Posts by Leolaia

42

Gospel of John - Why no Emblems, no Bread and Wine?

by Greenpalmtreestillmine in

since today is the memorial i thought it would be a good time to ask this quesion: why is it that the gospel of john does not include the passing of the bread and wine representing jesus' blood and flesh?

of all the gospels, john's goes into the greatest detail of jesus' last evening with his disciples yet he omits the passing of the covenant emblems.

and of all the gospels you would think john's would include that since his is filled with more symbolic and mystery material than the rest.

Leolaia

Thanks for providing the text, PP. The prayers show many similarities with the Lord's Prayer, the Kiddush, and the Amidah, and the petition on behalf of the church is also reminiscent of the Qumran Hoyadot. It thus stands much closer to traditional Jewish thanksgiving than the Eucharist given in 1 Corinthians, Luke, and the Eucharistic interpolations found in John (as well as allusions to the Eucharist in Ignatius of Antioch, Romans 7:3; Smyrnaeans 6:2; Philadelphians 4:1; Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 66.3) which come right out of Mithraism:

"I tell you the truth, 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 him up at the last day" (John 6:53-54).
"He who will not eat of my body, nor drink of my blood so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved" (Mithraic Prayer, pre-Christian inscription found in the Vatican, Rome)

According to JD Crossan, the general Eucharistic prayer in Didache 10 is older than the prayers in ch. 9 which ritualize the bread and the wine, but even in the latter there is no reference to the death of Jesus, a Last Supper with his followers, or passion symbolism of broken body and blood. This also fits well with the Didache's provenience in Nazarene communities in Syria (among whom the Passion lacked the significance it had with Pauline Christians) and literary kinship with Q, which like the Gospel of Thomas also lacked a Passion narrative. Thus the wine in Didache 9:2 had nothing to do with the blood of Christ poured out on the cross, but simply meant that Jesus is of the "vine of David", i.e. the Messiah. Moreover, it is thought that the present form of the verse contains a duplication of paidos sou "your servant" which is absent in the paralleled prayer regarding the bread and which obscures the sense of Jesus revealing the "vine of David"; the original text would have read thus: "We give you thanks, our Father, for the holy vine of David, which you have made known to us through Jesus your servant, to you be the glory forever". Since the "vine" is used as a metaphor for the kingdom in Q, Mark, and the Gospel of Thomas (cf. Mark 12:1-12; Matthew 20:1-16, 21:28-46; Luke 20:9-19; Gospel of Thomas 65), which is being given to the disciples as their inheritance, and since "vine" is a traditional symbol of Israel and the restored Messianic kingdom in Psalm 80:8-18; Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 2:21, the allusion in the Didache prayer would seem to be to the kingdom which Jesus revealed (which is also the dominant theme in Q). Likewise the bread of the Eucharistic meal did not symbolize Jesus' sacrificial flesh but rather indicated the "life and knowledge which you made known to us through Jesus your servant" (Didache 9:3), drawing on the same bread=knowledge/life and wheat=gospel metaphors we see in Mark 2:25-26, 4:14-20, 6:30-44; Matthew 4:4. The following verse goes on the extend the symbolism to the church, symbolizing the way wheat which had been "scattered upon the mountains" and then formed into the unity of a loaf of bread, so the church likewise is "gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom" (Didache 9:4). The Eucharist ritual of early Jewish-Christians was thus one that centered on the coming eschatological kingdom (cf. 10:6), and the communial drinking of the wine and the distribution and consumption of the bread symbolized the "life and knowledge" of the kingdom that is being shared among all those in the church: "We give you thanks, Holy Father, ... for the knowledge and faith and immortality which you have made known to us through Jesus your servant ... to us you have graciously given spiritual food and drink, and eternal life through your servant" (10:2-3).

