“This is My Body”: Literal or Metaphorical?

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10 responses to ““This is My Body”: Literal or Metaphorical?”

1. 

   trudy vandermolen

   June 3, 2023

   The Westminster Confession in chapter 29 says this: V. The outward elements in this sacrament, duly set apart to the uses ordained by Christ, have such relation to Him crucified, as that, truly, yet sacramentally only, they are sometimes called by the name of the things they represent, to wit, the body and blood of Christ, (Mat 26:26-28); albeit, in substance and nature, they still remain truly and only bread and wine, as they were before, (1Co 11:26-28; Mat 26:29).
   Calvin’s supernatural view of the sacrament was that it is a means of grace by which the exalted Christ works in his elect, effectually applying himself and his benefits to them.
   Strikingly, the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinistic views agree that Christ is really present in the Supper. They radically disagree, however, on the mode of his presence.The Calvinistic view stresses faith as the “mouth” that feeds on Christ. We are fed and supported in our faith by actually tasting and smelling the bread and wine. We are bodies as well as souls and Christ, in giving this sacrament, nourishes our faith.

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2. 

   avraham

   June 3, 2023

   going by the conjunction on longitude of moon and sun as the date of the new moon puts Passover a day or so before when one can see the new moon

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3. 

   BV

   June 4, 2023

   The following is a comment by Dr Vito Caiati. He place it in the wrong thread. It is now in the right thread. The book by Humphrey mentioned by Caiati is referred to by Flood in a hyperlink inserted into his article to which I linked. Vide supra.
   The Catholic biblical scholar Brant Pitre offers a persuasive negative assessment of Humphrey’s book, criticizing his employment of modern astronomical observation to calculate ancient Jewish liturgical feasts and his unfamiliarity with ancient Jewish intercalation and biblical exegesis. For instance, in terms of the exegesis, Petre undermines Humphrey’s highly dubious contention that Jesus celebrated the Passover according to the pre-exilic calendar of ancient Israel, which allows him to advance the claim of a supposed discrepancy among the Gospel accounts in the dating of the Passover, the foundation of his entire argument. Pitre writes: “Humphreys’ discussion of the actual exegesis of the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper and passion of Jesus [has] serious weaknesses. [1] It goes without saying that the Gospel accounts themselves say nothing about Jesus following a special pre-exilic lunar calendar, despite Humphreys’ valiant attempt to transform Mark’s description of “the first day of Unleavened Bread (azymōn)” as the day when “the Passover lamb (pascha) was sacrificed” (Mark 14:12) into evidence that Jesus and his disciples were following a different calendar from the Jewish Temple. [2] However, this supposed “anomaly” in Mark 14:12 is easily explained from by the linguistic fact that, by the first-century A.D., the distinction between “Passover” (pascha) (14 Nisan) and “Unleavened Bread” (azymōn) (15-21 Nisan) often disappeared in common parlance. Indeed, both Luke and Josephus make clear that the two terms could be used interchangeably: The feast of Unleavened Bread, which is called Passover” (Luke 22:1) The feast of Unleavened Bread, which we call Passover” (Josephus, Antiquities 14:21; 18:29) We keep for eight days a feast called the feast of Unleavened Bread” (Josephus, Antiquities 2:317 [Bk 2, ch. 15, pt. 1]). In other words, either term could be used to refer to the entire Passover octave (See Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper, 338-39). Hence, contrary to what some scholars contend, it is not Mark here who is ignorant of things Jewish; it is we who are ignorant of and sloppy in our assertions about first-century Jewish Passover terminology” (http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot.com/2016/01/was-last-supper-on-wednesday-review-of.html) In Book III, ch. 10, pt. 5, of The Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus speaks at greater length of the two feasts, Passover and that of the Unleavened Bread, which were commonly spoken of as “Passover.” He writes: “In the month of Xanthicus, which is by us called Nisan, and is the beginning of our year, on the fourteenth day of the lunar month, when the sun is in Aries [for in this month it was that we were delivered from bondage under the Egyptians,] the law ordained that every year we should slay that sacrifice which I before told you we slew when we came out of Egypt, and which was called the Passover; and so we do celebrate this Passover in companies, leaving nothing that we sacrifice till the day following. The feast of unleavened bread succeeds that of the Passover, and falls on the fifteenth day of the month, and continues seven days, wherein they feed on unleavened bread; on every one of said days two bulls are killed, and one ram, and seven lambs. Now these lambs are entirely burnt, beside the kid of the goats which is added to all the rest, for sins. But on the second day of the unleavened bread, which is the sixteenth day of the month, they first partake of the fruits of the earth, for before that day they do not touch them… (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2848/2848-h/2848-h.htm#link32HCH0010).

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4. 

   BV

   June 4, 2023

   Trudy,
   Thanks for your comment, but when you leave a comment you need to make clear what is comment and what is quotation by the use of quotation marks, indentation, etc.
   You wrote, >>Strikingly, the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinistic views agree that Christ is really present in the Supper.<< This seems to be contradictied by this statement from the Westminster Confession: >> VI. That doctrine which maintains a change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s body and blood (commonly called Transubstantiation) by consecration of a priest, or by any other way, is repugnant not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense and reason; overthroweth the nature of the sacrament; and hath been and is the cause of manifold superstitions, yea, of gross idolatries. Acts 3:21 with 1 Cor. 11:24-26; Luke 24:6,39.<< See here: http://www.covenantofgrace.com/westminster_chapter29.htm

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5. 

