Thursday, August 7 | A Closer Look at the Last Supper

You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis, and welcome to the Clearview Today Show. We've got a great conversation planned for today, but before we do anything else, I want to welcome our host, Dr.

Abadan Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and future millionaire, Dr. Shah. All right, bring it on. Bring it on. I'm so glad.

So, actually, I'm gonna give you $2 million for this one. This one, you're gonna get a million just for accepting the deal.

Okay. The second one, Regis Philbin himself is gonna give to you.

So, you're gonna go on.

So, you get 2 million, you're gonna win the million. But lose the show, and I'll explain what I mean.

Okay, so you go on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire with Regis Philman. Is he Philm? No. Is he still living? Oh, I don't know about that.

But he's not hosting the show. He's not hosting the show.

Well, yeah, definitely not. In this scenario, it's Regis.

Okay, you're going to go on the show. And You wear a name badge that says Abhadan Shah PhD.

Okay. Your title card that comes up is going to have PhD in it. The first I would say five sentences out of your mouth have to reference the fact that you are a PhD. You get the first question wrong and are eliminated off the show. But, but.

You also, you get the original million and you get the million. Like, like Regis Philbin basically meets you after the show and goes, Hey, here's the other mill.

So, you, so you walk away with $2 million. And all I have to do is. You have to really push the fact that you're a PhD. You don't have to push it hard, but you just have to work it into the conversation.

So, he's like, Tell me about yourself. He said, Well, I'm a PhD from Southeastern. You know, when I first started to get my PhD, I said, You know. It's time to get a PhD. It's time to get a PhD.

And so then I got it. You know, when I first got the PhD, I thought I was really, you just had to really hammer it in and then get the first question wrong.

So, to answer your question, absolutely, I'll do it. Yeah. Yes, why not? I mean, $2 million. You walk away with $2 million.

That's a lot of money. And Regis is going to, like, Regis is going to meet you after and say, hey. Here's the million things. Absolutely. Would you do it right?

Even if you don't have a PhD? 100% yes. Would you. Would you. Okay, all right.

I'll give you an extra half so 2.5, but you have to, as soon as you get the first question wrong, you have to look at the camera dead in the face and be like, I lied. I don't have a PhD. Yes. Really? Absolutely.

On national television. I don't think I could do it, fellas. I don't know who I pick up my check. Yes. Yes.

Absolutely. I would do it. I don't know if I could, if I could make myself do it. Get on that. Because I'm on national television talking about being a PhD.

And then, like, the first question is usually very simple and very easy. What would happen? People would laugh at me. People would make memes about me on the internet. You know what helps with that?

What's that? $2.5 million. Exactly. I'd be like, you can laugh all you want to. That softens that blow to that cushion of green.

Buy the things I've always wanted to buy. Dr. Just said, I'm going to laugh all the way to the bank. Uh haha. Who's laughing now?

So you're all taking it. We got a check-in today from Jack R over in Houston, Texas. What do you think the what do we think Jack R stands for? I mean, it's got to be Reacher, right? Got to be Jack Reacher, 100%.

Now streaming on Amazon Prime. Hey, guys, hope you're doing well. Just curious, have you ever thought about putting out long-form content?

Sometimes it feels like one topic gets spread across a bunch of episodes, and it might be cool to get a deep dive all in one go.

So long-form content, my like a three-hour podcast. Um Well go you know it would be It would be good to do that, except Everywhere we are right now, whether it's on pray.com or truth network. We only have a half an hour special. That's right. That's right.

So we would love to do that and just have an extended conversation, but we have to be ready for a show tomorrow morning. Yes. And a show tomorrow the day after that. And a show the day after the day after that.

So we have to sort of make sure we keep. It keeps where our slots occur. Yeah, that really is the answer. The short answer is: yes, we would love to, but we're not a YouTube show. Like, we put the show on YouTube, but we're primarily a radio show.

Yeah. And radio, Dr. Shah, you worked in broadcast journalism in your undergrad. It's very schedule-oriented. You have this amount of time you have.

