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“He that hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has eternal life, has passed from death to life.”

John, chapter 6

Chapter six begins with the words “After this.” If we follow the logic of the narrative, then – this is after what was stated in the fifth chapter: another unexpected rush to Jerusalem, the healing of the paralyzed in the Sheep font and a long sermon to the Jews in the temple about the right of Jesus to perform healings on Saturdays, since He is the Son of the Jewish God. The Jews wanted to kill Him for this, but for some reason they did not do it – the Evangelist explains this by the fact that “His hour did not come”. Yes, told it to the Jews.

So, chapter six.

“After this, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, in the vicinity of Tiberias” – that is, just like that, suddenly from Jerusalem he found himself on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and not by himself, but with a whole bunch of people that came out of who knows where. Here, the insertion of the entire fifth chapter is directly visible, since the fourth ends with the miracle of the healing of the courtier’s son from Capernaum, and AFTER this, from Cana of Galilee “Jesus went to the other side of the sea”, which in fact is not a sea, but just a very large lake. And not to the “other side”, since Cana and Capernaum, and Nazareth and even Tiberias are all on one side of the sea, the western one, and on the other, the eastern side, there is the territory of a completely different country, Syria. Apparently, the knowledge of geogrsphy was very bad indeed mong the compilers of the Gospel.

Further, in verses 12, from 2 to 13, the well-known miracle of feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fish is described. We will not cite it in full, we will dwell only on some details:

“2 Many people followed Him, because they saw the miracles that He performed on the sick” – on foot 20 kilometers from Cana? I wonder: did they go straight ahead, without even thinking to stock up on a some bread? Doubtful. And again – what kind of miracles are performed “over the sick”, who saw them and where? Since you and I have so far certified only two miracles: wine at a wedding and the healing of a child at a distance – there are “no more miracles”.

“3 Jesus went up a mountain and sat there with his disciples.” – 20 kilometers walk in the heat. Let’s suppose it happened.

“4 The Passover, the feast of the Jews, was drawing near” – how, again, the Passover? And what does this have to do with it? This is another “false insertable jaw”, so as not to forget who is the real Master here, and whose holidays are celebrated and honored here. But for some reason no one rushed back to Jerusalem – neither Jesus nor the peoples. What a bunch of sinners.

“13 And they gathered, and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves that were left by those who ate” – an interesting remark. Why did they collect it, and how did they do that – was it taken directly from people’s hands? People probably took the excess and hid it for the road back. Or they threw the remains on the ground (which is unlikely). The answer is contained in the “twelve boxes”: did Jesus and his disciples have such quantities of empty boxes in advance? Or did they run to the store to buy only to collect other people’s leftovers in them? There was no shop, no markets – nothing at all, the place was deserted. So this is added for the sake of a catchphrase, in order to convince of the proof of the miracle: here is how much is left of five loaves of bread – and this lie “as a testimony”, being exposed, undermines the credibility of the miracle itself: if someone lied in little, who will believe them in the big? And why twelve? Oh, because the twelve tribes of Israel – and the Greek author is unaware that for a long time there had been no “twelve tribes of Israel”

Okay, let’s say – why wouldn’t Jesus really feed the hungry away from home? The question is – why did He even bring them there? It seems that it remains to assume that he was fed up with all this popularity, He was tired of the enthusiastic crowd and wanted to escape somewhere to a deserted place, where no one would follow him, to hide from everyone – but they followed Him, literally dooming themselves to hunger with the children, you can’t get out of there quickly back to civilization, to get back you need to walk again on foot in the heat. And here, for sure, one portion of the distributed bread will not be enough, it is not out of order to pour manna from heaven onto a crowd of people like this, all along the way back home to Galilee.

What is the meaning of this hike outside the city remains a mystery – did Jesus decide to arrange a picnic for his disciples and admirers? Well, at least they could have stocked up on meat, or something, and fry a kebab.

