Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the SBL, Denver, CO, 18 November, 2018

As a growing number of scholars have noted, standard explanations of the Antioch incident in Galatians 2 have often glossed over key difficulties. This paper will argue that Peter’s detractors should be taken more seriously as theologians and should not be merely cast aside as scandalized puritans. This paper offers an account of their view that builds upon suggestions made previously by D. Hare and B. Chilton. First, as we know from the Corinthian correspondence, in this early period the eucharist had yet to be separated from the celebration of the communal meal, making it likely that it was part of the meal at Antioch (Sanders, 2015). Second, as many have noted, the Last Supper account in 1 Corinthians 11 includes a number of details suggestive of an awareness of the meal’s paschal setting (Pitre, 2015). Moreover, that Jesus’ death was linked to Passover is clearly attested in 1 Corinthians 5. In light of this it seems significant that while Gentiles were allowed to enter the temple and participated in Jewish life in general, the Torah explicitly bars the uncircumcised from eating the Passover meal (cf. Exod 12:48). Application of this principle on the part of Jerusalem Christians to participation in the Lord’s Supper would make the most sense of the data found in Galatians, which indicate that the controversy about Peter impinged on both the question of communal eating and on the question of circumcision.

2020

This very short exposition deals with the meaning and the development of the concept of Passover in the Old Testament and the New Testament

Concordia Journal, 2006

How did the Christians at Corinth celebrate the Lord's Supper? What problem or problems at the Corinthian celebration of the Lord's Supper does Paul address in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34? Scholars have offered very different answers to these questions. One line of interpretation has main tained that at Corinth a meal preceded the celebration of the Lord's Sup per (the sacramental bread and cup). Another position has argued that the Corinthians celebrated a meal between the sacramental bread and the sac ramental cup. Some scholars contend that in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 Paul addresses a problem that revolves around the timing of the eating by dif ferent groups. Other scholars argue that timing has nothing to do with the problem and that instead the problem is based on socio-cultural issues of where, what, and how much different groups ate. Any examination of the situation at the Corinthian Lord's Supper must grapple with 1 Corinthians 11:21 and its use of the verb προλαμβάνω as Paul writes, "For each one προλαμβάν€ΐ his own supper while eating" (έκαστος γαρ το ίδιον δ€ΐπνον προλαμβάνει 4ν τω φαγ€ΐν). This article will reconsider the evidence surrounding the translation and interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:21. It will demonstrate that one recent and popular approach should be rejected and will illustrate how fresh insight can be gained into the situa tion at Corinth when a temporal translation of προλαμβάνω ("takes before") is combined with a bread-meal-cup order of events at the Corinthian Lord's Supper. The temporal translation is not impossible as some scholars have argued, and in fact, this lexically stronger option fits well with the more probable bread-meal-cup reconstruction of events at Corinth. It yields the insight that the problem at the Corinthian Lord's Supper was probably a multifaceted and interrelated complex of issues that included where people ate, what they ate, how much they ate, and when they ate. I. A Consensus Formed and a Consensus Fractured Few texts have benefited more from the socio-cultural exegesis of the last twenty-five years than 1 Corinthians ll:17ff. The work of scholars such as Gerd Theissen,

Different understandings of how the Lord’s Supper was practiced at Corinth, as glimpsed in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, contribute to the modern division in Eucharistic theology, practice and fellowship. This article first reviews the current state of the historical scholarship, outlining the influences of Jewish meals, Greco-Roman dining customs and emerging Christian tradition upon the observance of the Supper at mid-1st century Corinth. A subsequent biblical treatment of key sections of 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 reveals three points of instruction from the Apostle for Eucharistic practice: Remembrance of Jesus, Examination of Self, and Generosity toward Others. These headings then serve as a framework for the final section exploring broad themes of application for contemporary practice.

This article associates the Lord's Supper in the Synoptic Gospels and 1 Corinthians with the Passover and New Exodus motif, Application is made to contemporary issues and divisions related to the Eucharist.

2023

Studia Catholica Podoliae, 2016

This article aims to show the inner logic of this special liturgy the Passover is. God himself inscribed the logic of the Passover, through inspired authors, of whom Moses played an essential role, into the literary structure according to which the first eighteen chapters of the Book of Exodus were composed. The logic of the Passover was simultaneously read from The Passover Haggadah as a Jewish liturgical book, which was the fruit of a long process of formation in the Tradition of Israel, and finally written down as a help for the father of the family, who is to guard its faithful realization in the annual celebration. One has shown that the four-element structure of Passover was built on an earlier structure of covenant-making ceremony that was held by rulers of countries in the ancient Middle East around the 16th to 12th centuries before Christ. It is the discovery of this relationship-the Passover ritual and the covenant-making ceremony-that makes it clear that the liturgical order of the elements of the Passover is inscribed in the logic of the covenant-making ceremony. Simultaneously, one has shown that the covenant in question is not the well-known covenant on Mount Sinai, but a slightly earlier covenant of the Passover/Exodus, i.e., the one that God made with Israel during the passing through divided waters of the Red Sea. Answering the question contained in the title of the article, one has shown that the four cups of the Passover are related to the four main parts of its liturgy, and they in turn-to the four stages of the exodus from Egypt and simultaneously with the four elements of the covenant-making ceremony. During the analysis of the four parts of the Passover ritual, analogies between them and the four parts of the Eucharistic ritual were pointed out. Furthermore, it was pointed out that, just as the four-stage exodus from Egypt is embraced by the 'preparation-completion' frame, so there is the 'before-seder-after-seder' frame for the Passover and also the Eucharist: at the beginning, it is the time when the community prepares to enter into the seriousness of the liturgy; at the end, it is the time of prayers, when the liturgical community accepts new spiritual gifts from God. Finally, one presented the biblical grounds for the anticipation and its presence in the third part of the Passover and Eucharist. Concerning the Eucharistic rite, one gave a new, connected to the anticipation, explanation of 'the remembrance' as a sacrifice that Jesus makes of Himself dying on Golgotha, the sacrifice already present, by the power of liturgical anticipation, in Cenacle. This Memorial Sacrifice, made of Jesus in the state of sacrificial dying on Golgotha, ensures the return of Jesus from the Abyss; it is the type of sacrifice that people used to offer in antiquity before going out to battle. Jesus does not offer this Sacrifice in Heaven, but in Cenacle, on the night before His Passion and Death on Golgotha, before going out to fight against the Devil to make us free from the power of Death. To complete the whole analysis, one has shown that the practical consequence of the theology of Passover and Eucharist is the need to renew in Eucharistic communities the practice of the first centuries of Christianity, where the end of official liturgy did not mean the believers come back to their homes, but something contrary. Namely, they used to practice remaining on praying in sacramental union with the Lord Jesus.