What Is Passover

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Although a completely comprehensive and accurate analysis is impossible given the limitations of summarizing from outside of the cultures, languages, evolution of faith, geographic locations and original timelines from Creation to the first century, some scholarly generalizations serve as an appropriate framework at this time. The NIV Archaeological Study Bible provides a simple timeline with Creation, The Flood and the Tower of Babel occurring sometime before 2166 B.C. In addition, the timeline lists the years of the significant forefathers of faith as: Abraham (c. 2166-1991 B.C), Isaac (c. 2066-1886 B.C.), Jacob (c. 2006-1859 B.C.), and Joseph (c. 1915-1805 B.C.). Furthermore, this study Bible notes that Moses, the probable author of Genesis …show more content…

Although aspects of tradition were again changed dramatically, Passover continues to be observed to this day. Klawans goes into great detail in his article reviewing the works of many known scholars and showing how they may be reliable in documenting culture at the time, they do not give an account of how Passover was observed by Jesus. He concludes, “Thus, the Passover Seder as we know it developed after 70 C.E. I wish we could know more about how the Passover meal was celebrated before the Temple was destroyed. But unfortunately, our sources do not answer this question with any certainty.” Considering the thorough review by Klawans, it appears there is not a lot more that can be researched at this time to confirm or deny his conclusions. Stein, on the other hand, appears quite confident that Jesus observed several of the traditions, including the number of people present, specific elements at the table, and the tradition of explaining the symbolism. However, Stein does not clarify if his descriptions of Passover are modern, during Jesus’ time, or dating back to before participants made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Also, to Klawans’ point, there is no proof of how closely Jesus and his disciples observed the Passover traditions. Therefore, in understanding the Lord’s Supper passage in context, one needs to be careful not to heavily compare to existing traditions beyond what is described in

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