The Last Supper and the Passover--Do John and the Synoptics Agree?

We have at least a dozen children's storybook Bibles in our house. Some of them are fantastic. Some of them I don't read to the kids--I let them look at the pictures while I tell them the story. Most of them are pretty good in general, but have a couple problem spots.

The Last Supper tends to be one of those problem spots. In fact, one of our (otherwise favorite) children's Bibles actually separates the washing of the disciples' feet and the Last Supper into two separate meals. In the first story they "all got together for dinner" and in the second they were just "eating supper together."

Well. That's problematic on several accounts. Didn't Jesus wash his disciples' feet at the Last Supper? And what about the Last Supper being a Passover meal?

As it turns out, this kind of interpretation isn't limited to overly-creative retellings in storybook Bibles. The accounts of the Last Supper in the Synoptic Gospels and in the Gospel of John are commonly understood to contradict each other.

This article has been updated and republished at The Scribe, the blog for the Lay Division of the St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. You can read the rest here.