Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday 2017: Bible Verses, Passages, & Readings

Passover is a week-long Jewish festival that commemorates the emancipation of the Israelites by God from slavery in ancient Egypt. The story of the Exodus is described in the Hebrew Bible, especially in the Book of Exodus. In the Book of Exodus, Moses leads the Israelites across the Red Sea and through the deserts to Mount Sinai, where God promises them the land of Canaan as thanks for their faithfulness. However, according to the Gospel of John, Jesus had his last supper on Nisan 14, the night before the first night of Passover. Therefore, whether Jesus was celebrating Passover during the Last Supper is up for debate. According to Biblical Archaeology, we may also be projecting our zeitgeist onto the past, especially because the gospels were written by anonymous authors decades after Jesus died. Biblical Archaeology writes, "if we cannot know how Jews celebrated Passover at the time of Jesus, then we have to plead ignorance, and we would therefore be unable to answer our question."