Scottish Journal of Theology

'The Date and Significance of the Last Supper’, Volume 14, Issue 3, August 1961, pp 256-259.

Anyone who knows the experience of planning a series of Holy Week Services to trace the events from Palm Sunday to Good Friday will have encountered the problem of what to do from Monday to Wednesday, when all that seems to have happened is the Last Supper (which has its own problems of timing and significance) after which everything happens with indecent haste, raising tthe important question which scholars have wrestled with: was it (or was it not) a Passover Meal?

This article examines the proposals of Mlle Jaubert based on calendrical issues which makes some sense and has interesting possibilities for fresh interpretations. Her thesis had little traction 50 years ago because it was based on supposition rather than evidence, none of which was available. Recent scholarship however suggests there may be more here than meets the eye, making it worth a second look, though fifty years down the road it may be that nobody is interested.