In fact, all these incongruities have a simple explanation: Jesus went throughout the country preaching, and finally got to Tiberias. But did not go there on foot, accompanied by crowds…

Note that the narrative omits a huge and important period in the development of Jesus’ preaching after the first and second miracles: for more than one year He walks on foot throughout Galilee and Samaria – but does not go to Judea, they will kill anyone who dares to at least mention another god besides Jewish Yahweh-Jehovah. He preaches, works miracles, heals the sick on a massive scale throughout the country – and becomes widely known as a great prophet and miracle worker, His glory thunders throughout the country, the people rush to Him, and follow Him relentlessly and thoughtlessly, wherever He goes – the authors simply omitted all this as unnecessary. Why? Well, because all these “events” are generally needed by the authors only for the “bundle” of the narrative, which without such events would turn into a disorderly set of disparate, unconnected, utterances of Jesus of the type of e. Thomas. But the authors wanted to create exactly the narrative, the history of the development of the Teachings of Jesus as they understood it. To do this, arranging the available records in a certain meaningful order, as well as a small number of recorded testimonials about individual events that accompanied the sermon of Jesus, especially vivid, important and therefore clearly remembered, the authors, or rather, compilers, supplemented them with some connecting events that, perhaps, did not happen at all, or, in any case, the authors did not really know anything about them, having only inaccurate rumors in the form of folk tales that had developed over the decades after the Gospel events. And therefore, almost everything described by the evangelists is simply reconstructed or made up material in order to make more authentic (like 12 boxes) the narrative bundles, some events to which the already existing scattered records of Jesus’ utterances could be tied.

Such semantic connections are given away especially by the schematic description of events in them, in contrast to those few living, full of reliable details of vivid memories, which may have been entirely recorded by witnesses, presumably by John the Theologian.

Nevertheless, let’s go back to the text and see what else we can learn from it.

In the sixth chapter, this build up of events with the aim of linking them with the words of Jesus manifested itself in a particularly contrasting way: the further events described in it look very conditional.

“15 But Jesus, knowing that they wanted to come, accidentally take him and make him king, again withdrew to the mountain alone.

This is rathre interesting, if Jesus were a Mashiach, he would have grudgingly told the newcomers something like, “Well, finally, what took so long! Bring me the crown!” But he runs away.

16 When evening came, His disciples went down to the sea17 and, getting into a boat, went to the other side of the sea, to Capernaum "– here they are, they just left their Teacher alone in a deserted place and sailed away. And where did the boat come from? Or they just stole someone else’s boat and sailed away on it?

The whole story begins to look much more truthful if we assume that Jesus and his disciples sailed in a boat to Tiberias for the sake of preaching, then everything falls into place: the boat belongs to the disciples, they are former fishermen, the disciples brought Jesus from Capernaum or Bethsaida to Tiberias to preach to the peoples there. They went to the city and spread the news that Jesus was here, the people came to Him from the city a few kilometers away to the landing site – to the place where He climbed the mountain to pray, Jesus preached to them until evening, then took pity on the hungry and performed the miracle of the multiplication of loaves, to feed everyone before the way home – and then a conflict arises with the students, to whom he did not pay attention all day, and even forced them, the inner circle of disciples of the Great Teacher (in their view), to serve the commoners, to distribute bread to them. Moreover, when they informed him that they wanted him to be king in Tiberias – apparently, it was their idea – he brushed aside and went alone again to the mountain to pray. And here they were utterly offended, angry, and – they left him, deciding to take revenge on him a little: here we will sail away from You, and you get back on foot along the coast of the Sea of Galilee, the path is not so short. But, as is usually the case with those who play the offended, they did not sail far, everyone expected that He would see them sail away from the mountain, realize that he was left alone in the wilderness far from civilization, run ashore and start waving at them, asking to come back and take him with them. This suggestion stems from the ridiculous-looking remark in verse 17:

“17 And getting into the boat, they went to the other side of the sea, to Capernaum. It was getting dark, but Jesus did not come to them”– where did he not come, to the boat across the sea? They could not even imagine such a thing that He could do that. It was getting dark – that is, soon the boat would not be visible from the shore, and they would not be able to see Jesus on the shore.

