Doherty's point here is that in contexts clearly calling for references to Jesus' last supper with his disciples, there are no such references. Specifically, there is none in Hebrews 9:19-20 nor any in the Didache, also chapter 9. While there seems to be such a reference in I Corinthians 11, as Doherty notes, Paul strongly implies that he learned of it by revelation, not from the testimony of anyone who was present at the event.
According to Ted, "The author of Hebrews was comparing the sacrifice of Christ as the new high priest with the old method of animal sacrifice under the Levite high priests." Well, yes, but how does this explain the author's failure to quote Jesus on that very subject? Ted doesn't quite tell us. He says the author "could have possibly avoided calling attention to it since in making this comparison the author had plenty of other material to work with already." Excuse me? The words of Jesus Christ, lord and savior, the very son of God Almighty, are not worth quoting if you have "plenty of other material" with which to make your point?
Ted then gives us a paragraph of proof texts ending with, "We can conclude with great certainty that Timothy knew and adopted the same tradition that Paul taught." OK, and so what? Well,
In Hebrews 13:23 the author writes "23Take notice that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom, if he comes soon, I will see you." Hebrews was likely written after Paul's epistle to the Corinthians, and it is clear that the author of Hebrews personally knew Timothy, and traveled with him.
Ah, not so fast. Yes, Hebrews is likely to have been written after Corinthians, but it is not known how long afterward. Any date before the end of the first century is possible. As for the author's acquaintance with Timothy, nothing is clear except that the author claimed to know a man, apparently familiar to his readers, whose name was Timothy. Given that the author's own identity is entirely unknown, we have no grounds for assuming that this Timothy and Paul's friend Timothy were one and the same.
And what does this have to do with the last supper? Ted says that because of the author's acquaintance with Timothy, "It is most likely that this author knew about the Lord's Supper and the words about the new covenant, but just didn't mention them." Well, let's see. We're assuming for the sake of discussion that the author of Hebrews had learned, from Timothy, everything there was to know about Paul's teachings. But are we justified in assuming further that the author agreed with all of Paul's teachings, as conveyed to him by Timothy? I don't see why. We might keep in mind that notwithstanding later tradition about its provenance, the author of Hebrews did not himself claim to be Paul. If the author had never heard of any historical Jesus, then to him Paul would have been just another preacher who claimed to have had some revelations about the Christ. While it is clear that he believed some of what Paul believed, it is definitely not clear that he was in total agreement with him. He might have thought that Paul's revelation about the last supper was not to be taken seriously—and, he had no other source for anything that Christ, even allegedly, might have said on the subject. But, he still needed to find a rationale for the Eucharist, and so he turned to scripture.
Ted says, concerning I Corinthians 11, that "Doherty's contention that Paul's version was 'revelation' is questionable." Maybe it is, but not just because Ted questions it. If anyone thinks there is good reason to think Paul is reporting some bit of history that he was told by men who had known Jesus personally and were present when he uttered those words, it's up to him to tell us what that reason is. That "it matches the gospel version" is not good enough, since the gospels came long after Paul.
Ted acknowledges that "it is clear in the Didache that the Eucharist is extremely important," but he fails to "see a strong context for indicating that Jesus established it." I am not going to argue about his evaluation of a "strong context," but the point is not that the Didache's silence on origins is glaringly counterintuitive in context. The point is that we have a pattern here. If early Christians believed that the Eucharist was established by the founder of their religion, some writer somewhere during Christianity's first 100 years should have said something about Jesus' having instituted the ritual. The fact that not a single one of them did say so is totally counterintuitive. Paul's comment is not an exception. His allusion to revelation makes it part of the pattern. If Jesus was real, then Paul knew some men who were present with him at the last supper, and they would have told him about it, and there is no credible accounting for Paul's failure to say that they told him about it.
Ted declares it "unlikely" that the Didache's authors "would have adopted the story of the Lord's Supper from Paul" if the document "was truly the 'teaching of the twelve apostles.'" But who in the world is claiming it was? Certainly not Doherty, so far as I am aware. Neither, to my knowledge, is anybody claiming that Paul invented the Eucharist. It was obviously an established custom among Christians before he came along. His only contribution was to shed some light on its meaning while giving God the credit for his enlightenment.
Returning to Hebrews: Ted disputes Doherty's assertion that according to the author, Christ's sacrifice "takes place in heaven." According to Ted, "There is nothing in Hebrews that says Christ was sacrificed in heaven." It is true that the author never says it in so many words. The question is what we may reasonably infer about the author's thinking if we read the text (a) without any gospel-based presuppositions but (b) with some acquaintance with Platonic thinking.
This page last updated on June 15, 2010.