Very different from the Mithraic-type formulae of Paul and the Last Supper narrative of Luke, though the focus on salvation is common to both. However, Luke might preserve a fragment of the original proto-Markan account of the Last Supper, for there are actually two separate utterances about the wine, one given before the bread and one given after (Luke 14:17-18, 20), and while the second is reproduced in 1 Corinthians 11:25, the first has no direct parallel in Paul: "And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, 'Take this, and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes' " (14:17-18). If we recognize this as part of the earliest strata of the Last Supper narrative, we can readily see that each of the individual gospels has interpolated the Pauline material in different places: In Mark (= Secret Mark redaction?), the Pauline formula about "my blood of the covenant" is inserted after the disciples drank the wine (Mark 14:22-25), in Matthew the Pauline formula is inserted into Jesus' command to drink from the wine, while he was distributing it to his disciples (Matthew 26:26-29), and in Luke the Pauline formula is inserted after both the first cup and bread, as an "after-supper" cup (in agreement with 1 Corinthians 11:25). In all three gospel accounts (after removing the anomalous Pauline formula), the utterance about drinking the "fruit of the vine" occurs just after Jesus "giving thanks" over the cup (Mark 14:23; Matthew 26:27; Luke 22:17), which would be expected if it constitutes the earliest layer to the Last Supper narrative. Moreover, it is echoed in a positive form by Paul who says "whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Corinthians 11:26), suggesting a more primitive version of the text in Luke 14:17-18 that refers to Christians drinking from the Eucharist cup in anticipation of the eschatological kingdom, e.g. "May you drink from the fruit of the vine of David and proclaim the kingdom of God until it comes", which was then adapted in different ways by Paul and Luke (and also Mark and Matthew) to refer to Jesus' death instead of the kingdom. The references to the "fruit of the vine" and the "kingdom of God" in Luke 14:17-18 are two literary features that link the passage with the Didache prayer which also likely associates the vine itself with the kingdom.

7

The Borganization

by Agent 1 of 1 in

i am a recent xjw and have noticed quite abit of people referring the wts as the borg.

they usually refer them to as the org.

i would like to write down several things that each seem to have in comparison.

Leolaia

A Borg member may develop a seed of individuality and independence of thought, and then poses a danger to the rest of the Borg by infecting them with his or her own "apostate" thinking (cf. the episode "I-Borg")

42

Gospel of John - Why no Emblems, no Bread and Wine?

by Greenpalmtreestillmine in

since today is the memorial i thought it would be a good time to ask this quesion: why is it that the gospel of john does not include the passing of the bread and wine representing jesus' blood and flesh?

of all the gospels, john's goes into the greatest detail of jesus' last evening with his disciples yet he omits the passing of the covenant emblems.

and of all the gospels you would think john's would include that since his is filled with more symbolic and mystery material than the rest.

Leolaia

PP....I would suspect that we have a convergence here between the sapiential identification of Jesus with Wisdom personified, and the "mystery cult" ritual of consuming the god in order to join with him. The Wisdom-christology of Jesus was carried to its fullest conclusion by John who drew on Philo (who also, incidentally, characterized the gender of Logos as male and even introduced the notion of the Paraclete), but also characterized the Logos as "made flesh" -- bearing human flesh (a notion foreign to Philo). So the notion in John is different from Philo, and the notion in Luke 22:19 may differ from John by drawing more on ritual mysteries.

42

Gospel of John - Why no Emblems, no Bread and Wine?

by Greenpalmtreestillmine in

since today is the memorial i thought it would be a good time to ask this quesion: why is it that the gospel of john does not include the passing of the bread and wine representing jesus' blood and flesh?

of all the gospels, john's goes into the greatest detail of jesus' last evening with his disciples yet he omits the passing of the covenant emblems.

and of all the gospels you would think john's would include that since his is filled with more symbolic and mystery material than the rest.

Leolaia

14

A time paradox with the Faithful and Discreet Slave

by gods vigilante in

continuing in my endeavor to find the truth i found something quite interesting about the "faithful and discreet slave".

according to the society they say that the faithful and discreet slave mentioned in matt.

24 : 45 refers to the anointed ones who have been appointed by their master over his belongings.

