John Chapter 10:19-31

There are a few verses that perhaps should have been included with the previous post, but that had gotten to be too long as it was. We start with Verse 19, which was included, but I’ve come to like  overlapping the last/first verse. 

Text

19 Σχίσμα πάλιν ἐγένετο ἐν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις διὰ τοὺς λόγους τούτους.

20 ἔλεγον δὲ πολλοὶ ἐξ αὐτῶν, Δαιμόνιον ἔχει καὶ μαίνεται: τί αὐτοῦ ἀκούετε;

21 ἄλλοι ἔλεγον, Ταῦτα τὰ ῥήματα οὐκ ἔστιν δαιμονιζομένου: μὴ δαιμόνιον δύναται τυφλῶν ὀφθαλμοὺς ἀνοῖξαι;

There was again a schism amongst “The Jews” on account of his words. (20) Many spoke about him, “He has a little demon and he is raging/mad with wine! Did you hear what he said?” (21) Others said, “These words are not those of one demonite-possessed. One under the power of a little daimon cannot open the eyes of the blind.”

These verses should have gone with the previous post. My apologies. However, what’s done is done, and if it were done when ’tis done then ’twere well it were done quickly.

Thus is actually the third tim John has used the word “schism”. I transliterate rather than translate because this is another instance of a word that has come to have a specific, and specifically religious meaning in English. The Western and Eastern Churches suffered an irreparable schism in 1054, one that has left us with a Roman Catholic and a Greek Orthodox Church. The stretch of years in the 14th Century when the papacy relocated to Avignon and a second pope was ruling in Rome has been termed the Western Schism. That one was healed. The word in Greek simply means “division” or something such. Such a division arose in Chapter 9, and prior to that in Chapter 7. The one we encounter here is perhaps best seen as a continuation of the one in that cropped up in Chapter 9. Back then it was put out that he cannot be a man of God because he healed someone on the Sabbath, and one suspects this is largely the same crew saying that he has a demon and he is mad with wine (more on that in a moment).  Interestingly, back in Chapter 4, when he healed a man at the Sheep Gate on the Sabbath, John does not use the word “schism” to describe what is a very similar situation. 

“Mad with wine”. This is an interesting bit of etymology. The modern translations I’m using all render this as some version of “he is mad/insane”. The NT dictionary attached to the Bible.org site shows it simple as ‘mad’, or to ‘rage, be furious’. In pagan usage the base meaning is the latter, ‘rage, be furious’, the implication being simple anger. Being mad does come in, and it particularly implies madness as a result of wine. There is a fair bit of Greek literature that deals with the madness of wine. We call it drunk, but the Greeks saw it as a bit more sinister, at least potentially so.  So the use of this word is not entirely moral, as in getting drunk is a sign of low character. It has the implication of something like being demon-possessed as in the sense of being not in one’s proper mind; which is to say, mad. Interestingly, check out the Latin word bolded below: insanit. I heard it said once (TV show?) that “insane” is not a medical term, but a legal one. (Not sure the point of that…) The Latin sanus, negative being insanus, means “healthy /unhealthy”, but “sound/unsound” is perhaps a better rendering of the word. So you get the point. They are declaring Jesus to be mad, whether demon-possessed or with wine, which to some writing Greek was more or less the same thing.

I did some funky things with daimon/daimonion. The latter is a diminutive form of the former, so “little daimon”. What is a “little daimon? Or what is a daimon for that matter? What is a daimonion? Actually, I know the answers to those questions. What concerns me–us–here is what does John mean when he uses the word? That is really difficult to answer. Or is it? How Greek was John in his thinking? We know that the transition from the neutral, or at rather ambiguous–they could be either good or bad–daimon to the specifically malevolent demon was a Christian phenomenon that was mostly complete by the 5th Century as the Christian writers took over. When did this transition truly start? Did it start all at once and across the board? Or was it a gradual process? A text here, a text there, expanding out in concentric circles? NT Greek tends to assume that this transition to demon happened very quickly, so lexica of NT Greek give the word as “demon” with all its attendant baggage. Here the context makes the “little daimon” seem not to be a good thing, and since its moral character has been specified,  I suppose it’s acceptable to leave it as “demon” and get on with our lives. However, do not get into the habit of taking the word “daimon”, and especially not “demon”, at face value. But that’s true with baptize, angel, apostle, and a bunch of others.

19 Dissensio iterum facta est inter Iudaeos propter sermones hos.
20 Dicebant autem multi ex ipsis: “ Daemonium habet et insanit! Quid eum auditis? ”.
21 Alii dicebant: “ Haec verba non sunt daemonium habentis! Numquid daemonium potest caecorum oculos aperire? ”.

22 Ἐγένετο τότε τὰ ἐγκαίνια ἐν τοῖς Ἱεροσολύμοις: χειμὼν ἦν,

23 καὶ περιεπάτει ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ ἐν τῇ στοᾷ τοῦ Σολομῶνος.

