Need help with Greek in John 6

[JoyToBeCatholic]

I am discussing the discourse on Jesus as the Bread of Life in John 6 with a friend of mine (Non-Cath) and I cited some arguments from Scripture Catholic about the Greek text. She is refuting many of its claims about the usage of the original Greek words.

For instance:
In John 6:55 Scrip. Cath. says that the word Jesus uses is translated as “sarx” which means “flesh”, and its usage is always literal.
She says that “sarx” is not always used literally. Eating flesh literally is usually the word “kreas”.
Also, she says an example of figurative use of sarx is “the works of the flesh (sarx)”. It’s a figure of speech synecdoche. In James 5:3 sarx is used with a word “to eat,” and it’s gold and silver eating sarx–can’t be literal. Revelation 18 the flesh (sarx) of the woman cannot be literal, because the woman isn’t literal. Other figurative uses of sarx are in Gal 3:3 and 6:8, Matt 24:22, Jowh 1:13 and Romans 3:20.

Sprip. Cath. says “phago” means “to eat” or “physically consume”, and in John 6:54,56,57,58 he uses in even more literal verb translated as “trogo” which means to gnaw or chew or crunch. Also, “trogo” is only used two other times in the NT (Matt 24:38 and John 13:18) and it always means to literally ghaw or chew meat. “Trogo” is never used metaphorically in Greek.
She says phago and trogo were at one time literal words for eat, but trogo had largely lost its literal meaning in common usage by the time of the gospels, which apparently can be seen in secular writings at the time. Another point of hers is that trogo is not used at the last supper or in I Cor 11.

So, my problem is, aside from what I have from Scrip. Cath. (which I cannot substantiate, b/c I don’t know where to even find a Greek-text comparison), I don’t know if her claims are even true, nor do I know how to check them, or check Scrip. Cath. for that matter (not that I don’t trust them).

Therefore, I need at least one of the following:
-A link to a resource that gives the English and Greek texts together and a search tool for finding keywords.
or…
-Anything else anyone has to offer to show either an error in her logic (if there is one), or an error in her claims (if there is one)
or…
-If her claims check out, what explanation is there???

God Bless, and thanks in advance!

 

[porthos11]

She says that “sarx” is not always used literally. Eating flesh literally is usually the word “kreas”.

True, “sarx” is not always used literally to mean physical flesh. For example St. Paul uses the term “erga tEs sarkos”, i.e. works of the flesh (Gal 5:19) to refer to those things opposed to works of the Spirit.

In James 5:3 sarx is used with a word “to eat,” and it’s gold and silver eating sarx–can’t be literal.

There is indeed a figure of speech here in James 5:3, but the expression still remains the same: the rust of the gold and silver will eat (consume) your flesh. While it may not be literal (after all, chemically, rust cannot devour flesh), it nevertheless points to riches leading to the destruction of the flesh (which, by the way, is a literal meaning). The Greek root verb here is phago [eat]. The context points more towards destruction and consummation rather than physical eating. The use here is analogous to acid
“eating” metal.

Revelation 18 the flesh (sarx) of the woman cannot be literal, because the woman isn’t literal. Other figurative uses of sarx are in Gal 3:3 and 6:8, Matt 24:22, Jowh 1:13 and Romans 3:20.

Again, the word sarx in these passages truly don’t refer to physical flesh. So yes, sarx can have symbolic meanings.

She says phago and trogo were at one time literal words for eat, but trogo had largely lost its literal meaning in common usage by the time of the gospels, which apparently can be seen in secular writings at the time. Another point of hers is that trogo is not used at the last supper or in I Cor 11.

this is not true. trogo and phago had distinct meanings in Koine Greek, and became synonyms only later (as they are in modern Greek). But any good Protestant lexicon (see BAGD) will distinctly indicate “gnaw” for trogo.

It doesn’t matter if trogo doesn’t appear in the Last Supper accounts what matters is that it was used in John 6.

Now Jesus clearly says, “eat [phago] my flesh” and “drink my blood”. Context refers to the language of literal eating and literal drinking (not consummation or destruction as in James 5:3). Therefore, that parallel is eliminated. That leaves us with: what does it mean?

At first it “eat my flesh” and “drink my blood” can, at a stretch, mean “believe in me”, as Protestants would have. But there are problems here. Given the language of eating Jesus used, there is only one cultural metaphor than can be drawn short of the literal meaning: to “eat [a man’s] flesh and to drink [his] blood” is also a Semitic expression for causing grave bodily harm (cf. Micah 3:3). If the Jews heard this, then the only alternate explanation would be that “Unless you beat me bloody senseless, you have no life in you”, rendering his words nonsense. The “assault” metaphor, by the way, more closely parallels James 5:3’s context than John 6.

Eat flesh=believe me didn’t click with Semitic ears, hence, you would see the Jews grumbling (every detail matters in John 6). Why grumble if they knew that Jesus was talking metaphorically? The answer is that they grumbled because they took his words literally.

So did Jesus correct them? In many other cases, Jesus did correct misunderstandings: the leaven of the Sadducees and Herod; “Our friend Lazarus is sleeping” etc. But he did no such thing in this case, and only made it worse: by switching from phago to trogo.

And when the Jews left him, he did not call them back or clarify his position.

A careful reading of John 6 will tell us that Jesus meant his words literally. What it doesn’t say is how he would make this possible. That would come later.