In fact, we cannot even have a whole 30-minute show because there are some openers and closers.

So we have to end certain seconds or even half a minute before the 30-minute slot. 29:30. 29:30 is what we're doing. We had 15 seconds of filler. between each episode because that's what the radio stations require.

That's right. So to answer your question, yes, we would love to have just done Should Christians Drink as like a three-hour episode, and that's very common on YouTube for radio purposes. Just can't do it. And then we don't want to edit the show like twice. Right.

Right. That adds a heavier burden on the editing side of things.

So we could have one conversation that just gets chopped up over episodes. But then again, our primary audience is a listening audience. You know what you could do? Yeah, you know what you could do, Jack Reacher. First and foremost, thank you for your service to this country.

I appreciate that. But also just go to Spotify and put it in a queue and it'll just play them back to back. And that's all you got to do. You don't have to download all the episodes. But to answer your question, yes, we would love to be able to do that.

It's just not that type of show. Ryan, you want to read the verse of the day? I would love to. Our verse of the day today is coming from John chapter 13, verses 23 and 24.

Now, there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter, therefore, motioned to him to ask who it was of whom he spoke. Dr. Zhao, this was one of the things that we talked about yesterday: this triclinium, right? This room with the three couches and how people would lay down and they'd eat their food and they would drink their wine.

And so we started talking about these banquets that the Greek people had. And, you know, I don't think a lot of people realize that this is what that upper room probably looked like. Probably. Yeah. Well, we are continuing that conversation on wine, alcohol, in a believer's life.

And then the question came up about how about the communion? How about the Lord's Supper where Jesus? takes that cup of wine and he passes it around, saying, This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. This do and of as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, which means it was not just for that night.

Now you have to do it Uh every time you meet.

So, what do we do now? Jesus was passing a wine cup, not grape juice. He was passing a wine cup. There was no Welch's grocery store. No, nothing like that.

So then we sort of explained about mixed wine and how that was essential in ancient times. We also talked about, you know, be careful about how you may be able to handle it, but someone else cannot.

So be wise about not being a stumbling block for someone else. But then, when it comes to the communion, we have to sort of back up a little bit and understand two institutions that are very important to understand if we're going to understand. The true meaning of the Lord's Supper. One. Is the Greco-Roman, not just Greeks, but Greco-Roman practice of or institution of banquets.

And the second is the Old Testament Jewish feast of Passover. We spend a lot of time in the last episode talking about the Greco-Roman banquets, how the banquet hall was laid out, like a triclinium. You mentioned that. Tri is three. Cline is recline.

Triclinium is like three recliners. Like lazy boy recliners. Not quite. Not quite. But that's where we get the word from.

That's right. Yeah, that's where we get the word recliners from. This is more like horseshoe of couches. Yes. So servants, slaves, people would enter from that open end of the horseshoe and between the those two points Of the horseshoe is where the couches would be set.

and people would recline on their left elbow, So imagine the horseshoe, it would begin on the right side, where the first person to sit would either be the host or the symposiarch. Symposiarch was the head of the feast. He may not be the host of the home, but he would be the person appointed by the host to run the party. The banquet, really.

So you hire you hire an MC, basically, for your basically. That's who that person is. Their job is to make sure that everything is in place. Their job is to make sure that the wine is properly mixed for the second half of the The banquet. Because you don't want people passing out all over your nice.

No, no, no, no, no. You definitely don't want that. That's not the purpose for the banquet. Banquets are not drunken orgies.

Now, this picture right here that our technician has just dropped and David has just put it in, is a Greek banquet hall. And this image was put together by an artist. We just sort of adapted it here, but this is not original to us. We just stylized it. We just stylized it.

But if you want to know more about it, you can read a book by Dennis Smith called From Symposium to Eucharist. And in this book, this image is found. It's a copyrighted image, but you just want to mention that. Right, right. But anyway, so this right here is a Roman Triclinium, we just described.

So there's the three couches, three couches. And you would typically have maybe three people reclining per couch.

