I have heard some say that the “sop” that Yahshua used in the New Testament Passover service was leavened bread. Can that be true?

It is true only if Yahshua were a lawbreaker. The law says that nothing leavened is to be eaten with the Passover, Exodus 12:8;23:18; 34:25; Deuteronomy 16:2-3. To say that leavened bread is acceptable for the Passover memorial emblem is tantamount to blasphemy because leavening in relation to the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread represents several kinds of corruption that lead to sin. (Matt. 16:12; Luke 12:1; 1Cor. 5:8). If Yahshua’s body is represented by leavening then His perfect and sinless life is corrupted.

Some look at the word “sop” in the New Testament and think of a soft, leavened slice of bread. “Sop” derives from the Greek psomion, and means “a morsel,” “a bit,” “a fragment.” Thus, it signifies a piece of food. At the “last supper” the text says the sop was dipped, which does not necessarily suggest that the sop was used for soaking up liquid. It could also be used like a potato chip or tortilla chip for dipping in a sauce or for scooping up another food.

Now let’s examine another word. The Greek artos is used in the New Testament for the bread eaten during the last supper. The New Testament Greek Lexicon defines artos as “food composed of flour mixed with water and baked.” It goes on to say, “The Israelites made it in the form of an oblong or round cake, as thick as one’s thumb, and as large as a plate or platter, hence it was not to be cut but broken.”  Obviously, this is a hard, unleavened bread.

The Greek also has a word for “unleavened,” azumos, which means literally “without yeast.” Some have assumed that because azumos does not appear in the Evangel accounts of the last supper that the Passover bread was leavened.

This assumption is invalidated by Kittle’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, which says about azumos: “P. Fiebig [a Greek-language scholar] . . . shows that the term artos does not exclude azumos, but that in certain circumstances, e.g., in description of the Passover, it may mean this. Hence the occurrence of artos at the Last Supper is no proof that this was not really the Passover.”

In addition, both early Jewish writers Josephus and Philo use artos in their description of the matzo of the Passover meal. Further, the showbread in the Tabernacle and Temple is called artos in Hebrews 9:2. This is key because the showbread was unleavened. The showbread is mentioned in Exodus 29:2, 23 and is expressed by challah, which is Hebrew meaning “unleavened.” These were unleavened loaves that are also referred to by the Greek artos in the New Testament.

Manna is also rendered by artos, “bread” (John 6:31). In Exodus 16:31 manna is described as a wafer, which is the Hebrew tsappiychith, a “flat cake.” A wafer is not leavened.

Yahshua described Himself as the artos of life (John 6:48-51). And the bread taken at the Passover by the Messiah is also called artos (Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19, John 13:18).

Not only is artos used for bread, but it is also employed metaphorically for food in general. For example, when Yahshua prayed to give us our daily bread or artos (Matthew 6:11), He was referring to food in general, not to raised loaves.

Although azumos means “without leaven,” it is not used to describe bread – it is used for the name of the festival itself. What we call the Feast of Unleavened Bread was originally simply called “the Feast of Unleavened.” The term “bread” was added later in English-language Bibles (e.g. Matthew 26:17).

Only once is the word azumos used to describe the spiritual state of being unleavened (1 Cor. 5:7), and even in that case it is not related to bread but to our spiritual state. In the next verse we are told to celebrate the feast with the azumos of sincerity and truth.

Contending that use of the word artos for the Passover bread means that leavened bread was used assumes more than the word signifies. And as we have shown, parallel references in the Hebrew reveal that artos refers to unleavened bread. Even more significantly, use of leavened bread in the Passover is a violation of Torah law.

Issues commonly brought up about the calendar and Passover can almost always be answered if we go back to the law, to the first time the command or instructions were given. If any such teaching pulled from the New Testament does not harmonize with the law then that teaching is bogus.