John Chapter 6:23-40

ONCE again, we’re starting with the final verse of the last post. It did not receive due attention, and it ties into the continued narrative. That being said, it doesn’t look like there is a good, clean break anywhere between here and the end of the chapter. As we proceed, I’ll have to find what seems to be the best of a bad lot. Time will tell.

In any case, we are on the shore the morning after the boat was teleported from the point where Jesus got aboard to the boat’s destination. The crowd left behind “across the sea” had noticed that the disciples’ boat is gone, and they noted that no one had seen Jesus join them.

At the end of the last post we talked about John’s dependency on the Synoptics. Another bit of an argument just occurred to me this very instant: Why did the disciples have a boat? We know the answer, of course, but an audience hearing only John would not know the reason. Mark, Matthew, and Luke all specifically tell us that Peter and Andrew were fishermen; John does not. in this gospel Jesus calls Andrew in the vicinity of Jerusalem rather than in Caphernaum along the shore of the sea. John apparently assumes that his audience would simply know that. I guess. So, not was John aware of the Synoptics, but John can assume his audience is familiar with them as well.

Text

23 ἄλλα ἦλθεν πλοιά[ρια] ἐκ Τιβεριάδος ἐγγὺς τοῦ τόπου ὅπου ἔφαγον τὸν ἄρτον εὐχαριστήσαντος τοῦ κυρίου.

24 ὅτε οὖν εἶδεν ὁ ὄχλος ὅτι Ἰησοῦς οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκεῖ οὐδὲ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ, ἐνέβησαν αὐτοὶ εἰς τὰ πλοιάρια καὶ ἦλθον εἰς Καφαρναοὺμ ζητοῦντες τὸν Ἰησοῦν. 

25 καὶ εὑρόντες αὐτὸν πέραν τῆς θαλάσσης εἶπον αὐτῷ, Ῥαββί, πότε ὧδε γέγονας;

26 ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν, Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ζητεῖτέ με οὐχ ὅτι εἴδετε σημεῖα ἀλλ’ ὅτι ἐφάγετε ἐκ τῶν ἄρτων καὶ ἐχορτάσθητε.

But another boat from Tiberias near the place where they ate the bread blessed by the Lord. (24) So that the crowd saw that Jesus was not there nor were his disciples, they had embarked on the boat and went to Caphernaum seeking Jesus. (25) And finding him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when were you here?” (= colloquially, Rabbi, when did you arrive?) (26) Jesus answered them and said, “Amen I say to you, do not seek me that you will see signs, but that you have eaten of the bread and you have fed.

Jesus will continue to speak, but have to take a break here to comment. From a narrative point of view, as far as setting a scene that is comprehensible, this fails miserably. The boat arrived; was the crowd–all 5,000 of them–on the boat? Or did they see all this from across the lake? Again, the conclusion to be drawn from the narrative confusion is that John did not feel the need to be clear on the details since he and his audience probably knew them. The storyline is garbled to a degree, but it’s not important.

Aside from that, there is something going on with the sign thing. Remember, the crowd had followed him because they had seen the signs* he performed on the sick. That was why they had followed him from…wherever. That was how they had ended up out…there…wherever, that they needed to be fed via a mighty work. Performing some mental gymnastics and/or pretzel bending we can just about create a reasonable chain of events to get Jesus and the crowd to the mountain. Or not. The crowd did not follow Jesus from Jerusalem, the scene of Chapter 5, to Tiberias, which is a distance of 50+ miles. A large crowd moves slowly. So once again, we have a gap in the time/event line. Jesus apparently performed the aforementioned signs at some indeterminate place between Jerusalem and Tiberias. Recall the account of Matthew in which Jesus healed a leper, the centurion’s slave, Peter’s mother-in-law, and an unenumerated bunch of sick people the morning before he performed the Feeding of 5,000. Presumably these are the signs to which John and Jesus refer in Verse 2 and here in Verse 26. So again, a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the Synoptics is implied. 

