Talk:Holy Communion

Eean's correction is better all around. Better not to get into the exact origins — that's more appropriate to Wikipedia.

That said, there is some controversy over whether the Last Supper was a Passover Seder. The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) indicate that it was, but even then it's unclear whether the last supper was during Passover or the preparations for Passover. John indicates that it was before Passover. Also, the words used for bread in the various accounts denote ordinary bread, not matzah, as would be required for Passover.

Further, the weekly ritual of blessing and consuming wine and bread bears a striking resemblance to the traditional weekly Shabbat meal, and virtually none to the annual Passover Seders. It thus seems very likely that the ritual of communion is rooted in Shabbat, not in the Seder. -dmh 15:15, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I still don't think you could say its rooted in Shabbat even if they were having a Shabbat. Certainly dogma has it as passover. Regardless, Jesus was basically making himself a ritually slaughtered lamb (you see lambs in early Christian artwork symbolizing Christ) and having folks metaphorically eat him (like they might with a sacrifaced lamb, though I might not be correct on that). So, if anything its rooted in sacrificing lambs. Eating bread and drinking wine is hardly the notable part of the communion, folks do that all the time. --Eean 07:24, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You're quite right that in the context of Communion, Jesus is symbolically a Paschal (i.e., Passover) lamb. I also agree that that the theologically important part is the blessings said over the bread and wine, not the fact of their consumption (though this too is symbolic in the Christian context). The Jewish blessings are basically "thank you Lord for giving us bread/wine" while the Christian blessings are basically "this is my body/blood which was given for you". In this important sense, the Christian communion is a novel ritual rooted in the New Testament account of the Last Supper, indirectly in Passover, and not at all in Shabbat.

The connection to Passover, though, doesn't derive from the Last Supper putatively having been a Seder, but from Jesus explicitly drawing the connection between himself and the Paschal lamb. I think this was what I was mainly objecting to in the original articles, along with the completely incorrect conflation of Passover with Seder. Just to be completely clear, I'm objecting to the original analysis here, not to yours.

On the other hand, the early Christians kept Shabbat (according to the 4th commandment), and moreover they kept it on the traditional day. The shift to the day of the Sun, under Roman influence, came later. They would have had the traditional bread and wine, but would have viewed it as the Lord's Supper, not as the traditional meal. That is, they would have treated the bread and wine as symbolic of Christ, not just as fruits of the earth to be thankful for. So in this sense, Communion is clearly a redressing of the familiar ritual of Shabbat as a uniquely Christian ritual.

As the Rabbi says in Fiddler on the Roof, we're both right. ("Both right? How can they be both right?") -dmh 16:59, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)