for influence, see Klauck, Hans-Josef, Herrenmahl und hellenistischer Kult: Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum ersten Korintherbrief, Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen Neue Folge Band 15, 2nd ed. (Münster: Aschendorff, 1982), 172–196Google Scholar; ‘Lord's Supper’, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, iv. 362–372 at 369–370. Canon Colin Hickling drew my attention to the important work of Professor Klauck.

10 4Q541 is conveniently printed in Eisenman, Robert and Wise, Michael, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered (Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element, 1992), 142–145.Google Scholar