Cutting to the chase, it says that Jesus did not say to drink his blood(wine) and eat his body(bread), at the Last Supper. In other words, Jesus’ Communion commandment was a myth. He did not tell us to do that.
Paul is the first one to write that Jesus said to eat the bread and drink the wine. Paul claimed that Jesus told him that through revelation.
In their Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, repeated Paul’s account almost word for word. Matthew, Mark or Luke did not claim to be Apostles or claim to have known Jesus. There is no evidence they did. They got their Last Supper story from reading Paul, who wrote years before they did.
John, on the other hand, was an Apostle and obviously did know Jesus. He was at the Last Supper. In his Gospel, John recounts the Last Supper, but makes no mention of Jesus passing around bread and wine and saying it was his body and blood.
John was also familiar with Paul’s writings. In his own way he disputed Paul’s account.
Also, Jesus and the Apostles were devout Jews. Eating a body and drinking blood was anathema to Jewish scripture and culture.
Thank you. I thought it was interesting. It’s the first time I’ve seen Communion challenged.
For me, the most convincing part is John’s failure to mention it.
Supposedly, Communion is the only thing Jesus commanded us to do to memorialize Him- “This do in remembrance of Me.”
John was a participant in the Last Supper. How could he possibly have thought that not worthy of mentioning, if it had really happened?
The premise in the article is basically Paul just made up Eucharistic myths and three of the four gospel writers copied him. If you believe that is true then perhaps you should delete Paul’s letters and the first three gospels from the New Testament.
As far as the Gospel of John, it includes a long section about the nature of the Eucharist in the sixth chapter. The passage explicitly affirms the real presence of the body and blood of Christ while acknowledging that it was a hard teaching that many Jewish followers rejected: This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. . .unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. . . On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” . . . From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. John 6: 51-66
As far as the Didache, it includes these instructions that are consistent with belief that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist and that the Eucharist is a “pure sacrifice”:
. . .let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist, unless they have been baptized into the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord has said, "Give not that which is holy to the dogs. . .
. . .every Lord’s day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one who is at odds with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: “In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations.”
It has been 'splained long ago. And over and over since then.
John’s Gospel contains the Bread of Life discourse in chapter 6. It is a more complete theological understanding of Eucharist than is contained in the description of the meal at the Last Supper in the Synoptic Gospels.
By the time John wrote his Gospel, the practice of consecration and communion was well established. It didn’t need to be described again. Instead he focused on another event at the Last Supper, an event that defied all societal sensibilities – the King washing the feet of his subjects, including the one Jesus knew would betray him.
Therefore John related an event after one of the multiplication-of-loaves stories that explains why Jesus gave us bread as his body and wine as his blood at the Last Supper, and that fills in a huge “what-does-that-mean” hole that early Christians were struggling with.
John 6 has nothing to do with the Eucharist.
He does not hold up a piece of bread, take a bite and hand it around saying “this is my body”
He does not hold up a cup of wine saying “this is my blood”
He does not say "Do this in remembrance of me.
He does not institute a sacrament. Most of his audience are defiant Jews trying to trick him. He uses the body and blood as spiritual metaphors.
John 13 details the Last Supper. It does not mention bread and wine as symbols of Jesus’ body and blood. It does not detail a communion ceremony.
John was there, sitting next to Jesus. Why doesn’t he mention the establishment of communion? Because it didn’t happen.
Paul was a very devout Jew–so devout he rejected began with rejecting Christianity. What do you want to bet one of the reasons he first rejected it was because a devout Jew would not accept Jesus’ teachings about the Eucharist?
Was there a need to repeat the inception of one of the most important sacraments in Christianity when he was an eye witness to the Last Supper? The only eye witness who wrote a Gospel.
