Sunday, April 24, 2016

Passover and Orthodox Easter Greetings!




Greetings for Passover and Eastern Orthodox Easter (May 1, 2016).  
Please click on the title"The Golden Haggadah" below the image in order to learn more about Passover and this beautiful Gothic illuminated manuscript.

As for the perennial question: Was the Last Supper a seder?  Most scholars agree that indeed it was a meal taken during the week of Passover, described in the Gospel of  Mark (14:12): "the first day of the unleavened bread."




Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, c. 1495-8

However, it was probably not a seder (the order), as we know it today, set down in the Haggadah developed during the Middles Ages.  (The oldest fragments of a Haggadah date to 200 CE/AD and many medieval haggadot survive from the 13th through 15th centuries.)

Leonardo animates Jesus' question "Who among you will betray me?"  And the disciples answer through their gestures:  "Are you talking about me?"  "Or him?" The lively gestures remind us of our modern seders, which invariably entertain questions about procedures, customs, tradition and new additions.    

A Ziessen Pesach - Happy Passover.
And best wishes for Orthodox Easter,

Beth New York and the New York Arts Exchange

Sources:
http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/passover/passover-seder-meal.html
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-last-supper-a-Passover-seder-348420
http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/2013/coo378022.shtml



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