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Annalex: What you preach is height of absurdity, all to obfuscate the truth of the scripture.

Mr Rogers: No, it connects the scripture before and after with the scripture in between...

With all due respect to both of you, I think you are beating a dead horse. The problem, of course, is in the emperor's (nonexisting) clothes and the fact that no one will admit the emperor is naked but pretend that everything is hunky dory. In other words, even thought NT books are at times incompatible with each other, no one will admit it (for obvious reasons).

It doesn't take a rocket (or in this case a Bible) scientist to realize that, on closer analysis, the Church used bits and pieces of the NT to formulate the doctrine (just as the heretics did), taking a little bit from here and a little bit from there, and discarding or ignoring those parts that did not "fit in."

It is equally clear that the Church did not formulate the Eucharistic practices based on Pauline epistles but on the Gospels, and given the inherent difference between the two trying to marry them by pretending everything is hunky dory is a lost cause.

It is equally clear that the Gospels present Jesus' body as something real, physical, edible and nutritious in the "real" or literal sense. Jesus calls his flesh "real food" and his blood "real drink" [cf John 6:55]. I mean, how much more literal does it have to get? Nowhere do the Gospels even hint at a "spiritual body" or "spiritual food." Jesus never thaught that.

It is Apostle Paul, not Jesus of the Gospels, who introduces the term "spiritual body" and the concept of a symbolic Eucharist. That's right, "spiritual body" is not to be found anywhere except in Pauline Epistles. It is yet another one of his (in)famous innovations.

Being that he is a Pharisee, I would imagine the idea of eating Jesus' flesh would have been equally revolting as it was for most of Jesus' early followers. He heard of the Last Supper and probably of the bread and fish story, and decided that for his Hellenized Jewish audiences a literal interpretation presented in the Gospels probably would have doomed his presnetation to an automatic failure. It also smacked way too much of pagan practices associated with idolatry which would be another reason to reject them form the start.

So, he reached for some Platonic tools to help him "digest" this better, since much of the character he created named Jesus Christ (rather than Jesus the Christ) already had many Platonic characteristics to begin with!

One of the reasons why Gnostics (especially Marcion) loved Paul so much (to the exclusion of practically all other NT writers!), is precisely because he favored the spiritual over corporeal. He spoke their language! Basically they believed the body was a filthy, carnal, sinful prison to which we are sent (as spirit) as punishment. Jesus and his body is pure, and heavenly, and only that which is spiritual is pure.

That was the thinking that led so many early Christians to reject Christ's body as "real" insisting it was only an illusion [this heresy is otherwise known as Docetism]. If it was an illusion, then he must have been a pure spirit who made himself only look and feel like flesh. In that case, eating his body made sense only if it was treated as spiritual food, and it was done "in the spirit" of his memory. After all, if God is spirit than he must be worshiped in spirit...[cf John 4:24]

For whatever reason, it is clear from surviving documents across the board that already by the end of the first century and especially in the second, the Christians did not receive the Eucharist as "spiritual food" but as Jesus' flesh and blood in the literal sense.

Thus, we have Ignatius of Antioch, at the turn of the century, writing to Smyrneans (all emphasis being mine):

"Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead."

Similarly, Justin Martyr writes in his First Apology (Ch 66, c. 150 AD):

"God's Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus."

Irenaeus, bets know for his relentless struggle against Gnostics, writes in the "Five Books on the Unmasking and Refutation of the Falsely Named Gnosis". Book 5:2, 2-3, circa 180 A.D:

"So then, if the mixed cup and the manufactured bread receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist, that is to say, the Blood and Body of Christ, which fortify and build up the substance of our flesh, how can these people claim that the flesh is incapable of receiving God's gift of eternal life, when it is nourished by Christ's Blood and Body and is His member? As the blessed apostle says in his letter to the Ephesians, 'For we are members of His Body, of His flesh and of His bones' [note: Eph. 5:30]. He is not talking about some kind of 'spiritual' and 'invisible' man, 'for a spirit does not have flesh an bones' [note: Lk. 24:39].

Clearly, Pauline teaching to the contrary (i.e. "spiritual body" and "spiritual food") was fully rejected or, better yet, ignored.

While we don't know the exact reason why, we do know that the ex-pagan crowds that made up the bulk of early Christians by that time would not have been revolted by it. We also know that the Church was doing everything to "de-Judaize" itself and, more importantly, because the Church was engaged full time in resisting Gnostic influence (in general, and Marcionism in particular).

So, you are beating a dead horse. The Church cherry-picked what was needed to defend its beliefs and the Protestants cherry-pick theirs to defend theirs. The Gnostics cherry-picked Pauline and Johannine writings to support their beliefs, and Arians cherry-picked Synoptic Gospels to "prove" that Jesus was a "lesser" God, just as any other Christian group cherry-picks the Bible to "prove" its own man-made doctrine.

Different Churches, such as the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, add books to the canon (i.e. Book of Enoch) to support its own flavor "orthodoxy" just as the early Christians accepted the OT deutercnaonical books based on LXX while the Protestants rejected them based on the MS. Of course, then we have the LDS, the Oneness Christians, the Messianic "Jews," and so forth, all claiming their the discern the truth...

This is all a man-made circus, cooked up in man-made religious kitchens, serving their own recipes for the potion of salvation. But keep in mind that too much spice can sometimes lead to indigestion and worse... :)

“It doesn’t take a rocket (or in this case a Bible) scientist to realize that, on closer analysis, the Church used bits and pieces of the NT to formulate the doctrine (just as the heretics did), taking a little bit from here and a little bit from there, and discarding or ignoring those parts that did not “fit in.”

I would argue that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the Church made up some doctrines without reference to the scriptures, and then has trouble finding any support for those doctrines, and is puzzled by scripture that conflicts with it.

You write “It is equally clear that the Gospels present Jesus’ body as something real, physical, edible and nutritious in the “real” or literal sense. Jesus calls his flesh “real food” and his blood “real drink” [cf John 6:55]. I mean, how much more literal does it have to get?”

Well, for starters, “35Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.” In what sense is that literal? Coming and believing means your hunger and thirst will be satisfied, as in John 4 where he told the woman, “”Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

That obviously is not talking about physical water, and two chapters later, when he says “”I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst”, it seems pretty obvious to me.

And I have this advantage - it leaves no conflict between Jesus and Paul. You find a conflict because you make the words of Jesus physical - but the conflict is one you create, rather than one that must exist.

When Jesus said, “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever”, did he mean that they will PHYSICALLY live forever, and never die? Or did he teach the resurrection?

In Matt 22, we find “But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

So in John 6, Jesus is NOT saying they will live PHYSICALLY forever, but that our spirits will receive a new body that will live forever, after death. And if he isn’t speaking of physical eternal life, why do you have him speaking physically of his body being bread?

“That’s right, “spiritual body” is not to be found anywhere except in Pauline Epistles.”

Odd, then, that Jesus taught the resurrection, and hell and used parables with people living after death.

I agree that pagans who entered the church often went off in a pagan way, interpreting things improperly. But why would I give the uninspired words of church fathers precedence over the God-breathed words of scripture?

In Matthew 16, we find “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Again, we have the resurrection. Life after death. The physical body dies, but the person does not.

The scriptures are not that hard to understand, unless you bring pagan ideas back into them, and then complain that they don’t fit...