by Harold Mourning 4 Replies latest watchtower bible
Food for thought:
Why didn't Jesus (as the sacrificial lamb) choose bread and wine to signify his life instead of the (if it was actually on the Passover) lamb that would have been there per jewish practice?
Also using a lamb would have been consistent with the law...the symbolic ideas would have been linear instead we have Lamb represents "Passover lamb"/messiah Represented by bread and wine??
here is an interesting take on that
http://www.tedmontgomery.com/bblovrvw/emails/lambforLastSupper.html
Once you eat literal meat, to picture the human flesh, it would have been inconsistent to not also use the literal blood, that was drained. The whole thing is bad enough as it is, and set up by the words in John six. Humans are perfect for now, there was no snake talking to the cloned lady about the fruit. It is a formality. the details are even less important. enjoy the full moon and a glass of wine when you come home that night.
I get the picture that Roman religion had been dominated by Mithraism peaking towards the end of the second century and as it declined, Jesus- Christianity amongst many others, was replacing it. If we had been able to take a sociological survey at that time, namely finding out what people were actually doing as opposed to being bamboozled by the entirely biased Bible writings, we would probably find that Mithraic practice was the norm and was the source ritual for the ‘Christian’ last supper (remember the Saviour Mithra or Mithras was a christ too). The specific parallels can be explained by the later Roman Church under Constantine taking this prevailing pre-Jesus, Mithraic ‘eucharist’ symbolism of bread and wine into the syncretised Catholic worship. Mithra was called both the ‘Lamb of God’ and the ‘Good Shepherd’ and is depicted standing above a cross.
Since the Vatican was built on top of the Roman Mithreum (underground church) its continuity with that cult is palpable. There exists in the caverns there the Mithraic inscription “Whoever does not drink of my blood and eat of my body, the same will not be with me in paradise”.
So indeed eating the lamb would seem superfluous and innovative, best stick with tradition. The Jewish converts by now in the fourth century (when the Bible books were selected and edited) having been thoroughly Romanised.
In the Scriptures, "blood" always symbolises Death. It does not symbolise Life.
The presence of blood, such as on the door posts or before the altar, indicated that the lamb had been slain.
The Jews were told to ensure the beast was dead before they could eat it, indicating this by draining the blood from the meat. They were thus rejecting heathen practice of ripping flesh from a living animal and eating the quivering flesh in the belief that the blood would pass on the animal's qualities.
Doug
