I often wondered about that. Of course it never came up for me as I have never had the slightest desire to eat a blood pudding. I never insisted on eating meat from a kosher butcher though. I do prefer it fairly well done.

It is not clear to me what you are saying. I am not an expert on Eucharistic theology, but I don’t believe the Eucharist was ever considered to violate Jewish dietary laws. Jesus speaking of eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the Gospel of John would have been shocking to contemporary listeners, but I certainly don’t think the primary reaction of Jewish listeners would have been due to prohibitions on consuming blood.

At the time of the Council of Jerusalem, Jewish Christians were still following Jewish dietary laws. Celebrating the Eucharist did not force them to choose between the prohibition on eating blood and consuming wine at a Eucharistic celebration. I don’t see John 6 as in conflict with Acts 15. Exactly how the Eucharist was understood in the very early Church is a fascinating topic which I am not competent to speak on, but I do believe I am correct in saying that the Jewish Christians didn’t think they were literally eating human flesh and drinking human blood.

My point is that Jesus saying he would give his flesh to be eaten and his blood to be drunk was not in opposition to the existing Jewish dietary laws, and Jewish Christians followed those dietary laws in the early Church. The Council of Jerusalem, in requiring Gentile Christians still to avoid the practice of consuming blood did not contradict anything Jesus said in the Gospel of John. However, in Acts 15 we do have a clear command that everyone—Jewish Christians and Gentile converts alike—must refrain from consuming (animal) blood. This command would seem to be as authoritative as any New Testament command, yet it is not followed today.

I wouldn’t even want to begin to try to discuss exactly how eating the flesh and blood of Jesus is to be understood, but in Catholicism, it is certainly not understood as cannibalism. Consuming consecrated wine would not violate a prohibition on drinking blood, if one still existed within Christianity, and consuming consecrated bread would not be considered to be eating flesh in the same sense as eating meat. Otherwise in times past when eating meat was prohibited on Fridays, Catholics would not have been permitted to receive communion.

While I read James R. Rogers’s piece with interest, it strikes me that one must approach with caution any attempt to equate the Eucharist with the actual consumption of human flesh and blood in a way that dietary laws would apply to it.

I guess Jesus was just beating his gums and wasting breath in John 6. I didn’t realize that comments referring to animal sacrifice in Acts 15 elevated the disciples over their Master in John 6.

The Old Testament prohibition was against animal blood. Jesus made quite a distinction between that, and His Own Blood in the Holy Eucharist.

He was the fulfillment of the Old Covenant, not beholden to it, and John 6 makes it quite clear that His new covenant would be quite different.

Hey, there are actually worse ways to learn this stuff.

My experience with kids has been that vampire stories are used to discuss issues that can’t be articulated directly – for instance, boundary issues; issues of what is reasonable and fair to be expected to give, vs. what is unreasonable (enter into here the language of human sacrifice).

Does love have to hurt? Do appetites necessarily have to cause pain to others?

Not all, but many vampire stories may be viewed as stories by and for people who are trying to find their way back to God.

Actually, unless you count the Eucharist as actually eating blood with flesh, the New Testament forbids the practice as well. The first followers of Jesus were Jews, and we know they followed Jewish dietary laws. It was only when there began to be Gentile converts that the issue of possibly not following Jewish dietary restrictions arose. It was settled definitively by what is now called the Council of Jerusalem, which took place in about the year 50, roughly 20 years after the crucifixion. The Council and the decision they arrive at is found in Acts 15. Here is the key part:

28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.

The Old Testament prohibition against consuming blood is not undone by the New Testament, and exactly why Christians ignore what is clearly stated in scripture basically has no good explanation that I have ever heard.