24 ἐκύκλωσαν οὖν αὐτὸν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι καὶ ἔλεγον αὐτῷ, Εως πότε τὴν ψυχὴν ἡμῶν αἴρεις; εἰ σὺ εἶ ὁ Χριστός, εἰπὲ ἡμῖν παρρησίᾳ.

It was the Feast of the Dedication amongst the Jerusalemites; it was winter. (23) And Jesus was walking about in the porch of the Temple of Solomon. (24) The Jews encircled him and said to him, “Until when do you lift up/take hold of the soul/life? If you are the anointed tell us frankly.”

This is not a ideal place for a break, but once Jesus launches into his answer, it will be even more difficult to find a logical break point. 

The Dedication, or Rededication. AKA Hannukah. This festival commemorates the rededication of the Temple by the Maccabaeans after the successful revolt from the Kingdom of the Seleucidai, the Macedonian kingdom of Syria. One commentator points out that an interval of months has elapsed since Chapter 9, since that was set during the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), which is usually October-ish. Here John tells us it’s winter, and Hannukah falls in December. John is very consistent to provide the time of year, or when the action described falls during a festival. In no small part this seems to be a literary device to give Jesus a chance to be in Jerusalem rather than in Galilee or elsewhere. I’m not entirely certain why this is so important to John, but one suspects it has to do with the community’s formal rupture with Judaism. John is giving us this information as a means of demonstrating that he and his group were, in fact, observant Jews. Or, contrariwise–as Tweedledee would say–it was done to show that, yes, “The Jews” had their festivals, and yes they diligently observed them, but the obervance was an outward show that did not provide them with insight into who Jesus was; that is to say, they missed the point about Judaism. It was about the Messiah, the Messiah came, and they didn’t get on board with it. Take your pick. I was in the first camp, but now I think I’ve moved to the second.

This is really picking nits, but this was not the Temple of Solomon. That was destroyed by the Babylonians when they defeated Judah, sacked and burned Jerusalem, and deported the Judahites to Babylon until Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to return to Judah and re-build the Temple. Strictly speaking, this was the Second Temple. This matters. I’m not sure how, but it does. It has been suggested that this was an actual relic of of the First Temple, the chances of this being accurate are slim at best.

So tell us, for Pete’s sake! That was a bit of a…pun, since the “Pete” is St Peter”. But regardless, I do not recall another instance where Jesus was questioned with such insistence, whether in this gospel or any of the others. Let’s get to Jesus’ response. 

22 Facta sunt tunc Encaenia in Hierosolymis. Hiems erat;
23 et ambulabat Iesus in templo in porticu Salomonis.
24 Circumdederunt ergo eum Iudaei et dicebant ei: “ Quousque animam nostram tollis? Si tu es Christus, dic nobis palam! ”.

25 ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Εἶπον ὑμῖν καὶ οὐ πιστεύετε: τὰ ἔργα ἃ ἐγὼ ποιῶ ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ πατρός μου ταῦτα μαρτυρεῖ περὶ ἐμοῦ:

26 ἀλλὰ ὑμεῖς οὐ πιστεύετε, ὅτι οὐκ ἐστὲ ἐκ τῶν προβάτων τῶν ἐμῶν.

27 τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἐμὰ τῆς φωνῆς μου ἀκούουσιν, κἀγὼ γινώσκω αὐτά, καὶ ἀκολουθοῦσίν μοι,

28 κἀγὼ δίδωμι αὐτοῖς ζωὴν αἰώνιον, καὶ οὐ μὴ ἀπόλωνται εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, καὶ οὐχ ἁρπάσει τις αὐτὰ ἐκ τῆς χειρός μου.

29 ὁ πατήρ μου ὃ δέδωκέν μοι πάντων μεῖζόν ἐστιν, καὶ οὐδεὶς δύναται ἁρπάζειν ἐκ τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ πατρός.

30 ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν.

31 Ἐβάστασαν πάλιν λίθους οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἵνα λιθάσωσιν αὐτόν.

Jesus answered them, “I told you and you did not believe. The works that I do in the name of my father, they give witness about me. (26) But you do not believe, since you are not from my sheep. (27) My sheep hear/listen to my voice, and I know them and they follow me, (28) and I give to them eternal life, and they may not have been destroyed forever, and no one will wrest them from my hand. (29) My father who has given [them] to me, is greater of all, and no one is able to steal them from the hand of my father. (30) I and the father are one. (31) “The Jews” picked up rocks again to stone him.  

