‘Being Shed For You/Many’: Time-Sense And Consequences In The Synoptic Cup Citations -- By: Lynne Courter Boughton

Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 48:2 (NA 1997)
Article: ‘Being Shed For You/Many’: Time-Sense And Consequences In The Synoptic Cup Citations
Author: Lynne Courter Boughton


‘Being Shed For You/Many’:
Time-Sense And Consequences In The
Synoptic Cup Citations

Lynne C. Boughton

Summary

All three Synoptic accounts of the Last Supper describe a cup offering in which Jesus refers to an act done for beneficiaries. This act, expressed by the present passive participle ἐκχυννόμενον is rendered by most modern translations with present tense verb forms and has been treated by source and historical critical researchers as denoting a ‘pouring out’ taking place at the supper table. Nevertheless, biblical Greek usage indicates that a participle’s time-sense was determined not by tense but by verbal aspect derived from content. If, as this essay proposes, verbal aspect establishes a future time sense for ἐκχυννόμενον, it would indicate that the Synoptic Gospels, like John’s Gospel, are describing a Passover supper on the eve of the Day of Preparation and portraying Jesus as speaking of the shedding of blood on the cross, not the libation at the table.

I. Introduction

According to the Synoptic Gospels and Paul, Jesus enjoined those with whom he shared his Last Supper to drink from an offered cup. In Matthew 26:28/Mark 14:24 Jesus declares that ‘this is my blood of the covenant’ and refers to an act of ‘being poured out for many’. In Luke 22:20 he speaks of ‘this cup, the new covenant in my blood’ and of an act of ‘being poured out for you’. 1 Corinthians 11:25 parallels Luke in reporting that Jesus said ‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood’ but, unlike all three Synoptic Gospels, cites no reference to a pouring out or to beneficiaries of that act. Exegetes exploring the meaning of the citations, as well as critical scholars attempting to determine the origin and original wording, have examined the phrases ‘my blood of the covenant’ and ‘new covenant in my blood’, as well

as the designations ‘many’ and ‘you’. Nevertheless, the act of being poured out or shed, expressed in the Synoptic Gospels by the present passive participle ἐκχυννόμενον, has been ignored by critical scholars and discussed only by a few exegetes and translators. Certainly, the pouring out of the cup’s content at the supper connotes the shedding of blood on the cross. What deserves further consideration is whether the Synoptic authors (or a source upon which they relied) used ἐκχυννόμ�...

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