What was served at the last supper

The biblical evidence suggests that the wine Jesus drank was alcoholic. Of the 37 references to wine in the New Testament, 33 use the Greek word oinos. This word designates wine that is fermented. Most of the wine made in the Holy Land during antiquity was red. And Jesus must have been thinking of deep, rich red wines when he decided to use it as a symbol of blood.

But white wine could have been available to Jesus, too. Israeli vintner Avi Feldstein believes dabouki white wine , made with one of the oldest grape varieties in the Holy Land, could be close to what Jesus drank.

Wine grapes were grown locally in Galilee and modern-day Jordan. Winemakers poured their grapes into the vats of stone winepresses , where several men tread on the grapes.

As the grapes were pressed, juice flowed through a connected channel containing a filter of thorns into a smaller vat below. From the second vat, juice could be poured into containers usually earthenware pots or wineskins made of goat and lamb hides and sealed up to begin fermentation. The resulting wine probably would have tasted quite different from wine today. Shipped in ceramic or wood casks, the wine would have taken on the flavor of its container.

According to Patrick McGovern, an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania, wine in antiquity was also flavored with tree resins, capers, and peppers. The gospel accounts tell us that Jesus and his disciples ate bread and drank wine at the Last Supper. The Last Supper may have been a Passover meal. Passover is when Jews remember their exodus from Egypt. On this day, Jews traditionally traveled to the temple in Jerusalem to sacrifice a Passover lamb.

Today, this day of Passover is celebrated in Judaism with the Seder supper. But we do know that the Passover meal would have included unleavened bread and likely a roast lamb. So if the Last Supper was a Passover meal, we can probably place those two foods on the table. For a fuller menu, we have to do a bit of guesswork.

But in , two Italian archaeologists published a study on what was eaten at the Last Supper that included a reconstructed menu. The two archaeologists drew from Bible verses, Jewish texts, ancient Roman literature, and archaeological data to learn about what people ate in Jerusalem during the first century A.

Based on their research, they hypothesized that the menu for the Last Supper would have featured bean stew, lamb, bitter herbs, fish sauce, unleavened bread, dates, and aromatized wine. This menu reflects both that Jesus and his disciples were practicing Jews who may have been celebrating Passover, and that Roman culture surrounding them had an impact on their diet.

Fish sauce, for example, was a popular Roman ingredient. Jesus asks his disciples to follow him, not his diet. Urciuoli, who specializes on the history of early Christianity, and co-author Marta Berogno, archaeologist and Egyptologist at Turin Egypt's museum, will publish their findings next month in the book "Gerusalemme: l'Ultima Cena" Jerusalem: the Last Supper. He and his disciples observed the traditions transmitted by the Torah and its food related bans," Urciuoli said. Commemorated today by Christians, the Last Supper is the final meal that, according to the Gospel, Jesus shared with his closest disciples in Jerusalem hours before he was turned over by Judas to Roman soldiers and crucified.

Was Last Supper a Day Earlier? The scene was immortalized by Leonardo Da Vinci, but the masterpiece, one of the world's most famous and powerful paintings, isn't historically accurate, according to Urciuoli. Embodying the sacrament of the eucharist, the Last Supper has a very strong symbolic meaning and this does not help the historical reconstruction," Urciuoli said.

Putting together historical data and clues from artworks such as third century A. The picture that emerges is completely different from traditional renderings of the Last Supper. The dinner, which happened on the upper room of a house in Jerusalem, wasn't a seated gathering at a rectangular table.

This and other lesser known important facts are compiled in their book, "Jerusalem: the Last Supper. Urciuoli and Berogno used Biblical passages, including the Feast of Tabernacles, the wedding of Cana, and Herod's banquet, to draw their conclusions. They also put together historical data and clues from artwork to reconstruct food and eating habits in Palestine 2, years ago, Seeker reported.

From the data collected, they concluded that the Last Supper's menu also included beans stew, olives, bitter herbs, and fish sauce. Reuters Apart from unleavened bread and wine that Christians have long established from Scriptures, what other food was served at Christ's Last Supper?