My Flesh Is Meat Indeed: A Nonsacramental Reading of John 6:51–58
Overview
Readers have long puzzled over why Jesus’ words over the bread and wine are absent from the Johannine Last Supper. This suggests to some that John is indifferent—even hostile—to sacramental thought or action. These scholars also point to the apparent relocation Jesus’ declaration that believers must eat his flesh to the feeding miracle in John 6. Meredith J. C. Warren argues that in fact, the “bread of life” discourse in John 6:51c–58 does not bear any Eucharistic overtones. Rather, John plays on shared cultural expectations in the ancient Mediterranean world about the nature of heroic sacrifice and the accompanying sacrificial meal, which established the identification of a hero with a deity. From Homer and continuing through Greek romances like Chaereas and Callirhoe, An Ephesian Tale, Leucippe and Clitophon, and An Ethiopian Story, Warren traces a literary trope in which a hero or heroine’s antagonistic relationship with a deity is resolved through the sacrifice of the hero. She argues that seen against this milieu, Jesus’ insistence that his flesh be eaten serves to demonstrate his identity and confirms the Christology of the rest of the Gospel.
- Title: My Flesh Is Meat Indeed: A Nonsacramental Reading of John 6:51–58
- Author: Meredith J. C. Warren
- Publisher: Fortress Press
- Print Publication Date: 2015
- Logos Release Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Jesus Christ › Divinity; Bible. N.T. John 6:51-58 › Criticism, interpretation, etc
- ISBNs: 9781451490244, 9781451496697, 1451490240, 1451496699
- Resource ID: LLS:MYFLSHSMTNDD
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T01:40:39Z