Duvduv

The two accounts of the Last Supper in Mark 14 and in 1 Corinthians 11 are only superficially similar.

In Mark Jesus is involved in a story with his disciples. He takes bread and gives thanks (meaning makes the blessing over bread - hamotzi lechem min haaretz) and symbolically refers to the broken bread as his body. Then he took the wine and gave thanks again (meaning the grace after meals over a cup of wine - birkat hamazon) and distributed the wine (this is commonly done when the grace is recited over wine among Orthodox Jews) for each to take a sip. He symbolically refers to it as his blood of the covenant (evidently not all ancient manuscripts had the word "new") whatever that is supposed to mean because it isn't explained to the listeners, and announces he will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God arrives. However, he is not instructing anyone to perform a ritual in his memory.This story in itself need not have anything to do with Passover at all, and neither does the story in Corinthians.

In 1 Corinthians 11 the writer is talking to his audience about proper behavior in conducting a symbolic meal. In verse 20 he is suggesting that they already know about some kind of "Lord's Supper" but do not perform it correctly. He seems to suggest that his revelation is the correct format for the meal, which is not to be done publicly but at home. It has nothing to do with any apostles or disciples or anything to do with Judas or a last supper. Indeed, Earl Doherty makes the point that the Greek does not refer to a betrayal at all but merely his sacrifice of himself ("delivery up") as then mentioned in Romans 8. There is no reference to the event being part of a covenant, new or otherwise.

In any case, the revelation is being made to Paul himself (who doesn't say in 1 Corinthians that his revelations are the exclusive truth as he does in Galatians), not to disciples and Paul explains it as the proper way of conducting the meal by his followers as a ritual to be performed by believers, and the same goes for the wine at the end of the meal. And as a revelation, it is not a story being recounted from history.

Of course, we do not see additional revelations to Paul about the Sermon on the Mount, the nativity, or anything else. However, it is not clear that this meal is supposed to be done in public at all, and it certainly has nothing to do with any historical event of the gospels.

Can it be argued that the story in Mark is a direct reflection of the story in 1 Corinthians? Or because they are so very different, is it possible that the author of Mark heard the story from another source and integrated it into his story line? In the first case it would mean that there was a chronological relationship between 1 Corinthians and Mark, and in the second that they could have existed independently in different places simultaneously.

Duvduv

It's worth noting also that the process in 1 Corinthians in reference to "giving thanks" is different than in Mark.
In 1 Corinthians Jesus gives thanks on the bread and wine separately and took the cup of wine at the end of the supper, which seems only implied in Mark because afterwards they left.

Just to be more specific, in Mark he takes the bread "while they were eating" which suggests they were eating other things and then decided to eat some bread. It would seem rather unnecessary to note that they were already eating something else.

aa5874

The Pauline writer was familiar with gLuke according to Apologetic sources. See Origen's "Commentary on Matthew" and Eusebius Church History 6.25 and 3.4.

The Pauline revelation of the Last Supper in 1 Corinthians appears to be lifted from gLuke since it is most unlikely that a resurrected Jesus could have given Pauline writer any details of a Last Supper that NEVER did happen.

The words "this do in remembrance of me" and "This cup is the new testament in my blood" are found only in gLuke and 1 Corinthians but NOT gMark.

Luke 221 Corinthians 11
Mark 14 The abundance of evidence from antiquity does suggest that the Pauline writer was AWARE of the Last Supper story in gLuke.

Duvduv

Note that the reference in Mark and Matthew does not use the word "new" in all manuscripts with "covenant".

And since Mark was the earliest gospel I was focusing on that. For all we know, GLuke came out after 1 Corinthians, but then that creates a difficulty regarding GLuke and Acts if it is argued that Acts preceded the epistles. But if you want to say it was the other way around, it has other problems.

You want to suggest that 1 Corinthians was extremely selective in what it wanted to "lift" out of GLuke, leaving behind all the storylines in GLuke including the storyline surrounding the meal itself as described in GLuke. And since GLuke was after GMark, and relied on GMatt and GMark, I preferred addressing the issue with GMark only because of the view that GMark came after the epistles.

aa5874

There are no problems with the claim or theory that 1 Corinthians is AFTER gLuke.

The Pauline writer claimed he received the information about the Last Supper from the resurrected Jesus.