So once again Jesus provides a circumlocution rather than an answer. Or maybe he just evades the question. I suppose this is one of those situations in which both sides have a legitimate case. “The Jews” want Jesus to come out and say, “I am the Messiah”, which he won’t do. Jesus’ point is that while, no, he has not made that simple declarative sentence, he’s shown them. Over and over. What more evidence do we need? Twice in Chapterr 9 & 10 the comment has been made that demons, or demon-possessed people can’t give a man his sight. There is a legitimate question to be asked whether or not this statement is true; that is, whether or not demonaics or demons could perform such wonders, did people believe they could? The answer is a qualified “yes, they can”, at least in certain circumstances or in the minds of certain individuals. This qualification is necessary because what we would call magic, or wonder-working, had various layers. We have a trove of what are called the “Greek Magical Papyri” (abbr = PGM from the Latin initials). These are mostly low-level things: make so-and-so fall in love with me; let my team win the upcoming chariot race; make so-and-so’s tongue swell up so he can’t press his lawsuit when comes up next week. These are the things of ordinary people with ordinary concerns. That we have so many from across the Empire is a pretty good indication that a lot of people believed that some form of magic was efficacious. Then the debate turns to whether or not the magician casting the spell had sufficient power to effect these outcomes on his/her own authority, or was the intervention of a spirit–a daimon–necessary. To some extent this also requires an answer of “it depends”. As time passed and Christians became more numerous, more educated, and more power the answer became “yes”: some form of supernatural intervention was needed to bring about the desired result. From there the next step was to condemn all daimones as necessarily evil. There were no good daimones–although later Christian saints took on such powers to suspend the laws of nature and perform what by then were called miracles. But that position is several centuries forward from John’s gospel. It is to be noted that one of the entities invoked in such spells was Jesus; he carried an aura of having been a particularly powerful magician in some circles, and this belief carried forward for no short span of time, upwards of a century or more. In fact, several Christian authors wrote apologetic works defending against this charge into the Third Century.

There is also a strain of what we can call “intellectual magic”. These practitioners were learned men who studied various forms of what we would call “occult”–in the modern sense of the word–learning, but this learning also involved studying Plato, Aristotle, Babylonian astrology, and other such pursuits. They ended up producing things like the Corpus Hermeticum, a series of tracts that discussed the non-material world. These men surely believed that the learned magician could do all sorts of incredible things. One tract actually suggests that a human can become more or less a god and so do all sorts of things. In such circles the invocation of help from a non-material entity was not always seen as needed to work a wonder. That is also a century or two later than John. 

But let’s bear in mind that John was writing for rather a specific audience. Thus the question is: what did they believe? If they were former Jews, I suspect the answer is probably aligned with the speakers who said that such things could not be done by demons. While making generalizations is always fraught with difficulty, I believe it is reasonably safe to say that Jews were at least somewhat less inclined to give credit to spirits than their pagan neighbors. The Jews, again very broadly, were not big on the non-material world. As we’ve gone along, I’ve been pointing out that the Jewish notion of eternal life more or less presupposed the continued existence of the body, rather than that of an immaterial soul. The HS is not without references to non-material entities; the Witch of Endor calling up the ghost (?) of Samuel comes foremost to mind; however, she is more of a diviner than a what we would consider a witch. As for the injunction in Exodus that you shall not suffer a witch to live, the word there is highly ambiguous and can simply mean “poisoner”; the root is pharmakos, obviously the origin of our “pharmacy” or “pharmacist” and the Greek word is broad enough to cover our concept. As with daimon, the term is not necessarily malevolent, just as or word “drug” can refer to something beneficial like aspirin or it can refer to heroin.

Given that the entire corpus of the Hebrew Scriptures yield two rather oblique references to a supernatural world, it would seem the conclusion to be drawn is that John’s audience would most likely have agreed with the assessment that demons could not perform such works. For again, one of the few instances of a wonder worked by someone other than God or one of his agents–Elijah/Elisha raising the dry bones–was the priest of Pharaoh tossing his staff and seeing it turn into two snakes. So yes, the conclusion is that the supernatural did not impinge on the workaday world unless it was God performing the wonder. Of course, this assumes that the audience, the assembly John was addressing, had a Jewish background, rather than a pagan one like the authors of the Synoptics faced. This seems very likely. WE commented that John is constantly telling us which feast is being celebrated; this one is Hanukkah, previously we were told it was Sukkoth. These temporal markers would not have been terribly meaningful to pagans, so it’s not unreasonable to infer that the audience was largely Jewish. Taking all this together, the audience would haave concluded that demons cannot give a person sight, but the Messiah can. Jesus did all these things. Ergo, Jesus is the Messiah. Q.E.D.

The remaining verses are more extended metaphor/parable about the Good Shepherd. Oddly, although both Matthew and Luke relate the parable of the one lost sheep out of a hundred, but neither of them has Jesus referring to himself as the Good Shepherd as he does in this chapter. A Google search of “good shepherd” will take you both to the Parable of the Lost Sheep and this part of John, but the Lost Sheep is the first result. Raising sheep was an integral part of the economy in the Near East, and had been for a long time, so the analogy would have been familiar to audiences. But it is conspicuously absent from Mark. Why? The tradition suggests that Mark was written somewhere outside the Near East, with Rome being the leading candidate. However, the choice of Rome is tied up in the idea that Mark was John Mark who was mentioned in Acts as the companion of Peter. Since Peter supposedly went to Rome to become the first bishop, it’s more or less assumed that (John) Mark would have been with him there, and wrote the gospel per Peter’s recollections. However, since there is no evidence that either Peter or Paul was ever in Rome, I find this dubious at best. But that’s a debate for another time. The point here is that Matthew was the first to add material based on sheep herding, introducing the 99/1 sheep pericope. Luke includes this, but doesn’t add much. I won’t speculate on where Luke was written. Johm continues the tradition of Matthew, and adds to it by positing Jesus as the Good Shepherd. 