Finally there is the issue of sign-seeking. This goes back to Paul, the complaining about Jews needing a sign in order to believe. (In turn, this foreshadows Doubting Thomas.) Is it possible that these regular-if-not-frequent disparagement of sign-seeking reflects a tradition in which Jesus did not perform signs/wonders on a frequent basis? This utterly contradicts my idea that Jesus was eventually executed as a magician who did perform wonders. Is there some kind of development in the idea of what was meant as a sign rather than a wonder? This is an idea that will require a great deal of additional research and development, but I have the sense that John is trying to create, or at least define a distinction between a mighty work and a sign. Or, he is trying to conflate the two categories. I’m not sure which it is he’s doing, and I go back and forth, but at the moment I suspect the latter. in the other gospels the healing of the sick is just that: healing, the Greek word being therapeuein, the root of “therapeutic”. This latter word shows up in the Synoptics, but not in John. That should be an immediate red flag that something is amiss or awry, or at least different. Back in Verse 2 John called Jesus healing sick people “signs”, and now he’s implying the same about the Feeding of 5,000, which certainly is a mighty work. Mostly though, no specific word is used to describe this work, neither dynameis, therapeuein, or anything else. 

*FKA “miracles”

23 aliae supervenerunt naves a Tiberiade iuxta locum, ubi manducaverant panem, gratias agente Domino.

24 Cum ergo vidisset turba quia Iesus non esset ibi neque discipuli eius, ascenderunt ipsi naviculas et venerunt Capharnaum quaerentes Iesum.

25 Et cum invenissent eum trans mare, dixerunt ei: “Rabbi, quando huc venisti?”.

26 Respondit eis Iesus et dixit: “Amen, amen dico vobis: Quaeritis me, non quia vidistis signa, sed quia manducastis ex panibus et saturati estis.

27 ἐργάζεσθε μὴ τὴν βρῶσιν τὴν ἀπολλυμένην ἀλλὰ τὴν βρῶσιν τὴν μένουσαν εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον, ἣν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὑμῖν δώσει: τοῦτον γὰρ ὁ πατὴρ ἐσφράγισεν ὁ θεός.

(Jesus is still speaking:) “Do not make the bread of destruction but the bread of remaining in the life for all time (eternal), which the son of man will give to you. For the father the God (God the father) sealed him (the son)”. 

A brief pause to discuss some vocabulary. The first word of Verse 27 is repeated at the end of Verse 28. It is ergazōmai. The root is ergon/erga, which means “work/works”. “Mighty works” uses the word erga. At the core lies an implication of work, as in labor, as in craftsmanship. So “don’t make the bread” is almost some instruction to a baker. In fact, there is almost the flavour of the master craftsman asking his apprentice about the plan for the next project, or task. The double meaning of erga is should not be lost. Did the audience pick this up? Something that could be considered a pun in Greek? In Jerusalem they may well have done so, but of course it’s impossible to say for certain. 

The other point is the bread of “remaining” in eternal life. Huh? This is a real theological novelty. It almost smacks of the essential goodness of humans as opposed to the humans Augustine describes who are irreparably mangled by the sin of Adam just by virtue of being human. However, that’s a lot of weight to put on a slender reed; however, these are the sorts of stray comments that can–and did–cause all sorts of problems for considered thinkers down the line. I’ve referred to John a a theologian, but that’s a bit of an exaggeration. He did try to address the issue of the relation between Jesus and God, but he really wasn’t trained in pagan philosophy, so issues like categories and universal statements were perhaps not his strongpoint.   

27 Operamini non cibum, qui perit, sed cibum, qui permanet in vitam aeternam, quem Filius hominis vobis dabit; hunc enim Pater signavit Deus! ”.

28 εἶπον οὖν πρὸς αὐτόν, Τί ποιῶμεν ἵνα ἐργαζώμεθα τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ

29 ἀπεκρίθη [ὁ] Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, Τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ ἔργον τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα πιστεύητε εἰς ὃν ἀπέστειλεν ἐκεῖνος.

30 εἶπον οὖν αὐτῷ, Τί οὖν ποιεῖς σὺ σημεῖον, ἵνα ἴδωμεν καὶ πιστεύσωμέν σοι; τί ἐργάζῃ;

31 οἱ πατέρες ἡμῶν τὸ μάννα ἔφαγον ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, καθώς ἐστιν γεγραμμένον, Ἄρτον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς φαγεῖν.