“18 A strong wind was blowing, and the sea was turbulent” – and a fishing boat, a fragile boat, loaded with a dozen people, would sink into a storm like, no doubt – and they were frightened, no longer happy with their own display of grievances.

“19 Having sailed about twenty-five or thirty stages (roughly 1 stage = 200 meters, so 5—6 kilometers), they saw Jesus walking on the sea and approaching the boat, and they were afraid. 20 But He said to them: it’s me; do not be afraid. 21 They wanted to take Him into the boat; and immediately the boat landed on the shore where they were sailing”– he saw that they were in trouble and came to the rescue, they began to sink, and He hastened to help them, to save the foolish – and performed another unprecedented miracle.

In general, if you look closely, Jesus is very reluctant to use divinity, and to create miracles, granted to him by the Father, as a rule, he is forced by the disastrous circumstances of those who turn to him for help or simply the unfortunate people he met – but he always does this reluctantly, forcedly, and even with a reservation like when his mother asked him in Cana at a wedding or grumbling to a courtier with a sick son: “you will not believe if you do not see miracles”. His goal is not to surprise with fancy tricks, but to convince with his life and sermon to believe Him, the Son of God, that there is a True God, Heavenly Father, who is waiting for everyone to adopt them to Himself, as he adopted Jesus Himself.

“22 On the next day the people who were standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat, except the one in which His disciples had entered, and that Jesus did not enter the boat with His disciples, and only His disciples sailed away. 23 Meanwhile, other boats came from Tiberias close to the place where they ate bread, with the blessing of the Lord. 24 So, when the people saw that Jesus and his disciples were not there, they got into boats and sailed to Capernaum, looking for Jesus. 25 And, finding Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him: Rabbi! when did you come here?”

People who witnessed the miracle of bread went home and the news of the miracle spread throughout the city. And in the morning the crowds were already flooding, some sailed on boats, the rabble always wants bread and a show. Someone had seen that the disciples sailed away alone, and they hoped to find Jesus alone – not expecting that he went on foot around the sea. But He is not there. Then some people on boats went in search of him Capernaum, found him and were surprised that He was already there again with the people, preaching.

“26 Jesus answered and said to them, truly, truly, I say to you: you are looking for Me not because you have seen miracles, but because you ate bread and were satisfied” – and this is the end of the story, period. This is the end of the recording of the event, which was at the disposal of the compilers. Everything that is afterwards in this chapter – a lengthy monologue of Jesus with periods of repetitions – again, similarly to the two and a half chapters about miracle in Cana is bundled on top completely mechanically, using some sort of common theme that, as it seemed to the compilers, is logical: because the bread is mentioned in both places. From this ridiculous combination of scraps, the very method of composing the John gospel is clearly visible.

Apparently, those who set themselves the initial goal of compiling a single text from the scattered scraps of records in Aramaic that they had in their hands found a certain craftsman, a professional scribe who, not being a Christian himself and not understanding the prevailing Christian rituals, first arranged the available records in what it seemed to him to be a logical order in terms of content and meaning, and then, having translated it, collected it into a single text, which was difficult to change without damaging it – and that’s how it remained. Moreover, the customers, themselves not knowing Greek, could not really check what was written in it, took the word of the specialist they chose, that he translated and rewrote everything correctly, putting everything that was given to him together. Later, of course, this original text was changed many times, and by rewriting many times, it acquired many heterogeneous inclusions, but the vicious logic of the initial combination of passages, to a knowledgeable person clearly disparate, remains visible today. Further we will see that the link between the finished narration and the further continuation of the sixth chapter is the word “bread”, used according to the formal primitive logic: there is bread and here bread – so let them be together in one chapter. The compiler of the text is unaware that the used utterance of Jesus about Himself as the Bread of Heaven certainly refers to the Last Supper, at which Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Communion. And which is mysteriously absent from it in John’s gospel. In general, as we will see, there is no mention of the Communion of the disciples at the Last Supper, and this is strange – could it be that the evangelist suddenly forgot to mention such a great event, or maybe it did not exist at all? So, there is a simpler and more logical explanation for this: the entry related to the Last Supper has already been used and mechanically attached to the place where the mention of loaves was found!