The sheep are from the Father. I suppose there is nothing really extraordinary about this on face value. Of course all flows from the Father in Jesus’ worldview. Even so, this is not a passage that gets a lot of discussion in gospel readings. I don’t find it familiar, but I’m hardly a biblical scholar. The more interesting aspect is that no one can snatch the sheep from the father’s hand. This is bordering on a one-and-done process of attaining eternal life: once you’re in the fold, you don’t–can’t?–leave it. That is an extreme position, but it’s the sort of vague-ish sentiment that can lead to oodles of controversy over the course of centuries. The whole Predestination debate revolves around what may be extreme interpretations of a select number of verses; however, over time, someone is going to put forth that extreme interpretation and cause a hubbub in the flock of believers. This is prefaced by Jesus saying that the father is greater than all, which is an implication of divine omnipotence, so what the Father has determined cannot be undone. Editor’s note: Note that the word meizon is the comparative form, not the superlative form. So it’s “greater” rather than “greatest”; however, if something is “greater than all”, it’s the functional equivalent of “greatest of all”. So why didn’t John simply use the superlative? Anyone? Bueller?

Now what about the context? This comes directly before “I and the father are one”. These two verses are, if not actually contradictory, don’t sit well together. Upon first reading my reaction to Verse 30 was “Where did that come from?” At the very least, it does not flow naturally from the previous verse wherein things flow from the father, which implies a logical distinction between son and father. This renders the assertion that “I and the Father are one” a bit of a problem. Is it like the greater/greatest in Verse 29? Two ways of saying the same thing? The end result is that the identity is posited in Verse 30, but the apparent distinction raised my eyebrow. And this is not the only time Jesus has implied a distinction between son & father, but it’s also not the only time that he has followed this up by asserting the logical identity, a = b. I suppose we can suggest a certain amount of rhetorical flourish; saying a = a is a bald tautology, and that is boring. OTOH, a = b has a bit more flavor to it. But individual uses of such rhetorical devices accumulate, and this creates a certain amount of doubt amongst logical considerations. Of course, the NT is not a discourse on or in logic, so such considerations may, in fact, be moot*. 

Finally, the last verse. “The Jews” started collecting rocks to stone Jesus. We are told no more, so Jesus presumably was able to make his escape without much further ado. He does not pass through their midst as he did in Luke. The point is simply that “The Jews” had grown exasperated with his arrogance and blasphemy. 

*Moot: pronounced to rhyme with “boot”. Something that is irrelevant, or that really doesn’t affect the sitution is a moot point, not a mute point. 

25 Respondit eis Iesus: “Dixi vobis, et non creditis; opera, quae ego facio in nomine Patris mei, haec testimonium perhibent de me.
26 Sed vos non creditis, quia non estis ex ovibus meis.
27 Oves meae vocem meam audiunt, et ego cognosco eas, et sequuntur me;
28 et ego vitam aeternam do eis, et non peribunt in aeternum, et non rapiet eas quisquam de manu mea.
29 Pater meus quod dedit mihi, maius omnibus est, et nemo potest rapere de manu Patris.
30 Ego et Pater unum sumus”.
31 Sustulerunt iterum lapides Iudaei, ut lapidarent eum.

John Chapter 10:1-19

Well, here’s a place where reading ahead would have been a good idea. As it turns out, Chapter 10 is a direct continuqtion of Chapter 9. If you recall (despite the length of time since posting the final commentary to the previous chapter), Jesus was interacting with “The Jews”, who have been identified as Pharisees are still in a hubbub about the curing of the Man Born Blind. They are in a snit because Jesus implies they are blind. Recall, this would indicate that they were sinful, since the Man was declared sinful because of his condition. The interaction continues, with Jesus speaking.

Text

1 Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ὁ μὴ εἰσερχόμενος διὰ τῆς θύρας εἰς τὴν αὐλὴν τῶν προβάτων ἀλλὰ ἀναβαίνων ἀλλαχόθεν ἐκεῖνος κλέπτης ἐστὶν καὶ λῃστής:

2 ὁ δὲ εἰσερχόμενος διὰ τῆς θύρας ποιμήν ἐστιν τῶν προβάτων.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, the one not entering through the door to the courtyard/pasture of the sheep but climbing from another place, he is a thief and a robber. (2) But the one entering thru the door is a shepherd of the sheep.

