Scott Hahn's book, The Fourth Cup, turns out to be pure bullshit. The Seder ritual Hahn wrote his book about was developed long after the destruction of the Temple, long after Christ was crucified. It was invented by rabbis who never sacrificed in the Temple, nor did they ever actually even see the Temple. They couldn't, because the Temple had already been destroyed centuries before. Arguably, Judaism died out when the Second Temple was destroyed and animal sacrifice, the centerpiece of Judaism and Hebrew worship, was completely eradicated.
Remember, neither Jesus nor the apostles nor even Paul ever met a Jew who didn't participate in Temple sacrifice and Temple maintenance. Every adult male Jew in the world was required to come to the Temple at least three times a year to assist in Temple sacrifice. Every adult male Jew was also required to contribute a half shekel to Temple maintenance before the first of Nisan each year. From Noah, through Abraham's first vision, for all of Hebrew history, animal sacrifice was the centerpiece of Hebrew worship. When the Temple was destroyed and Temple sacrifice eradicated, the Hebrew religion was also thereby eradicated. When the last Levitical priest who had offered animal sacrifice died, Judaism ceased to exist.
The Seder as we know it, and as it has been practiced since the sixth century, was not an organic development of Temple Judaism. The Last Supper could not have been a seder meal.
That Jesus ate a meal in Jerusalem, at night, with his disciples is not so surprising. It is also no great coincidence that during this meal the disciples reclined, ate both bread and wine, and sang a hymn. While such behavior may have been characteristic of the Passover meal, it is equally characteristic of practically any Jewish meal.
Not only the Seder, but the entire rabbinic-Talmud system was an invention created long after the Temple was destroyed. It was invented in a manner very similar to the way Joseph Smith invented Mormonism and Mormon ritual, tacking it onto Christianity as best he could. The rabbinic-Talmud system was invented by Rav Ashi (352–427 AD) and Ravina II (d. 475 AD), two lay people who had nothing better to do with their time but write down a layman's thoughts on how best to read the Torah. Rav Ashi or Ravina II writing commentary on the Torah was no different than Martin Luther (Ph.D. in theology) or John Hus (MA in theology) writing down their commentaries on the New Testament. In terms of divine inspiration, the versions of the Talmud the two Ravs wrote down have roughly the same theological weight and insight as Luther's Table Talk.
The rabbinic-Talmud system they developed is as authentically Jewish as Mormonism is authentically Christian. Today, roughly 20% of the people who claim to be Jews reject both rabbinic authority and Talmudic authority. They reject it for the same reasons Christians reject Mormonism: they know both systems were manufactured by men long after the fact.
But this invented system of Talmudic "Judaism" is the system from which Scott Hahn lifted his four cup theory. Keep in mind, rabbis are not descended from Levitical priests. Rabbis are just lay people who gave themselves authority and pretended it was theirs to take. In 1935, fully 80% of the Christian "ministers" in the United States had only a high school degree. Some had less. But during that same Prohibition period, a substantial number of American rabbis had no formal education at all.
“if you said you are a rabbi, who was going to say you weren't a rabbi?” Okrent continued. “There were rabbis with names like Kelly and Hosanna Han and there were black rabbis. There was a real racket.”... Basically, anyone – no matter how unlikely – could say they were a rabbi because there was no recognized standard for the rabbinate...A dozen Jews or even non-Jews can get together and call themselves a Jewish congregation. They can proceed to elect one of themselves or anyone else, male or female, Jew or non-Jew, as their “Rabbi” and there is absolutely no authoritative, central Jewish body that can dictate to the pseudo-congregation what qualifications its rabbi must possess, or even interfere in any way with its management.
As even those who call themselves Jews today readily admit,
The original ordination, passed down from Moshe to Yehoshua and continuing from teacher to student, was lost in the year 358 CE
This is how the rabbinate has always operated. As long as twelve people agree that you are a rabbi, then you are a rabbi. That's why it was important Jesus have twelve disciples. A rabbi, like an American congregationalist minister, is anyone who (a) decides to call himself that and (b) can convince a few people to agree that he is one.
