There are some interesting articles at Biblical Archaeology Review relevant to Easter.
Let’s start with the Last Supper. There’s a long article here by scholar Jonathan Klawans looking at all of the arguments for and against the meal being the actual Passover ritual meal (or Seder) as the synoptic Gospels seem to indicate. He concludes that it was probably wasn’t, arguing that in fact we don’t know how Jews in Jesus’ day would have actually celebrated Passover. (That seems a pretty surprising suggestion.) He thinks that the Gospel writers presented the Last Supper as a Passover meal for a few different possible reasons.
I don’t know. I’m pretty suspicious of exegesis that appears to end up being “too clever by half.” Lots of comments follow the article too, giving other explanations as to why he might be wrong.
Does this matter much theologically? Maybe not; the connection between Jesus and the Paschal lamb is clear enough whether or not the meal itself was exactly a Seder.
Moving on to the crucifixion, in a book review we find this comment:
Jesus, the Final Days begins with two chapters by Craig Evans that offer a thorough review of ancient sources describing Roman execution practice and Jewish burial practices. Taken together, these discussions suggest that the gospel accounts of Jesus’ trial, execution and burial represent remarkably authentic descriptions. A seeming omission from Professor Evans’s otherwise comprehensive catalogue is Dio Cassius’s account of the flogging and crucifixion of Antigonus, the last Maccabean king, who had attempted to overthrow Roman rule and reestablish an independent Jewish state two generations before Jesus.1
Then, in the same article, they review “The Resurrection” by an Oxford professor of Jewish Studies (so he ought to know his topic). Here we get this potted history of Jewish thought regarding an afterlife:
He finds that, on the whole, Jews considered death to be a final state (cf. Job 14:10–12; Ecclesiastes 4:2–3). Nevertheless, perhaps in response to extreme adversity in life, some Jews began to imagine a reward beyond life, initially in a metaphorical sense (cf. Ezekiel 37:5–6) and subsequently, during the Maccabean era, in a more literal sense (cf. 2 Maccabees 7:1–41, esp. verses 7–11).
By the time of Jesus, the aristocratic Sadducees continued to maintain the finality of death and this, Vermes argues, was the mainstream Jewish belief. However, certain sectarians, notably the Pharisees, advanced the notion of bodily resurrection at the end of time. On this point, Vermes’s discussion becomes somewhat blurred, because none of the sources provide a satisfactory definition of resurrection. Also, his failure to consider the beliefs of John the Baptist is a puzzling omission. Clearly John the Baptist and probably Jesus himself were among those Jews who foresaw a new era in which the pure would be rewarded with eternal happiness and the sinful condemned to eternal suffering.a But the key point that Vermes makes is that, for Jesus, resurrection meant spiritual survival, while corporeal resurrection “played no significant part” in his thinking.
Thus, the perceived fact of Jesus’ bodily resurrection came as a huge surprise to his disciples and became, indeed, a transforming event in which his previously cowardly followers became bold and eloquent witnesses.
I am curious as to how Vermes makes the claim that Jesus understood resurrection to be spiritual survival only. Would that mean the his Father gave him a big surprise?
And finally, for less scholarly reflections, you can always read the somewhat rambling Easter thoughts of lapsed Catholic ABC journalist Chris Uhlmann. He seems a very likeable fellow, even if his attitude towards global warming indicates that science is not his strong point.