Leolaia

vigilante.....You might like this post of mine which explains how the Faithful and Wise Servant parable is based on a famous OT personage:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/67457/1.ashx

I also note that in the parable the glorification of the faithful servant (by granting him authority over all the lord's domain) is something that comes after the lord's return, and a return that is not characterized by an indefinite invisible presence but one that is paralleled in another promise by Jesus, that "at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." "You may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:30). It is in this role as co-judgers on the day of Judgment (cf. also Daniel 7:9, 13-14, Revelation 4:4, 20:4, b. Sanhedrin 38b; Tan. B Leviticus 7) that the apostles are "appointed over the lord's belongings".

9

The Suppressed Christian Tradition

by A Paduan in

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/spirit/audio/spirit_28032004_2856.ram

Leolaia

My RealPlayer is broke. What it say?

13

DID YOU PARTAKE...?? At the KH...? At Home...? Other...?

by Rabbit in

we (my new wife--non-jw) celebrated at home.

some people joked ?...

about partaking at the kh...did anybody do that ?

Leolaia

I ate a gyro for lunch (w/ unleavened pita bread) and had some wine with dinner. Does that count?

42

Gospel of John - Why no Emblems, no Bread and Wine?

by Greenpalmtreestillmine in

since today is the memorial i thought it would be a good time to ask this quesion: why is it that the gospel of john does not include the passing of the bread and wine representing jesus' blood and flesh?

of all the gospels, john's goes into the greatest detail of jesus' last evening with his disciples yet he omits the passing of the covenant emblems.

and of all the gospels you would think john's would include that since his is filled with more symbolic and mystery material than the rest.

Leolaia

Huh?

It is sometimes very annoying talking with you because you criticize my posts as "not sufficiently substantiated" (and imply I am not "well informed") by launching some bizarre piece of exegesis out of left field that hardly has much to do with my post in the first place.

1. Rather than respond to my specific points, you just point to your own arbitary OT exegesis, regard it as something that is really in the OT waiting to be discovered (e.g. employing the same circular type-antitype thinking that has no place in critical analysis), and somehow relate this vaguely to something I wrote without clearly explaining what it has to do with any of my points. Saying "Sorry, the NT references to the Messiah are well-founded in the OT tradition" and "NT references to OT ritual related to Christ" just leaves me confused, because I don't see how these vague statements refer to what I actually wrote.

2. In this thread, I talked about the prayers of thanksgiving associated with the Jewish-Christian practice of the Eucharist (which had nothing to do with the transubstantionary theme of the bread and wine being Jesus' flesh and blood), and how these relate to the bread and wine motifs in the synoptic sapiential tradition (which again do not construe them as being Jesus' flesh and blood), plus the Philonic concept behind Jesus as the manna from heaven. How is this not "sufficiently substantiated"?

3. Plus, as I already explained in another thread, the Eucharist is not derived from the Passover itself but most likely modifies the type of sabbatical (and pre-Passover) meal that was common in Pharisaic Judaism, which included the serving of bread and wine with thanksgiving, and the main change (as attested in the Didache) was that the benedictions were changed to refer to the gospel message of Jesus and the gathering of the church. Even if the Eucharist has anything to do with the OT exegetical tradition of the early church (e.g. viewing Jesus as the paschal lamb), your particular interpretation is not that of the NT writers. You are not entitled to argue that your particular interpretation is really there in the OT, as a real prophecy of a second coming (referring to, guess who, but yourself, JCanon), that can then be used as proof to argue against what certain early Christians said the bread and wine symbolized. I would even say that there is no one true meaning; the sacraments meant whatever they meant to each respective group.

4. Finally, I never said the Eucharist was "late" (if this is what you mean by "NT references to an OT ritual related to Christ"). I view it as a smooth continuation of a pre-Christian practice. What I view as later relative to the Didache interpretation of the bread and wine is the consumption motif of the bread and wine being Jesus' flesh and blood, since the Didache interpretation fits much better overall with what bread and wine symbolized in the synoptic tradition, as well as the Great Commission theme, and stands between that of traditional Jewish benedictions and the transubstantiationary theme of Paul. But it is by no means late in absolute terms, if we accept Paul (as I do) as the oldest Christian documents we possess.

