A few housekeeping notes and intro to chapter 5

Welcome to the second-to-last week of the six-week study, The Jewish History of the Lenten Season! As we wind down this study, a reminder that you are part of the community, and I hope you’ll stay engaged well beyond Lent. Regular posts continue, new books are selected for study, and podcasts and livestreams are the ongoing work of this publication.

A few key housekeeping notes:

• The first ever livestream event for subscribers is scheduled for Saturday, April 1, 2023, 11am-12p EST via YouTube Live. I’ll send Instructions to all subscribers this week. If you have a friend who may to like to join us, tell ‘em to subscribe!

• I’ve been invited to offer a short message during a Maundy Thursday (or Holy Thursday) service within a Christian setting. This service will be livestreamed, and I’d love it if you tuned in. Mark your calendars for Thursday, April 6, 2023, 7:30 pm EST

Enjoy this week’s podcast, happy reading!

Transcript 

00:00:00 

If we take the Eucharist for granted, if we take communion as simply a form of dinner, then we miss the shock Jesus is giving up his life and he wants that to be remembered. 

00:00:13 

He is allowing his body to be broken and he wants that to be remembered. 

00:00:20 

That is from Chapter 5 of Professor Amy Jill Levine’s book entering the Passion, A beginner’s guide to Holy Week. I’m Adam, and this is notes from the diaspora, the podcast. 

00:00:36 

Friends, we have reached the 2nd to last week in the 6th week study the Jewish history of the Linton season. 

00:00:45 

Now I don’t want to start my goodbyes just yet. 

00:00:48 

We have a whole another weeks worth of material to work through together before we begin the final week of our study, and even that is a bit of a misnomer. 

00:00:58 

All of you are now part of the notes from the diaspora community. 

00:01:01 

I hope you have. 

00:01:02 

Enjoyed all of the reading and engaging and sharing and chatting, etc. 

00:01:07 

This newsletter, this sub stack will continue long beyond the Linton study and so at the end of the six week period you may decide that this isn’t the best place for you, but I hope you will decide to stay involved, to stay engaged to more details on that. 

00:01:23 

Next week? 

00:01:24 

But just know, as we begin to close out this study with Professor Levine, that doesn’t need to mean goodbye for you and. 

00:01:33 

Hey, quick housekeeping note. 

00:01:35 

Thanks everybody who had the opportunity to fill out the Doodle poll to help us select a time for the first live stream event. 

00:01:43 

This will be on the YouTube live. 

00:01:45 

I am going to send the instructions to everyone who’s on the list of paid subscribers and free subscribers. 

00:01:52 

If you have signed up for this. 

00:01:53 

Newsletter in any way you will be invited to the very first live stream event. 

00:01:58 

Unlike something like a zoom where we’re all interacting with each other in little boxes on the screen, something like YouTube live similar to Instagram live or Facebook live. 

00:02:10 

Live streaming social media platform. 

00:02:13 

It’s going to be a little more one way. 

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I mean, I’ll be on the screen talking to you and you will be in the comments asking questions, giving feedback et cetera. 

00:02:22 

And so it will be interactive and engaging. 

00:02:25 

But if you were kind of thinking about this in terms of like, well, do I? 

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Want another zoom? 

00:02:29 

Meeting on my calendar. 

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Or am I nervous about it in attending because I’m not sure what I would ask or what I would say. 

00:02:36 

Or I just don’t know if I want to see thirty other people on screen. 

00:02:40 

Well, this will be slightly more of a one way dialogue just because I’ll be the one on the screen. 

00:02:46 

You will be in the comments section asking questions and interacting with each other, so if that changes your mind at all about participating, you still have. 

00:02:56 

Plenty of time to choose to attend, but we do have the date selected and so thanks for those who did check the box in the Doodle poll. 

00:03:05 

April 1st, 11:00 AM to noon Eastern Time. 

00:03:10 

That was the best time for those who participated in the Doodle Poll, and there were other days where there was a little bit of consensus, but the clear green checks down the line. 

00:03:21 

April 1st, 11:00 AM Eastern. 

00:03:24 

That was the time that worked. 

00:03:25 

Best for respondents, so I’m going to send that time and the instructions for attending out to everyone. 

00:03:31 

If you’re a subscriber of this sub stack, you’re going to get that invite. 

00:03:35 

And so, by all means, jump on when it is time. 

00:03:38 

YouTube live, like many other platforms, you know you can join from your phone, you can join from a smartphone if you have the app. 

