The Eucharistic Words of Jesus

Joachim Jeremias argues that the historical truth can be detected beneath the traditions preserved in the New Testament about the Last Supper. A climax of a series of messianic meals, the Last Supper was a passover meal. Jesus himself abstained, in anticipation of his body and the outpouring of his blood, but the disciples received a share in the atoning power of their Lord’s sufferings.