When Jesus said "Except ye eat my flesh." what was their reaction at first?

Answer 1

CRIKEY! You want us to do what?!? Thats it, mount that nut job to the stake.

Answer 2

Rejection,but Jesus did not call them back to clear up their misconception.

Jesus did not say"Can't you take a wildly poetic metaphor?"but"Will you too also leave?"( John 6)

Jesus was actually teaching that His flesh is given to us under the sign of bread in the Eucharist for Jesus is the True Manna and our very corporeal bodies which eat His actual corporeal Flesh will be actually corporeally resurrected.

Answer 3

It's pretty clear there would have been revulsion. People knew He spoke in parables, this they could not get. Some wrote Him off, I'm sure. Others knew their understanding was being tested. The response was that this was a hard saying, and who could hear it?
Consider the whole- all He said would have been considered mad, and to top it off, He said it in a Synagogue.
In John 6:66, it is reported that many of the disciples(apparently there was a crowd of followers) stopped following Him.

Answer 4

If I was to say "you're tearing out my heart", you would understand I meant you're causing me untold grief, right?

I've read a commentary that said this was once a common statement to mean "take up my cause, make it yours completely."

But it wouldn't be the first time He said something that threw the folks around Him for a loop. How about "you must be reborn"?

the good news is I need not pass a big written test on my understanding of everything He taught in order to earn my way into His presensce. I just need to understand, I'm flawed, I can not redeem myself or wash away all the stain, that the only sacrifice that can do that is His sacrifice, and accept grace for what it is...His gift to me, and not something I earn.

Answer 5

Jesus was telling the people that they needed to believe in him and accept him as the Son of God. He is the bread of life. This does not mean to eat him literally.

Answer 6

Their reaction was, "The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”" (John 6:52)

Answer 7

Revulsion. Cannibalism was extremely abhorrent to the Jews.

Answer 8

"Christianity...[has become] the most perverted system that ever shone on man....Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus." ------ Thomas Jefferson

“There is strong reason to believe that St. Paul fabricated the belief system of Christianity from Zoroastrian mythology. In order to hide Paul’s plaigerism… Christians burned the library of Alexandria in 390 A.D. Books in that library kept Mithra’s original story of what Pauline Doctrine is an almost exact copy. (George Sarton , Introduction to History of Sciences)

Answer 9

Jesus wasn't speaking LITERALLY here, you know that!

Their reaction was to wait on the REST He had to say. But, we must partake of WHAT HE SAID, DO ALL HE SAID, and have grapejuice, and unlevened bread, in Rememberance of Him, and what he did for the world.

Answer 10

Since you are Dubious, whatever anyone answers to this question, you will be doubtful and not believe. There is a lot of truth in a name, whether resentless or resentful, pay attention to what you are and what you call yourself.

Answer 11

Hopefully, they understood what he really meant, and not what the Catholic Church came up with as an interpretation, then bequeathed to other churches.