📜The Last Supper📜

This post is for anyone who is interested in having a more clear picture of the most famous Passover meal in all of history, or any Passover meal from that time period.

It’s interesting how society is so strongly influenced by everything from fiction novels to modern media, movies, and even the paintings from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. People get such wrong ideas about all kinds of things. This phenomenon is illustrated well by “The Last Supper” mural by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from his suspiciously Medieval European depiction of Jesus and the apostles, he has them sitting at a table. Like, a dinner table with chairs.

Leonardo can be excused, since his experience in the 1400s involved sitting down at a table for meals. He either didn’t know his history, or thought viewers of his paintings wouldn’t accept scenes outside of their own experience. The former seems more likely. Furthermore, the meal Jesus and his companions had that evening would not have been called “supper”. Supper was an ordinary informal meal. Passover, or Seder, is a ritual feast.

From long before the time of Jesus, until a few hundred years afterwards, Jewish tradition was to take meals, especially important meals like the Passover, while reclining around a low, long oval table. Each person would be lying on their left side and leaning on their left arm, with their feet behind them and their heads facing the table. This position freed up the right hand for eating with. The right hand was the “clean” hand, being a symbol of strength, the hand that gives blessings, and for many other important applications.

The duties of a host at important meals like Passover were clear. Jesus was the host of this meal, perhaps the most famous meal in all of history. The host, in this case Jesus, would give the honored guest the first piece of bread, which was first dipped in oil or fish sauce. The honored guest always sat to the left of the host. At this meal, that honored guest was Judas Iscariot, according to John 13.

What kinds of foods were eaten at that meal? There’s no way of knowing for certain, but historical records and archeological findings during the time of the Roman occupation can give some good guesses.

We know for sure there was unleavened bread. Other likely foods would have been lamb, bean or lentil stew, olives, dates, bitter herbs, fish sauce and spiced wine.

Another important consideration was the types of dishes used. Some materials were considered to be too impure for a religious feast, but stone was acceptable and widely used. It is highly probable that Jesus and company used stone vessels that evening.

And finally, who attended that meal?

According to Mark, no fewer than 15 people were there: Jesus, 2 disciples and “the Twelve”. Remember, Jesus had both male and female disciples. Also, the preparation and serving of the meal was the role of women. The unnamed 2 disciples could have been women. And there were probably more than 15 people there. Mary the mother of Jesus was very probably there. Mary Magdalene and some of Jesus’ siblings also likely attended.

There was probably quite a crowd in that upper room! And no dinner table with chairs!