Jesus and the Jewish roots of the Eucharist

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RPFDUR27E989G?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper by Brant Pitre

I am a life-time Catholic and I am a deep and extensive reader of theology and the early church fathers, but this book was chock-a-block with facts, insights and observations that were right under my nose all along but which I never suspected to exist.

Author Brant Pitre's chief claim is that the Jews of Jesus's time were waiting for a new Exodus. This new Exodus required a new Moses, and what is more, a return of the miracle that chiefly defined the Exodus, namely, Manna.

We all know about the Passover-Last Supper parallel. Pitre sharpens our understanding of that connection by providing insights about how first-century Jews would have understood Passover, to wit, that God gave precise instructions about how to select a lamb for sacrifice and how to mark the houses with the blood of the lamb on the lumber of the lintels but that this rite of the original Passover would not have been over until the lamb had been eaten.

From there Pitre explains the miracle of Manna and its continuing cultic significance in Judaism. I knew that Manna was kept in the ark of the covenant, but Pitre explains the importance of manna as the quintessential miracle of Exodus. Manna had a place in the Jewish cultural imagination as the bread of life or the bread of angels. Some thought that Manna had existed in Heaven before the creation of the world.

What I knew but didn't know was the importance that Jesus assigned to manna. I knew that the Bread of Life discourse in John 6 starts with a question by skeptics about Jesus providing manna, and I knew his answer, but I didn't know the context of that discussion, namely whether Jesus was the Messiah would bring back manna. Jesus's answer was “yes” and he declared that he was that manna.

Pitre then discusses the obscure and mysterious “Bread of the Presence.” I never knew that Moses and the 72 elders had a banquet with God where they saw the “face” of God. I definitely did not know that the Bread of Presence was also called “the Bread of the Face” because it was in the presence of God or that three times a year the priests showed the people the “face of God” by showing the Bread of the Presence and announcing this is God's love.

Of course, this all gives deep insight into the original Christian understanding of the Eucharist. Concerning the Bread of the Presence, Pitre summarizes:

“The Bread and Wine of Jesus' Presence In books about the Last Supper, scholars are often puzzled by a peculiar feature of the meal. If it was in fact a new Passover, then why didn't Jesus take the roasted flesh of the Passover lamb and identify it as his body? Why did he focus instead on the bread and wine? Moreover, why would he choose to identify the bread and wine so intimately with himself? Where could he have gotten the (admittedly strange) idea that bread and wine could somehow represent a person?
To be sure, one can see how the breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the wine could be visible signs of his imminent death. The broken bread symbolizes his broken body, and the outpoured wine symbolizes the shedding of his blood. But you have to admit that when you think of common symbols of a person's presence, bread and wine are not the first things that spring to mind.
That is, unless you are a first-century Jew, and you are talking not just about the presence of a human being but about the presence of God. However, as we have seen, the notion that bread and wine could be signs of the divine presence was something that would have been driven home at least three times a year, at the feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. As we just learned, at each of these festivals, the golden table of the Bread of the Presence would be brought out for the pilgrims to see, and the priests would declare: “Behold, God's love for you!”
In light of everything we've seen so far in this chapter, I think the case can be made that from Jesus' perspective, the Last Supper was not merely a new Passover; it was also the new bread and wine of the Presence. Although most readers don't look at the Last Supper in terms of the bread and wine of the Presence, I invite you to look again:...“
Pitre offers an explanation of the Jewish Passover Seder and the significance of Jesus drinking the fourth and final cup of Passover after he utters “It is finished,” thereby making the Last Supper into a sacrifice with sacrifice, priest and liturgy.

In sum, this was a challenging, insightful and interesting book.