That's because John says that Jesus taught more than was written down (although Luke disputes it)
Besides, where does it say in the Bible that everything had to be referenced in the Bible?
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
Yes, and your Protestant Random Verse Generator (PRVG) either doesn't pick up everything or you decided to drop what he says 16 verses later, to wit:
"I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh." [John 6:51]
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.
It seems you have the advantage of allowing yourself to believe the verses you just drop (because they don't fit) never existed. :)
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.
You (or your PRVG) conveniently left out all the preceding verses that deal with him being understood literally, which mention flesh,
52Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?"
[The Jews are taking him literally...gee what were they thinking?!]
53So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in yourselves.
54"He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
55For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.
56"He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
I can't imagine it getting more literal.
did he mean that they will PHYSICALLY live forever, and never die? Or did he teach the resurrection?
These verses are probably a compilation of folk sayings stitched together, because they make very little sense. To me, they sound like something a man would write in a state trance, psychosis, or just plain intoxication.
Odd, then, that Jesus taught the resurrection, and hell and used parables with people living after death
It's odd to call spirit a "body," and no one else in the Bible but (on-again-off-again Gnostic) Paul does.
Again, we have the resurrection. Life after death. The physical body dies, but the person does not.
Well verse 54 says "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day"
Being raised doesn't necessarily mean being resurrected. The Greek word anisthemi has all sorts of other possible meanings. What happens to people who are still risen and very much alive on the last day? Do they have to die first so they can be resurrected? The NT also has Jesus telling his disciples that they will not taste death before he returns.
Luke's narrative of Lazarus and the rich man shows the Jewish Christians believed in afterlife consistent with the beliefs of Judaism. They did not believe the dead are really "dead" and gone, just stuck in Sheol!
Jesus' second coming will break the chains of death and release all who are dead, and destroy Sheol. But the wicked will be sent to the lake of fire as punishment—which is rather silly considering that everyone is already judged (cf Heb 9:27), and the guilty are just being shuffled to a different prison for no apparent reason!
So, basically what Jesus is telling them here is that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood (a new covenant he is making) he will pull out (free them) from that shady underworld on the last day.
The scriptures are not that hard to understand, unless you bring pagan ideas back into them, and then complain that they don’t fit...
Scriptures are like a Leggo game; thousands of little pieces that can be put together. What you make out of them is entirely up to you.
“I can’t imagine it getting more literal.”
The disciples understood that Jesus was speaking of consuming His blood and flesh metaphorically. It was His words and belief in Him that gave life.
John 6:61-68, “When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.”
Jesus used the same metaphor when He presided over the Lord’s Supper and ate the bread and drank the wine along with the disciples, including Judas Iscariot. There, the “flesh and blood” profited nothing for Judas betrayed and Peter denied, both apostacies known by Jesus before the meal.
I did not take verses at random. I did refrain from printing the entire chapter again. I didn’t drop what he said 16 verses later, I used the former to set the CONTEXT for the latter. That is what many of your interpretations - and Catholic ones - seem to lack: the idea that people write and speak in paragraphs, not sentences dropped like acorns from a tree.
My point was that throughout John 6 - set in the context of coming immediately after the feeding of the 5000 - Jesus teaches that he is the bread of life. Not the Eucharist, and not literally bread, but he uses the metaphor, driven by the miracle that caused these people to come to him - that it isn’t physical bread, but spiritual bread. This is very like when he met the Samaritan women 2 chapters earlier, and used the well & water to say that he could give her water that would prevent her from ever being thirsty again.
In verse 35, he sets coming to him as satisfying hunger, and believing him as satisfying thirst. Just as that is obviously a metaphor, so the verses that follow - using the same imagery - are a metaphor.
In verse 52, the Jews who were following him at least claimed to misunderstand, just as the Samaritan woman did in John 4:15.
Nor did he try to get them back. Why? “For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe” (verse 64, echoing verse 26: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves”).
So lets look at the entire passage, with comments from your friendly MOPIOS guy...
“Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. [Note the metaphor - you seek bread, but you need real bread...not bread that gives life for a day, but bread that gives life eternally...and note again that the life is not physical eternal life, so he must be speaking of something that is not physical...]
For on him God the Father has set his seal.” 28Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” [Here we are...belief again. What they need is to believe.]
30So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” [He calls them on their unbelief, and they respond that they need a sign...and they suggest that Moses gave bread - physical bread.]
32Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” [Jesus points out that it wasn’t Moses who gave the bread, you idiots, but God...and now God is giving you bread again, Jesus Christ. Again, Jesus isn’t saying he is a giant loaf that fell from Heaven to satisfy their physical hunger...]
34They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
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. [They ask, and he tells them they have it before them. They need to come to Jesus and believe in him, and their spiritual emptiness will be filled.]
36But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” [John Calvin, pick up the phone...predestination is calling on line 4...]
41So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” [Notice they DO understand. The problem for them is not the metaphor of bread, but saying he has come down from heaven. After all, don’t they know his parents? Who does he think he is...God?]
43Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. [John Calvin, you haven’t answered yet...predestination is still on the line...]
47Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. [There is that believing again...]
48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. [Once again, he contrasts the bread of manna with himself, and saying this bread will give them eternal life - once again, not speaking about physical bread or physical life.]
And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” [Prediction of his sacrifice on the cross, which he knew about all along. Jesus will physically die on the cross to redeem mankind.]
52The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. [Jesus doesn’t accept their false concern. It wasn’t the statement about bread that bothered them a minute earlier, and it isn’t flesh that bothers them now. It is their unbelief...and Jesus has no more interest in giving in to their stupidity now than he did when the Samaritan woman pretended to be dense.]
58 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.” 59Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. [Back to bread, just as he has been discussing since the feeding of the 5000.]
60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? [Jesus calls their bluff. If they can’t see what he is saying now, they won’t know what to do when he ascends into heaven after the resurrection. Not all blindness is curable...]
63 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. 64But there are some of you who do not believe.” [Jesus is speaking about spiritual matters, and they keep insisting on a physical interpretation. Golly, reminds me of now...]
(For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” [John Calvin, PLEASE pick up the phone!]
66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” [He tests the 12...]
68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” [Good on Peter! Peter was awesome, without being the Pope...(sorry, had to toss that in!)
70Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” 71He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him. [Yet even among the 12, there was one who would betray him - one who is not of the elect.]
Hope that helps. It seems a simple passage, and it only becomes difficult if one tries to read physical effects into a spiritual discussion. As Jesus said, “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.”
Read in CONTEXT, there is no room for saying he was talking literally about his flesh being bread.
Are you really arguing that Christ is introducing cannibalism as a ritual? Is Greek really that literalistic and without subtlety? Is it a language bereft of double meanings or idioms?