bread of life

In the great Eucharistic discourse in the sixth chapter of the Gospel According to John (NABRE), Jesus declares “I am the bread of life.” There’s a fascinating and important tension inherent in this statement that is lost on people reading in English due to differences between Greek and English.

Ancient Greek has two words that can be translated as life, βίος (bios) and ζωή (zoe). Bios refers to the physical aspect of life, the body, and sustaining of that life; it’s a specific thing. For example, a biography is a story of a single life. Zoe, by contrast, refers to life in the abstract sense as life in general or the animating force within. Zoology is the study of life in the abstract.

When Jesus says he is the bread of life, one might expect to find the word bios because eating bread would have to do with the specific physical meaning of life and sustaining life. What makes this statement so profound and unexpected, however, is that it uses the word zoe to create tension that serves to highlight that this bread does something different from normal bread. This bread gives eternal, abstract, and unending life.

related topics: “eat my flesh”; “I Am”; thanksgiving; transfiguration & transubstantiation

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