Two quick points regarding the bolded words. The first is ἀναβαίνων, which I have translated as “climbed”. In another form, the verb becomes anabasis, which is the Greek title of the work by Xenophon, which II have seen entitled in English as The March of the Ten Thousand, or The March Upcountry. It’s the story of ten thousand Greek mercenaries who had been hired by Cyrus, the brother of the Persian King Artaxerxes II, to help Cyrus overthrow his brother and so take the crown. Well, Cyrus was killed, and these mercenaries found themselves in the awkward position of being in the middle of the Persian Empire without a Persian sponsor. Since they had fought against him, Artaxerxes was ill-disposed to this formidable army in his midst. But it speaks volumes that he did not attack and obliterate the Greek, such was the fear and respect the Persians had for Greek soldiers after they had fought off two invasions of Greece by Persia. So the Greeks organized themselves, chose leaders–one of them being Xenophon–and determined to march over the mountains of central Anatolia. That is, they marched upcountry, to the north, and ascended the mountains on their way. And they were successful in doing so. The plot always sounded a bit like a boys’ adventure story, so I avoided it until about ten years ago. It’s absolutely fascinating, and offers a great insight into the way the Greeks thought and looked at the world. 

The second is λῃστής, which transliterates as lēstēs. You may recall that this is the word that Reza Aslan wants us to believe actually means “rebel”, or even “revolutionary” in his book Zealot: The Life And Times Of Jesus Of Nazareth. The thesis of the work is that Jesus was crucified because crucifixion was a punishment reserved for revolutionaries, and Aslan noting that this was the term to describe the two men crucified with Jesus. I find this argument especially pernicious; first, it is just plain wrong–on both counts. Crucifixion was not reserved for revolutionaries and lēstēs does not mean “revolutionary”. I did read the book, but can’t say I recall the details, but even a cursory glance at Strong’s Words would show that lēstēs is never used as revolutionary in the NT. The most incongruous situation was Jesus clearing the Temple, saying it had become a “den of revolutionaries”. But my real gripe with Aslan’s thesis is that it has crept into the scholarship. I have seen casual references to Jesus as a revolutionary, made as if this was settled fact. It’s not. It’s flat wrong. Scholarship is usually a game of nuance, but there really is none in this case.  

1 “Amen, amen dico vobis: Qui non intrat per ostium in ovile ovium, sed ascendit aliunde, ille fur est et latro;

2 qui autem intrat per ostium, pastor est ovium.

3 τούτῳ ὁ θυρωρὸς ἀνοίγει, καὶ τὰ πρόβατα τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ ἀκούει, καὶ τὰ ἴδια πρόβατα φωνεῖ κατ’ ὄνομα καὶ ἐξάγει αὐτά.

4 ὅταν τὰ ἴδια πάντα ἐκβάλῃ, ἔμπροσθεν αὐτῶν πορεύεται, καὶ τὰ πρόβατα αὐτῷ ἀκολουθεῖ, ὅτι οἴδασιν τὴν φωνὴν αὐτοῦ:

5 ἀλλοτρίῳ δὲ οὐ μὴ ἀκολουθήσουσιν ἀλλὰ φεύξονται ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι οὐκ οἴδασιν τῶν ἀλλοτρίων τὴν φωνήν.

“For this one (who comes through the door) the door-keeper admits, and the sheep hear his voice, and he speaks the names (= calls) (of) his own sheep and they follow him. (4) When he expelled all of his (sheep), he proceeds before them, and his sheep follow him, as they know his voice. (5) Nor do they follow another, but flee from him, since they do not know the voice of the other.” 

Had to juggle the grammar a bit. And the Greek word used to describe him leading out his sheep is “to cast out”, which is what Jesus usually does to demons. Rather an odd choice of word. It has overtones of an unwilling departure, which is pretty much the opposite of what we have here. And back in Verse 1, the word behind “courtyard/pasture” refers to both. At its root it’s an open rectangle before the house, without a roof, with colonnades around the sides. It can be seen as a reception area, or it can be a place to enclose livestock, as it is here. This double-duty term provides some insight into the lifestyle of the era, when livestock and people often lived in close proximity.

3 Huic ostiarius aperit, et oves vocem eius audiunt, et proprias oves vocat nominatim et educit eas.

4 Cum proprias omnes emiserit, ante eas vadit, et oves illum sequuntur, quia sciunt vocem eius;

5 alienum autem non sequentur, sed fugient ab eo, quia non noverunt vocem alienorum ”.

⁶ Ταύτην τὴν παροιμίαν εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· ἐκεῖνοι δὲ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν τίνα ἦν ἃ ἐλάλει αὐτοῖς.

⁷ Εἶπεν οὖν πάλιν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ θύρα τῶν προβάτων.

⁸ πάντες ὅσοι ἦλθον [πρὸ ἐμοῦ] κλέπται εἰσὶν καὶ λῃσταί· ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἤκουσαν αὐτῶν τὰ πρόβατα.

