The Lost Supper: Revisiting Passover and the Origins of the Eucharist

by Matthew Colvin

What did Jesus intend when he spoke the words, “This is my body”? The Lost Supper argues that Jesus’ words and actions at the Last Supper presupposed an already existing Passover ritual in which the messiah was represented by a piece of bread: Jesus was not instituting new symbolism but using an existing symbol to speak about himself. Drawing on both second temple and early Rabbinic sources, Matthew Colvin places Jesus’ words in the Upper Room within the context of historically attested Jewish thought about Passover. The result is a new perspective on the a credible first-century Jewish way of thinking about the Last Supper and Lord’s Supper— and a sacramentology that is also at work in the letters of the apostle Paul. Such a perspective gives us the historical standpoint to correct Christian assumptions, past and present, about how the Eucharist works and how we ought to celebrate it.

Genres: Theology, Biblical Studies, Church, Christian

188 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 15, 2019

About the author

Matthew Colvin is a presbyter in the Reformed Episcopal Church and received the PhD in Classics from Cornell University.

Reviews

[Chris Wooldridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

In “The Lost Supper”, Matthew Colvin explores the meaning of the last supper between Jesus and his disciples. Unlike many other treatments of the supper, which begin with the question of “real presence”, Colvin begins with a different premise altogether, namely that of trying to situate the supper in its original Jewish context. Drawing on the approach of scholars like NT Wright and David Daube, Colvin argues that the supper should be understood through the lens of later Passover traditions, insofar as those traditions resemble the first century context. Colvin is cautious in his approach though, never simply reading the later Seder traditions back into the gospel accounts, but instead carefully examining the evidence and weighing the arguments and counter-arguments before reaching his conclusions.

Colvin identifies a number of connections between the Seder and the gospel accounts. Based on several lines of evidence, he identifies the bread with which Jesus identifies himself as having existing Messianic significance in the earlier traditions. Likewise, he identifies the reference to the cups in the meal as being associated with a tradition of four cups reflected in the later Seder. Many of the arguments that he makes are based on a careful linguistic analysis, sometimes involving a reconstruction of the spoken Aramaic which stands behind the Greek texts. He also utilises a text called the “Peri Pascha”, a Passover liturgy used by early Quartodeciman Christians, which gives us a powerful window into early Passover traditions.

This isn’t just an exercise in historical reconstruction though. Colvin applies his analysis in a number of ways throughout the book, showing how an overemphasis on “real presence” in the supper is based on a misreading of the key passages and leads us to miss the point of the Lord’s supper as celebrated by Christians. Instead, he argues that the supper is best understood as a ritual meal in which participants are renewed through identification with the Messiah in his death and resurrection. He draws a number of other applications from this in the final chapter of the book.

All in all, this is a valuable work which sheds a great deal of light on the original meaning of the supper. It deals with all of the key passages, even including a section addressing the reference to “bread” in the Lord’s prayer. Packed full with powerful insights, I commend this work to anyone wishing to learn more about the meaning of the last supper.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colvin has written a fascinating study centred on a thesis, originally proposed by Robert Eisler and later revived by David Daube, that the bread of the Passover broken by Jesus and over which he said, “This is my body” was associated with the afiqoman ritual, a ritual associated with the Messiah. Colvin traces the evidence for and history of this ritual from Second Temple literature, to the New Testament, to the Church Fathers. If Colvin’s thesis is correct, it ought to shift our thinking about the nature of the Lord’s Supper. While most Christian theology has been centred either on some form of presence associated with the bread and wine or on intellectual exercises associated with the partaking of them, Colvin argues that the eucharistic meal is primarily about participation. Others have made this point before, but I found the reasoning here particularly clarifying. The Lord’s Supper “works” the same way Passover did. The Lord’s Supper is the means by which later generations participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah just as the Israelites participated in the events of the Exodus through their participation in Passover. I appreciate that Colvin doesn’t leave us at that point, but carries on to apply this idea to the exegesis of John 6 and 1 Corinthians and then gives some very practical thoughts on “experiencing the Lord’s Supper today”. Colvin sets out his criteria early in the book: “The right interpretation should offer a meaning that was (1) chronologically and culturally available to Jesus and his disciples…. This meaning should be (2) clearly and distinctly intended by Jesus and heard by the disciples, not drowned out by the comparative volume of other themes in the semiotics surrounding the Upper Room. Finally, it should also (3) provide a solution to other puzzles. A good interpretation will remove misunderstandings, lay bare obscured meanings, and have a ‘ring’ of truth to it” (p. 13). I think Colvin delivers just such an interpretation.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Refreshing, illuminating, clear, powerful. A stunning work of scholarship that, in my opinion, has the potential for serious reconciliation in the realm of sacramentology. Colvin’s case is strong, and his thesis fits like a jigsaw puzzle in the context of scripture. Unlike current sacramental debates, this book answers questions rather than raises them. Amazing.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matthew Colvin's The Lost Supper is the kind of book that I quite enjoy reading. I'm neither a theologian, nor a classical scholar; I have no particular training in biblical studies, either. But even as just a generally educated, serious reader, I feel like there's something exciting about thoughtful, revisionist-minded history, especially when it involves the deep reading of ancient texts. The idea that a learned and dedicated individual can apply civilizational resources, and just up and decide to challenge ancient authorities and opinions in a serious and substantive way…well, frankly, that's just really neat. I think we too often take for granted the great privilege it is for our scholars to be able to do that, and for us readers to get to formulate our own opinions on the merits of the competing arguments.

