John Chapter 5:15-18

(The chapter title was corrected 4/1/23. It previously read 5:15-17. minor update added 6/8/23.)

Once again it seems wise to overlap the last verse from the immediately preceding post to provide continuity and context. John is proving to be an intricately constructed piece, one of long stories that are difficult to break into segments that are sufficiently distinct and discreet enough to break into manageable chunks for commentary. In the section Jesus is being pursued by “the Jews” (I feel that should be in quotes like that) because Jesus had healed the paralyzed man at the Sheep Pool on the Sabbath. As I started commenting, the topic contained in these three verses seemed to require some in-depth analysis. So, while these verses were technically covered in the previous post, we did not enter into a discussion of implications that was worthy of the topic. So, we will do it here.

Text

15 ἀπῆλθεν ὁ ἄνθρωπος καὶ ἀνήγγειλεν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν ὁ ποιήσας αὐτὸν ὑγιῆ.

16 καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐδίωκον οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι τὸν Ἰησοῦν, ὅτι ταῦτα ἐποίει ἐν σαββάτῳ.

17 ὁ δὲ [Ἰησοῦς] ἀπεκρίνατο αὐτοῖς, Ὁ πατήρ μου ἕως ἄρτι ἐργάζεται, κἀγὼ ἐργάζομαι.

18 διὰ τοῦτο οὖν μᾶλλον ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἀποκτεῖναι, ὅτι οὐ μόνον ἔλυεν τὸ σάββατον ἀλλὰ καὶ πατέρα ἴδιον ἔλεγεν τὸν θεόν, ἴσον ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν τῷ θεῷ.

(15) The man went away and announced to the Jews that Jesus was the one who made him well. (16) And because of this the Jews pursued Jesus, that (because) he had done this on the Sabbath. (17) But Jesus answered them, “My father has labored until now, and I (now) labor”. (18) Due to these things, “the Jews” wished to kill him, that (=because) not only did he loosen the Sabbath but also because he said God was his father, making himself equal to God.

I believe this is the clearest causal statement explaining Jesus’ execution. At least, it is the clearest statement providing the motive for the execution. We have to bear in mind that the causal relationship between Jesus and the reason for his execution was not exactly “pellucid” as CP Jones of U of Toronto and then Harvard used to say. There has been a lot written about the degree to which Jewish authorities had the power to execute someone. Note that this question has a lot to do with what the Romans would permit. The power of life and death usually resided with them as the highest worldly authority–a question that would perplex relations between secular kings and popes for the better part of a thousand years. I have read a book (yes, just one, so this is hardly the last word) written by a scholar of Judaism that it was possible for Caiaphas to execute Jesus on charges of blasphemy. Coming from someone that we can expect knows what he’s talking about, this has to be taken seriously. Now, the problem comes later in the gospels when Caiaphas & Co have to stand on their heads and juggle in order to convince a reluctant Pilate to order the execution. The charge leveled at Jesus is, essentially, blasphemy, so perhaps the Temple authorities did not have this power.

The other aspect of the question is that it was pretty obviously the Romans who carried out the execution; what was their motive? Romans didn’t care to involve themselves in the religious affairs of a subject nation. The “official” policy–if we can say that one existed–was syncretism. Identify the chief god of the subject people with one of the Roman gods and everyone worships as they wish. Of course, the Jews were a problematic exception: they had no desire to equate YHWh with Juppiter/Zeus/Ammon-Ra etc. The standard explanation is that the Romans conceded to the Jews in order to keep peace at the time of the festival. This is plausible as Josephus tells us this sort of unrest often did happen. He goes further and reports a situation that arose within a few years of Jesus death–the date of which is largely speculation. So the general conditions were necessary for unrest or rioting or whatever, but were they sufficient? One can suggest that Josephus does not mention problems during Jesus’ execution because, by acceding to the request of the Jewish authorities, unrest was prevented. This is plausible and certainly fair. But it’s not the only possible explanation. The other is that the Romans executed Jesus of their own volition and for reasons that had nothing to do with Jesus’ teaching. 

Let’s go back to Paul. He has nothing to say about why Jesus was executed, but he emphatically states that the crucifixion occurred. Historians and biblical scholars are quick to point out that Paul’s willingness to admit that it occurred makes it very likely that it did occur; it’s such an embarrassing admission that no one would make it up. And I agree. There is a group, some of them scholars, some of them not, who argue–or “claim” is perhaps more accurate–that Jesus did not exist, that the whole thing was made up. The one thing that convinces me, pretty much beyond reasonable doubt, is Paul’s witness to the crucifixion. This comes out in the first two letters he wrote, both to pagan communities. What this tells me is that Paul realized he had to get out in front of the story. That the crucifixion was something known about Jesus in the wider world. Maybe not widely known, but to a degree that Paul felt it necessary to get out in front of it and provide some sort of rationale lest his preaching lose credibility: he was preaching the words of a convicted criminal. Note, however, that while Paul admits to the crucifixion, he provides no reason why it was done. What, exactly, was the charge? That he said nothing implies one of two things: 1) that he simply didn’t know; or 2) that he knew and felt it was either irrelevant or problematic. There is no concrete reason to prefer one of these over the other, but I tend towards the latter.