00:03:44 

And so if you’re home, if you’re out and about, you can just hop in to that live stream event. 

00:03:49 

We’ll be on for about 60 minutes is kind of my plan, you know, give or take. 

00:03:54 

We could go a little longer. 

00:03:55 

We could go a little bit shorter just depending on how that time together. 

00:03:59 

Shapes up on April 1st, but it would be great to see you there. So even if you didn’t participate in the Doodle poll, if you are free on April 1st at 11:00 AM Eastern, that is not a Fool’s day joke. 

00:04:13 

We really will be together on April 1st at 11:00 AM Eastern. 

00:04:17 

So if you’re free at that time and you’re subscribed. 

00:04:19 

To this sub stack. 

00:04:20 

Then you will have the information to access that so that was just a little bit of housekeeping that I wanted to share at the beginning. 

00:04:27 

OK, so chapter 5, the 2nd to last week. 

00:04:31 

All of our learning that we’ve. 

00:04:32 

Had together from the first four chapters, we’re going to carry with us into this 5th chapter, but it never hurts to remind us. 

00:04:40 

We must savor each account on its own. 

00:04:43 

That’s a point that Professor Levine returns to frequently, and it’s a good one to keep in mind. 

00:04:48 

We’re going to learn some things this week about what’s traditionally called the Last Supper, and it’s another opportunity to remind you that the date for this. 

00:04:59 

Within Christian communities who recognize. 

00:05:01 

The Last Supper would be Monday, Thursday, our holy Thursday. 

00:05:07 

That is on Thursday, April 6th and if. 

00:05:10 

You want to. 

00:05:11 

Mark your calendars. 

00:05:12 

I have been invited to deliver kind of a message or reflection within a Protestant setting on April 6th that service starts. 

00:05:22 

At 7:30 PM Eastern, I will also share some of the live streaming details. For that you just click a link and you go to a website and you. 

00:05:31 

And watch it live. 

00:05:32 

And so I will be delivering a message that evening. 

00:05:35 

It will sound very familiar to things that we’ve discussed here in the sub stack for for those of you who are subscribed, if you are reading these Sunday posts and the Friday reflection on Sacred Scripture, then you know where I’m coming from and so expect. 

00:05:52 

More of that style of content. 

00:05:54 

But you know, maybe tailored just a bit for a more confessional audience that will be in attendance there. 

00:06:01 

I think when we are together in a liturgical setting that isn’t necessarily the time to dig deep into academic scholarship, but rather it is just to allow ourselves to be informed by the tradition of academic scholarship. 

00:06:14 

But also tailoring that message and style of delivery to a confessional or liturgical setting so a little bit more reverence and a little more meaning, making a pulled right up to the front. 

00:06:26 

I’m not sure I will go through the sources of composition behind the Bible in a few minutes on Thursday, April 6th, but so April 1st and April 6th mark those on your calendar if you want. 

00:06:40 

You’ll hear more reminders from me over the next week or so, but those are two opportunities to interact. 

00:06:46 

Together in a virtual format. 

00:06:48 

OK, I really do think now I have the housekeeping out of the way back to that introduction of Chapter 5, back to the last. 

00:06:56 

And so some interesting things that caught my eye that I think you should give some attention and thought and consideration to in Chapter 5. 

00:07:04 

Well, only the gospel according to Luke, and within a Pauline epistle do we see this Last Supper scene described as the new covenant? 

00:07:14 

What we see in Mark? 

00:07:15 

The gospel according to mark, for example, the earliest gospel tradition from a chronological standpoint in 70s of the common era. 

00:07:24 

It says this is the blood of the covenant poured out, but not a blood of a new covenant. 

00:07:29 

So that’s something to pay just a little bit of attention. 

00:07:32 

You want to, you know, give some kind of theological reflection to what that could mean. 

00:07:36 

Why would Mark say the blood of the covenant poured out from many, whereas Luke and Paul would say the blood of a new covenant? 

00:07:44 

That’s something to think some about now. 

00:07:47 

When it comes to blood, this is shocking, and Professor Levine will emphasize this throughout chapter. 

00:07:53 

This is shocking language. 

00:07:55 

It is so shocking, in fact, that blood was prohibited for Jewish people in particular. 

00:08:02 

But really for. 

00:08:03 

All people, by the way, that the story about Noah and Noah’s Ark is understood when. 

00:08:11 

Noah finds the dry land when the the the flooding has ceased, then what happens is this covenant between God and the Noah to say, you know, God has it that I will never again destroy this creation. 