This unambiguously indicates the fact that this gospel was mechanically composed by a person not familiar with Christianity, and is a hand-made event construct.

From verse 27 begins Jesus’ “sermon” about the Bread of Heaven, as I said above, clearly attuned to the incident in Tiberias by the keyword “bread”

“27 Seek not for corruptible food, but for food that abides in eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, for God has put His seal on Him " – and what is this seal? Oh, this is is an allusion to the anointing of the kingdom, to the fact that Jesus is the very Jewish Messiah.

The original phrase, ending in “Son of Man,” contains a clear, complete thought, to which a ridiculous additional construction has been attached to mention the Hebrew God as the Father who anointed Jesus to be the Kings of the Jews. The second statement has no logical connection with the first, they are simply mechanically connected to each other into one meaningless whole sentence.

“28 So they said to Him: what should we do in order to do the works of God29 Jesus answered them: this is the work of God, so that you believe in Him, whom He sent” – this is clearly inserted here, again, purely mechanically, it is meaningless in no way not tied to either 27 or 30 and subsequent

“30 To this they said to Him: What kind of a sign will You give so that we may see and believe You? What are you doing? 31 Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat”– this is a very strange statement from those with whom Jesus allegedly speaks, with those who “ate bread and were satisfied” that is, literally with those just witnessing the miracle of the multiplication of loaves. Attention is drawn to “Our Fathers…” – which fathers, who “ate manna,” the Jewish ones? But this conversation is with the inhabitants of Capernaum, who have nothing to do with the Jews at all, because it is in Galilee. But since these events most likely take place in the same location as the Last Supper, Jews were present there, and further conversation takes place here as well.

“32 Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Why did Jesus suddenly remember Moses? And – interestingly – compares the miracle of Jehovah with manna, claiming that HIS FATHER gives, unlike the God of Moses, Life to the world. Notice: This is a direct opposition of different gods: false Jehovah and God, the True Father. There is not and cannot be any continuity of religions, Jesus here speaks about it directly.

In essence, here Jesus refutes as false and rejects the fairytale biblical story of “manna from heaven”, which Jehovah fed the Jewish people during forty years of wandering in the wilderness. And he directly points to Himself as to the Savior sent to humanity by the Heavenly Father. What does “coming down from heaven” mean – a definition that we will come across more than once? This, of course, is a mention of the Birth from Above experienced by Jesus Himself and the unity gained through this birth with the Father (“I and the Father are one”).

“34 To this they said to Him: Lord! always give us such bread.35 Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life "– this is the moment of Truth, and then:" He who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst "– a clear overkill to enhance the effect, Jesus I would not lie for the sake of hyperbole, exalting Himself, since the vital needs of the living remain valid and are not canceled for those who believe in Jesus today.

“6:36But I said unto you, that ye have seen me, and yet believe not. 6:37All that which the Father giveth me shall come unto me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. 6:38For I am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. 6:39And this is the will of him that sent me, that of all that which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.”– the obsessive repetition of the unity of His will with the Will of the Father who sent him. In into this the gnostic “descent from Heaven” was unexpectedly inserted, and all this done for the sake of “but to resurrect everything on the last day” – this, we will see, is repeated three times in a row, just to make sure, and is clearly attributed to the previous statements by those who expected from Jesus the fulfillment of Jewish prophecies.

“40 The will of Him who sent Me is that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life” – this is the authentic statement of Jesus, followed by the Judaizing postscript: “And I will raise him up at the last day.”

“6:41The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, I am the bread which came down out of heaven. 6:42And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how doth he now say, I am come down out of heaven?” – Lord, and these, then, where did they come from here, the Jews? And not strangers, but people who personally knew his family?

“6:43Jesus answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. 6:44No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day.” – again the same postscript at the end with an obsessive repetition.

