In my article, "This
is My Body": Proof of Transubstantiation (cf. More
on the "interpretive ειμι" and the Last Supper Accounts) I
demonstrated that the Roman Catholic focus on the verb "to be" (ειμι)
to argue for a literalistic understanding of Jesus' words about the bread in
the Last Supper narratives.
Another piece of evidence that Catholic apologists are
guilty of eisegesis and stretching the Greek beyond what it allows would be the
use of ειμι in 1 Cor 10:4. The Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition of this verse
reads:
And all drank the same spiritual
drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ)
The phrase “the rock was Christ” translates the Greek ἡ πέτρα δὲ ἦν ὁ Χριστός.
Paul uses ἦν, which is the third person indicative imperfect active singular of
ειμι. If Roman Catholic apologists are correct with their interpretation of ειμι in the phrase “this is my body”
(τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου in Matt 26:26/Mark 14:22/Luke 22:19
[alt. τοῦτό μού ἐστιν τὸ σῶμα in 1 Cor 11:24]), they would have to argue, if
they wish to be consistent, that
Jesus was substantially a rock (or transubstantiated Himself into a rock)
during the time of the Israelite exodus, which is, of course, utterly absurd.