⁹ ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ θύρα· δι’ ἐμοῦ ἐάν τις εἰσέλθῃ σωθήσεται καὶ εἰσελεύσεται καὶ ἐξελεύσεται καὶ νομὴν εὑρήσει.

¹⁰ ὁ κλέπτης οὐκ ἔρχεται εἰ μὴ ἵνα κλέψῃ καὶ θύσῃ καὶ ἀπολέσῃ· ἐγὼ ἦλθον ἵνα ζωὴν ἔχωσιν καὶ περισσὸν ἔχωσιν.

¹¹ Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός· ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλὸς τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ τίθησιν ὑπὲρ τῶν προβάτων·

¹² ὁ μισθωτὸς καὶ οὐκ ὢν ποιμήν, οὗ οὐκ ἔστιν τὰ πρόβατα ἴδια, θεωρεῖ τὸν λύκον ἐρχόμενον καὶ ἀφίησιν τὰ πρόβατα καὶ φεύγει καὶ ὁ λύκος ἁρπάζει αὐτὰ καὶ σκορπίζει

¹³ ὅτι μισθωτός ἐστιν καὶ οὐ μέλει αὐτῷ περὶ τῶν προβάτων.

¹⁴ Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός, καὶ γινώσκω τὰ ἐμὰ καὶ γινώσκουσί με τὰ ἐμά,

¹⁵ καθὼς γινώσκει με ὁ πατὴρ κἀγὼ γινώσκω τὸν πατέρα· καὶ τὴν ψυχήν μου τίθημι ὑπὲρ τῶν προβάτων

Jesus related this maxim/proverb (figure of speech, or something such, but it is not the word for “parable”), ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, they do not know the someone who spoke to them.” (7) So Jesus spoke again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, that I am the door of the sheep. (8) All so many who came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep do not hear their voices, (9) I am the door. Through me If someone may wish to be saved and enter and leave and he will discover the law. (10) The thief will not come except in order that he may steal and burn and destroy; I came in order to that he may have life and he may have beyond the standard number. (I.E., that he may have life that exceeds the normal extent.) (11) I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd places his life (soul) over the sheep. (12) The hired shepherd, of whom the sheep are not his privately, beholds the wolf coming and deserts the sheep and flees and the wolf attacks them and scatters them (13) as he is the hired shepherd does not care about the sheep.  (14) I am the good shepherd, and I know those of me (my sheep) and my own know me. (15 Accordingly my father knows me and I know my father. And I will lay down my life for my sheep. 

Quickly, some vocabulary: παροιμίαν, paroimian. I’ve never encountered the word because it’s unusual and seldom used by pagan authors. It’s interesting because Jihn chose to use something other than a word from the parabolē stem; that is, something other than what is usually translated as “parable” (which is also the root of the mathematical term “parabola”). So it’s maybe closest to “analogy”, but not really.  Doubtless, it goes without say that “door of the sheep” is literal; figuratively, this would be the rampart, the defensive wall, the protection of the sheep.

Then there is the line about “those who came before me”. At first–or second, or third–reading I must admit that I wasn’t sure how to take this. Truth be told, I’m still not. A bunch of standard commentators are quick to point out that Jesus does not mean his predecessors in the Jewish tradition, meaning Abraham, Moses, the prophets, etc. When I get a herd reaction like this, my reaction tends to take it as a signal that this is exactly whom Jesus meant. But several commentators point to previous passages in John where it can be said that Jesus seeks to connect himself to Moses and the Baptist. It’s a close call, but I think this is correct. While Jesus has been striving mightily to dissociate himself from “The Jews”–Temple figures and Pharisees, as here–it would seem to go too far to say he is condemning the heritage of Judaism rather than the actions of the specific Jews of his lifetime. One commentator suggested that the present tense of “the ones who came before me are thieves and robbers” is meant to stress that he is, indeed, speaking of contemporaries; however, there is a two problem with this. After all, there is a certain inherent contradiction between “those who came before me” with its aorist tense of once-and-done completed action with present-tense “are”. To some extent this is the non-linearity of time in Greek, which is not nearly as clearly-cut as in English. The very existence of the aorist subjunctive is a case in point. That being said, the “historical present” is very common in all Greek authors who very, very frequently use a present tense to describe what is very obviously a past and completed action. Now, again having said this, I’m not entirely clear whether I’ve supported or undercut my point.

Another commentator suggested that the false messiahs are a phenomenon of history after Jesus, but there was a largely continuous stream of such pretenders, so that is no help. For all that, there is no reason this couldn’t be a reference to groups like the Gnostics, who came into existence in the late First Century. We have to bear in mind that John may have written a full three generations after Jesus which provides ample time for various sects of Jesus followers that were later deemed to have drifted into non-orthodox beliefs. Honestly, given the context, it seems easy enough to believe that he was talking about the very crowd with which he was having this current discussion. The support for this comes from the fact that the sheep did not believe these thieves and robbers. The sheep are the assembly that produced this gospel; they spurned “The Jews” and chose to follow Jesus in the way John did. From the perspective of John’s assembly, these were people–“The Jews”–who, it could be said, burned and stole and killed.