The Pauline claim MUST be false. If Jesus did exist he could have only been human and he could NOT have resurrected or revealed the word for word dialogue about the Last Supper.

Paul must have either made up his story or got it from some HUMAN source, written or orally.

The passage in 1 Corintians matches gLuke 22 word-for-word in certain phrases, Apologetic sources claimed the Pauline writer was aware of gLuke and another apologetic source, Justin Martyr, WHO was aware of a Jesus story with the Last Supper was NOT aware of Paul up to the mid 2nd century.

The theory that the Last Supper dialogue in 1 Cor. 11 is from gLuke 22 is NOT problematic at all.

Duvduv

It doesn't matter if it's false. The point is the writer believed he had a vision of the risen celestial Christ that told HIM about this taking of bread and wine. Unlike the gospels, no one else is involved. No apostles, no disciples, no Judas. Only Jesus himself. And the writer of Corinthians is telling HIS own followers how to conduct their Lord's Supper correctly. This has nothing to do with the scenario in GLuke.
The opinions of the Empire-Church bureaucracy is of little importance. What immediately jumps out at you is that this Corinthians writer didn't get visions about Golgotha, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Cesaeria, Capernaum or the Sermon on the Mount. And if he was thoroughly familiar with the GLuke story, why did he only refer to this one case and not present it in its full scenario? The Christ was "delivered up" (see Earl Doherty) as per Romans 8 and that's it. The big bad wolf Judas is nowhere to be seen. Why ?!

Justin Martyr has mention of the process that is similar to Corinthians but all this means is that he heard a story, but not from "Paul" since he never heard of Paul.

As usual old Justin cannot name a single "apostle" who said anything in these stories and of course was not exempt to touch ups. Even the writers of "called gospels" have no names at all.

The apostles, in their recollections, which are called gospels, handed down to us what Jesus commanded them to do. They tell us that he took bread, gave thanks and said: Do this in memory of me. This is my body. In the same way he took the cup, he gave thanks and said: This is my blood. The Lord gave this command to them alone. Ever since then we have constantly reminded one another of these things. The rich among us help the poor and we are always united. For all that we receive we praise the Creator of the universe through his Son Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit.

sotto voce

Justin may have been an outsider, a phoney.

aa5874

Of course the veracity, credibility and historical reliability of the Pauline writer matters. It is simply illogical to ignore the false statements of the Pauline writer.

The Pauline writer either MADE up the story or used a written or oral source.

And we still cannot corroborate when the Pauline Paul composed 1 Cor. 11.

I cannot PRESUME the Pauline writer is making statements that are credible when the writer claimed his Jesus was NOT a man.


When did this happen? Who were the Followers of Paul? In what century did Paul get his so-called revelation of the Last Supper?

I will NOT be duped into accepting any claims by the Pauline writer when he claimed his Gospel was NOT from a human being.

I reject all unsubstantiated claims about Jesus and Paul.


The Pauline writer is of the Empire-Church bureaucracy. The Pauline writings were Canonised by the Empire-Church bureaucracy.

Duvduv

So Justin's story of the meal resembles that of GMark yet "he" describes it as from the "recollections" of the apostles called "gospels" with inference that this description of the meal of his Christ was the complete description, thus he was unaware of the versions that found their way into other gospels. On the other hand, despite its similarity to GMark 14, the similarity is not complete. Thus the so-called "Recollections" are not from the gospels or from Corinthians but from another source but from some story floating around that "Justin" thought referred to some story of his historical Christ.

Chili

To keep this simple Mark did not realize the significance of the NEW Covenant and so it was just a casual snack during a meal, even if as mockery maybe as for him it meant back to Galilee again, and so it is not wise to instruct his disciples to do the same in memory of him.

Then to say 'drink it new in the reign of God' could also mean in the wrath of God and there new every day. As you may notice he said; "I will never drink of the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the reign of God."

And then please note, crucial even is that he actually said that your faith shall be shaken, instead of brought to a full stop when all doubt was removed by way of insight.

Then he goes on to say: "I will stike the shepherd [as if with a bolt of lightning] and the sheep will be dispersed [to now about 20.000 in number]," and then promised to start with that the day after he was raised . . . and back to Galilee he goes ahead of them, with all of them shaking in faith.