Colvin starts his book with a rhetorical move of which I approve; he points out the obvious hidden beneath our noses: "almost no area of human life is so ritualized and mannered as our meals." One could quibble that there is an important distinction between rituals and manners, but leaving that aside, he's right! My mind was drawn to this passage from the last book I read:

The German intelligence officers from the day's meeting were chastened and polite…They gathered in a hotel dining room bright with chandeliers. It was a dinner like something from before the war, with many wines and many courses and many implements at each side of their plates. Adamonis had eaten at some very fine banquets with Russian officers during the war, but he was not so sure about Pranaitis. No sooner had they drunk a toast at the long table than Pranaitis reached forward to his finger bowl and practically washed his hands and then rubbed his face and dried it with a napkin as if he'd just come in from the fields. Adamonis sighed. If they had managed earlier that day to present themselves as more than upstarts in the world of diplomacy, Pranaitis had now reestablished their place as peasants. (Antanas Sileika, Provisionally Yours, pp. 135-136)

But why shouldn't poor Pranaitis bathe in his finger bowl? And towel off with his napkin? Because, precisely as Colvin tells us, human meals are a ritual affair.

If we think about the Christian sacramental practice of 'the Lord's Supper' from a ritual perspective, nothing might at first seem amiss. At least in the Roman Catholic mass, there is an entire set of rituals leading to the consecration of the bread. With that act, accompanied by the drama of ringing bells, the priest effectuates the change of the bread from a human-made substance into a human substance, namely that of the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Shortly thereafter, wine is changed into Jesus's blood. Those transmogrified substances are then consumed by the faithful in an highly ritualized way that involves lining up to receive a wafer on one's tongue and drink from a shared cup. I certainly cannot think of any contemporary rituals that are so regularly performed, and so highly stylized, as is the Christian shared meal.

But, as Colvin points out, this is all ritual that came about in the centuries and millennia after Jesus of Nazareth led his last Passover meal, shortly before his execution by Roman authorities. That meal is known in Christian communities as 'The Last Supper', a term that conspicuously sheds its Jewish ritual antecedents. Jesus of Nazareth, were he to return today, would in fact recognize few if any of the modern Christian eucharistic practices. Undoubtedly, he would be even more bewildered by the complex of second- and third-order ideas that underpin those specific rituals. Colvin doesn't make his arguments in those exact terms--the structure of his argument is rigorous, if almost circular--but to say it in that way does not stray far from the implications of his reasoning.

There are plenty of fine reviews of this book which neatly summarize Colvin's arguments in greater detail than I will. I'd rather spend my time writing subjectively about three of the things that I learned, or found edifying, or was happy to have my memory refreshed about—things that other non-specialists like myself, I hope, will find equally interesting.

