Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§17.1 Crucifixus sub Pontio Pilato
fleets an early alternative interpretation of the core last supper tradition as a
Passover meal. 44
When arguments are so finely balanced it is wise not to press for one alternative
as against another. Both interpretations indicate that the link between Jesus
and the Passover was early on seen as important and instructive (cf. 1 Cor.
5.7). Each elaborated the link in his own way. But as for the meal itself we are
hardly encouraged by the data to conclude more than that Jesus gave a heightened
significance to what he may already have sensed was likely to be their last
meal together. 45 What that heightened significance was is a subject to which we
will have to return below (§§ 17.3c, 4e, 5d).
d. The Arrest of Jesus and Flight of the Disciples
That Jesus was arrested is not in doubt, and it is hardly likely that the tradition
was recalled independently of the fuller story of Jesus' final hours. The tradition
is firm on a number of features: 46 that the event took place across the Kidron/on
the Mount of Olives (Mark 14.26 pars.), 47 that Judas led/came with the arresting
party (14.43 pars.), that one of those with Jesus offered resistance to the extent of
cutting off the ear of a member of the arresting party (14.47 pars.), 48 and that Jesus
remonstrated briefly (14.48-49 pars.). Round that core several performance
elaborations are evident: perhaps the betrayal with a kiss (Mark 14.44-45), Jesus'
rebuke to the one who resisted (Matt. 26.52-54) and healing of the wound (Luke
22.51), 49 and the mysterious young man in Mark 14.51-52. 50
The character of the arresting party is confused in the various tellings: a
'crowd' from the chief priests (and scribes) and elders (Mark 14.43/Matt. 26.47);
44. See further Brown, Death particularly 1364-73: 'we have here a theologoumenon,
i.e., the presentation of the Last Supper as a paschal meal is a dramatization of the preGospel
proclamation of Jesus as the paschal lamb' (1370).
45. Nicely concise discussions in E. Schweizer, The Lord's Supper according to the New
Testament (1956; ET Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967) 29-32; O'Toole, 'Last Supper, ABD 4.235-
37; Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus 423-27.
46. Cf. Pesch, Markusevangelium 2.403; see further Legasse, Trial of Jesus 14-22.
47. S. Safrai maintains that there was a tradition current at the time of Jesus of a specific
location on the Mount of Olives where King David used to pray which became a focal point of
prayer (Flusser, Jesus 144 n. 26).
48. The fact that the anonymity of the one who resisted is retained in the Synoptic tradition
(otherwise John 18.10) suggests that the story was framed early on when it would still be
necessary to safeguard the individual concerned ('protective anonymity') from possible reprisals
(Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus 447).
49. Meier is fairly certain that the story is a Lukan creation (Marginal Jew 2.714-18).
50. Often taken to be Mark himself; see, e.g., discussion in Taylor, Mark 561-62.
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