The blood of Christ

In the New Testament, Jesus tells his disciples to drink wine symbolizing his blood in rememberance of him. (1 Cor. 11:25)

Yet Leviticus tells us:

Lev 17:10-12
And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people.
Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood.

Why would god (in the form of the son) command us to symbolically drink his blood, when god (as the father) commanded the Israelites not to eat any manner of blood?

Spamandham,

I see you’re still trying to justify your unbelief. It’s an uncomfortable thing to be a sinner in the hands of an angry God Spamandham. I understand why you do what you do better than you do.

A True Christian
In These Last Days,

James

Because blood is somehow the vehicle for the human soul:

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
--Leviticus 17:11 KJV


On a deeper symbolic note, the ideas of 'blood', 'seas' (as defined figuratively as 'juice'), the 'fruit of the vine' (grape juice), and 'wine' are all tied closely together and are connected with the concept of the soul's longevity (or survival beyond physical death)

This is the clue to the meaning of the parable about the wedding in Cana and the water into wine, the things Christ said concerning old skins and new wines, and also are a big hint toward what these verses are actually communicating:

And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire;
and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying,
Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth;
for her grapes are fully ripe.

And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth,
and gathered the vine of the earth,
and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

And the winepress was trodden without the city,
and blood came out of the winepress,
even unto the horse bridles,
by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

--Revelation 14:18-20 KJV

Another passage this is related to, as far as deciphering the complex allegories related to biblical liquids and the indebtedness and redemption of souls is in the account of the first murder in Genesis:

And he said, What hast thou done?
the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
And now art thou cursed from the earth,
which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;
--Genesis 4:10-11 KJV

What is significant in the verse above is that the word translated 'receive' also means (in addition to several other words of similar meaning) 'buy' or 'win'.

There is a differance between drinking blood of animals sacrificed to false, and WINE that symbolizes christs blood.

If you can't figure that out, there is no point in further discussion

Dont use your own interpitation of the bible when you dont even believe what is written there yourself

Hahahhahah I agree man Drinking blood! Heck isn't booze kinda evil as well I mean all in all if you look through history the problems it has caused!

I donnu so many people read the bible and take it and well I guess we are "full o fthe devil" for questioning it(bible).

Before the books God still exsisted. You don't need a book to find god. You don't have to read book/s to avoid hell.

I still never got an answer to why would someone you belives in god belive in the devil or any book that lists the devil?

I guessthe deeper you look within yourself the more answers you will find that no book can tell you! Don't get me wrong nothing wrong with bibles or religions (even though a lot of people die over things) I think they still have helped humanity through the years but at what ratio of evil?????????????

Originally posted by queenannie38
Because blood is somehow the vehicle for the human soul:

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
--Leviticus 17:11 KJV

My understanding is that they believed life was in the blood. Rereading Leviticus, I'm starting to think it is less about eating blood and more about ensuring the blood was properly offered to god by sprinkling it on the alter. That would ensure the life of the sacrifice was given to god.



[edit on 12-10-2005 by spamandham]

Originally posted by spamandham
My understanding is that they believed life was in the blood. Rereading Leviticus, I'm starting to think it is less about eating blood and more about ensuring the blood was properly offered to god by sprinkling it on the alter. That would ensure the life of the sacrifice was given to god.
[edit on 12-10-2005 by spamandham]

If you reread Leviticus, you would have noticed that only blood from a spotless animal was to be offered up as a sacrifice for the sin of the people. Since Jesus was to be the final sacrifice for the sin of mankind, it would stand to reason that we should remember that offering of a "spotless" sacrifice.

As for the eating of blood commandment, don't doctors tell us even now that we should cook our food all the way, that eating rare, undercooked meat is not healthy for us. That commandment was given to ensure that Isreal cooked their food properly.

Originally posted by knights5629
If you reread Leviticus, you would have noticed that only blood from a spotless animal was to be offered up as a sacrifice for the sin of the people. Since Jesus was to be the final sacrifice for the sin of mankind, it would stand to reason that we should remember that offering of a "spotless" sacrifice.

Remember, yes, symbolically drink it though? (never mind that third party sacrifice makes no sense)

Originally posted by knights5629
As for the eating of blood commandment, ...[t]hat commandment was given to ensure that Isreal cooked their food properly.

I don't know where you get that from. Leviticus 17 makes it clear that eating blood is forbidden because life is in the blood.

It stands to reason that they noticed blood loss caused death even if the wounds were otherwise not that bad, and concluded that blood was the animating force behind life.

Originally posted by spamandham

Remember, yes, symbolically drink it though? (never mind that third party sacrifice makes no sense)

Don't some people drink to honor the dead? Paul told us that every time that we drink of the cup, we do it in rememberance of Him. I don't see the problem of drinking of the cup. Every time that I drink, I think of His sacrifice for me.

As for the third party sacrifice, as the Bible says, "Greater love hath no man than this,that a man lay down his life for his friends" John 15:13. History has many stories about how men sacrificed their lives for the protecting and salvation of their friends and family. Why is it so hard to believe that Jesus did the same thing?

I don't know where you get that from. Leviticus 17 makes it clear that eating blood is forbidden because life is in the blood.

It stands to reason that they noticed blood loss caused death even if the wounds were otherwise not that bad, and concluded that blood was the animating force behind life.

That was what I have always believed the commandment was given for. I can't give specifics, except for my own.

