The Seder After Christ

A Distinct Response to the Fall of the Temple

Many assume the Jewish Passover Seder is an ancient ritual stretching back unchanged to Moses himself. But the structured, ritualized Seder familiar today did not exist in the time of Jesus. In fact, it emerged after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD—a moment that proved pivotal for both Judaism and Christianity, but which they interpreted in radically different ways.

Before 70 AD, Passover observance revolved around pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb at the Temple. Families ate the lamb at home, along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, in accordance with Exodus 12. But the meal had not yet been codified into a standardized liturgy. It was shaped more by Temple sacrifice than by structured storytelling.

All of that changed with the Roman destruction of the Second Temple—a catastrophe Jesus had prophesied, and which the early Christians interpreted as a vindication of his messianic identity. Judaism, now stripped of its sacrificial center, faced a profound crisis: how could it continue to observe Passover, to remember the Exodus, without the Temple?

The response came not from Christian communities, but from a new rabbinic movement that emerged at Yavneh. These rabbis did not turn to Jesus. They turned instead to Scripture, memory, and pedagogical ritual. They reinvented the Passover meal as a didactic, home-based ceremony that re-centered Jewish identity around Torah and remembrance rather than Temple and sacrifice.

By around 200 AD, the Mishnah (specifically tractate Pesachim) had outlined a new Passover format: four cups of wine, the asking of a child’s question (“Why is this night different from all other nights?”), a structured retelling of Deuteronomy 26:5–8, Psalms of praise (Hallel), and the eating of unleavened bread and bitter herbs—but no lamb. The core of what we now know as the Seder was born.

Over the following centuries, the Haggadah—the liturgical script of the Seder—took shape and was expanded, eventually reaching a relatively stable form by the early medieval period (9th–10th centuries AD). It had become, by then, a deeply powerful expression of Jewish resilience and continuity.

Crucially, the rabbinical Seder was not looking forward to Christ. It was a non-Christian response to the very event Christianity saw as central to its theological claims. Where Christians interpreted the Temple’s fall as confirmation of Jesus’ identity as the new Passover lamb, the rabbis created a ritual that refused both the Temple and Christ. The Seder became a defining expression of post-Temple, post-Christian Judaism.

Understanding the timing and development of the rabbinical Seder doesn’t diminish either tradition. It simply clarifies the historical divergence that followed the destruction of the Temple. Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism are not variations on a common ritual path—they are different responses to the same moment of crisis. And the Seder, far from prefiguring the Cross, insists: we remember differently from you Christians.

So, be gracious, be kind, but think twice before participating in a misguided “Christian Seder”.