1. Passover was (is!) a profoundly 'nationalistic' celebration. We moderns tend to think of nationalism as a feature of our own times, something for better or worse that the French bequeathed to us more than two centuries ago. But Colvin is right to point out that any festival which requires--yes, requires!--its participants to remember when God delivered their nation, the nation of Israel, from slavery in Egypt…well, that's a powerful national story! Set that Jewish drama against the backdrop of foreign rule, as was the case in 33 CE, and you can see why revolutionaries like Jesus of Nazareth might have chosen that time to plot revolt, and equally why the Romans would have been alert to anyone stirring up trouble (John the Baptist's followers, Pharisees, Zealots, etc.) in Jerusalem during the annual pilgrimage. Colvin notes there had been Passover revolts against Roman rule in 4 BCE, when Herod died, in 6 CE by Judas of Galilee, and 15-20 years after the Jesus of Nazareth ordeal, when another Passover revolt resulted in the death of 20,000 Jews, a remarkable number given the lower population numbers of the time. And it wasn't just revolts that were en vogue during Pesach. So too were executions. The Romans clearly wanted to remind their subject population who was in charge so as to ward off any funny business.

2. Christian theology--argued David Daube, a 20th century scholar upon whose work Colvin builds--has historically emphasized the importance of Jesus's utterance, "this is my body." Indeed, that is the words the Roman Catholic priest utters as he lifts the bread into the air in front of him and gazes up at it. But Daube noted that the actual Aramaic words Jesus would have said contained no such word as “is”. In fact, those Aramaic words, and their syntax, are nearly identical with the modern Hebrew way of saying "this is my body": זה גוך שלי (zay guf shelee), whereby 'zay' is ‘this’, 'guf' is ‘body’, and 'shelee' is a contraction of the words 'of' and 'mine' that essentially mean 'my'. So literally "this body of mine" or "this body my." English requires the participle "is" as connective tissue. Hebrew and Aramaic does not. So when Christian theologians, especially during the Reformation, spent lots of energy thinking about grammar and syntax, and especially the central importance of the word "is", they were missing the more important element, which was the context in which those words were spoken, and how they would have been understood by the Jews gathered with Jesus to celebrate Passover. Colvin argues that what Jesus was really doing with the bread was signalling that he was Israel's messiah by reference to an earlier Jewish tradition that connected a certain Passover bread with the messiah to come. Colvin is highly skeptical that Jesus would have suggested to his followers that his corporeal self was the actual bread. Such an ungrounded semiotic claim would have left his followers perplexed.

3. It had never occurred to me some of the challenges that come part and parcel with the Christian theory of 'real presence'; that is, the idea that the bread of the eucharistic meal is actually the body of Jesus. It turns out that this has occupied far more attention than I realized. Colvin mentions one Catholic priest from the Middle Ages who would put the body of Jesus in his mouth and then spit it out. The last thing that priest wanted was for it to pass through his gut, and for part of Jesus' body to exit out the other end. Later clerical authorities would accuse this priest of thinking incorrectly; they labeled him a Stercorist. After that, the church began to counsel worshippers that no part of the body of Jesus is wasted by those who consume it. (Aside: I recently heard that many North Koreans believe that their leader, Kim Jong Un, doesn't need to move his bowels because his body is so highly efficient at processing the food he eats!) In his final chapter, Colvin asks a number of leading questions about other understandings that would likely need to be revised were Christians to switch en masse to his characterization of the eucharist as essentially a Jewish ritual meal with a few slight modifications in meaning. Before reading that chapter, I had never stopped to consider whether or not a breastfeeding infant, or a child in the womb, also partakes when their mother takes the eucharistic bread, and why a five year old might be excluded. As a Jew, I'm not really vested in any particular understanding, but Colvin's questions certainly all do flow from the arguments made in the first seven chapters of his book.

Other things I liked about Colvin's book? The pithy section titles that divide up his chapters. These help with organization, and are sometimes humorous, if not quite irreverent. The section title ‘Against Edible Flashcards’ is all about the stretchy second- and third-order theological ideas held by the Reformed and Presbyterian branches of Christianity. Some of their catechisms teach that one can 'exercise faith' simply by thinking certain thoughts while consuming the bread. Those pious thoughts in one’s head are prompted by the bread itself.

I also liked Colvin's discussion of the issues at play in 2 Corinthians. It sounds like some of the Corinthians Christians of that time were not behaving very well. I don't know enough to comment with much authority, but I found it fascinating the old-west-style showdown between Paul, seeking to exercise the authority of the early church, and the church fathers in Corinth, who thought their ways of doing things--perhaps more pagan in nature?--were superior. Colvin is quite convincing in his description of the importance of the full participation in the meal that is needed to ensure the unity that a proper eucharistic meal ought to entail, at least according to the standards he thinks Jesus and Paul would have demanded. I finished that section wanting to read more about Paul as disciplinarian. (I've once read an essay on Paul as antinomian, something that Colvin would appear to reject. The real antinomians, in this case, were the hyper spiritual Corinthians.