We need to say just a quick word about Jesus as the gate keeper. It is through him that one gains life. This continues the message that John has been preaching consistently throughout the gospel. This just adds another metaphor, that of The Good Shepherd, and this analogy or  parable of The Good Shepherd does not, I think, require too much analysis or comment. Or does it? The flock, for whom Jesus acts as gate-keeper and protector, knows his voice and follows him, but not the stranger. Why, and why not? Maybe this won’t be a “quick word” after all. 

Let’s go back to a question that I used to ask in this forum regularly, if not frequently: Why does someone choose to write a gospel? Assuming it’s not from divine inspiration–a question far outside scope of this blog, and of history in general–there has to be a compelling compulsion to undertake such a bizarre and arduous task. All good writing is re-writing (not sure what that says about this blog…?), so we’re talking about an effort that will take months, if not years. Not sure where I read it–Ehrman, most likely–but the suggestion was that John represented a community that had made its final break from Judaism, and that this gospel was sort of a manifesto of what this community believed and how they saw Jesus. To strike out on my own here, it’s not difficult to see that this gospel was perhaps intended to be something of a dialogue. This was a very common literary format in the ancient world, introduced and perfected by Plato, something like 500 years before John wrote this gospel we are discussing. And this is a good place to raise this possibility, since Chapter 10 is a continuation of a dialogue that was begun in Chapter 9. Much of the gospel has been a series of dialogues between Jesus and some other group, mostly representatives in some way of “The Jews”. Jesus and “The Jews” hold an ongoing dialogue that mostly fills the entire chapter. And here the dialogue has run into the second. Given this, does it not make sense that Jesus is “talking” to the representatives du jour? In which case, in this passage Jesus setting out the reasons why his followers have broken with “The Jews”. This latter group are the “thieves and robbers”, the “others” that his flock does not know and so does not follow. This all a way of saying that the people Jesus refers to are the same people he’s speaking to at this very moment in the gospel.

In turn, this helps explain the mission statement Jesus delineates here. In the Synoptics, Jesus warns his followers that he will suffer and die, but the warning, or the prophesy is couched in terms of dire times, perhaps end times, times of tribulation. Oddly, all that is missing. Jesus tells us he will lay down his psyche for his sheep–more on psyche in a minute–but there is no context. What this says to me is that the times of tribulation in the decade or two either side of the Destruction of the Temple were by the time John wrote something of an unpleasant but distant memory rather than a recent experience that still instilled fear into Jesus’ followers. This sort of blurring of the apocalyptic rhetoric tells me two things: First, it’s another good indication that John did indeed write further into the 2nd Century than has generally been suggested. Even at the turn of the century, such persecution as had occurred under Domitian was barely a decade old and lots of people would have recalled those awful years. Second, that it faded after 20 years may be an indication that the times had not been quite as dire as patristic writers would have us believe.   

As for psyche, we have discussed previously that “soul” is not the only way this word can be translated. Indeed, there are times when it should be translated simply as “life”, and this is clearly one of them. A number of religious/philosophical thinkers envisioned a tripartite division of the kosmos: there was matter, psyche, and pneuma or spirit. Matter was just that: physical matter that was essentially dead unless vivified by the spirit. Matter was the lowest form of existence, spirit was the highest, something completely non-material and non-corporeal; it was just spirit. In between was psyche. To put it in simplest (which means somewhat distorted) terms, psyche was the in-between, partaking of, or composed of both dead matter and vivifying spirit. As such, its meaning shifted depending on emphasis. Homer talks about the psyches of heroes sent tittering down to Hades as a result of the baneful wrath of Achilles. By the 1st Century, however, the third division had been incorporated into the world view of a number of groups, the Gnostics being one of them. Categories were a big thing for at least some of the Gnostics, and so here the body/soul, matter/spirit absolutely dualistic dichotomy underwent some modification. That is why I’m not sure Gnostics were truly dualistic thinkers, at least not in the way that the radical dualists like some adherents of Zoroaster and the later Manichaeans were. So once again, if you do learn to read enough Greek to tackle the NT, realize that the definition of psyche is not fixed. 