Originally posted by knights5629
Don't some people drink to honor the dead? Paul told us that every time that we drink of the cup, we do it in rememberance of Him.

It isn't just a toast, it's symbolic drinking of his blood. Yuck.

Originally posted by knights5629
As for the third party sacrifice, as the Bible says, "Greater love hath no man than this,that a man lay down his life for his friends" John 15:13. History has many stories about how men sacrificed their lives for the protecting and salvation of their friends and family. Why is it so hard to believe that Jesus did the same thing?

Jesus' sacrifice only makes sense if you presume that god demanded sacrifices. That's the part that makes no sense. How does a third party sacrifice set things right in god's eye, who is supposedly just? I suppose there's an argument to be made that 3rd party sacrifices aren't just in god's eye and that's why he sacrificed himself to himself. But then it makes no sense that such sacrifices were ever demanded.

For all you who are confused about the Cannibalism in Paul's Eucharist...

We weren't there with a video recorder, so we have absolutely no way of knowing what R. Yehoshua bar Yosef actually said (the socalled Ipsissima Verba) at the hagaddah blessing probably the day before Pesach in AD 36, which was the 100th anniversary of the Occupation of Palestine by Roman Troops under General Pompey:

He might have said something utterly un-cannibal-like for all we know: "These be the Days of Vengeance of our God: Behold, the Times of the Gentiles is now fulfilled: Amen, Amen I say unto you, the Son of Man from hence forth will not drink of the Blood of the Grape until he drinks it again in the Kingdom of God..."

which meant for him that in his mind the Kingdom of God was going to happen at any moment (cf: Luke's "and he walked boldly before them, and they thought the kingdom was going to come at any moment...") and even told his disciples to sell their outer tunics on a very cold night and buys swords in anticipation of some kin of miracle on the Mount of Olives (Luke chapter 22 and Zechariah chapters 11 & 12).

Paul states in I Corinithians that he "received from the Lord a visioin which I deliver to you...", rather than from a firm tradition of the actual words that someone from the inner circle (e.g. Peter) told him when he wrote to the Church of Corinth who were making love feasts out of the Eucharist

See 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

"On the night when he was handed over (i.e. to the authorities), Iesous took bread and after giving the thanksgiving Blessing, he broke it, saying

Take, eat:

This is my body, which is broken for you:

Do this in remembrance of me...."

In the same way also he took the cup, after he had eaten, saying, This cup is the new Covenant sealed in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. "

Notice the Haggadah Wine and Bread Kiddush is reversed (into Bread and Wine) following the reverse order as stated in Dead Sea Scrolls "day of the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel" Eucharist ceremony in 1Qs

This meal was apparently considered a foreshadowing of the future messianic banquet. Members of the community gathered together and sat before the priest according their rank.

The Messiah-priest then blessed the firstfruits of the Bread and the New Wine and ate, followed by the rest of those who had gathered together (see 1QS VI 3–5).

But there is nothing the pre-Messiah ceremony about the blood of the grape being the blood of the son of man to be drunk by the congregation: these words seem to have been added by Paul--words with decided Mystery Religion overtones (Mithras, Attis, Dionysius, Orpheus, Osiris etc.) where the blood of the god is to be consumed in wine form by the adherent.

Paul uses Mystery religion language elsewhere in this same letter (e.g. 1 Cor 15:51)

"Behold I tell you a Mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be transformed in a moment...")

Saul of Tarsus (the capital of Cilicia) has (according to Plutarch, Lives 24) connexions with Mithraic rites being on the cross roads of diverse civilisations.

The canonical gospels were written down AFTER the Pauline correspondence and seems to have been influenced by his liturgical formulae: the textual problems of the Eucharist passages in the first 3 gospels show that there was some attempt after AD 325 to conform the words of the last supper with Paul's words, and there are a number of textual studies that point out such harmonies in later copies of the gospels.

In view of the Greek Manuscript hand-copied textual issues here, it is impossible to reconstruct the actual words of "Iesous" at this hagaddah bread and wine ceremony before his arrest: and we can assume that the disciples "read back" certain meanings after the event "in hindsight" when they went on their missionary journeys, even before the gospel material was beginning to be set in writing in Greek (i.e. after having been translated and morphed out of its mother tongue, Galilean Aramaic).

One wonders if R. Yehoshua bar Yosef ("Jesus") was making any reference to the prophet Hezekiel chapter 39 here where the birds of the air and the beasts of the field are invited to eat the flesh of the slain and drink the blood of the conquored at the Messianic last battle (referred to also in the book of Revelation): this passage in Hezekiel has definite War overtones and would certainly dovetail into the idea of buying swords with the view to a Final Battle when the times of the gentiles will be fulfilled and the Roman Army was to be driven out of Palestine by the armies of YHWH by some Messianic miracle on the mount of olives...

But look how all that turned out...

Originally posted by NEOAMADEUS
For all you who are confused about the Cannibalism in Paul's Eucharist...

We weren't there with a video recorder, so we have absolutely no way of knowing what R. Yehoshua bar Yosef actually said (the socalled Ipsissima Verba) at the hagaddah blessing probably the day before Pesach in AD 36, which was the 100th anniversary of the Occupation of Palestine by Roman Troops under General Pompey:...

What you're saying is true of course, but if we go down that road, there is little reason to assume such a man ever even existed. The question is really for those who accept what the New Testament says at faith value.