diet of 'broiled fish and honey-comb' is after all a testimony that human

credulity has its limits.  The phrase, 'flesh and blood' is the accepted

figure with us today, when we refer to our common humanity, and is found in

five passages in the New Testament, but so far as our search has taken us,

the phrase is never used in the Old Testament!  We are, therefore, quite

mistaken when we think that when the Lord said, 'a spirit hath not flesh and

bones as ye see Me have' He was departing from any accepted phraseology for

theological purposes.  The reverse is the fact, for the consistent language

of the Old Testament is 'flesh and bones' and 'bone and flesh' with no actual

mention of blood at all.  When Adam looked upon his wife he said, 'this is

now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh' (Gen. 2:23); when Laban said to

Jacob, 'Surely thou art my bone and my flesh' (Gen. 29:14); when David sent

to the elders of Judah and said, 'Ye are my brethren, ye are my bones and my

flesh' (2 Sam. 19:12), did they purposely exclude blood?  When the order was

reversed by Abimelech in Judges 9:2, and he reminded his mother's brethren

that he was their 'bone and their flesh', did he mean anything different from

David or those who said 'flesh and bone'?  Or again, when the brethren of

Joseph said, 'He is our brother and our flesh' (Gen. 37:27), did they imply

that Joseph had neither blood nor bones?  The disciples had gathered

themselves together after the dreadful days of betrayal, crucifixion and

burial, and the sudden appearance of the Risen Christ in their midst caused

great fear:

'And as they thus spake, Jesus Himself stood in the midst ... but they

were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a

spirit' (Luke 24:36,37).

It was to counter this erroneous belief that the Lord said what He

said, and did what He did in their presence:

'Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself: handle Me, and see;

for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have' (Luke 24:39).

To men who were Jews and acquainted with the idiom of the Hebrew Bible, the

expression, 'flesh and bones' would be the most natural one for them to hear.

The infallible proofs of His living identity include (1) ocular demonstration

and (2) palpable demonstration, to which was added as a further confirmation

the eating of a piece of broiled fish and a piece of honey -comb.  The ocular

demonstration is indicated by the words 'behold' and 'see' and the showing of

His hands and feet.  Eidon, 'behold' (Behold My hands and My feet) implies

not the mere act of seeing, but the actual perception of the object.

Theoreo, 'see' (as ye see Me have) means, to be a spectator of, to view with

attention (denoting the intention of the mind with which one regards or

contemplates an object) to studiously and attentively consider.  Theoreo is

used of bodily sight, and assumes that the object is actually present.  It is

used, moreover, for a continued and lengthened looking.  This explanation is

taken from Dr. Bullinger's Greek and English Lexicon, and shows how real was

the demonstration of the Lord's real identity and risen humanity before the

eyes of the disciples.  To this ocular demonstration was added the palpable,

the appeal to the sense of touch.  The disciples were invited to 'handle',

and the Lord drew attention to His hands and His feet.  From the parallel

passage in John 20 we gather that the print of the nails could be both seen

and felt, and the word 'handle' is used in 1 John 1:1 where the apostle says,

'our hands have handled' the Word of life.  The word translated 'handle' is

the Greek pselaphao, and its first occurrence in the Bible shows how wisely

the word was chosen.  In Genesis 27 we read of the deception practised upon

Isaac by Rebekah and Jacob, Jacob saying: