Um, what?
Is there some reason you speak of Jewish holidays in the past tense here?
It offended Ma more.
<perk> More paid holidays?
Against Hellenistic Greeks, not Romans. But that might indeed make Hanukkah less than appealing to Greek converts to Christianity.
Mr. Neville is off at a meeting in Tucson, and went out for Greek food last night. I gave him a hard time about how this is singularly inappropriate for the first night of Hanukkah… 
Yes. Easter is “Paques” in French and “Pascua” in Spanish, for example.
The Christians abandoned the Jewish calendar at some point.
There is an instruction not to give any of the Passover lamb to an uncircumcised person, which is probably what you’re thinking of. But the Christians could have easily reinterpreted that to mean that you shouldn’t invite non-Christians to the Eucharist (as indeed the Catholic Church does).
Most seder customs are not in the Torah- they’re rabbinical interpretations and additions. Christianity rejected rabbinic Judaism, so it’s not surprising that they don’t share those customs.
You’re correct, of course. Asterion already pointed it out to me. Professor Hopkins would be so ashamed of me now. :o
Thanks!
Even after that, they specifically set the date of Easter so that it would never coincide with Passover (lest anyone think they were celebrating the same holiday as those perfidious Jews :rolleyes: ).
Yep, that’s what I was thinking of. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the Torah restriction on the uncircumcised used to explain the exclusion of the unbaptized from the Eucharist (though it probably has been).
Good point!
It is especially worth noting that rabbinic Judaism is synonymous with Judaism today, but that wasn’t so in Jesus’ time. Although Jesus’ teachings seem to have had the most intersection with the early rabbinical (Pharisee) tradition, Christian theology seems to have some remarkable parallels with some of the Essene and related mystical Jewish sects. A lot of the differences between Jewish and Christian theology IMO come from the loss/rejection of those traditions by Judaism in the post-Second Temple era.
My experience is that some Christians do celebrate Passover. I knew some people in college who would come to Hillel’s annual seder because it made them feel closer to Jesus. I don’t know to what extent they followed the dietary laws, and I don’t think they celebrated any other Jewish holidays. I’ve also heard of Christian “seders” that apparently followed the Haggadah pretty closely but with added stuff about the Last Supper. But the churches that had them would buy up most, if not all, of the matzah that was available in the local supermarket. :grumble:
Robin
I’ve heard that the custom of eating ham on Easter originated as another way for Christians to differentiate their celebration of Easter from Jewish celebrations of Passover.
Keep in mind, Judaism changed a fair bit after the destruction of the Second Temple. It’s not as if Christianity branched off from Judaism and made some changes while Judaism stayed the same as it had been before. Judaism today is a quite different religion than Judaism of Temple times, and those changes happened after Christianity and Judaism diverged.
Judaism today also isn’t what you’d get if you tried to follow all the laws in the Torah literally. We have a long tradition of rabbinical interpretation of the Bible, rather than trying to interpret it literally. We also give a lot of weight to tradition and custom, not just what the Bible says. If a devout Christian who interpreted the Bible literally tried to celebrate the Jewish holidays as it says to do in the Bible, what they celebrated probably wouldn’t bear much resemblance to Jewish holidays as Jews celebrate them today.
Keeping kosher is an example of this kind of thing. If a biblical-literalist Christian kept kosher based only on what is in the Bible, they would avoid shellfish and pork, but their rules on separating meat and dairy might be quite different. The Bible just says “do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk”- the rest of the rules of kosher for keeping meat and dairy separate (such as the rule that poultry and dairy can’t be eaten together) are rabbinical.
Well, actually, since Passover is a week long, Easter almost always coincides with Passover. Passover begins on the 14th day of the lunar month coinciding with spring, hence at the full moon (since, in the Jewish calendar, the lunar month begins with the new moon.) So Passover begins on the full moon and lasts seven days. Easter occurs on the first Sunday following the full moon after the equinox, and so most years, Easter occurs on the Sunday during Passover.
2008 will be an exception, because in some years (over-simplification to avoid a six page post), Christians and Jews focus on a different lunar month as the start of spring. So, in 2008, Passover will come a month later than Easter. However, this is a reasonably rare calendric occurrence.
re: 2008
march 23rd is easter.
april 19th is passover.
april 27th is orthodox pascha.
there are calendar and eccumenical issues.
The whole thing is extremely complicated, even more so than I realized when I posted. The first day of Passover will never be the same day as Easter–I believe this is an explicit rule added to the already arcane and complicated rules for calculating the date of Easter at some unknown time. If Easter would otherwise fall on 14 Nisan, it is moved to another date (I believe the following Sunday).
If I’m not mistaken, isn’t the first day of Passover technically a separate holiday from the week-long festival that follows? I don’t know if that is why the church rules for Easter only avoid that day, or because that is the most visible celebration of Passover. I don’t even know that the reason is to avoid confusion with the Jews, though that’s what I remember a professor telling me. It could be because Jesus was resurrected following the first day of Passover, so Easter has to follow as well. It could even have been a jab not at Jews but at those Christians who wanted the holidays to coincide, just to make sure they would never get their way. Or maybe it was just to make it that much more complicated. (“Bishop, good news! One of my parishioners figured out how to calculate the date of Easter! Now we won’t have to wait for your messenger to come tell us when to plan the celebration every year.” “Oh is that so, Father? Let’s see here . . . . Oops, so close! Not quite there, though. Guess you still need us bishops around after all!”) Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone knows the reason anymore, or just who set the rules.
If you want the whole story and the actual rules, you can look up the “computus”, as it’s called. (Though I’m guessing you, Dex, already have.) I’m warning you, though, it ain’t pretty!
Not really, though all eight days of Passover (or Sukkot, which is a comparable eight-day holiday) don’t have the same status.
The first two days (just the first day, for Reform Jews and Jews in Israel) of Passover are holidays. You’re not supposed to do any work on those days, kind of like you’re not supposed to do any work on the Sabbath (though holiday rules are slightly less restrictive). You have seders on the evenings of those two days (and remember, Jewish holidays start at sunset). The last two days (I think just the last day for Israelis) are also holidays in that sense, though you don’t have seders on those days.
The other days are what are called chol hamoed, or half-holidays. You’re allowed to do at least some work on those days, though it’s not entirely unrestricted. Some special features of the holiday (Passover or Sukkot) do remain in effect on those days. During Passover, you’re not supposed to eat any leavened bread on those days (or the full holiday days of Passover). During Sukkot, you’re supposed to eat your meals in an outdoor booth (a sukkah) on those days.
You may be wondering why Passover and Sukkot are seven days in Israel and eight elsewhere. This originated when the calendar was based on actual observation of a new moon, which would be confirmed by the Sanhedrin in Israel. It would have taken a while to get the news to people outside of Israel, so they celebrated holidays for two days to make sure at least one of them was the right day. This uncertainty in the calendar is long gone now. For a while, Jews stopped doing holidays for two days, but then started up again (hey, another day of holiday food and no work- the surprising thing is that the Jews in Israel never took up the practice…) Reform Judaism decided that, since there is no longer uncertainty in the calendar, they didn’t want to celebrate holidays on days that were not holidays in Israel.