Corpus-Paul

[Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>]

Hyam,

Thanks for the response. See comments below.

>the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper are
>simply attempts to import the Pauline Eucharist
>into the narrative - attempts which show their
>artificiality by their inconsistency
>with each other.

The inconsistencies actually point to independent
traditions. At least, Luke's eucharist tradition seems
independent of the Markan/Matthean version. I see no
hints of Pauline intrusion into the synoptic accounts.

>The Gospel which shows the greatest enthusiasm of all

>for the Eucharist is that of John, and he omits it
>from his Last Supper narrative altogether. Surely 
>this fact is very significant, showing that
>the Eucharist is an intrusion into the Last Supper
>narrative, since if it had been an integral 
>ingredient, John, of all people, would surely have
>included it. How do you explain his omission of it?

I don't follow your logic at all. John axed the
eucharist from the last supper tradition precisely
because he felt it didn't belong there. The spiritual
metaphor would have been diluted. Literal bread and
wine (as that eaten at the synoptic last supper), for
John, had nothing to do with "real" bread and wine --
that is, the "bread of God which comes down from
heaven" (Jn 6:33), etc. 

>Where we differ most is about Jesus' attitude
>towards the Temple. I think it is important to point
>out that his closest disciples, the leaders
>of the Jerusalem Church, were strong supporters of
the
>Temple, as is stressed in Acts (e.g. Acts 2:46).

Why the disciples reintegrated themselves with the
sacrificial cult after Jesus' death is one of the
biggest NT mysteries, and theories run rampant in all
directions. What we hypothesize depends on how we
perceive the nature of Jesus' prior conflict with the
temple. For instance, Bruce Chilton and Jacob Neusner
believe that Jesus had made his meals of bread and
wine into a rival altar because of the controversy
over where the action of acquiring animals for
sacrifice was to occur. According to them, Jesus --
much like Hillel (and thoroughly unlike Shammai) --
believed that offerings brought to the temple should
have hands laid on them by their owners before giving
them over to the priests to be slaughtered. Caiaphas'
installation of traders in the southern court not only
brought in commercialism and the forbidden purses, but
(more importantly) it created a breach of the link
between worshipper and offering in the southern and
northern areas of the temple. After Caiaphas' death,
the vendors of animals were restored to their usual
position -- not in the temple, but on the Mount of
Olives opposite the Kidron Valley -- and so the
followers of Jesus were able to reintegrate with the
sacrificial cult. Now that's just Chilton and Neusner.
Other scholars (Ed Sanders, Tom Wright, John Meier,
Dick Horsley, etc) have their own ideas about why
Jesus opposed the temple and how his followers
subsequently reintegrated with it.

>Nothing that Jesus taught them led them to believe
>that the validity of the Temple had ceased.

Sure! Unless he believed in its imminent destruction
and purposefully supplanted its sacrificial system
with the eucharist. :)

By the way, Hyam, I agree with you somewhat about
Paul. It was he who began introducing pagan elements
into the eucharist. But a complete break from Jesus --
from the eucharist understood soley as alternative
Jewish sacrifice to a full-fledged pagan understanding
-- hadn't yet been effected.

Thanks again for the comments.

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com

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