Tamara Prosic
Abstract
The problem of the origins of Passover has been a subject of considerable interest in variety of academic disciplines. Biblical scholars, historians of religion, anthropologists and archaeologists all gave their contribution to the discussion. Most studies on the origins of Passover, however, were done before the new trend in explaining the origins of the Israelites and thus respectively the origins of their religion became prevalent. Their conclusions were based on the traditional interpretation of the ethno-cultural origins of the early Israelites as nomads or semi-nomads before their settlement in Canaan and in line with this view, the Yahwistic Passover was seen as an amalgam made of two distinct festivals, one typical of the Israelites with nomadic-pastoral features and the other typical of the Canaanites and their sedentary way of life and agricultural customs. The period of using the unleavened bread was usually taken to represent the agricultural feast, 1 while the ritual performed on its preliminary day with the characteristic animal sacrifice 2 was explained as a heritage from the nomadic-pastoral past of the Israelites. Certainly today with more and more scholars pertaining to the idea that the Israelites were not of a different ethnic and cultural background from the Canaanites, it seems that we may as well abandon attempts to identify peculiar Israelite features in the festival and claim that it originated from just one culture, that of the Canaanites. That, however, still does not provide an answer whether it was a single festival from the beginning or