Instead of taking this authority for themselves in 1830 AD like old Joe Smith, they did it in 400 AD. Only the Ashkenazi (Eastern Europeans) buy into this nonsense. Unfortunately, Ashkenazi make up about 80% of the people who pretend to be Jewish today. Ashkenazi come from Eastern Europe, so the Ashkenazi rabbi-Talmud system is the only kind of "Jew" that Europeans know. As a result, everyone descended from Europeans thinks rabbis and the Talmud are normal and "Jewish". They aren't. America's view of Judaism is no more an accurate view of Judaism than what America's view of Christianity would be if everything Americans knew about Christianity was what the Mormon Church taught.
But these fifth-century AD lay people who called themselves "rabbi" are the people who wrote the Talmuds. Just as a group of congregationalist ministers might gather today to write a Scripture commentary, so a bunch of lay people who claimed authority after the Temple was destroyed and the Levitical priesthood disbanded, wrote down what they considered to be the correct way to interpret the Torah. The results don't have to be imagined - the results are the Talmud.
However, let us ignore all this. Let's pretend the rabbis really do have authority, that the really are actually Jews. Let's pretend the Seder ritual they invented really is really accurate and not just something they wrote down because they were grasping at the few straws left to them after the true Jewish style of worship, animal sacrifice, i.e., the Hebrew worship offered since Noah and Abraham, had been completely crushed, eradicated, destroyed, wiped off the face of the earth.
What about Hahn's four cup theory then? Well, Hahn's theory depends on the Seder being a prophetic foreshadowing of the Crucifixion, and the four cups being a prophecy of Christ's passion, when it is actually no such thing.
Just where did the rabbis themselves determine the idea of instituting four cups of wine? The rabbis wrote these instructions in Tractate Pesachim during the time of Roman rule in Israel, and during that time it was customary at Roman feasts or banquets (known as symposiums (sym – together, posium – drinking wine)) to begin the festivities by drinking wine.
Tractate Pesachim, part of the Mishnah, was compiled around 200 CE in Palestine by Patriarch Judah haNasi and his school.
The tractate Pesachim was written at least 200 years after the Catholic Mass had already begun being celebrated. The Mass certainly was based on the Seder meal, but the structure of the original Seder meal isn't actually known. The oldest documents describing the Seder may not actually be doing that. After all, even:
the Book of Deuteronomy clearly stipulates that the Pesach sacrifice may not be made “within any of thy gates” but rather at the Temple. (16:5-6)
so it has literally been impossible to celebrate any kind of Seder since the 70AD destruction of the Temple. But even what we do know of the Seder as it was practiced when the Temple still stood is not.... harmonious:
The Passover Seder is one of the most recognized and widely practiced of Jewish rituals, yet had our ancestors visited one of these modern-day celebrations, they would be baffled. Not only does our modern Seder wildly diverge from the Passover of old: during antiquity itself the holiday underwent radical changes. Below we chart as best we can - considering the shortage of historical documentation - the origins of Passover, from the dawn of Israelite people to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE
What we know of it tells us it originally only had two, or perhaps three, cups, not four.
The obligation to drink four cups of wine on the seder night was another rabbinic provision introduced within several decades after the destruction of the temple (Talmud Pesachim 109b).
The Talmud is written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and exists in two versions: the vastly studied Babylonian Talmud, compiled by scholars in Mesopotamia (Babylonia) around 500 CE, as well as the Jerusalem Talmud, compiled earlier, around 400 CE, but much shorter, incomplete and in consequence, for centuries studied less frequently. Usually, ‘the Talmud’ refers to the Babylonian Talmud.
On the eve of Pesah close to minhah one may not eat until nightfall. Even the poorest person in Israel must not eat [on the night of Pesah] until he reclines. And they should give him not less than four cups [of wine], and even from the charity plate.
There's also a fifth cup, that Hahn doesn't mention:
Rabbi Tarfon says: over the fifth cup we recite the great Hallel.
So, Hahn's theory is a Just-So story, based on nonsense from a bunch of random lay people making up and writing down random "Jewish" rituals centuries after Judaism's destruction. They didn't even invoke an angel delivering golden tablets. They simply invoked divine inspiration for Rav Ashi:
Rav Ashi's composition of the Talmud is considered divinely inspired, reflecting his spiritual greatness. Rav Ashi, a pivotal figure in Jewish history, completed the Babylonian Talmud in the 5th century CE, a text central to Jewish law and tradition.
CCC 66 "The Christian economy, therefore, since it is the new and definitive Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Which, good for him, I guess. After all, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good.
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