00:08:28 

Well, that is the Noahide Covenant and. 

00:08:31 

The ancient. 

00:08:32 

Rabbis that have interpreted through the Noahide Covenant that there are some conditions of the covenant that apply to all people, not merely Jews, but for everyone, would be bound by the Noahide Covenant and within the Noahide Covenant, is the idea that you cannot drink an animal’s blood. 

00:08:52 

And so this is not merely Jewish prohibition, but as the way Jews interpret the Hebrew Bible. 

00:08:57 

This would be a prohibition binding all. 

00:09:01 

And so that’s interesting to me, but it just emphasized the shocking language. 

00:09:06 

If you are a reader of all of the the newsletter posts that come to your inbox and then you’ll know that I I reflected a little bit on the shocking language about turning children’s hearts against their parents or turning parents. 

00:09:20 

Arts against their children. 

00:09:21 

That was a recent post, and you saw that there were several examples from the prophetic tradition from within the Hebrew Bible, from Micah and Malachi, and who? 

00:09:31 

Who else was I mentioning within that? 

00:09:33 

So also the Gospel of Thomas has a a saying like that. 

00:09:37 

Of course it is in the mouth of Jesus. 

00:09:39 

And that is more shocking language. 

00:09:41 

What do you mean to turn children’s hearts against their parents? 

00:09:46 

And here we see this again, this blood prohibition. 

00:09:48 

And yet Jesus is saying this is my blood poured out for you. 

00:09:52 

So allow yourself to be shocked by that language now, Professor Levine does a. 

00:09:58 

Nice job discussing. 

00:09:59 

How we’re a little bit out of touch with sacrificial language as it would have applied to the 1st century. 

00:10:06 

I do we I think we we tend to conceive of sacrifice. 

00:10:10 

And it was a cultic practice. 

00:10:12 

There was a right and ritual for it. 

00:10:14 

I mean it was not as though it was one. 

00:10:16 

Of the mill, it was special. 

00:10:19 

Right. 

00:10:19 

It was a priestly duty that was performed at the Temple in Jerusalem on an altar, but it also was the way that you ate meat. 

00:10:27 

And that’s something that we’ve learned through Professor Levine’s book. Is that both because of economics, but also because of this sacrificial. 

00:10:37 

That you just didn’t eat meat that often, except for when you were in Jerusalem at the temple presenting an animal for sacrifice. 

00:10:47 

Then the animal would be butchered and that animal, some of the meat from the animal would go to the priestly class. 

00:10:54 

That’s how they were fed in many cases. 

00:10:57 

But that was also an opportunity for you to eat now, I think that’s a really helpful context because this Last Supper. 

00:11:04 

Not merely is it special, because the the Assembly of Jesus and the 12 are gathered together, not merely is special, because Jesus is making this kind of disclosure of being handed over. 

00:11:18 

Not only is this special because in some accounts we see Jesus washing the disciples. 

00:11:25 

But it is special also because it’s meat. 

00:11:27 

There is going to be meat at this. 

00:11:30 

And so don’t forget that allow that kind of sacrificial language to be connected to those historical events. But sure, here in 2023, we do not have a sense of that kind of sacrificial blood on the altar. That does seem new and foreign and different to us. 

00:11:49 

But we should allow ourselves to be a little bit unsettled. 

00:11:53 

A little bit shocked, a little bit, transformed in time and place back to, you know, 12 soccer field complex of the Great temple that had been under construction for almost 50. 

00:12:04 

Years where there was a court of the Gentiles and there was a holy of holies that was only for the highest priests. 

00:12:12 

There were ritual baths around the temple that you would have a ritual bath and then ascend the steps to the temple as you ascended those steps, you would sing psalms like Hosanna. 

00:12:24 

Only for God to save you, to deliver you salvation. 

00:12:27 

Of course, for this assembled body would be salvation from an oppressive occupation that was exploiting the land exploit. 

00:12:35 

Economics, exploiting people’s full participation in the practice of the cultic rights and rituals, and so we just need to allow ourselves to be transformed to that time and place, and so take a seat at the table for the Last Supper. This is the setting where you are taking a seat. Now, do you see how that is? 

00:12:56 

Meaningful and we go back to this quote from Marcus Boy. 

00:12:59 

Which is, I don’t know if it happened this way or not, but. 

00:13:02 

I know that this story is true. 

00:13:04 

Can you feel the truth of this story? 

