Corpus-Paul

[Jeff Peterson <peterson AT austingrad.edu>]

At 7:14 AM -0500 8/29/02, Hyam Maccoby wrote:
> I think  you are suggesting that of all the days of the year, the day on
> which Peter visited Antioch happened to be the day of Passover, and that
> therefore the meal was a Passover meal, which Peter would not ordinarily
> share with uncircumcised people.  I am afraid this suggestion seems to me
> rather desperate, not only because there is no indication in the text that
> the meal was anything other than an ordinary meal, but because the genuine
> Passover meal took place only in Jerusalem, where the paschal sacrifices
> took place at the Temple.

This strikes me as an unnecessarily hasty dismissal of a possibility 
that deserves exploration: viz., that the earliest Christians 
regarded their communal meals as analogous to Passover and adapted 
Passover halakah in their observance. In 1QS and other texts we find 
devout Jews adapting rules of purity from the temple cult to daily 
life. It's not then unreasonable to imagine that the devout, nay 
fanatical, Jews who formed the earliest communities of Jesus' 
devotees might similarly take customs from one context -- observance 
of the Passover at the temple -- and apply them to a new observance 
-- communal meals in commemoration of Jesus' eschatological sacrifice 
and in anticipation of his royal advent.

Bob McDonald asks the right question here: how early was the 
understanding of the communal meal that Paul alludes to in 1 Cor 5:7 
(if in fact Paul is alluding to the communal meal here, as is 
suggested by the SYNACHTENTWN of 5:4, the SYNESTHIEIN of 5:11, and 
the development of the understanding of the meal as an observance of 
"Israel [not] according to the flesh" in 10:1ff and 10:16ff). In 5:7 
Paul does nothing to justify or even explain the equation of Christ 
with Passover, suggesting that the image was already familiar to his 
converts from his missionary proclamation. Paul's claim in 15:1-11 
that his understanding of the death of Jesus was a point of agreement 
with the apostles to Israel raises the possibility that pre-Pauline 
followers of Jesus too would have said, "Christ is our Pasch, through 
whom God has reconstituted his people Israel as he promised through 
Isaiah and the prophets," and would have sought means of recognizing 
this divine gift in their communal life. Exod. 12:43-49 is a likely 
text to have been considered in such a quest, especially as a 
percipient interpreter might well have noticed that the instructions 
for Passover given in that chapter do not reckon with the temple; 
they may well have reasoned that Exodus Urzeit corresponded with New 
Exodus Endzeit.

Not suggesting any of the above as proven of course, only that the 
possibilities merit consideration.

Cheers,

Jeff Peterson
--
Jeffrey Peterson
Associate Professor of New Testament
Austin Graduate School of Theology
Austin, Texas, USA