Endnote 10 – Was The Last Supper a Passover Seder?
For example, Mishnah Pesahim 10:3 reads:
A. [They] served him—he dips the lettuce (HHZRT) [the vegetable used for the bitter herbs] before he reaches the bread condiment.
B. [They] served him unleavened bread and lettuce and hharoset [a mixture, e.g., of nuts, fruit, and vinegar pounded together (a post-mishanaic gloss adds “and two cooked foods,” a phrase which is not found in the MSS, which breaks the flow of the passage, which is not attested in the Tosefta analogue, and which is not assumed by the Gemarah); see Bokser, Origins, pp. 118–119, note 7, and David Halivni, Sources and Traditions, Tractates Erubin and Pesahim (Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1982), p. 574, note 5)] even though the hharoset is not a commandment R. Leazar b. Sadoq says, [It is a] commandment.
C. And in the Temple [they] [post-mishnaic gloss adds: “used to”] serve him the carcass of the Passover offering.
While in current printed editions, clause C contains a HYW, making the verb into a past tense, Mishnah manuscripts and the Tosefta analogue to this teaching (Tosefta Pesahim 10:9) lack this word, leaving the verb as a participle. Saul Lieberman notes that with the extra word, the Mishnah contrasts a later stage of the law with an earlier Temple practice. But without it, the text speaks of two simultaneous procedures, one outside the holy precincts and one inside it The former (A–B) would make up the standard protocol while the latter (C) would comprise a supplementary procedure. (Saul Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-FshuufdotutO8tah, 8 volumes to date (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1955–), vol. 4, p. 654. See Bokser, Origins, p. 119, note 9.) Building on this observation we can say that the Mishnah’s original reading provides an anachronistic view of the rite, for, as we have seen, no earlier account mentions that the evening rite took place without the sacrifice. Current—post-70—practice is thus being read into pre-70 days. This reworking of the earlier tradition is repeated throughout the chapter and is reflected in the position of the chapter as a whole.
Other evidence:
Mishnah Pesahim 10:1, requiring one not to eat until it becomes dark, synchronizes the time of the rite to accord with the time of the sacrificial meal and thereby strengthens the identification between the two.
Mishnah Pesahim 10:2 in the form of a dispute between the Houses of Hillel and Shammai as to the sequence of the blessings over the wine suggests that the wine was used in this context in the days of the Houses, pre-70.
Mishnah Pesahim 10:4 demonstrates that the Bible’s pedagogic device of a parent instructing a child can continue without the sacrifice. Instead of the simple question of Exodus 12:25–27, which refers to putting blood on the doorposts and to making other preparations contingent on the sacrifice, the Mishnah suggests three questions treating the three elements given prominence by Gamaliel as to why we eat the Passover offering, the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs. (The number and substance of these questions have changed from an original three to a current set of four; E. D. Goldschmidt, The Passover Haggadah [in Hebrew] [Jerusalem, 1960], pp. 10–13 and Bokser, Origins, p. 119, note 11.)