32 εἶπεν οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐ Μωϋσῆς δέδωκεν ὑμῖν τὸν ἄρτον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, ἀλλ’ ὁ πατήρ μου δίδωσιν ὑμῖν τὸν ἄρτον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τὸν ἀληθινόν:

33 ὁ γὰρ ἄρτος τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν ὁ καταβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ζωὴν διδοὺς τῷ κόσμῳ.

And so they (the interlocutors) said to him (Jesus), “What may we do that we may make the works of God?”   (29) Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, in order that you may believe the one which he sent”. (30) They said to him, “So what sign will you make, so what we may know and believe in you? What do you do? (31) Our fathers ate manna in the desert, according it is to what has been written, ‘I gave bread from the sky to them to eat’.” (32) Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from the sky, but my father gave the true bread from the sky to you. (33) For the bread of God is that coming from the sky and giving life to the kosmos”.

As a kid in a Catholic school, the line in religion class was that Jews did not understand the nature of Jesus’ mission and ministry. Instead of what they got, Jews were expecting an anointed one much in the tradition of the HS. This passage is confirmation of what I was taught. Now, however, the question becomes: were the Jews wrong to expect a messiah who conformed to their expectations? And let’s note that the nuns who taught my religion classes never really seemed to ask this question of us. And, come to think of it, the lay teachers of religion–oddly, all men–never asked this question either. Of course, they didn’t ask because the answer was patently obvious: Yes, the Jews were mistaken to expect something that they expected. IOW, they should have known and/or understood that the rules had changed. Read in those terms, this passage makes a lot of sense. After all, YHWH had sent the manna as is duly noted here. That was, let’s face it, a pretty obvious sign of divine intervention on behalf of the Jewish refugees fleeing from slavery in Egypt, about as subtle as a charging rhino. Why should Jesus not provide something similar?

Does anyone else find Jesus’ answer a bit, well, lawyer-like? In essence, it’s saying that since it wasn’t actually Moses that gave the sign, but God/The Father, why would you expect me to provide the sign? Of course, the actual subtlety of Jesus’ response is perhaps lost on his audience? No, Moses didn’t give the sign, but God did; however, the problem is that the audience is confusing Jesus with Moses, when the correct correlation is that Jesus is the manna, Jesus is the sign given by God to this generation just as the manna was given by God to the forebears of those now listening to Jesus. This observation of mine is hardly anything noteworthy, even if I am impressed with myself for having puzzled through this. This, in short, is the essence of what I was taught all those years ago in elementary and high school. As such, this passage is foundational to the way that Christians separated themselves from Jews. It’s also a necessary step for Christians to explain to pagans why it was that they Jews did not convert en masse. And let’s face it, that’s a bottom-line question that potential converts would ask: Well, if Jesus was a Jew, why didn’t the Jews convert? And the Christians could say, well, they just didn’t get it. A bit slow on the uptake, you know? 

This is a situation in which I wish I had a more comprehensive, or at least deeper, knowledge of scripture. A lot of the stuff that I’ve translated here is stuff I have never read before. I read it, translate, and comment and then move on to the next section, or next gospel, and my retention of previous material is spotty. Back in Mark we had the “Messianic Secret” whereby Jesus did not broadcast his identity, which then provided a plausible reason why more Jews did not convert. Now we have this, where too many Jews just didn’t catch on to what was happening, didn’t understand, or didn’t want to understand who Jesus was. What was the situation in Matthew and Luke? What was their explanation? Regardless, here in John we have a different reason than we had in Mark; in some ways, they are opposite ends of the spectrum. Rather than keeping it secret, Jesus is pretty open about who he is. 

28 Dixerunt ergo ad eum: “Quid faciemus, ut operemur opera Dei?”.

29 Respondit Iesus et dixit eis: “Hoc est opus Dei, ut credatis in eum, quem misit ille”.

30 Dixerunt ergo ei: “ Quod ergo tu facis signum, ut videamus et credamus tibi? Quid operaris?

31 Patres nostri manna manducaverunt in deserto, sicut scriptum est: Panem de caelo dedit eis manducare’ ”.

32 Dixit ergo eis Iesus: “ Amen, amen dico vobis: Non Moyses dedit vobis panem de caelo, sed Pater meus dat vobis panem de caelo verum;

33 panis enim Dei est, qui descendit de caelo et dat vitam mundo ”.