So that raises (but does not beg) the question of: which is it? Irrelevant? Or problematic? Given the, ahem, evidence of the gospels, there’s really no choosing between them. However, if we look outside the gospels, we run into some very interesting circumstances. As I have mentioned before, I’ve been reading about magical practice in the Graeco-Roman world after the transition to the Common Era. Most of the evidence comes from a few centuries after Jesus, but the point remains. It remains because the name of Jesus appears in the writings of otherwise pagan magicians, and he was considered a powerful magician by other (perhaps wannabe) magicians. More, there is a magical amulet, a carving on a gemstone, depicting Jesus on the cross, the gem also inscribed with what appear to be magical charakteres, letters or shapes presumed to have magical powers. Interestingly, according to the article, representations of Jesus on the cross do not really appear in Christian art until the 4th, or even 5th century, whereas

…the positive view of Jesus and crucifixion, witnessed so profoundly in New Testament and patristic literature, first finds visual expression (at least according to surviving evidence) in the sphere of Greco-Roman magic…   JESUS THE MAGICIAN? A CRUCIFIXION AMULET AND ITS DATE   by Felicity Harley-McGowan

In the article Harley-McGowan makes the point that the power of Jesus name is already attested by Mark (9:38-41) when the disciples complain that others, not part of their group, are casting out demons in Jesus’ name. She cites other passages in the NT that do the same. Apparently, Jesus had the reputation as an exorcist in the 70s, which reputation persisted for several centuries. Now pagan attitudes towards things like exorcism and magic were ambivalent on a good day, whereas Christians more or less condemned such practices from the start, as the apocryphal stories of Peter vs Simon Magus plainly demonstrate.

Given this, I would suggest that Jesus was executed by the Romans as a magician. Traditional dating of the crucifixion in the early 30s puts it in the last years of Tiberius’ principate. Tiberius was a complex individual who may have had paranoid tendencies, who did not look fondly on astrologers. Now, astrologers, magicians, sorcerers, exorcists, poisoners, and their ilk were all lumped together in the minds of many. The magoi, the Magi were, at root astrologers. Given the less-than-positive opinion of magicians, this is the sort of charge against Jesus that Paul would not be eager to broadcast; hence, his admission of the crucifixion and attendant reluctance to provide a reason for it makes perfect sense. Once again, I have hardly proven my point, but the question has to be investigated. IMO, anyway.

All this is a very long way of saying that I find John’s explanation for the antipathy of “the Jews” less than convincing. Nor am I at all convinced that Jesus was executed for his teaching. There were other factors that have neither been explored, or even raised as questions. According to the One Single Book read on the topic, Caiaphas & Co should have been able to execute Jesus on their own authority based on the charges laid out here, which amount to blasphemy. That we get this very elaborate tale of the machinations of the puppet regime trying to manipulate the Romans into executing Jesus to preserve peace during the Festival. Way back in Mark I suggested that this was all a screen constructed to absolve the Romans from responsibility which was necessary in the aftermath of the Jewish Revolt, a time when the Romans took a jaundiced eye to the affairs in Judea. But Crossan and others believe (at least, want to believe) that the Passion story predated Mark. Indeed, I went so far as to suggest that Mary of Magdala more or less “commissioned” the Passion Narrative at a time when she was a major financial backer of the nascent movement. Say for a moment that the Passion does predate Mark; does that change anything here? 

At first glance, we would think it must change my suggestion here. Why, after all, would a story blaming “the Jews” be necessary a couple of decades before the Revolt? On the next pass, however, a case can be made, or at least an explanation does come to mind. The antipathy of the Temple Authorities, of the ‘Jewish establishment”, the small coterie of related families who managed Judea for the Romans would go a long way towards answering the question of “Why did most Jews not accept Jesus as the Messiah?” Given Jesus as a magician, a worker of wonders as Josephus (supposedly) calls him, Jesus was not accepted as the Christ because he never claimed to be the Christ (last two words added as an update). After all, we saw how Mark seemed to consist of two separate narratives, that of the wonder worker which comprises Chapters 1-7 (give or take; more or less; approximately) and the rest tells the story of the Christ. As a result, the impetus to create a narrative explaining  the rejection would have been reasonably strong from the time of Paul, at least. So my suggestion of Mary commissioning the Passion Narrative–which is decidedly an extreme position in any case–can withstand a Passion Narrative that predates Mark. In fact, Mary’s role and the pre-existence of the narrative go hand-in-hand.

There is so much more to be said about this; however, we’ve gone far enough for the time.

15 Abiit ille homo et nuntiavit Iudaeis quia Iesus esset, qui fecit eum sanum.

16 Et propterea persequebantur Iudaei Iesum, quia haec faciebat in sabbato.
17 Iesus autem respondit eis: “Pater meus usque modo operatur, et ego operor”.