00:13:06 

Speaking to you that you? 

00:13:07 

Are at a. 

00:13:08 

Very special event, eating very special food, learning a very special message. 

00:13:15 

So that is the meaning that we can make from this event. 

00:13:20 

Of whether there really was an upper room somewhere. 

00:13:24 

OK, so I’m trying to make this case to you to allow yourself to be transported to the Last Supper table. 

00:13:31 

OK. 

00:13:31 

We talked about Luke and Paul. 

00:13:32 

We talked about blood being prohibited since the Noahide Covenant that was binding for all people. 

00:13:38 

Let’s talk about this. 

00:13:40 

Verse or not verse, but rather these lines of like do this in remembrance of me, something that Professor Levine will bring to our attention is that exist. 

00:13:50 

Is a festival of remembrance that is a significant portion of what the Seder, the Passover meal or the Seder is about. 

00:13:59 

It is about recalling the story of the Exodus tradition. 

00:14:04 

I would like to think it is the case that those people sitting around the table had a. 

00:14:09 

And understanding the Exodus experience that is not dissimilar from what I just tried to articulate. 

00:14:15 

Whether those disciples really believed that there was their ancestors who were indeed enslaved, and then had. 

00:14:24 

To flee and traveled for 40 years, finally crossing the Jordan into the land of milk and honey, I would like to think that the gathered 12 around the table that evening, along with Jesus, understood that this mythic story, this legendary story, had transcendent truth that did not matter whether it happened. 

00:14:45 

One way or not, so I would like to think that we are connecting ourselves to an ancient interpretation and understanding. 

00:14:53 

So the idea that the Bible is inerrant, that it is the spoken word of God with no mistakes and no errors. 

00:15:00 

That is a modern concept, so it was not until 1978, not 1978 BCE, but 1978 as in a couple of decades ago. 

00:15:12 

A few decades ago, 1978 of the common era that there was this evangelical proclamation on biblical inerrancy. 

00:15:20 

But that was 1978. I was talking with my dad about this recently and he said, well, that’s when I graduated high school. 

00:15:27 

My dad’s still here. I consider him to be a young man. I don’t know if he’s still feeling that way all the time. I think he may be a listener of this as well. Hi, dad. 

00:15:36 

But this is a modern concept that the Bible is inerrant and everything that it proclaims is exactly the way it proclaims it within the text. 

00:15:45 

That is not for the majority of the Bible’s existence, the way that its scholars and scribes understood the text to be. And we have some, like very obvious reasons to think this. 

00:15:56 

For example, we have 4 gospels, those early folks who are involved in selecting the Canon. 

00:16:04 

Of the New Testament or the Greek scriptures, they could have harmonized those accounts into one. 

00:16:10 

They could have picked their most favorite one, but they allowed four different accounts. 

00:16:15 

And as we have seen in both this six week study but then also in the broader kind of my project on this sub stack and the posts that I’ve been sending to you, you can see how. 

00:16:24 

Those four accounts are not merely 4 different perspectives on the exact same event, but those four different accounts I choose to amplify certain events. 

00:16:34 

And downplay others or certain events that appear in Mark are then expanded upon in Matthew, or signs that Jesus performs within the gospel according to John, do not appear in other places within the Gospels, and so it is not merely that we have four different perspectives on the same events, but we have four different selections of events. 

00:16:55 

Of four different sort of theological. 

00:16:58 

Interpretations from those historical events, were they even historical events at all? 

00:17:04 

To what extent did the Gospel writers believe them to be truly historical events, and how much were they just saying? 

00:17:10 

Listen, this is what we believe about the figure of Jesus. 

00:17:14 

And when you look at it that way, that there is a tradition of non violence. 

00:17:18 

There is a tradition of love. 

00:17:19 

There is a tradition of favoring the poor. 

00:17:22 

There is a tradition of speaking truth to power, and so those are eternal truths that do not. 

00:17:29 

I am not. 

00:17:30 

I don’t require from my beliefs about Jesus. 

00:17:34 

Us to be rooted or grounded in the idea that he absolutely was here. 

00:17:41 

These things happened exactly as described in just such a way. 

00:17:46 

I don’t need that to ground or to root my belief and meaning making and following the figure of Jesus. 

00:17:55 

Because the ancient values and wisdom that Jesus seems to proclaim do not to me determine that we have some. 

00:18:01 

Sort of factual. 

00:18:03 

Truth so that in their infancy, right, that idea, that is a modern concept that’s only been around since the 80s. 