So altogether, basically, nine people or maybe four. But if you do the math, that's about 12.

Sometimes a little more would be there, but you know, we don't know for sure.

Now The host would send off the invitation, people would come, but there are certain protocols to be followed. You have to be in the banquet. attire. then uh the the meal would begin, whatever's on the menu would be passed around, people would eat, and then a couple of hours into the program, there would be a break. And this is when The host would offer libation, like a pouring of the wine, to the gods and goddesses.

Whoever is the pat patron god of the host would do that. He would say, This is offered in honor of Zeus or Dionysus or Athena, or whatever it is.

So, this is not like a casual dinner party game night with friends. There's like there's protocol to be followed here. There's protocol to be followed. And there will be games and stuff. In fact, the Greeks used to have a game.

I may be pronouncing it wrongly. It was called Hibbotos, I think it is. I think where They would take a Take a bowl. And put it on a like a stick or a or a or a kind of like a pole. And then you would take the Kylix, which is your cup for drinking.

So Amphoray is the big wine jar. Kratos is the bowl. Where you would put water first and then mix it with wine. And then Kylix is the cup.

So if a little bit of wine would be left, they would keep it. There. And then there was a way to fling that wine. Yeah, from the cup. To hit the bowl and to make it fall.

Wow. In fact, if you notice, You want to back on the Greek one? Back on the Greek one. If you notice, there is a person there who is holding the cup like that. You see?

Yeah, I see it. I see it. See the first one on the middle? Recliner? Is he trying you think he's trying to fling the wine into the into well, there is no bowl set up for him to hit, but i he's holding it the way they would hold it okay fling it.

Okay. That's kind of cool. You know, wine on the bottom of that Kylix, that cup, and they would fling it, and it would go, What if you miss? You just doubt someone's wine? You have, uh, well, you have wine on the floor.

That's part of the game. It's part of the part of the fun. Gotcha.

So there were games like that.

So there were games. Yeah, yeah. But There was more to it. There is some hierarchy, some protocol to be followed. You mentioned, um, you mentioned um.

You gotta be wearing the right attire. Like, you're not just coming in off work. Basketball is short. This is like a party with a purpose. This is networking.

This is we've got deals happening. Do you think Jesus, because we talked yesterday, the verse of the day was this king who saw the person that wasn't in the wedding attire? Do you think he was thinking along those lines? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

That's what he says. You know, friend, why are you here? Where are your wedding clothes? Right. He was speechless.

And so the king calls his servants and said, take him out. He's done. And so The Jewish people had their core beliefs and traditions, but they adapted to the culture that they were in. And so. Greco-Roman culture was the culture of the time, and they adapted to these things.

If you look at the Roman, if you look at the Roman illustration again, do you imagine that the upper room looked like this? Oh, absolutely. I believe it was something like this. Because we've stood in what we assume to be, or what we think might have been the upper room. Of course, it's just an empty stone chamber.

And it became a mosque over the years and whatnot. And now it's back in Jewish hands.

So, of course. It's empty, but I believe that. I would say so. Wow. So, Jewish feasts, like the Feast of Passover and things like that, were mapped onto this format of the Greco-Roman banquet.

I would say so. Or vice versa. The format was mapped onto the feast. Right. But the Romans changed it to sort of make it theirs, I guess.

Romans did not adapt from the Jewish people. Right. Well, I meant the they changed the Greek they changed like the Greek Roman the Greek banquet to sort of match their own culture. Yeah, they w they did. Rome Rome borrowed a lot.

Rome was very good at borrowing from the Greeks or the Phoenicians or whoever. They would borrow and make it their own. Yeah. Make it better.

So the Jewish people then had to use their ceremonies in like Roman They didn't have to, but they did because that's the normal way to live life. That's the way we did things. Gotcha.

Yeah. Okay. So why would they try to do it like. Moses did in the wilderness. They're not living in those times.

So they would do differently based on the culture they were living in.

So, yeah, that's probably how many of them celebrated their Passover.

