We all know the story (Americans do, at least).
Once the pilgrims landed in New England, they formed a relationship with the Native Americans who helped them plant and harvest crops. Once the harvest comes in, the two groups share a harvest meal to celebrate their shared blessings. Squanto even makes an appearance as the venerable leader who bridges the two communities.
This event is known as the “First Thanksgiving,” and every word of events that I just described are hotly debated between historians to this day. Were the conversations really that jovial? Did they actually work together? Was it all humdrums-and-holly oaks from then on?
Who really knows. But one account argues that not only was the First Thanksgiving designed as a multi-day feast, but that the Pilgrims actually had an Old Testament festival in mind to model their’s after: The Feast of Tabernacles.
The similarities do seem striking. Both represent gratitude after the harvest. Both involve hospitality to outsiders (Deuteronomy 16:14). And both involved pilgrims, although the ones in Jerusalem were not of the buckle-hat type.
The Feast of the Tabernacles is different from other feasts, such as the Day of Atonement, which requires observers to “afflict their souls” (Numbers 29:7). It’s a time of celebration and joy, where Jews flocked to Jerusalem by the thousands. That’s why it’s called the Feast of Tabernacles—people literally lived in huts outside the city.
On the way there, the pilgrims would sing the Songs of Ascent, which are a collection of Psalms 120-134. If you read them sequentially, it’s a progressive intensification of emotions that get more and more real the closer you get to the end, just like it would’ve been for the Jews as they approached Jerusalem.
(By the way, the reason it’s called Songs of Ascent is because they physically ascended in elevation to Jerusalem. When the Bible says that people went “up” to the Temple, they actually went up.)
Psalm 81 is a song specifically designed for the Feast of Tabernacles. Unsurprisingly, it speaks of God’s deliverance for Israel from Egypt, turning a nation of slaves into a nation of pilgrims. At the end of the psalm, God feeds them with wheat and honey.
One thing we do know about the Pilgrims is that they were a deeply religious community. They originally fled from England in 1608, landing in the Netherlands to escape religious persecution before eventually finding their way to Plymouth Rock in 1620.
The first governor of Plymouth was a man named William Bradford, who, according to his own personal account of the journey, claims that he read from Psalm 107 upon the Pilgrim’s arrival in America.
And what does Psalm 107 talk about? Gathering people from east and west (Psalm 107:3) who were weary from their travels (Psalm 107:4-9) and eventually saved by God (Psalm 107:19).
For good measure, Psalm 107:23-32 even talks about how “those who go down to the sea in ships…see His [God’s] wonders in the deep.” No wonder this psalm is what Mr. Bradford thought upon setting foot in Massachusetts.
So, did the Pilgrims steal Thanksgiving? No, and no one with any sense of honesty would make that claim.
But did they borrow certain ideas and attitudes and themes and quantities of food from the Feast of Tabernacles? Almost certainly.
No word though on whether or not Aunt Betty’s famous peach pie was found outside of Jerusalem, though.