Lucifer's True History of Everything
Dec 8, 06 02:29 PM
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True Life of Jesus, cont.
On Maundy Thursday, at a private home in downtown Jerusalem, Jesus and the Twelve had a delicious Last Supper together. Despite misleading reports to the contrary, I was not invited and did not attend. I regret my absence. (I have regretted it ever since 1498, when Leonardo da Vinci finished his famous portrait and left me out of the picture.)
Because I did not attend, I cannot tell you much more than you already know: The disciples did not wash their hands before dinner. Jesus let that go. But with his own hands, he washed the disciples' feet, including the skin between their toes, which was filthy. Simon Peter quarreled with Jesus, saying that he did not want his feet to be washed, but Jesus compelled him. When he was done, Jesus said, "Hereafter you must wash one another's feet" (John 13:5-14) – which is a tradition that the early Church never embraced with as much enthusiasm as that of the wine-and-wafers routine.
For dinner, steamed mutton was served, along with bread and wine; during which time, Jesus delivered his well-known "Eat My Flesh" sermon, which begins, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you..." (John 6:51-56).
As sleepy John nodded off in Jesus' lap, a digestivo was passed around the table, in a chalice later stolen by Joseph of Arimathaea (who did not think of it as a "theft," but only as a souvenir, not unlike Christians today who take towels from hotel rooms, or souvenir spoons from fancy restaurants [John 13:5-14, 25]).
(Christians for the next fifteen hundred years tried to recover the lost chalice, but never learned where Joseph put it—which is another historical point that Dan Brown gets completely wrong in that silly novel, The Da Vinci Code.)
After dinner the disciples got into a loud altercation about which one of them was the greatest, a quarrel that prompted Jesus to deliver another, newer sermon, the one he called, "The End is Near: Sell Your Toga, Buy a Sword" (Luke 22:24-39).
Judas Iscariot left early, right after dinner, without staying on to help with the dishes. Then they all sang a hymn, found two swords, and took a walk to the Garden of Gethsemane – where the anticipated mayhem was scheduled to break loose (Matt. 26:20-30, John 13:30).
Because I have only the same four Gospels that you have read, from which to form an opinion, I'm afraid I cannot tell you the answer to the single most famous metaphysical conundrum in all of Christian theology, to wit: When the Twelve ate the flesh of Jesus that night, and drank his blood, was that literal? or only figurative? Protestants say it was just a metaphor. Catholics say no, they really did it, they really did drink his blood and eat his flesh. Since the fifteenth century, millions of Christians have been killed by their brothers in Christ in the endless quest to discover which answer – literal? or figurative? – is the correct one.
The gospel record, taken by itself, is inconclusive. Jesus said: "My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:56); but Jesus may have been kidding; I mean, this is the same fellow who said, "Zeal for the House of God hath eaten me up" – which sounds like something that could only happen in a novel by Stephen King (John 2:17).
In the Old Testament era, whenever Yahveh forced His chosen people to eat the "meat" or "flesh" of human children, which was quite often, whether they liked it or not, He never allowed them to drink the children's blood (Deut. 28:53-57, Lev. 26:29, 2 Kings 6:26-29, Jer. 19:9, Ezek. 5:10, Lam. 4:10). So the Protestants, who usually have a batting average of about 50% on theological issues, may, once again, be half-right on the transubstantiation controversy: the Eucharist may be the literal meat of Jesus' flesh, but not his literal blood. And yet, if I had to place a bet, I'd go with the Catholics. History has shown that the Catholics usually have better arguments, and the Protestants, better weapons.
– L.
Posted by Lucifer at 02:29 PM
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