42

Gospel of John - Why no Emblems, no Bread and Wine?

by Greenpalmtreestillmine in

since today is the memorial i thought it would be a good time to ask this quesion: why is it that the gospel of john does not include the passing of the bread and wine representing jesus' blood and flesh?

of all the gospels, john's goes into the greatest detail of jesus' last evening with his disciples yet he omits the passing of the covenant emblems.

and of all the gospels you would think john's would include that since his is filled with more symbolic and mystery material than the rest.

Leolaia

JC anon...It is part of the Gospel of John's thoroughgoing attempt to identify the person of Jesus with the message.....as he is himself the Word (Logos). Thus while Matthew 4:4 designates "every word that comes from the mouth of God" as spiritual food, John makes Jesus himself as the incarnate Word the one who is consumed. This Logos idea comes lock-stock-and-barrel from Philo of Alexandria, a pre-Christian Jewish philosopher, who also identified this heavenly Word with manna:

"He calls it manna, that is, the divine Word (logos), oldest of beings" (Philo, Worse Attack the Better, 118)

"The food of the soul is not earthly but heavenly, as we shall find abundantly demonstrated in Scripture. 'Behold I rain upon you bread from heaven...' (Exodus 16:4). You shall see that the soul is fed not with things of earth, which are perishable, but with such words as God shall have poured like rain out of that supernal and pure region of life to which the prophet has given the title of 'heaven' " (Philo, Allegorical Interpretations 3:162).

In rabbinical literature, the Torah is likened to the manna which is eaten by the Israelites and "incorporated into their bodies" (Mekhilta de R. Ishmael, Wayhi 1).

42

Gospel of John - Why no Emblems, no Bread and Wine?

by Greenpalmtreestillmine in

since today is the memorial i thought it would be a good time to ask this quesion: why is it that the gospel of john does not include the passing of the bread and wine representing jesus' blood and flesh?

of all the gospels, john's goes into the greatest detail of jesus' last evening with his disciples yet he omits the passing of the covenant emblems.

and of all the gospels you would think john's would include that since his is filled with more symbolic and mystery material than the rest.

Leolaia

I saw Brown's book and was appalled at the wild and obviously unhistorical and erroneous claims that were being made.

The false etymology of Middle English sangrail "Holy Grail" from a supposed Old French sang real "royal blood," with san graal "Holy Grail" (and the whole legend surrounding it referring to a cup or bowl) arising simply through a typographical error, is linguistically specious and ignores the whole early history of the Grail legend. Indeed it was the other way around: only in late medieval texts is an association between the two expressions made, while earlier texts only refer to a "saint graal" or just "graal" as the object sought by the knights, and these early texts clearly describe the "graal" as the platter or cup that captured Christ's "blood" (Middle French sanc, not sang) on the cross. The later association of sangrail and sancgrail with "blood" is thus due to this crucifixion tradition, and not to any fictitious "bloodline", which is utterly foreign to the thought such writers. The term sangraal, stipulated by Brown and Baigent-Leigh-Lincoln as the original form as a sang-raal compound, first appears in English (it does not have this form in French), as the transliteration of Middle French Saint Graal, in the works of Thomas Malory (c. A.D. 1450-1485) who spelled the term variously as "sangrayle", "sangrayll", "sancgreal", and yes, even "seynt Graal" (cf. Le Morte Arthur 10; Merlin 11.32; Arthur II. xi. 88). It is the "sancgreal" form that Malory punningly connected with the sanc "blood" of Christ; again, not as a "bloodline" but as the "Grail of Blood," the grail that held Christ's blood. The older French sources simply do not have a word "sangrayle," and neither do they refer to the sought-after "Grail" as the sanc real "royal blood" -- far from it, we always find allusions to the graal "Grail," le saint graal, le saint vaissel, la saint escule, la saint calisce, and so forth. In these sources we do not read of a san graal either, saint "holy" is not spelled san to my knowledge, at least in the Old French sources I have seen.