So. Even sitting around this banquet hall was sort of hierarchical.

So the most important person was on the on the the the right end of the horseshoe and then it kind of went down. all the way to the other leg. Of the Horseshoe. Would be the person of the lowest rank most of the time. And if you notice, The way they were sitting, they're on the back of They can see the back of that person.

So it's kind of like a, you know, on the lower end of the person. You're going to watch my back for the night. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha.

Now that's also important, okay, and we'll come to that in a moment.

Now when they came in, the servants would wash their feet. And I'd like to watch them like right there on the threshold or anything, but they would walk behind. On the recliner and washed their feet over there, probably.

So the guests didn't even have to interrupt what they were doing. They could just have their feet washed. Right. Or sometimes they would wash before they entered the house. Gotcha.

That could happen too. But if you notice in the Bible, it talks about how Jesus. Washed the feet of his disciples. on the night when he was betrayed. This was the last supper.

There was a conversation taking place as they were headed to the upper room. And the conversation was: Who's going to be the greatest? And it seems like kind of funny to us because, like, Why would you focus on that right now? No, they were talking about the pecking order and how they're going to sit. It makes much more sense to think about there's a hierarchy in how we're sitting in the banquet where we're getting ready to go sit down.

It is kind of funny, though. Like, imagine, like, have you ever, like, imagine like the stress that Jesus is going through, knowing what's about to happen in like 12 hours? Have you ever had something really, really pressing on your mind and you just got like your wife or family member or an employee just asking you something? It's like, that's the last thing on my mind right now. Exactly.

And they were asking, where are we going to sit? Who is sitting where? Peter, you're usually considered to be the head. And Peter's like, of course, I'm sitting next to him. You know, Bartholomew is probably not even in the conversation.

He's like, whatever, man. I'm just going to be here. That salad, you know, is somewhere there. It's like, don't let him sit behind your back. Those zealots, man, this staff.

You're going to be yelling in your ear. Yeah. Who else is there? Like, there's, isn't Matthäus one? Matthew, Matthew.

Oh, Matthew, yeah, yeah. Like, you just know the ones that you don't really hear about. They're like, I'll be over here. There was like a second Simon, wasn't there? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, they're like, I'm so over here. They're going around this thing. We know that John, the beloved disciple, he was a younger one, he sat next to Jesus because he was kind of reclining on him. It makes more sense when you have to recline on somebody. Right.

I don't know how he did that, but he did. And. He really loved Jesus. I mean, he was like, you know, you know, you have friends like that. Or children are with their dads.

Even when they are teenagers, you know, they're just like hanging all over the dad. You know, just like, oh, that's my buddy. That's how he was with Jesus. Wow. And Jesus kind of like, you know, yeah, he's like, cool.

Okay. I like how John even refers to himself. He's like, I'm the one Jesus loved. Yeah. The beloved disciple.

Yeah. Not only did I love Jesus, man, Jesus loved me. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that kind of funny?

Yes. It is. Jesus kind of went along with it as like, okay.

Okay. Yeah, sure. Yeah, you're my favorite. I always knew it. I always knew it.

I always knew it. See, I told you, I'm the favorite person. You treat those people that'll hit you with it sometimes. Hear that? I'm your favorite, right?

Like, I'm your favorite. I'm your favorite. And he's like, yeah, you're my favorite. He's like, Peter, come here, hang on. You're my favorite disciple named.

I'll say this one more time. Hang on one second. Peter. And he's the one who outran Peter trying to get to the grave. Yeah.

That's very true. Maybe next to him Probably, I would say, Peter sad because he asks John, ask him who's the one who's going to betray him. Ask him. And so he leans back and he says, Who's going to betray you? And Jesus says, The one to whom I will give this bread after I have dipped it into this cup.

You think Judas was at the bottom? I think Judas was behind Jesus.

Now, those banquet halls were not spread out like this because we've seen pictures of them, archaeological sites, and they were pretty close. This illustration is just a really wide room. This must be a big banquet hall. Like in Pompeii, you see banquet halls like this. The upper room, I don't think, was that spread out.

