Lecture on Pesah and Pascha

On Monday 3 April, Marcie Lenk, a doctoral student at Harvard, spoke at YCT on the early Passover Seder. She did so by looking at the alleged seder (the"last supper") which took place in the synoptic gospels and in John (composed in the late first century). She then pointed out the seder of the tenth chapter of Mishnah Pesahim. Of course, the se'udah idea came from Roman Symposia (festive meals), and similarly came the seder. She also showed us a couple of early Christian polemics (from the second and third centuries) against Jews regarding the naming of the holiday, as it was called Pascha in Greek, which was a transliteration from the Hebrew (pesah).