How can one reconcile the idea of the Eucharist with the Jewish custom of never consuming any animal blood?

It seemed to be symbolic, after all wine and bread was used, not Jesus' skin and blood. That's probably why no one was bothered by it....Show more

It's a good point because if you ever have a meaningul conversation with a religious Jew they will almost certainly throw at you two things... 1) God never changes 2) He tells you to avoid drinking blood.

It's just one good reason why the literal interpretation of the Lord's supper or transubstantion is wrong... and is supported by the fact that there isn't even a hint of surprise in the first supper.

Frankly, to my mind the problem doesn't exist if the practice is symobolic... and from personal experience it completely flaws the Jewish accusation on the matter....Show more

The so-called Judaizers - the early Jewish followers of Jesus were fully marginalized in Christianity by the later first century and fully eliminated by the third to fifth century.

The Eucharist had nothing to do with their beliefs.

To whit --

The Jewish belief of the first century about sacrifices is that these are a celebratory meal WITH God,
while they believed that the notion of "eating a god" was actually orchestrated during the initial Passover sacrifice as an insult to the Egyptians to show their complete incapacity.
And -- the Egyptians and Romans of the first century knew this very well.

On the other hand, there were a number of Roman "mystery cults" who had a theology and ritual of "eating the god" -- like The Dionysian Mysteries and the Mithraists.

Thus, the Eucharist was clearly developed among the non-Jewish Christians as an adaptation of pre-existing "mystery cults" theology and ritual of "eating the god" --
purposefully inverting the well-known Jewish Passover sacrifice symbolism of eating the chief god of Egypt and thereby merging in Romano-Egyptian worship.

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> ...Bruce Chilton has a theory that the ritual stems from the Temple table-turning incident:
Jesus, banned from The Temple...

No.
He would not have been banned from the Temple.
If the event had happened and he was known to have done it, this would have been a death penalty sabotage offense under Roman law.
He would have been tried, convicted, and executed.
Yet - for all that the New Testament says that the Jews were out to get him - he was never prosecuted for this, and the New Testament instead describes some sort of trumped up generic sedition charge....Show more

Good points. I take the biblical ban on eating or drinking any kind of blood to make a literal interpretation of Jesus' words on the wine impossible. No Jew would ever drink wine that he or she believed had been turned into any kind of blood. Jesus and all the disciples at that Lord's Supper the night before He died drank wine from a cup on the understanding that that represented them entering into the new covenant in Christ's shed blood - which had not, at that time, yet been shed. They ate unleavened bread that had been broken on the same understanding; it represented the broken body of Christ - which had not, at that time yet been broken. Yet He told them to do that in remembrance of Him. I don't believe that the disciples thought they were actually drinking Jesus' blood. They believed they were drinking wine that represented Jesus' blood. It's up to Catholics to offer their reconciliation of how Jews would never consume blood (Leviticus 17:12 & Genesis 9:4). It wouldn't surprise me if hardly any Catholics even knew of God's prohibition on consuming blood for all of Noah's descendants (which includes the Jews, but everyone else too!)...Show more