‘Over the period of time between the Temple and the Mishnah, the Seder was a novelty which signaled a new phase in the religion of those who claimed the Hebrew Bible as the basis of their religious beliefs, but required mechanisms to cope with the new realities of the third century.

Mishnah mandates the ritual of what we recognize as the modern day seder

Mishnah is from the early third century’

There was no Seder in the Biblical period. The Torah instructs us to eat the paschal lamb with matzot and marror and that the father should teach his son about the Exodus from Egypt.  Similarly, the Seder is not mentioned in Second Temple sources such as Philo and Josephus. It is first mentioned in the Mishnah and Tosefta (Pesahim Chapter 10), which date from shortly before or after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. What is the source of the elaborate rituals and literary forms of the Seder? What is the origin of the Seder and the Haggadah?

Siegfried Stein proved conclusively (The Journal of Jewish Studies, 1957) that many of the Seder rituals and literary forms were borrowed from the Hellenistic banquet or symposium. Let us first compare the rituals.

The Torah instructs us to slaughter the Korban Pesah , the paschal lamb, to eat it with matzot and marror , and to sprinkle some blood on the lintel and the two doorposts (Exodus 12:22 ff.) It also instructs the father to teach his son about the Exodus on Pesah (Exodus 12:26; 13:6, 14; Deut. 6:12 and cf. Exodus 10:2) (For a summary of the biblical passages about Pesah, see Siegfried Stein, The Journal of Jewish Studies 8 (1957), pp. 13-15 and Baruch Bokser, The Origins of the Seder , Berkeley etc. 1984, pp. 14-19). These mitzvot , however, are a far cry from the many rituals which we do at the Seder and from the literary forms which we recite in the Haggadah.

Furthermore, the Seder and the Haggadah are also missing from the Second Temple period descriptions of Pesah, including a papyrus from Elephantine (419 B.C.E.), the book of Jubilees (late second century B.C.E.), Philo (20 B.C.E.-50 C.E.), and Josephus (A. E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C ., 1923, pp. 60-65 quoted by Chaim Rapael, A Feast of History , London etc., 1972, p. 128 and Franz Kobler, A Treasury of Jewish Letters , Vol. 1, Philadelphia, 1953, p. 22; Book of Jubilees , Chapter 49; Philo, The Special Laws, II, 145 ff.;The modern ritual of the Passover seder is formatted primarily by the Mishnah, which was compiled in the early 3^rd century by Judah the Prince.

 
Rabbi Professor David Golinkin, President of The Schechter Institutes, April 24, 2019

David Golinkin is President of The Schechter Institutes, Inc. and President Emeritus of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies. For twenty years he served as Chair of the Va’ad Halakhah (Law Committee) of the Rabbinical Assembly which gives halakhic guidance to the Masorti Movement in Israel. He is the founder and director of the Institute of Applied Halakhah at Schechter and also directs the Center for Women in Jewish Law. Rabbi Professor Golinkin made aliyah in 1972, earning a BA in Jewish History and two teaching certificates from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He received an MA in Rabbinics and a PhD in Talmud from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where he was also ordained as Rabbi.

This article was first published in Jpost.

It is worth noting that scholars of Rabbinic Literature do not date Mishnah Pesachim chapter 10 to the period of Jesus. Rather, it was codified c.200CE. In fact, Philo of Alexandria’s (C.20 BCE – 50 CE), description of the passover ritual does not include the four cups. The ritual of the four cups was probably introduced years after the life of Jesus.

Philo does not associate drinking wine with the passover ritual. Neither does Josephus(It is also not mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls or in any part of the Hebrew Bible). It seems that the ritual of the four cups of wine originated after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70CE. Therefore, I would not try and read the four cups into the Gospel’s descriptions of the Last Supper.

The two cups mentioned in Matthew 22 probably refer to the Jewish custom of blessing and drinking wine at the beginning and conclusion of meals.

At the time of Jesus, wine was blessed at the start of the meal – this was not unique for Passover. They probably did not have a “passover cup” the way that Jews today have a special “Elijah’s Cup” at the Passover meal.

A good introduction to the development of the development Passover rituals is:
The Origins of the Seder: The Passover Rite and Early Rabbinic Judaism By Baruch M Bokser.