Most interesting...esp. the history about the seder and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Never knew that.
Why I stopped reading 'Black Athena'...I was both struck and amazed by Bernal' s point that fish were central to the Last Supper. Not trusting my memory, I went back to the description of this event in the New Testament, and I will here only refer my readers to Matthew 26:26, 27 and Mark 24:22, 23. Bread and wine are the substance of the Eucharist and there is no mention of fish. So, I (who, incidentally, am an atheist) turned to John. There is no mention of the Eucharist in John.
by L. Pearce Williams
How, then, did Bernal write what he wrote? I think this is a crucial point in the criticism of Bernal's whole approach to his subject. He seeks out only those facts that support his interpretation, but this time he stumbles badly. His footnote to support his contention that fish are central to the Last Supper and the Eucharist refers to John 21: 1-14.
...Bernal's critics, I included, may perhaps be criticized for not recognizing his true eminence, for, in almost 2,000 years, no one before Bernal has discovered the Last Breakfast! This example of Bernal's scholarship is literally inexcusable. The Eucharist has been, as Bernal states, a central part of Western civilization from the birth of Christianity until the modern era. That he would not even bother to ask a knowledgeable Catholic scholar what the Eucharist was, or to interrogate his own Irish ancestors about this matter, indicates his scorn for scholarship and objective truth. It was at this point that I closed Black Athena and relegated it to the trash heap of politically and racially inspired garbage.