Reaction to the Bread of Life Discourse: John 6:51-71

The Discourse on the Bread of Life, concluded (6:51-59) In the conclusion to the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus transforms the earlier discussion concerning the Mosaic bread from heaven by declaring:

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink .

Jesus is no longer merely discussing Mosaic Bread from Heaven, but making a claim about the nature of the Messiah that many Jews would have found puzzling: the claim that the Messiah must be offer up his flesh and blood to provide eternal life. Jesus also foreshadows his later teachings on the mutual indwelling of God and Man when he adds, "whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (6:56). I'll discuss this important concept when it is fully developed in John 17.

With this conclusion of the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus completes his series of nutrition metaphors. Jesus has equated himself with of the four elements that Jews believed were necessary to sustain life.

Breath/Spirit (3:1-8) Water (4:1-15) Bread/food (6:35-51) Blood (6:51-59) The overall allegory is that Jesus provides the spiritual breath, water, food, and blood necessary to sustain spiritual life. Only those who accept Jesus as Messiah will receive this sustenance unto eternal life.

Eucharistic Words? The references to consuming Jesus' flesh and blood have naturally been understood by Christians as allusions to the eucharistic bread and wine (note: wine is the "blood of the grape," Dt. 32:14). This is particularly the case with Catholics, who interpret this passage as pointing to the doctrine of the transubstantiation of the eucharist. Despite its significance in later Christian history, the problem with this approach when attempting to contextualize John in the first century, is twofold. First, unlike the Synoptic Gospels, the Last Supper/Eucharist is never actually described in John (Mt. 26:26-29; Mk. 14:22-25; Lk. 22:15-20). Rather, Jesus gives a lengthy discourse at the Last Supper (Jn. 13-17), but is not explicitly described as performing a blessing and distribution ritual of the bread and wine.

It is thus puzzling that in John, Jesus gives a lengthy discourse seemingly on the meaning of the eucharist, but never actually describes the ritual of the eucharist to which that meaning is supposed to be attached. This is one reason Raymond Brown has hypothesized that perhaps this section was originally found in chapter 13 as a Last Supper narrative, and was later transposed to its current position.

Second, since this discourse is described as occurring before the Last Supper, the original disciples and Jews of Capernaum who listened to this discourse would have had no eucharistic frame of reference with which to understand these sayings. That the original audience did not understand what Jesus meant is reflected by the fact that John claims many of the disciples abandoned Jesus precisely because of the strangeness of this discourse (6:60-65). It simply didn't make any sense to them.

Because of this paradox many scholars believe that the Bread of Life sermon is in fact a retrojection of post-resurrection Christian eucharistic theology into a pre-resurrection discourse by Jesus. This type of discourse where Jesus makes statements that his contemporaries misunderstand actually occurs rather frequently in John. The actual meaning of Jesus' teaching is understood only after the resurrection, when everything suddenly becomes clear. As modern readers of John, we all naturally read from a post-resurrection perspective. But it is worth the effort to clear our minds of two thousand years of Christian interpretation and read the text as if we were fledgling disciples of Jesus standing in the synagogue of Capernaum and hearing this charismatic teacher make these types of statements for the first time, with no foreknowledge of a forthcoming crucifixion, resurrection, or eucharistic ritual. What ideas and practices would Jesus' discourse have brought to mind?

Flesh and Blood as the Passover Sacrifice In ancient Israel blood was understood to be the life-force of both animals and humans, distinguishing them from plants, which have no blood. "Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life " (Dt. 12:23; cf. Gen. 9:4; Lev. 7:11, 14). Leviticus expands on this: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood , and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life ." Thus, if viewed from the perspective of Israelite temple sacrificial theology, shedding life-blood is required for atonement. Hence a cosmic, eternal atonement would require the life-blood of God. Thus, when Jesus says, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life" he is alluding back to Jewish temple theology where sacrificial blood gives life through atonement. But instead of humans offering sacrificial animal blood to God, Jesus as God now offers his divine life-blood to mankind, and those who partake of that life-blood receive divine eternal life.