Gotcha.

So Jesus. No need for, in Palestine, for people to be dancing in the middle. Yeah, true, true. They may have, I don't know, they may have, but this is a Passover room. Right.

So Jesus probably did not have to get up, walk across that long corridor. He could walk across right there. Yeah. Yeah. So I think he must have just held like this.

and Peter and Judas like Okay. I guess the jig is up. Did Judas really hear that conversation? I don't know. But if it was close enough for Jesus to hand it to him See if I were to hand something to you it would try to take it from me.

So, this is the space you may have had. This is the space.

So, who do you think heard that statement of the disciples?

Well, I'm sure John the Beloved heard. I'm sure Peter heard. I'm sure Matthew must have heard because I think Matthew wrote about it, if I'm not wrong.

So, and then there's. passed it around after the whole thing ended. They must have talked to each other. He said it. Yeah, that's it.

Oh, he said it.

Well, my goodness, I was so dumb. I wasn't paying attention. I was over here talking about it. Did they clock really what Jesus meant? Because maybe not in the moment, at the moment, they did not.

Obviously, like, let's apprehend him. Like, if this is the guy that the moment at the moment, they didn't understand. Because he, because he, yeah, I always think of it like Da Vinci's Last Supper. He's in the middle. Everyone's fixed on his every single word.

Like, tell us more, Jesus. And then he says it, hands it to Judas, and then Judas gets up and walks out in full. But more than likely, if what you're saying is true, more than likely, everybody's kind of in their own conversation. Yeah. Jesus hands it to Judas, and Judas just quietly slips out.

Even if they had heard it, they didn't have any, necessarily, any reason to suspect that Judas was going to. Turn Jesus into the authority. Yeah. It's not like he had been. To their knowledge, flirting with that.

It's just a point. It's kind of fun. I like having these conversations and seeing what it really looked like. Because even when you go stand in the upper room, like it probably did not look anything like what you, it's just like an empty stone room.

Well, conversations like this help shed light on scripture, too, because just in this conversation, we've talked about why they didn't understand what Jesus was doing when he dipped the bread and gave it to Judas. How John was able to recline on Jesus in that conversation, why they were talking about who was the greatest as they were walking in. I mean, it helps us understand why these passages are in the Bible rather than just saying, huh? And there they did that. Yes, and they're much more human.

Like, like, we think of the Bible as this Shakespearean drama where like Jude, Judas gets up and takes the walk of shame and condemnation, and everyone just like watches him go in this room. But he more seriously, he probably just slipped right out. And then everyone's like, oh, shoot, that's when he was talking. Yeah, I did hear him say that. And he in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are synoptic gospels.

So John talks about the bread being given to Judas. Matthew, Mark, and Luke say something like. Um Like He His hand was in The dish.

So look says But behold, the hand of my betrayers is with me on the table.

So I don't know if that table extended there or something, and Judas was reaching or something like that, or he must have. Kind of held out a dish to him. We don't know exactly.

Some of this is in actual words, some of these are. are summary statements.

So either way, it's fine. We don't have to say, well, these statements don't line up with these these statements. The whole idea of a red-letter Bible is faulty. Right. Because not all of these were actual words coming out of Jesus' mouth.

Sometimes they were they have been paraphrased. L just like reporters do. You know, so-and-so said this, but they may have. verbalized it differently. But the reporter is paraphrasing as a summary, capturing the idea.

So Matthew says that Jesus. Said the Son of Man indeed. Uh, I'm sorry, he says in verse 23, this is Matthew 26:23, He answered and said, He who dipped his hand with me in the dish will betray me. John says, He gave him that bread. This one is dipping the hand in the dish.

Either way, I think the whole idea is there was an action that took place. That Pointed out, this is the man. But the disciples were too sorrowful, maybe tired. Maybe still not catching the betrayal coming that they did not catch on. Right.

