Jots & Tittles

Best of BR

Bible scholars Dieter Georgi and Jonathan Klawans share the prize for having written the best articles to appear in these pages in 2000 and 2001. This year’s judges for the biennial Best of BR award were Howard Clark Kee, William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Biblical Studies Emeritus at Boston University, and Pamela J. Milne, professor of women”s studies at the University of Windsor, Ontario.

In his article “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?” BR 17:05, Jonathan Klawans, of Boston University, traces the development of the Passover Seder in Jewish tradition and then describes how New Testament scholars have attempted to identify Jesus’ Last Supper as a Seder. Judge Kee commended Klawans’s skillful use of both Jewish and Christian sources in determining that the identification simply cannot be made. According to Kee, Klawans effectively demonstrates that “the rabbinic traditions drawn on by scholars are just too late to depict how Jews celebrated the Passover in the time of Jesus.”