Some have argued that John 6 is not Eucharistic in any sense whatsoever due to Jesus commanding the crowd at Capernaum to "eat" his flesh (σαρξ), not his body (σωμα), the latter being used in the Last Supper narratives. This is not a good argument, as σαρξ and σωμα are used interchangeably in the New Testament (e.g., Rom 7:24-25; 8:13; 1 Cor 6:16; 10:17-18; 2 Cor 4:10-11; Eph 5:28-30; Col 2:23). Furthermore, Bruce Vawter, addressing the Eucharistic theology of the Gospels, noted:
John’s Eucharistic word is “flesh” (sarx), whereas in Pal and the Synoptic Gospels it is the “body” (sōma) of Christ; in the early patristic Church both terms were used indifferently. The Johannine formula is probably closer to the Semitic expression employed by Jesus. (Bruce Vawter, The Four Gospels: An Introduction, Volume 1 [Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1969], 259)
Elsewhere, Vawter wrote:
John, who reproduces no Eucharistic formulation of his own, nevertheless quotes the Lord as speaking of his flesh rather than his body. It is altogether likely, in fact, that “flesh” is the word Jesus himself used to designate his Eucharistic presence under the sign of bread. Neither Hebrew nor Aramaic—in one of which Jesus must have spoken—possessed an acceptable word for what we understand by “body,” for the simple reason that the Semites did not distinguish the body from the self. “Flesh” is about the only word that Jesus could have used. But “flesh,” as we know, also possessed some undesirable connotations, more so for the Greek, but even for the Semite as well: it is this fact, we saw, that made Jn 1:14 such an astounding utterance. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Gentile churches soon took advantage of the greater flexibility of the Greek language to substitute the more neutral term “body” for the earlier “flesh” of the Eucharistic formulations. (Bruce Vawter, The Four Gospels: An Introduction, Volume 2 [Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1969], 191)