“6:45It is written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned, cometh unto me. 6:46Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he that is from God, he hath seen the Father.” – first the prophets as a source of wisdom, and then learning from God. In fact, the bridge of religious succession is being thrown again: he who has learned from the Father – from where? Yes from the Hebrew Scriptures, where else!? Teaching from God by the Spirit is immediately refuted in the next verse: you don’t understand, this is something else!

“6:47Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth hath eternal life. 6:48I am the bread of life.” Repitition. “6:49Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.” – repeating the same insertion;

“6:50This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. 6:51I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: yea and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” – Note that between” I am the bread that came down from Heaven “and” I came down from Heaven” there is a huge semantic difference: the first has a symbolic meaning, and the second affirms direct descent of Jesus directly from Heaven directly in the flesh to earth, which is a clear evidence of pagan beliefs in flesh gods, so that the previous “statement of Jesus” about His descent from heaven belongs to the pagan author, Jesus simply could not say that.

“6:52The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” – Jews again, another false jaw.

“6:53Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. 6:54He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” Yes, here it is again.

“6:55For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 6:56He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him. 6:57As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me. 6:58This is the bread which came down out of heaven… "– this is this piece of text authentic to Jesus, torn out from the event of the Last Supper, supplied with the same obsessive postscript about manna:" Not like your fathers ate manna and died: He who eats this bread will live forever”– and roughly inserted into this entirely fictional dispute with the Jews, by the authors. And where is the dispute taking place? ‘59 He spoke this in the synagogue, teaching in Capernaum’ – oh, that’s it, in the heat of a conversation on the shore with the Tiberias boatmen, he suddenly imperceptibly moved from the shore to Capernaum, finding himself in the synagogue surrounded by the Jews. Let me remind you that in Galilee Capernaum there were no Jews, let alone a Jewish synagogue. It will actually appear there, the synagogue, only 50 years later, after the Jewish wars and populating of Galilee by the refugee Jews. This whole ‘conversation with the Jews’ at first consisted of an independent passage from the Last Supper 53—58, and then gradually grew into completely meaningless repetitions and obsessive Judaization in several stages of editing and rewriting by those who wanted to turn Jesus’ sermon in their own way. In subsequent chapters, we will repeatedly encounter similar artificial heaps of ridiculous semantic constructions.

“6:60Many therefore of his disciples, when the heard this, said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it? 6:61But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said unto them, Doth this cause you to stumble? 6:62What then if ye should behold the Son of man ascending where he was before? 6:63It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, are are life. 6:64But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray him. 6:65And he said, For this cause have I said unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it be given unto him of the Father. 6:66Upon this many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. 6:67Jesus said therefore unto the twelve, Would ye also go away? 6:68Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. 6:69And we have believed and know that thou art the Holy One of God. 6:70Jesus answered them, Did not I choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil? 6:71Now he spake of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.”

Well, it seems they had to finish with something, because the number of absurdities and incongruities is growing in an avalanche. The Jews suddenly disappeared somewhere along with the synagogue, but some more tempted disciples appeared whom Jesus did not choose (did not I choose you twelve), unbelievers whom He knew in advance, to whom it was not given from the Father – and how could they then become pupils? Peter believes i Him – at the same time! – both as the Son of God (that is, the younger god according to pagan beliefs), and in Christ at the same time, that is, the Anointed and King of the Jews. “But one of you is a devil” – why then chose him, for your own destruction, perhaps so “that the scriptures might be fulfilled”?

And what did you and I learn from Jesus from this lengthy sermon? Except for the Mystery of gaining Eternal Life through Faith in the Son of God and Communion to Him through His Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament of Communion, there is nothing new. And endless obsessive repetitions of vague allusions to unity with the Father, seasoned also with unity with everything else that is: with the Jewish God, Jewish scripture, prophets, Jews, synagogue and pagan beliefs – all this mixture does not tell us any Doctrine, which Jesus seems to have to share with those to whom He preaches and with us, dear readers. “You spoke here for three hours and told neither one nor the other,” as it is written in Winnie-the-Pooh book.

There is only one takeaway from this chapter, the mention of the Last Supper.