[Mrs. Don-o]

My goodness, you come so close at times, practically flashing out the true thing with your arms swinging semaphore -style, and then concluding, "And that's why I believe the opposite."

What do you think the point was, of all that viscerally-felt, ritual prohibition of blood? It's because it was seen as presumptuously consuming the very life of an animal, as if they could drink down the source of life. The Jews were very big on the life being in the blood.

So Jesus comes and says, "Do this thing which is utterly revolting to you, shocking, scandalous, viscerally offensive, because I AM the source of Life-- my Flesh IS REAL food, my Blood IS REAL drink" --- (it's what He said, look it up) and what happened? Most of those who had followed Him, turned around and left!

What did Jesus do? Chase after them? ("Hey, come baa-a-a-ck! Don't be idiots! It's just a metaphor!")

No. He turned to his own picked men and said, "Do you want to leave, too?"

Well?

(I can imagine a materialist skeptic like, say, Richard Dawkins, at the Last Supper:

Christ: "This is My Blood."

Response: "Amen."

Response: "Amen."

Response: "Amen."

Response: "Amen."

Response: "Amen."

Response: "Amen."

Response: (after a tiny hesitation): "Not really."

[metmom]

What about *Do not eat the blood* is so hard to understand.

Jesus did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it.

The Law pointed to Jesus. It was not a means by which we become saved. We are not saved by performing certain physical actions.

In John 6 Jesus says it’s the Spirit which gives life, the flesh is NO HELP AT ALL.

Eating flesh in the flesh cannot impart life. Jesus says it doesn’t work.

[metmom]

And after handing out the cup to pass it around, Jesus called it *the fruit of the vine*.

IOW, it was still wine.

[metmom]

Christ: "This is My Blood."

Jesus also said *I am the door*

Did he look like this? Was He made of wood?

He said he was the bread. Did He look like this? Was He made of dough.

He said I am the light of the world. Was he made of photons?

I'll betcha He looked like a regular human being while He was walking here on the earth.

Why take the part about eating His flesh and blood literally, when it clearly violates other commands of Scripture, and yet take other statements of His found in John 6 in the very same discourse, like the one where He said He was bread, and make that figurative?

The only reason I can see is that one supports an unscriptural practice of eating blood, and the other doesn't.

[Iscool]

What did Jesus do? Chase after them? ("Hey, come baa-a-a-ck! Don't be idiots! It's just a metaphor!")

I don't understand why Catholics continuously throw that out there when Jesus already told anyone who is willing to read the scriptures why he didn't call them back...And it had absolutely nothing to do with whether what he said was literal or a metaphor...