00:18:10 

And uh, you know, fashion trends were were not the best throughout the 80s. 

00:18:15 

And so we don’t need to be beholden to that. 

00:18:18 

OK, so that is the Last Supper scene that I want you to pull up a table right there. 

00:18:23 

Find an opportunity for meaning in that table setting for a minute. 

00:18:28 

Don’t question exactly how it happened this way or not, and rather. 

00:18:32 

Allow yourself to be persuaded by what is the call the call is for covenant. 

00:18:37 

What is the covenant about? 

00:18:39 

Well, that’s what you need to read about this week in Chapter 5. 

00:18:43 

Maybe you can get back to me on how you understand the Last Supper scene. 

00:18:48 

Now, I was talking about the exodus being a season of remembrance and remembrance. 

00:18:52 

The fact is critical to Jewish cultic practice and home ritual, so there is an artifact, an object within the Jewish tradition that is called a mezuza, or a mezuza, a mezuza. 

00:19:05 

Is something that you physically with screws or nails. 

00:19:10 

You physically attach this to your door frames and so those within some Orthodox communities will have a mezuza inside in every single room wherever you have. 

00:19:21 

It’s due a bedroom to this bedroom, to an office that every room, every door frame will have a mezuza attached. 

00:19:26 

Do it. 

00:19:27 

Other folks from maybe a more reform tradition may have just the mezuza on the front door. 

00:19:33 

The main entrance to the home. 

00:19:35 

Now, of course, some Jews won’t have any mezuzas at all, and they are still Jewish. 

00:19:40 

And so I’m not wanting to be restrictive, but the mezuza indeed includes a little scroll inside. 

00:19:48 

And it talks about always remembering God when you go out and when you come in. 

00:19:52 

And so that remembrance is intended for. 

00:19:55 

Used to be just. 

00:19:56 

A daily interaction, not merely daily, but anytime that you’re walking out of your house or coming back into your house and you see the mezuza that is a sign of remembrance of that covenant with God. 

00:20:09 

And so we need to remind ourselves that when Jesus says this is my body broken for you eat in remembrance. 

00:20:15 

Of me, Jesus once again is tapping into that rich Jewish heritage of remember. 

00:20:21 

The Passover Seder itself is about retelling the exodus story in the spirit of remembrance that you once were enslaved, and now you are not. 

00:20:32 

But there are people that are around the world all the time who are enslaved, and that is part of the Passover Seder to remember that you came from a tradition of enslavement, and that there are other people enslaved. 

00:20:43 

In the world now, and that we need to tycoon Olam, to repair the world. 

00:20:50 

That we will not stand for those systemic injustices, but we are called towards repentance. 

00:20:56 

What is repentance? 

00:20:57 

It’s teshuvah. 

00:20:58 

It is turning toward the law and the prophets. 

00:21:02 

So do you see how all of these disparate ideas are beginning to get stitched together here, just in talking about Passover and the Last Supper? 

00:21:10 

OK, I better start to wind it down before I get away, you know? 

00:21:13 

And you get a whole hour long lecture, which I could do very easily. 

00:21:18 

All right, so where this leaves us, right? 

00:21:20 

Is that all of this shocking language we need to be moved by it today. 

00:21:26 

That was shocking language that Jesus used at the Last Supper. 

00:21:30 

It is shocking language that comes to us today to imagine the blood of the covenant poured out for me. 

00:21:37 

Penny, that is shocking. 

00:21:40 

What does it mean? 

00:21:41 

How are you moved by it? 

00:21:43 

What are you moved to do? 

00:21:45 

Poured out for many not poured out, only for one. 

00:21:49 

Only for you. 

00:21:50 

Not only for the 12 around the table, not only for the sacrifices offered during Pesach. 

00:21:57 

At the temple about poured out for many poured out for everyone. 

00:22:01 

That this is Malchus Shamayim, the coming realm of heaven on Earth. 

00:22:06 

On Earth, as it is in heaven, that this will be a world of peace and of justice and of non violence, and we need to allow ourselves to be moved to. 

00:22:16 

Inact that now us, we can do it that if you believe in the Creator we are that creators hands on this realm. 

00:22:25 

And so we have got to be shocked. 

00:22:27 

We have to allow that shock to move us and we have got to get to work. 

00:22:33 

All right, friends, I’ll be back with you on Wednesday with the chat prompt and then Friday with a reflection on Sacred Scriptures. 

00:22:40 

Happy reading.