EUCHARIST DOES NOT PROVE A JESUS OF HISTORY 

Paul the first Christian writer was the first to say that Jesus did the Lord's supper with bread being indicative of his body and wine of his blood.  He had no interest in the earthly Jesus the one that existed before the resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 11, he even said that he received the Eucharist story from the risen Jesus and passed it on so even the story that the earthly Jesus took bread and wine and made them emblems of his body and blood and was betrayed had to come through visions. It is certain that Paul had no interest in the earthly Jesus apart from the bare fact that he was crucified which is virtually the same has having no interest at all for he did not look at the Jesus story and learn about it or from it. He laid all his attention on visions. Even if this is wrong it is still important that we cannot prove that Paul cared for the earthly Lord. Paul said the bread was the body and the cup the blood of the Lord but that means that is what they are reminders of and does not mean that the words, “This is my blood,” were said over the cup in the Church. You don’t need to with reminders. When Paul said that the cup was the blood and his Jesus did not use the word blood in the consecration but said that the cup was a new covenant in his blood he clearly denied that his Jesus did that. The blood was Paul’s interpretation of the cup which is a sign that the Eucharist had recently been invented because it would have been thought out better had it had an earlier origin.

So the Jesus in Paul says the cup and we are not even told that it was wine was stated by Jesus to be the new covenant contradicting the gospels which say it was the blood of the covenant. It is more simple to say it is the covenant than that it is the blood and legends get more complicated over time and eventually the cup was stated to be the blood of the Lord in the words of consecration.

The book, St Saul, makes the point that when Paul was saying he received the Eucharist rite off the Lord that he was stressing that he knew it really did happen historically (page 218). He was kind of saying, “I swear this is true on the Lord’s honour.” But would Paul swear if he could verify the Eucharist happened? It is wrong to swear unless you have to. And if the people were not believing in him for Corinth was full of Christians who did not take Paul seriously, swearing would be no help. So rather than swearing he would have been sending them some evidence or telling them where to get it. If Paul felt the need to swear that is admitting that a major rite in Jesus’ life could not be historically verified and people had to just take his word for it. Though his saying he got it from the Lord is not an oath it is clear that he is still trying to pressure people to believe in him just as he would be if he did swear. This is a sign of desperation. It is also, more importantly, a sign that he had only revealed the Eucharist later in his career as a missionary and prophet. It means that the original apostles and Paul himself initially did not think of the Eucharist. Paul had a vision or a revelation telling him about it and so he started the rite not Jesus.
 
St Saul also tells us that Jesus according to Paul did not do the Last Supper at Passover but at one of several meals he had with his disciples so there was nothing unique about the meal (page 218). I see no evidence for this apart from the fact that the Christians in Corinth were having regular meals together at which they took bread and drink in memory of Jesus. If St Saul is right then it follows that the gospels are lying when they plot the Last Supper during Passover time.
 
Some would object that Jesus could have done one big meal at Passover and had the Last Supper and Christians just decided to imitate the last supper at every meal they had in common. The evidence against this is that the Christian meals often led to trouble as Paul said so there must have been a serious reason for having them. They must have been done to imitate Jesus. Another piece of evidence is that Paul and Jesus wanted bread and drink taken in memory of the body and blood of Jesus but it was never said that the words saying this is my body or my blood had to be said. You took the bread and drink as memorials of Jesus but not as symbols. They signified communion with the body and blood of Christ but they did not signify the body and blood of Christ. This is my body could mean the same as saying a picture is your son. The picture is not your son or a symbol of your son but the memorial of your son. Overall, this would mean that Christians had to have regular meals of bread and drink together in memory of the body and blood of Jesus and do it often in memory of his many meals. Paul does not even say the cup was wine and wine was on the Passover table so it seems the meal was not a Passover meal. He would have said when he talked as if he was talking to ignorant people. If Jesus was betrayed on the night he did what Paul says with bread and drink that means Jesus was not crucified when the gospels say he was at all for they say he died the day after the Passover meal.
 
Paul stated that many Corinthians were falling ill and dying as God took revenge on them for eating the bread of communion and drinking the cup without recognising the body and blood of the Lord. These were taking the communion unworthily. The view that he meant people were taking communion and not believing that it was the body and blood of the Lord is nonsense. That interpretation is way over the top. To eat the bread and drink the cup when they were pictures of the body and blood while not believing that Jesus really had a body and blood would also be a sin. This is the sin Paul had in mind. The Church had an epidemic number of people who did not believe that Jesus was a man and who had had a spiritual experience like a vision or whatever that made them willing to take on the stigma of being a Christian and associating with Paul’s Church. Their supernatural experiences would be the only explanation. Paul had to try and scare them with threats about divine vengeance to get them to believe. He was desperate all right. It is clear then that many knowledgable believers did not believe that Jesus instituted the Eucharist and did not believe in his humanity. It was clear that for many Jesus was an angel or something but certainly not a man that lived recently for they could not deny that so soon after his death and life on earth assuming the gospels were telling even a quarter of the truth about that earthly existence. Paul had nothing to say to them apart from dubious threats – why does everybody take communion in sin these days and live happily? The material about unworthy communion is clear evidence that there was no real evidence for a man called Jesus living in the first century.
 
Paul doesn’t say anybody living knew Jesus personally or even who was present at the Last Supper. Paul complained that there were factions at the supper and some were getting drunk on wine at it and were freezing out the poor who were with them. They were obviously disrespecting the supper of the Lord and had to be reminded on what authority the supper was instituted. But whose authority does Paul give for the supper? His own. He says he received the institution of the supper as a revelation from the Lord. He could not give Jesus’ authority any other way. The best he could do was say he was told by Jesus about the supper. Paul had already asserted his authority before for he gave them the ritual of the Lord’s Supper. All he does when it is sneered at is reiterate it which is a sure indication that it was all he could do. He could not appeal to the Jerusalem apostles or traditions about Jesus to help him. Paul invented the Eucharist or got a revelation – perhaps a dream? - telling him that it happened. He denies the historicity of one of the chief things that Jesus did which is a strong indication that Jesus was known purely through visions and was not a man of whom a verifiable biography could be devised.

The gospels say Jesus started the Lord’s Supper at his Passover meal. When the Christians were bringing so much wine to the supper that they got drunk that shows that the Lord’s Supper was being divorced from the Passover meal which forbade too much wine to be present for it was a sad meal not a party. Or perhaps the original story never thought of Jesus starting the Eucharist at the Passover?
 
Christians contend that when Paul wrote that he received the facts about the Lord’s Supper from the Lord he meant through tradition. This is incorrect for the epistle was written to people whose knowledge of the faith was pretty bad and they were visionary mad and would have liked to use the excuse of there being secret tradition to believe what they wanted so he would have chosen his words carefully and wrote what he meant. He would have preferred to stress concrete history as the source instead of using language that could give the impression the source was a vision.