6 Hoc proverbium dixit eis Iesus; illi autem non cognoverunt quid esset, quod loquebatur eis.
7 Dixit ergo iterum Iesus: “ Amen, amen dico vobis: Ego sum ostium ovium.
8 Omnes, quotquot venerunt ante me, fures sunt et latrones, sed non audierunt eos oves.
9 Ego sum ostium; per me, si quis introierit, salvabitur et ingredietur et egredietur et pascua inveniet.
10 Fur non venit, nisi ut furetur et mactet et perdat; ego veni, ut vitam habeant et abundantius habeant.
11 Ego sum pastor bonus; bonus pastor animam suam ponit pro ovibus;
12 mercennarius et, qui non est pastor, cuius non sunt oves propriae, videt lupum venientem et dimittit oves et fugit — et lupus rapit eas et dispergit —
13 quia mercennarius est et non pertinet ad eum de ovibus.
14 Ego sum pastor bonus et cognosco meas, et cognoscunt me meae,
15 sicut cognoscit me Pater, et ego cognosco Patrem; et animam meam pono pro ovibus.

16 καὶ ἄλλα πρόβατα ἔχω ἃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τῆς αὐλῆς ταύτης: κἀκεῖνα δεῖ με ἀγαγεῖν, καὶ τῆς φωνῆς μου ἀκούσουσιν, καὶ γενήσονται μία ποίμνη, εἷς ποιμήν.

17 διὰ τοῦτό με ὁ πατὴρ ἀγαπᾷ ὅτι ἐγὼ τίθημι τὴν ψυχήν μου, ἵνα πάλιν λάβω αὐτήν.

18 οὐδεὶς αἴρει αὐτὴν ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ, ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ τίθημι αὐτὴν ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ. ἐξουσίαν ἔχω θεῖναι αὐτήν, καὶ ἐξουσίαν ἔχω πάλιν λαβεῖν αὐτήν: ταύτην τὴν ἐντολὴν ἔλαβον παρὰ τοῦ πατρός μου.

19 Σχίσμα πάλιν ἐγένετο ἐν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις διὰ τοὺς λόγους τούτους.

“And I have other sheep which are not from this sheep pen; and it is necessary that I lead them, and that they listen to my voice, and there will be a single flock, one shepherd. (17) On this account my father <loves> me since I place my life, in order that again I may take it (my life) up. (18) No one takes this from me, but I place it on my own, I hold it worthy to have (so) placed it, and I hold it worthy again that I have taken it up again. I received this command from my father.” (19) Again there was a schism amongst “The Jews” on account of his words. 

The most interesting–IMO, anyway–part of this group of verses has to do with verb tenses and moods. If I haven’t done so already, I need to explain that when we talk about verbs and moods, we are almost certainly talking about the subjunctive. Again, if I haven’t made it clear, strictly speaking the subjunctive is not a tense, like the aorist or the perfect, but a mood. And by mood we mean it takes us out of the concrete do/did/done into the less concrete realm of wishes, conditionals, commands, and maybe most especially into the realm of possibility and potential. So when you see a subjunctive, take note. I remember my first encounter with this mood back in HS Spanish, and how difficult it is for native monolingual English speakers to grasp the concept. English does–more or less–have a subjunctive mood, but it’s never really taught as such. By the time I had my fourth or fifth encounter in German, it was pretty much clear. 

Here’s the thing: note in Verse 17, the word translated as <loves>. I put the scare quotes <> there for a particular reason. Note the terminal letter, an alpha: ἀγαπᾷ. You will probably have to blow up your screen to see it, but note how there is a little squiggle attached to the bottom, like a backwards comma. That is known as a subscript, and this particular flavor of the subscript indicates that there is an iota not showing. It’s the same as the circumflex in French, as in hôpital; this indicates that there used to be a “s” following the “o”, so the word used to be spelled hospital. In Greek, the iota subscript means that it is to be understood that there is an iota there. What that does is change the mood of the verb from standard indicative “my father loves me” as a simple declarative sentence, into the subjunctive mood. So we have entered into that Twilight Zone of uncertainty, or possibility, or potential. A standard translation of this would be “my father may love me”, at some point in the future, usually if a certain as-yet unreal condition were to be met. So the Greek does not say “my father loves me”. But here’s the real kicker. I have two online resources that provide a parse of the verb, giving number, tense, mood, etc. Both of them parse this as an indicative rather than as a subjunctive. The text includes the subscript, so it’s not like they’re saying that the subscript may be the result of different mss traditions. They simply pretend it’s not there. 

Now, to some degree I can understand why they do it: acknowledging the subjunctive puts the father’s love into a potential rather than a given, but making the declaration “he loves me” as a definitive statement rather than as a condition that is contingent, or conditional, or not quite certain changes the tenor, if not the meaning of the verse.  Meanwhile, the rest of the passage is chock-a-block full of verbs in the subjunctive mood, some of them in the notorious aorist subjunctive.  

16 Et alias oves habeo, quae non sunt ex hoc ovili, et illas oportet me adducere, et vocem meam audient et fient unus grex, unus pastor.
17 Propterea me Pater diligit, quia ego pono animam meam, ut iterum sumam eam.
18 Nemo tollit eam a me, sed ego pono eam a meipso. Potestatem habeo ponendi eam et potestatem habeo iterum sumendi eam. Hoc mandatum accepi a Patre meo ”.
19 Dissensio iterum facta est inter Iudaeos propter sermones hos.