The older French works that Malory himself used only referred to "le saint graal" or just "graal" and even earlier English works about the Holy Grail attested the word also in the form "grail" a century before Malory introduced the term "sangrail"; Arthur and Merlin, written around A.D. 1330, thus says: "Til he wer born e greal" (2222, Kolbing). The Vulgate Cycle of legends on Merlin, Lancelot, and Arthur, dating to around A.D. 1250, included the "Estoire del Saint Graal" and the "Queste del Saint Graal", and these poetic stories leave no doubt that the "Grail" referred to a holy relic, the vessel of the Last Supper used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch Christ's blood. The first name given to the Grail in the Estoire del Saint Graal is escuele "bowl" which emphasizes the object's status as a relic. During the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea searched for "ces choses a quoi il avoit touchie corporelement en sa vie," the things Jesus had touched during his life, and found the bowl from which Jesus ate during the Last Supper (1:23-25). And then Joseph went to the cross and when he came to the body, "si concuelli le degout du sanc com il en peut avoir, si le mist en l'escuele, puis reporta l'escuele en sa maison, par qui Dieux fist en moustra puis maintes virtus et ne Terre de Promission et en maintes autres terres", he collected what he could of the dripping blood and put it in the bowl, and went home with the bowl, through which God later made his virtue manifest in the Promised Land and in many other lands (1:25), that is, as a holy relic. The story then goes on to relate three visions of Joseph regarding the blood, which invoke the mysteries of the Eucharist, and the blood of the calisce "chalice" being linked also with Christ's body and the bread partaken at Communion (1:86-88). Again, we are dealing with the blood shed by Christ -- not a "bloodline". The object referred to as the "holy bowl" and "holy chalice," is also called the "holy vessel": "Mais quant il virent la sainte escuele, si dist Nasciens ke tout chou qu'il avoit veu estoit noiens a veir encontre chel saint vaissiel," but when they saw the holy bowl, Nascien said that everything he had seen was nothing compared to this holy vessel" (1:163).

The Vulgate Cycle is itself dependent on the "Roman de l'Estoire dou Graal" by Robert de Boron (also called "Joseph of Arimathea"), written between A.D. 1190-1200. This is 250 years before Malory. And here we still find the notion of "grail" being a holy relic, without any whiff of a hint that a "bloodline" is really meant. The relic is first called a "chalise" in the text: "Cist veissiaus ou men sanc meis, quant de men cors le requeillis, calices apelez sera," this vessel in which you put my blood when you collected it from my body, shall be called a chalice (Joseph, 907-909). In addition to being called "vessel" and "chalice", the object is then given a third name:

'Et queu sera la renommée / Dou veissel qui tant vous agree? / Dites nou, comment l'apele on / Quant on le nomme par son non?' / Petrus respont: 'Nou quier celer: / Qui a droit non le vourra nummer / Par droit Graal l?apelera, / Car nus le Graal ne verra, / Ce croi je, qu?il ne li agree: / A touz ceus pleist de la contree, / A touz agree et abelist / En li vooir hunt cil deslist / Qui avec lui puennt durer / Et de sa compeignie user, / Autant unt d?eise cum poisson / Quant en sa main le tient uns hon / Et de sa mein puet eschaper / Et en la grant iaue aler noër.? / Quant cil l?oient, sel greent bien. / Autre non ne greent il rien / Fors tant que Graal eit a non; / Par droit agreer s?i doit on (Joseph, 2653?74).

Translated: " 'And what will be the new name / Of the vessel that pleases you so? / Tell us, what name do they use / When they call it by its name?? / Petrus replies: ?I will not keep this from you: / Whoever wishes to use its rightful name / Will call it the Grail, / For none shall see the Grail, / I believe, unless it agrees with him: / It brings satisfaction to all in the area, / It brings grace and beauty, / All those delight in the sight of it / Who are able to stay with it / And benefit from its company, / They are content as a fish / That manages to escape / From a man?s hand / And swim away into open waters.? / When they hear this, they agree. / No other name pleases them / But that its name should be Grail; / It is right that one should be satisfied by it." Here we have a folk etymology of graal "grail" from the verbs graer, agreer "satisfy, please", with no hint of a fictitious "bloodline" meaning.

