X-Dreamers
Bible chapter guide
Luke 22
Judas agrees to betray Jesus. At the Last Supper Jesus gives the bread and the cup of the new covenant and the disciples argue about who is greatest. On the Mount of Olives he prays in anguish, his sweat like drops of blood; he is arrested, and Peter denies him in the high priest's courtyard.
Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.
What happens in this chapter
As the Passover comes near, Judas agrees with the chief priests to hand Jesus over. Jesus sends Peter and John to prepare the meal in a large furnished upper room; at the table Luke records a cup before the bread and another after supper, then a quarrel over which of them is the greatest, and a warning that Satan wants to sift Simon like wheat. On the Mount of Olives Jesus prays in anguish, his sweat like great drops of blood, and when he is arrested he touches the ear of the high priest's servant and heals it. In the high priest's courtyard Peter denies him three times, and as the rooster crows the Lord turns and looks at Peter.
What the lab shows, and where to look
The Last Supper stop opens on the foot washing, which comes from John; for Luke, go to its second moment, the bread and the cup. The room is a reconstruction: tables set in a U with the diners reclining, which the Gospels do not describe, in the traditional place on Mount Zion. In Gethsemane the prayer scene puts Jesus about a stone's throw from the sleeping disciples, as Luke 22:41 has it, and the lab's notes say that the verses about the angel and the bloody sweat are missing from some early manuscripts. Then go to the high priest's house and its rooster moment, where a note points out that only Luke tells of the Lord turning to look at Peter.
- The Last Supper: The bread and the cup · Holy Week in Jerusalem
- Gethsemane · Holy Week in Jerusalem
- The high priest's house: The rooster crows · Holy Week in Jerusalem
Questions people ask
Where was the upper room?
Luke says only that it was in the city, in a house whose owner had a large furnished upper room, found by following a man carrying a jar of water (22:10–12). Tradition places it on Mount Zion, where the Cenacle stands today, but the present hall is from the Crusader era and the tradition cannot be checked. The lab builds its room there and marks the site as speculative.
Did Jesus really sweat blood?
Luke says his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground (22:44): a comparison, which need not mean the sweat was blood. Some point to hematidrosis, a rare condition in which blood mixes with sweat under extreme stress, but the text does not say so. Verses 43–44 are also missing from some early manuscripts, which is why some Bibles print them in brackets.
Why does Luke mention two cups at the Last Supper?
Luke has a cup before the bread (22:17) and another after supper (22:20); Matthew and Mark have one cup, after the bread. The Passover meal as the Mishnah later describes it had four cups of wine, so Luke may be naming two of them. That is a reading of the text against later evidence, not something Luke explains.
See it in the Labs
- Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusBethlehem and the Birth of JesusOpen
- Holy Week in JerusalemGethsemane · Holy Week in JerusalemOpen
- Holy Week in JerusalemThe high priest's house: The rooster crows · Holy Week in JerusalemOpen
- Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusFamily house · Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusOpen
- Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusCave · Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusOpen
- Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusThe common picture vs the text · Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusOpen
- adventAdvent week 3: Shepherds · The road to BethlehemOpen
- Holy Week in JerusalemThe Last Supper · Holy Week in JerusalemOpen
- Holy Week in JerusalemThe Last Supper: The bread and the cup · Holy Week in JerusalemOpen
Places
Also in this chapter
How sure can we be?
- Textually stated
Luke has no innkeeper and no refusal. There was “no room in the kataluma”, a word Luke uses for a guest room (22:11), not for the inn of the Good Samaritan (10:34).
The common picture: Mary and Joseph were turned away by an innkeeper and sent out to a stable.
- Textually stated
The meal was in a large upper room, furnished and ready, in a house in the city.
- Textually stated
Luke alone tells that at the rooster's crow the Lord turned and looked at Peter.
- Strongly supported
Gethsemane was a garden across the Kidron valley at the foot of the Mount of Olives.
John places the garden across the Kidron; Mark and Matthew call the place Gethsemane and Luke the Mount of Olives. A church stood at the traditional spot by the late 4th century.
- Strongly supported
"No room in the inn" (客店): inn or guest room? (Luke 2:7): KJV reads "inn" at 2:7 but "guestchamber" at 22:11, and the 和合本 reads 客店 and 客房, though Luke uses the same Greek word, kataluma, in both. Ellicott and the Cambridge Bible keep "inn" at 2:7 (a khan or caravanserai); Bailey and Carlson argue for a guest room in a house. See "Competing views".
- Strongly supported
The angel and the sweat like drops of blood (Luke 22:43–44): Both KJV and the 和合本 print the two verses. Modern Greek editions put them in double brackets, and some manuscripts mark them as doubtful. The lab tells Gethsemane from all four Gospels and does not depend on these verses.