It's a well-worn statement at thousands of the Lord's Supper services when they pass the bread: "This is My body which is broken for you." That is what Jesus said, isn't it? Or is it? Let's see, taking a look at the institution of the Lord's Supper from the King James Version:
Matthew 26:26 "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My body."
Mark 14:22: "And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body."
Luke 22:19-20: "And He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is My body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me."
(John, lest the reader thinks that eating the bread and drinking the cup have salvific merit, de-emphasizes the ordinances and therefore doesn't record the institution of the Lord's Supper.)
The omission of "broken for you" fits with the Old Testament in which we read about the Passover lamb--it was not to have a bone broken. John recorded the fulfillment of the hoary prescription for the Passover Lamb when he wrote about the crucifixion: "For these things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled, 'Not a bone of his will be broken.'" The Scripture to which John refers is Exodus 12:46 and its instructions for sacrificing the precise lamb.
Yet, when we come to I Corinthians 11:24 in the same KJV, we read, "And when He had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me."
Broken? I thought that John said no bone of Jesus was broken. He did say that. And in all of the accounts of the institution of the Lord's Supper in the three Gospels, in the same KJV, Jesus never said that the bread was symbolic of His body's being broken. (The bread had to be broken to be distributed; the reference is to Jesus' body.) The Old Scofield Reference Bible (KJV) includes a note, replacing "is broken for you," with "is for you." The editors caught the problem.
So, what's going on here? Andrew Kuyvenhoven explains: "1 Corinthians 11:24, reads: '[He took a loaf of bread] and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.'" The words "which is for you" beg for some addition, such as "which is given for you" or "which is broken for you."
"So from early times, scribes have been adding such words. As a
matter of fact, the word "broken" was inserted in the Greek text on
which the King James Version was based. But the true text reads:
"This is my body which is for you." And that's how we find it in all
newer versions. [As Dr. Charles Ryrie said, "Thanks to textual criticism, we have a New Testament which is 99.9% pure." Such additions have been noted.]
Kuyvenhoven continues, "However, because of that added word, a misunderstanding has crept into the tradition that surrounds the celebration of the Lord's Supper. If we love truth more than tradition, we must now make clear that breaking bread has nothing to do with a broken body. 'Breaking bread' is a term for sharing food. In Bible times, bread was not cut, nor did it come sliced and packaged, but broken and then given to guests or members of the family. "Breaking bread together" means eating together."
By far, the modern translations, over 30 of them, omit "broken" from I Corinthians 11:24. Thus by a scribal addition, a tradition was born, one which has been repeated throughout church history without the speaker's being aware that what he's reciting means that Scripture can indeed be broken. His addition of "broken" contradicts Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as John's wrap-up statement of the crucifixion that not a bone of the Lord Jesus was broken.
The moral: tradition in word and deed must be examined to see if it has a biblical root.
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