Um Seeing it like a triclinium helps us understand a little better how this could have been. I'm not saying this is a perfect depiction. Mm-hmm. That Judas would have been there. I mean, he may have been somewhere else.

Jesus may have not sat at the first seat. He may have sat a little bit in the middle. We don't know. Because he was the host, but he didn't want to act like the host.

So he may have sat this way, and Judas may have sat behind him. On on on the same leg. Yeah. That could have happened. Yeah.

That could easily happen. Maybe that probably is a better way to look at it. I don't know. But seeing it in this light instead of just at a dining room table, it helps us visualize this is what was going on and understand these different passages of scripture rather than just skipping over details because that doesn't make sense. Right.

And I don't know how much time we still have. We got about five minutes left in the episode, but like I do think it's funny that they're concerned about the pecking order. They're concerned about who's going to sit where, but then Jesus is the one who ends up washing their feet. Right. Because you mentioned, I think, either in the last episode or in this one, that that was a job for the slaves.

The slaves. Right. Our servants would do that. But Jesus does it to teach them. And he says, you know, what I have done for you, you know, goes to Peter.

Peter said, don't wash my feet. And Jesus said, If I don't wash your feet, then you have no part with me, which means you are not part of me. I have to do this, I have to serve you because now I am. Setting an example along with showing that you belong to me. a sense of ownership, you are mine, I am yours, but also this is what you should do for each other.

And while I'm on that note, The woman caught in adultery, which some people don't believe was in the in the text, but I believe it was. But that makes a lot more sense now when you think about where the woman would have been. She is walking on the outside and comes down. and begins to wash Jesus's feet. Interesting, 'cause we often not at the Last Supper.

She didn't do that then. She did it earlier on. She's not like ducked under a table. Yeah. That's how we usually see it, right?

We usually picture her under a table, like, crying onto his feet and then wipe her. You don't have this picture of a triclinium. Right. But how in the world could Jesus even see it? Like, she'd be like, Who are you?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, there's a table sitting here, and like he's like, step back, then she has to crawl all the way in. Right. No, but if he's reclining, That's perfect. He's reclining.

So the Last Supper happens, Jesus washes their feet. And then, because this all started out as like under the auspice of how does wine play into, and I don't know if we'll have time to really dive into it today. Yeah, I think that's something we need to look at a little bit more deeply because it is. Connected to the Greco-Roman banquets, but it has much more of a Passover meaning. At this point.

Because once the symposium begins. The libations are poured out. Allegiance to Caesar. have been s uh sworn. Uh then you would uh um have the symposium or then he would give instructions, or he's already given instructions that now you can bring the mixed wine.

Previously it's unmixed for the libations. Only one sip. Pass it around.

Now the unmixed wine. Another mixed wine. And then they begin to drink. But this is not drinking to get drunk. Right.

Let's address that really quickly. This is simply a part of the culture. In fact, they even had the sergeant-in-arms there who would make sure that people did not cross the line. Because who wants to be At someone's banquet, and have somebody like, you know what I want to do? I want to jump up on this table and dance, and I don't have to do that.

Or start throwing things or calling each other names. Or, you know, when people get really inebriated, they start running their mouth. Oh, yeah. They talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. They think, man, everybody loves me.

And I am the smartest man there is, the smartest woman there is. You've done a lot of weddings. It may be that that is the drink talking. You've done a lot of weddings in your life. Have you ever been in a situation like that where someone is just talk, talk, talking?

And maybe you don't want to say it all. Yeah, I don't want to say it, but I'll go ahead and say it. Yes. Sometimes it's fun.

Sometimes you go. Oh wait. You're just drunk. Yeah. So.

Keep in mind in the Greco-Roman banquets at the symposium there were limits. Even with The mixed wine. There were limits. Yeah. So important.

And it helps us visualize what's going on in the Bible and understand scripture in a different light. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow, same time, same station. We're going to continue this conversation right here on the Clearview Today show. Thanks to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. Don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show wherever you get your podcast, iTunes, Spotify, all those great things.

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