On the other hand, drinking blood is expressly forbidden in the Bible (Gen. 9:4-6; Lev. 3:17, 7:10, 14, 26, 19:26; Dt. 12:23-25; Acts 15:20). This is because the life-blood belongs to God and is to be given to him in temple sacrificial rituals. This is done by pouring or sprinkling blood on the ground (Lev. 17:13, Dt. 12:16, 15:23), on people (Ex. 29:21), on the altar (Ex. 29:12; Lev. 4:7, 18, 25, 30, 34, 5:9, 8:15, 30; 9:9, Num. 18:17; Dt. 12:27), in the temple or tabernacle (Lev. 14:51; Num 19:4), at the veil of the Holy of Holies (Lev. 4:6, 17, 8:30), and on the Ark within the Holy of Holies (Lev. 16:14-15). The Synoptic Gospels describing the "pouring" ( ekchunnō , often "shedding" in English) of Christ's blood at the Last Supper using the Septuagint Greek root, which describes these temple blood-pouring rituals. This poured blood also purifies, and was used in purification rituals of the temple, its furnishing, utensils and priests (Ex. 29:9-12, 30:10; Lev. 8:24, 16:15-16; Ezek. 42:20, 45:18-20).

John specifically notes that Jesus' Bread of Life discourse occurred at Passover time (6:4). Furthermore, John uniquely describes Jesus as the Passover "Lamb of God" (1:29, 36). What precisely happened to the Passover lamb in the first century? As noted earlier, Passover as practiced among first century Jews was a temple pilgrimage that involved sacrificing a lamb, pouring its blood at the altar, and feasting on the lamb's flesh and unleavened bread.

Although we often don't realize it today, one of the most striking characteristics of Passover at the Jerusalem temple in the first century would have been the blood-pouring ritual. The Mishnah, in tractate Pesa ḥ im ("Passover"), describes the Passover sacrificial rites at the temple, which can be supplemented by Josephus and other contemporary sources. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and thousands of priests crowded into the temple esplanade as sunset approached on Passover eve. The Israelites were divided into three groups, which performed the sacrifice in rotation. As his rotation approached, each Israelite man brought a lamb for his extended family onto the temple esplanade. The animal's throat was cut by the pilgrim, and its blood was caught in a silver or gold basin by a priest. When a basin was full of blood, it was passed from priest to priest until literally buckets of blood were poured on the altar. The empty basins were then returned to be refilled with new sacrificial blood. One can imagine the chaos with thousands of people holding lambs and jostling in the attempt to reach a priest, with animals bleating, defecating and urinating, and blood spraying onto worshippers and priests from severed jugulars. Amidst the literally thousands of sacrifices at Passover, a choir of Levites sang the Hallel Psalms (Ps. 113-118) praising God. The lamb carcasses were hung on hooks, gutted and flayed. A portion of the flesh dedicated to God was burnt on the great altar before the temple, while the rest was given to the sacrificing pilgrim to be taken home and roasted for the Passover feast (Mishnah, Pesa ḥ im , 5.5-10). (This Passover blood sacrifice continues to be performed each year by the Samaritans on the ruins of their ancient temple on Mount Gerizim. Some Jews are calling for the renewal of Passover blood sacrifice on the Muslim Temple Mount.)

So, strange as it may seem to modern Christians, when Jesus spoke of bread and flesh and blood at Passover time, his original listeners would probably not have thought of a yet to be consummated eucharistic Last Supper, but of the unleavened bread, the sacrificial flesh of lambs, and blood-pouring rituals at the altar of the temple.

The Reaction of the Disciples (6:60-66) From the perspective of first century Jews with no background in eucharistic theology, the words of Jesus would have been shocking, which is exactly what John reports. Their response was: "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" (6:60). It is important to note that this was the response of Jesus' disciples , not his opponents. Jesus replied, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (6:63). In other words, he is not speaking literally, but "spiritually" or allegorically. Nonetheless, "many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him" (6:66). John implies that Judas Iscariot was one of these disciples who took offense (6:64, 71); although he remained a disciple for the time being, this discourse was the beginning of Judas's eventual disaffection.

The Reaction of the Twelve (6:67-71) The rest of the Twelve, on the other hand, remain faithful. Their response to these "hard sayings" is reflected in the words of Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (6:68). The term apostle never occurs in John; rather, Jesus' closest followers are consistently called disciples. There were nonetheless special disciples, whom Jesus called the Twelve (Jn. 6:67, 70, 20:24), who were the same group called the twelve apostles in the Synoptic Gospels (Mt. 10:2; Mk. 6:30; Lk. 6:13). It is possible that Jesus did not yet call the disciples apostles ( apostolos = "one who is sent") because they were not formally sent forth as Jesus' representatives until after Jesus' prayer in John 17:18, when he sends ( apostellō , the verbal form) them into the world. That is, at this point they are only disciples who are still studying and learning with their teacher; only after the resurrection will they be sent forth as Jesus' apostles to spread his teachings to the world.

A pdf of the full version of this column, with extensive references and notes, can be found at:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15865520/Enigmatic%20Mirror/EM-John%206c.pdf

And Academia.edu:

http://byu.academia.edu/WilliamHamblin/Papers/539251/John_6_51-71

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