In Jesus and the Last Supper, Brant Pitre argues for the historical plausibility of Jesus’ words and deeds at the Last Supper and offers an interpretation of the Last Supper within the horizon of Jesus’ ministry. Pitre summarises his thesis: ‘Jesus saw himself as the new Moses who would inaugurate the long-awaited new exodus, set in motion by a new Passover, bring back the miracle of manna from heaven, and gather the twelve tribes of Israel into the heavenly and eschatological kingdom of God – all by means of his sacrificial death and the prophetic sign of his death that he performed at the Last Supper’ (p. 3).
In chapter 1, Pitre reviews the place of the Last Supper in historical Jesus study, noting its frequent dismissal as being incompatible with other known aspects of Jesus’ ministry (e.g. his eschatology). Pitre then defines his own approach which eschews the form critical criteria of authenticity and does not operate with any source (or composition) theory of the Gospels (pp. 28–31). Instead, Pitre develops his own approach by appropriating elements from the method of E. P. Sanders. He examines the evidence in all four canonical Gospels in light of three interacting principles: ‘contextual plausibility [in the Judaism of Jesus’ day]’ (p. 34; italics removed); ‘coherence with other evidence about Jesus’ (p. 37; italics removed); and ‘plausibility of effects within the early church’ (p. 41; italics removed). Pitre also specifies that by ‘historical’ he means that ‘the basic substance or content of the teaching or action can be reasonably concluded as having originated with [Jesus]’ (p. 47).
In chapter 2, Pitre begins by arguing that Jesus understood himself in terms of the messianic Prophet-like-Moses. Numerous allusions to Moses, the Sinai Covenant and Isaiah's Suffering Servant (a Moses-like figure) provide the Jewish context for understanding Jesus’ words about ‘the blood of the covenant’. For Pitre, Jesus makes these Mosaic allusions his own to present both his own death as inaugurating the eschatological covenant and the eucharistic bread and the wine as a new Bread of the Presence, taking the place of the Temple cult.
Chapter 3 examines beliefs about the eschatological manna, which was a sign of the messianic age. Pitre identifies two Gospel texts as providing evidence for this motif in Jesus’ teaching: the bread petition in the Lord's Prayer and selections from the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6. Not only did the eschatological manna have a place in Jesus’ teaching, but Jesus identified this eschatological manna with the flesh and blood of the exalted Son of Man (to be given at the Last Supper).
Chapter 4 takes up the controverted topic of the date of the Last Supper (and whether or not the Last Supper was a Passover dinner). According to Pitre, the discrepancy between John and the Synoptics on this matter is ‘an apparent contradiction’ (p. 251) which arises from a misreading of the chronological and liturgical indicators in the Fourth Gospel. Crucial for Pitre is the semantic range of various terms relating to the liturgical calendar in John (e.g. paraskeuē in John 19:42; the ‘Great Sabbath’ in John 19:31). Of particular importance for Pitre is the recognition that pesaḥ/pascha could refer to different aspects of ‘Passover’ (e.g. the sacrificial lamb, the dinner, the festival week, the week's sacrificial peace-offerings). Such linguistic flexibility allows Pitre to reread the Johannine evidence and conclude that John and the Synoptics are in fundamental agreement on chronology: the Last Supper was a Passover dinner.
Pitre turns in chapter 5 to consider the implications of Passover for the Last Supper. Taking the Gospel accounts (and 1 Cor 11) together, Pitre argues that Jesus identified himself at the Last Supper as the new Passover lamb, whose sacrificial death would bring about the new exodus and inaugurate a new covenant. Pitre also calls attention to the strongly cultic character of Passover prior to the Temple's destruction in 70. Viewed in this context, Jesus’ directives to his disciples to consume his sacrificial body and blood in the eucharist and to ‘do this’ in his memory show the Last Supper to be Jesus’ institution of a new cultic rite. His disciples were to celebrate this new rite in the unspecified time between Jesus’ death and the fullness of the eschaton.
Chapter 6 focuses on Jesus’ vow at the Last Supper (not drinking wine again until he does so in the kingdom) by way of his other teachings (especially ‘the dining with the patriarchs in the kingdom’ logion). Taken in light of Second Temple evidence concerning the eschatological banquet and other texts which speak of God's kingdom as a transcendent, heavenly realm (cf. pp. 474–476), Jesus’ vow identifies the heavenly kingdom as the eschatological banquet, which is in turn an eschatological Passover (for Jesus will drink the Passover wine again there). Moreover, Jesus’ vow is both an intimation of his redemptive death and an expectation of his post-mortem exaltation to the heavenly kingdom as the Danielic Son of Man in a new mode of life. As the cultic enactment of the New Passover (i.e. the reality of the heavenly kingdom), the Last Supper is ‘an anticipation of the messianic banquet . . . and a foretaste of the power of the kingdom of God’ (p. 512).
This is an ambitious book, which covers a great deal of material and argues boldly for some very detailed conclusions. While not convincing on every point of argument and matter of method, Pitre as a whole does a fine job of considering the Last Supper in light of other components of Jesus’ ministry (and the Second Temple context) and illumining the Last Supper accounts’ subtle eschatological and cultic dimensions. Particularly impressive is Pitre's extensive engagement with biblical and Second Temple sources and his discernment of numerous intertextual links. Pitre has made a valuable contribution, and future work on the Last Supper will do well to attend to his scholarship.
