In our western culture, do you think Jesus would be telling us to eat his flesh and drink his blood? Do you think he would be telling us he was the son of God? How do you think he would communicate these concepts today?

Paul’s writings are completely misunderstood at the current time and at times so badly that theologians cannot even make Paul agree with himself on the same page. For all those who would persist in the error that by “ergon” Paul is referring to acts of obedience and somehow contrasting these with faith, explain why Paul also says those who do not obey will be sent to hell (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9) or why Paul refuses to even dare to speak about anything other than what Christ has done in him to make the gentiles obedient to Christ (Roman 15:18). The Reformers did not understand what Paul was referring to by the words “law” and “works” in his writings. They did not know about the above context to what Paul wrote. They have completely misconstrued Paul to have set up obedience and faith as in opposition with one another when Paul does no such thing, talking about the obedience of faith.

John 8:51

I don’t know Aramaic, but I’ve been told that ‘bread’ stands as an Aramaic metaphor for ‘teaching’. So, all of John 6 is Jesus teaching that his teaching is an authoritative teaching from heaven itself. That’s a difficult position to accept without some solid proof (like a resurrection). In fact, Jesus says he embodies the teaching. We are to make him our model and fully take in who he is. The misunderstanding by the Pharisees simply underscores the nature of a double entendre. They were rejecting Jesus teaching–a common Johanine theme. The Pharisee’s question also comes across as a group trying to “put Jesus down” through a form of ridicule.

The problem with double entendre, and things like puns, is they present translation complexity. Translating the Aramaic ‘bread’ into Greek presents one level of difficulty which can be handled by current mother tongue speakers. However, going further and bringing that over into English, and a contemporary audience largely separated from the original linguistic context, presents the same types of translation issues that ‘Son of God’ does.

My point is that the meaning, as complex as it was, was a bit obvious in the original. The trick is to enable the translation to approximate the same level of clarity. Is the double entendre important enough that a translator must keep the original’s double entendre at the expense of the original’s clarity? Or is it wiser to prioritize the various meaning elements differently? Unfortunately, given people’s assumptions about what makes a good translation (note the reference to the pragmatics of the contemporary audience!), people assume that prioritizing the elements in a way that brings clarity is somehow compromising accuracy. In my opinion, it is often the other way around.

Just because one believes there is no conflict with Paul or others elsewhere, gives nobody the right to rework the original language. Let the text speak for itself; let it say what it says in its own right.

By drawing your own conclusions in this way, you are not only at odds with the translators themselves in all versions of the Bible; you also obviously put yourself above them. And in doing so, you annul the plain meaning intended by the immediate context.

As I said, I’ve reworked the entire chapter, so it’s not all going to fit without the rest of it. I mentioned here only the so-well-known part to keep my answer short. But I’ll try to answer to what you said by at least writing what I believe should be the translation starting around vs.24: “Behold now all of you! Is man righted [alongside God] out from works also not singularly out from faith’s works?” or, paraphrased, ” Is a man righted alongside God out from just SOME of his works?” “Likewise, also Rahab the harlot was NOT righted out from works (when she was) entertaining the messengers and sending out from a different way. Therefore, as-concerning that a body is a corpse separately of-spirit , so also the faith, separately of works, is it a corpse?” ——of course not. Man is righted in UN-circumcision, out from faith (Romans 4). First, like Abraham, in UN-circumcision Rahab faithed to God and was reasoned into rightness. Then the faith itself (not her or any person) worked-together-with the works of her (good and/or bad), and the faith was left-complete. The term ‘work of faith’ has caused many to believe that faith is a work. But it means “faith’s work”. Faith is not a work. It is a work-er. Now there is NO conflict with Romans 4, Galations 3, Ephesians, and more.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (John 6:53-56)

Just as Jesus expects us to eat and drink of his body, the Bible also expects us to read that God got Mary pregnant. Jesus could have arrived here without conception, but the story wouldn’t be the same. To draw the conclusion of sex, one needs to read between the lines. As for eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus, the Catholics have their doctrine of Transubstantiation.

However, Michael and Kate, in their responses above, remind us to appreciate the figurative/metaphorical dimension of the biblical literature.

Thanks for your detailed comments.

Lastly, to add even more contextual complications, “Son of God” in the original context had a number of pragmatic features not readily held by contemporary English speakers.

I’m not convinced that “son of Man” or “son of God” are that successful as translations into English. (And the CEB, for what it’s worth, agrees.) But even if those phrases miss the mark, I don’t think they do the same kind of damage as specifically suggesting that sex is involved.

I don’t know.

Sometimes there is no good translation, and the best a translator can hope for is a mediocre second. In general, I think a translation that destroys the original point is worse than one that misses the mark more subtly.

Another way of looking at the general situation is this: if a reader just reads the text, and not the footnotes/explanations/etc., which of the wrong translations does the least damage?

For example, what if a foreign text has something like, “he used a carefully selected four-letter word.” In English, “four-letter word” means “curse word,” so an English speaker reading that will get the wrong impression that the sentence is about profanity. Is it worth it? Is it worth misleading the reader in this way to convey the nuance of how many letters are in the word? I don’t think so.

In the case of “son,” he question may come down to (again, depending on the facts about Arabic), “is it worth giving the reader that sex is involved in order to convey the other aspects of ‘son’?”

And it seems to me that the answer is “no.”

Jesus was not merely a man, but God with skin on him. Or, as John put it, the Word made flesh. Obviously, calling God his father didn’t sit right with many of his contemporaries either.

If “son” is inappropriate, and Jesus was not merely a man, would it not be a greater mistake in going for something like “representative”, despite the absence of any overtones? In any case, how would “representative of God” do any justice to Jesus being the only begotten of the heavenly Father, which “the son of God” actually implies?

My point is, whatever term one uses, please find one that properly conveys the unique relationship between Jesus and his heavenly Father. Anything less, and you have a lot of explaining to do.