The Grail legend itself was launched by Chrétien de Troyes, who wrote "Le Roman Perceval ou Le Conte del Graal" around A.D. 1175. This story stands much closer to the original Celtic legends (cf. the Welsh Mabinogion epic, the Preiddeu Annwfn, etc.) than the later romances of Robert de Boron, the Vulgate Cycle, and Malory. Chrétien described the adventures of Perceval who, journeying home to see his mother, stayed at the castle of the Fisher King and witnessed a procession of servants carrying a "lance that bleeds" and a Grail: "Once she had entered with this grail (graal) that she held, so great a radiance appeared that the candles lost their brilliance just as the stars do at the rising of the sun and moon... The grail was of pure refined gold and was set with many precious stones, the richest and most costly in sea or earth" (Conte del Graal, 2.43-46). Here is the earliest legend about the Grail in the Arthurian cycle, and clearly the Grail refers to a physical object. Interestingly, Chrétien refers to it as a "graal" (instead of le saint graal) and elsewhere mentions it holding a boar's head -- suggesting that it was something of a platter rather than a chalice. The larger part of the story relates how Perceval, Gawain, and others sought to find the Grail, but the origin of the Grail is never clearly explained; the grail is considered more of a magical than a "holy" thing, nor was Christ's blood mentioned with it or even hinted to be a container of Christ's blood. The "Continuations" of Chrétien's work develop these themes more explicitly and more fully Christianize the tales into stories relating to relics of the crucifixion of Jesus. But an examination of the Celtic sources that underlie the story shows that the Grail originated in pagan tradition and had nothing at all to do with Jesus. In the Welsh epic poem Preiddeu Annfwn, King Arthur sailed to the Land of the Dead to steal the "cauldron of the head of Annfwn," a powerful magical talisman which (like the Christianized "grail") was a metal container endowed with magical power. Another Celtic tale related the story of a pauper named Peronnik who learns from a journeying knight that two magical objects are found in a nearby castle: a diamond lance that destroys everything it strikes, and a golden basin, the contents of which would cure all ills. Like the knights of Arthurian legend, Peronnik then sets forth on a quest to find these miraculous objects. In the similar Welsh Mabinogion epic, the Fisher King is a lord encountered by the Welsh warrior Peredur (= Perceval in canonical Arthurian lore), who taught the youth etiquette and fighting techniques, whereas Peredur's uncle guarded a bleeding lance which was used to slay Peredur's cousin (which later became the spear that gashed the side of Christ in the "First Continuation" of Le Conte del Graal, written about A.D. 1200) and a silver vessel that held his cousin's severed head (which later became the Grail that held the boar's head and later a wafer in Le Conte). We can thus see that the Grail from the very beginning referred to a vessel, became associated with Christ only later on, and originated as a magical object in Celtic myth. The interpretation of the Grail as the bloodline of Christ is entirely foreign to the entire early Grail tradition, and itself depends on a very late form of the "le saint graal" as sangraal.

As for the etymology of Old French graal, which was first used in the cycle of Arthurian legends by Chrétien to refer to a platter, it is generally derived from Medieval Latin gradalis "shallow bowl, basin" (< Latin cratella "small bowl" < Greek krater). We may note, for instance, that Helinand, abbot of Froidmont, wrote in A.D. 1215 that "gradalis and also gradale means a broad and shallow bowl, in which sumptuous foods together with their sauces are served to the rich, gradually, one piece after the other, in various arrangements. It is also known by the name graalz in common speech, because it is pleasing ( grata ) to those who eat out of it, either for its attractive appearance, for it is of silver or other precious material, or because of its contents, i.e. the manifold arrangement of delicious foods" (cited in Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum Historiaie). This description is perfectly consistent with the earliest description of the Grail in Chrétien. In Old Aquitanian French, the word was phonetically grazala (preserving the original consonant), and the Burgundian dialect also allegedly ellided medial consonants (graal < grazal). The word is first attested in A.D. 873 in the will of Count Eberhard von Treviso, the grandfather of the German King Henry I, who left his son Adalardus V, among other items, three silver garalis. In another copy of the same will, the word calix (< chalice) is used for garalis; other wills use gradalis interchangeably with scutella, which later became escuele "vessel" (note again the loss of the intermedial consonant). We also find in A.D. 1010 an instance of gradal in Old Catalan.

The speculation by Baigent-Leigh-Lincoln and Brown is thus lacking in evidentiary support.