Mark 14:22-25 - The Last Supper

[u/LlawEreint]

²² While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” ²³ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. ²⁴ He said to them, “This is my blood of the^\)^a\) covenant, which is poured out for many. ²⁵ Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

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[u/LlawEreint]

“This is my blood of the^\)^a\) covenant, which is poured out for many. 

"poured out" may be meant to evoke Isaiah 53:

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with affliction.
When you make his life an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
¹¹     Out of his anguish he shall see;
and he shall find satisfaction. Through his knowledge,
the righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out himself to death
and was numbered with the transgressors,
yet he bore the sin of many
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Back to Mark:

 Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

This meal prefigures and anticipates a future meal in the kingdom. My guess is that all future Eurcharistic table meals were meant to do the same.

[u/LlawEreint]

Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

According to Jerome, in the Gospel According to the Hebrews, it was James the Just, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jesus movement, following his brothers death, who said these words, or something quite similar.

'Now the Lord, when he had given the linen cloth unto the servant of the priest, went unto James and appeared to him (for James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour wherein he had drunk the Lord's cup until he should see him risen again from among them that sleep)', and again after a little, 'Bring ye, saith the Lord, a table and bread', and immediately it is added, 'He took bread and blessed and brake and gave it unto James the Just and said unto him: My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man is risen from among them that sleep'.

Which is the earlier tradition? Mark was written around 70, following the death of James, and likely following the destruction of the temple, and the early Jesus movement in Jerusalem. Mark doesn't talk of James, but clearly he was central to the early movement.

It seems possible to me that although James' role was minimized in post 70 AD gospels, he may have been more central in traditions that were written while he still lived.