   Anthony Flood

   June 4, 2023

   Bill, my post on Humphrey’s book (https://anthonygflood.com/2019/04/two-passovers-what-a-difference-a-calendar-makes/) ends on a conclusory note, but my acceptance of its thesis remains conditional (as the post’s preceding paragraphs should make clear). Dr. Catiati reports that he finds Dr. Pitre’s rejection of it persuasive; he implies his implicit that this is a matter for specialists to settle, and I agree.
   Prima facie, however, certain Gospel references to “the Passover” are mutually incompatible; Humphreys offers a resolution (which may be integrally entertained even if no Gospel writer said anything “about Jesus following a special pre-exilic lunar calendar”). Reject Humphreys, and we’re left with the impression of a problem. That is, Passover seems to lie in the future of Jesus’ trial, which occurred as that feast was being prepared. The Passover that Jesus desired to, and did, eat with His apostles (men commissioned with power and authority) occurred in the very recent past of that trial.
   Jesus told different people to do different things at different times. The point of my post (which yours highlighted and to which the Humphreys-related post links) is this: although we should study what Jesus told His apostles at that Passover, we should not read ourselves into that scene without careful qualification. The antecedent of “this” (in “This do in remembrance . . .”) is an obligation that no one has been able to perform halachically since the razing of the Temple in 70 A.D. Any harmony that allegedly obtains among Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists regarding what transpires in their “ordinances” or “sacraments” is, for me, interesting only historically and culturally.

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6. 

   Ed Farrell

   June 4, 2023

   As I read it, Flood’s argument is that the Eucharist, however it is observed or what it is called, is nothing other than the Passover, though now with remembrance of Christ instead of the exodus. It is not found in NT scripture as a rite all its own, and so has nothing to do with Christians, with the corollary that the traditional Christian observance is strictly traditional, not scriptural. His argument is not strictly based on NT grammar (though he invokes it), and includes as well some logical inferences that seem to me to be a stretch.
   Flood:
   “Take, eat; this is My body” (Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19). The word “is” (ἐστιν, estin) signifies a metaphor, because those words came out of Jesus’ non metaphorical body that sat with the men who heard them (with their own bodily organs).
   The antecedent of “this” is the unleavened bread of the Passover. It had symbolized (not transubstantiated) the Exodus from time immemorial. Henceforth, however, it must represent His body to them. There is neither the “institution” of a new ceremony nor the addition of a new element.
   “ἐστιν” does not in itself signify a metaphor. “This is my body,” taken as stated, is a literal statement, and “is/ἐστιν” denotes equivalency between “this” (the broken bread) and “my body.” But Flood’s argument seems to be that it can’t be taken literally because it would be irrational: the bread can’t be Christ’s body because the living, non metaphorical Christ holds the bread in his non metaphorical hand. Furthermore, “this” really refers to the Passover, not the substance of a new rite, since the Last Supper was a Passover meal.
   I think “This is my body” seems best characterized as a paradoxical statement that illustrates a truth we cannot possibly know by ourselves and as such must inevitably appear to be a contradiction. And this paradoxical nature is only revealed when it’s understood literally. The demonstrative pronoun “this” (τοῦτο), when used as a noun, can signify “a person or thing set forth in narrative that precedes its use or follows it” (Danker). Here, directed at the apostles, it seems to obviously refer to what follows it (the dispensation of grace and the church), not what precedes it (the dispensation of the law and the prophets). In the post-resurrection world Christ points to, the Church is the body of Christ. The blood is Christ’s work of salvation; the bread is the promise of our own resurrection. This is a strictly Christian concept and it’s observance is a necessary demonstration that our relationship to God via the humanity of Christ is not metaphorical.
   There may be dispensationalist arguments that these particular instructions of Christ to the apostles don’t extend to the rest of the Church. I’m not familiar with them so this may be unfair, but such arguments would seem to limit grace as much as any hidebound church traditions. Where Eucharistic practice would seem objectionable is when it is practiced in the spirit of talismanic magic, which would certainly go against the spirit of grace even though such practice has periodically permeated the church. Beyond this, the question of whether the Eucharist is an instance of transubstantiation or contemplation seems beside the point. We can only speculate about the mechanics of all this anyway.

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7. 

   Vito B. Caiati

   June 5, 2023

   In “The Dispute over the Date of the Last Supper: Its Chronology Revisited,” Fr. Mariusz Rosik, Professor for New Testament Exegesis, Biblical Environment and Jewish History at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology and at the University of Wroclaw, lucidly presents and evaluates the leading hypotheses of exegetes on this issue, including the recent proposals of viewing the Last Supper not as a typical Passover but one unique to Jesus (favored by the late Pope Benedict XVI, who follows the Catholic scholar John P. Meier on this matter [https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/the-dating-of-the-last-supper.html%5D) and the philological thesis of Brant Pitre, to which I called attention in my last comment (https://www.academia.edu/44778169/The_Dispute_over_the_Date_of_the_Last_Supper_Its_Chronology_Revisited). Certainly, nothing in this ongoing discussion provides a justification to question the traditional, orthodox understanding of the institution of the Eucharist.

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8. 

   BV

   June 5, 2023

   Good morning, Vito, but your first link is bad.

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9. 

   Vito B. Caiati

   June 5, 2023

   Good morning, Bill. Here is the link again. I found that if you copy the link and paste it into the search bar, rather than just pressing it, it works: https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/the-dating-of-the-last-supper.html

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10. 

    Trudy

    June 7, 2023

    Sorry for the lazy way I posted. The second and third paragraphs except for the last two sentences are from a review of the book “Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lords Supper” by Mathison and reviewed by Larry Wilson.
    The statement that Christ’s presence is in the supper is not contradicted by the Westminster statement, unless you think of his presence in a corporeal sense, a Roman Catholic view. The Reformed view considers Christ’s presence a spiritual presence received by faith.
    And come to think of it, when Christ instituted the supper and held up the bread and said, “This is my body…” the disciples ate bread, not Christ’s actual body.
    Thanks for the reminder on precise commenting.

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