Lost in Translation: John 6:55

For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

Hearing Jesus’s words today as his listeners did two thousand years ago spans not only time, but our differences in culture. Jesus was often intentionally surprising, even shocking. He wanted to get people’s attention. He often did this through analogies playing on the double meanings of words. This technique forced people to think about their deeper meaning in his context.

This no longer works today. We have become numb to odd words and images, even when shocking, We simply accept without thinking. In any other context, many of Jesus’s analogies would seem like something from a horror movie.

The Greek Verse

John 6:55 needs context. It comes towards the end of a long dialogue of more that a dozen and a half verses . This discussion starts by Jesus saying his listeners followed him because of a recent wonder, the feeding of the five thousand. He tells them to get fulfilling bread, they must do the work the Divine requires. They ask what that work is (John 6:28). He tells them that it is to trust the one thee Divine sent (John 6:29). He then goes through a series of statements that are more and more difficult to accept. It is like a game of trust he challenges his listeners to play. There are three verses after John 6:55 in this discussion. , but this one serves as a punch line. The discussion ras a whole evolves around the concepts of “life,” “bread,” “drink,” “flesh,” and “blood.”

His listeners start off enthusiastic when he offers them (John 6:33) the “bread that gives ongoing life.” Jesus then says that he will never drive away the ones given to him (6:37). This is a warning that he is going to drive away some of those listening.

He then escalates saying he is “bread stepping out of a sky.” They complain about this idea of his stepping down from “a sky,” which is like saying “coming out of thin air,” because they knew he came out of a family (6:42). He then says that those who ate manna in the desert died, but whoever eats the bread of his flesh will not die. This causes them to wonder how anyone can eat human flesh (6:52). The Greek word for “flesh” means literally the meat eaten at meals. Jesus then makes this idea even more horrible, with “drinking my blood.” Then, even more appalling with John 6:55:

NIV: For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

“Flesh” and “blood” have a symbolic meaning for all Christians today, referring to communion. For his listeners who heard this through Jewish Law, as we hear words through Christian teaching, it was scandalous.

The Jewish Law

“The bread coming down from a sky” traditionally meant manna in the desert. This manna is a physical bread, nourishing the body, but for Jesus, “bread” was not the best nourishment. Most of the times that Jesus talkd about bread, it is in the context of Matthew 4:4:

NIV: It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Jesus is the “bread” because he is the word from the messenger of the Divine. He is challenging his listeners to think beyond physical food, He chooses this Greek word for “food.” It means “meat" and, in broader sense a “nourishment.” He is describing spiritual nourishment.

There was a greater religious problem with drinking blood of any type. One of the earliest prohibitions of the Bible is Genesis 9:4: “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.” This was expanded later in Leviticus 17:10-12. “I will set my face against any Israelite or any foreigner residing among them who eats blood, and I will cut them off from the people.  For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.  Therefore I say to the Israelites, ‘None of you may eat blood, nor may any foreigner residing among you eat blood.’” This was a rule written large in Judean dietary law.

If we think about how weird Jesus’s statements about drinking blood, human blood and eating human flesh were, the surprising thing is that anyone would sit still for it. The only explanation is the his listeners were accustomed to his being shocking and playing with them.. However, the spiritual context to these verses is the concept of life, especially on-going life. These prohibitions make the connection between life and blood very clear as we can see from the bold sections of the quotes above. These commands object to stealing the “life” of other creatures. Much of Jesus’s teaching works to move his people from the law as dictating the diet of the body to higher things of the spirit. Those who couldn’t move past flesh and blood are missing his whole point about doing the work of trust.

Other writers in the New Testament were also reticent to reference the idea of drinking the blood. I find it in only one other New Testament verse. “Blood” wasn’t the popular motif then as it is today.

The rest of this article is reserved for our supporters. It covers how this verse is
distorted today, and It ends with a discussion of its hidden humor.