34 Εἶπον οὖν πρὸς αὐτόν, Κύριε, πάντοτε δὸς ἡμῖν τὸν ἄρτον τοῦτον.

35 εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς: ὁ ἐρχόμενος πρός ἐμὲ οὐ μὴ πεινάσῃ, καὶ ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμὲ οὐ μὴ διψήσει πώποτε.

36 ἀλλ’ εἶπον ὑμῖν ὅτι καὶ ἑωράκατέ [με] καὶ οὐ πιστεύετε.

37 Πᾶν ὃ δίδωσίν μοι ὁ πατὴρ πρὸς ἐμὲ ἥξει, καὶ τὸν ἐρχόμενον πρὸς ἐμὲ οὐ μὴ ἐκβάλω ἔξω,

38 ὅτι καταβέβηκα ἀπὸ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ οὐχ ἵνα ποιῶ τὸ θέλημα τὸ ἐμὸν ἀλλὰ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πέμψαντός με:

39 τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πέμψαντός με, ἵνα πᾶν ὃ δέδωκέν μοι μὴ ἀπολέσω ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἀλλὰ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸ [ἐν] τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ.

40 τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πατρός μου, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ θεωρῶν τὸν υἱὸν καὶ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον, καὶ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν ἐγὼ [ἐν] τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ. 

They said to him, “Lord, always give us this bread”. (35) Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; the one coming towards me you may not hunger, and the one believing in me shall not ever thirst”.  (36) But I say to you that you have also seen me and do not believe (in me). (37) All which the father gives comes to me, and the one coming to me I will not expel, (38) so that I have come down from the sky not to do my will, but, but the will of the one having sent me. (39) This is the will of the one having sent me, that all which he gave to me lest I should destroy (the things) from him but I will raise/revise it (i.e. as if from the dead) on the last day. (40) For this is the will of my father, that all who (are) beholding the son and believing in him should have life eternal, and I will him on the last day”.  

This is a situation in which I wish I had a more comprehensive, or at least deeper, knowledge of scripture. A lot of the stuff that I’ve translated here is stuff I have never read before. I read it, translated, commented, and then move on to the next section, or next gospel, and my retention of previous material is spotty. Back in Mark we had the “Messianic Secret” whereby Jesus did not broadcast his identity, which then provided a plausible reason why more Jews did not convert. Now we have this, where too many Jews just didn’t catch on to what was happening, didn’t understand, or didn’t want to understand who Jesus was. What was the situation in Matthew and Luke? What was their explanation? That’s what I don’t recall, but I’m reasonably sure that the Messianic Secret was not part of their message.  Regardless, here in John we have a different reason than we had in Mark; in some ways, they are opposite ends of the spectrum. Rather than keeping it secret, Jesus is pretty open about who he is. In fact, he’s flat-out declaring his identity to the assembled crowd, which is predisposed to believing him to be a divine individual since many of them were in the crowd who had witnessed the feeding. 

Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until the next post to find out why they don’t believe Jesus is the anointed.

To be continued…

34 Dixerunt ergo ad eum: “Domine, semper da nobis panem hunc”.

35 Dixit eis Iesus: “Ego sum panis vitae. Qui venit ad me, non esuriet; et, qui credit in me, non sitiet umquam.

36 Sed dixi vobis, quia et vidistis me et non creditis.

35 Dixit eis Iesus: “ Ego sum panis vitae. Qui venit ad me, non esuriet; et, qui credit in me, non sitiet umquam.

36 Sed dixi vobis, quia et vidistis me et non creditis.

37 Omne, quod dat mihi Pater, ad me veniet; et eum, qui venit ad me, non eiciam foras,

38 quia descendi de caelo, non ut faciam voluntatem meam sed voluntatem eius, qui misit me.

39 Haec est autem voluntas eius, qui misit me, ut omne, quod dedit mihi, non perdam ex eo, sed resuscitem illud in novissimo die.

40 Haec est enim voluntas Patris mei, ut omnis, qui videt Filium et credit in eum, habeat vitam aeternam; et resuscitabo ego eum in novissimo die”