I'm not enough of a scholar to know for sure where the weak points of Colvin's argument lie, but if I were to begin looking, I would start with his 'Rereading of John 6'. Sometimes as a reader you can get the sense--when the language becomes less clear, and the argument muddles just a bit--that maybe this is a place where the author has found his own evidence less healthy than he would like it to be. But, again, I could be mistaken about that. Just a sense.

Finally, I will just say that I do not know Greek and there was a lot of it that I was force to simply read past. I managed doing that just fine without loss of the argument as a whole. I could say that I think there should be less philology in this book, but I won't. When Colvin highlights the Aramaic, I feel excited to read and apply my own Hebrew language skills. I am sure Greek readers will feel the same. It can be a bit tedious, the philological bits, but it's an important part of this scholarly work and strong readers won't miss a beat.

When I look up Colvin in October 2024, five years after his book was published, I find that he is teaching at a virtual, classical, Christian school for home-schooled students. It's called the Wilson Hill Academy. I'd never heard of it before. If I had school-aged kids, and the ability to home school them, I would be thrilled for them to have a teacher like him. I really appreciate the fact that, as a classicist, he has not been afraid to weigh in on debates that are more typically the province of biblical scholars and theologians. I think cross pollination makes for a healthy scholarly dynamic. He also has lived in parts of the world where I have lived.

I am also amazed at his knowledge of these Biblical languages! How did he learn them? He's an ordained Episcopalian church official, but of an offshoot branch that appears to me to be on the conservative side of the Anglican spectrum (is that the same as high church?). In general I like high church aesthetics, and high culture for that matter. So I approve! But his inscription "To Naomi" (his wife's name according to his bio is Sora) is a selection from Psalm 42/43, which starts out with two questions: Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why moanest thou within me? Some might be tempted to argue that Dr. Colvin's soul is moaning because his is the soul of a Jew in the body of a Christian. Short of that, there's for sure the very 'real presence' of Jewish discursive thought in the book he's written! Jeffrey L. Otto, October 17, 2024

[Scott Moonen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some favorite quotes and reflections posted here: https://scottmoonen.com/2021/01/19/th...

[JonM · Rating 5 out of 5]

The eucharistic words of Jesus, “This is my body,” remain controversial and far from settled. This study by Matthew Colvin is a thorough and thoughtful engagement within that longstanding controversy, and it attempts to bridge a huge conceptual gap between the location of eucharistic tradition today and from where it began.
His thesis is not entirely new, piggy-backing off the work of some amazing Rabbinic scholars, most notably David Daube, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany. Most importantly, however, is that Colvin’s research is rooted in restoring the biblical narratives relevant to the Lord’s Supper to their rightful, original Passover context.
Apart from the hefty price of the book itself, there is nothing that ought to deter an interested reader from investing in this book. Save up and buy it. It’s unique. It’s clear. It’s concise. It’s arguably the most useful study on the topic for understanding the ancient context of an equally ancient ritual. This book is not regurgitating familiar dogmas that everybody already knows. This study revisits and engages with texts, translations, and ideas that Rabbis and scholars have discussed, albeit in varied contexts and for equally various reasons, for centuries, yet has not remained readily accessible to the general public until now.

This is genuine, irenic, prodigious scholarship — a "must have" for those engaging in the history of eucharistic controversies.

[Christian Wermeskerch · Rating 5 out of 5]

extremely helpful (though not always user friendly) look at the Paschal origins of the Eucharist, what that means for our sacramentalism and ecclessiology, using rabbinical, Jewish, and Christian texts (both the NT and others) to investigate the roots of the Eucharist to bring a full-bodied understanding back to the church - also attacks weak contemporary sacramentalist views with thorough clarity.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply excellent. Colvin argues at length that rather than a metaphysical approach to the Lord's Supper, a thoroughly Jewish understanding of it as ritual meal (i.e., the Passover redefined in light of Christ's person and work) is the primary import of the Lord's Supper. A must read for anyone interested in this essential practice of Christian liturgy and a needed corrective to overly metaphysical and thus non-Jewish understandings of the same.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great discussion on the Eucharist that answers far more questions than most other books I've read on the subject.