Originally Posted by Joe Obenberger

It's kinda crazy to be talking about this issue on a porn board, and pretty nuts to get into any kind of serious discussion on GFY, but here I am.

Michael is right on the money as usual.

And the whole issue was actually more intense in Christ's lifetime than it looks to us now.

One of the most rock-solid prohibitions in Judaism was the law against the drinking of blood. Blood was sacred - the essence of life - and permitted only for God when blood was spilled for him in the Temple Think back to Cain and Abel - It was blood sacriifice itself that satisfied God just as it was absolutely forbidden to men. The idea of consuming blood is emotionally repugnant to anyone raised as a Jew. Meat is treated with salt before cooking to draw out the blood.

In the face of that, Christ announced in public that no one could share in eternal life without drinking his blood and eating (the literal translation is "gnawing" as in gnawing a chicken bone) his body. Some of Christ's close followers were so disgusted with this that they talked to him about it, and he only dug into his position more fiercely. No metaphor was intended. John records that as a result of this harsh teaching, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer followed him. John 7:66. They understood that he meant it just as it sounded. He later went on to say to remind his opposers that scripture called all of the followers of God, Gods. John 10:34, quoting Psalm 82:6.

This understanding is probably the biggest divide between Catholics and Orthodox on one side and Protestantism on the other.