John Chapter 10:31-42

We (at long last) continue. In the last installment “The Jews” point-blank asked Jesus if he was the Christ. As he was wont to do, Jesus gave an oblique and yet provocative answer. It provoked them to the point that they were collecting rocks to stone him.

Text

31 Ἐβάστασαν πάλιν λίθους οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἵνα λιθάσωσιν αὐτόν.

32 ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Πολλὰ ἔργα καλὰ ἔδειξα ὑμῖν ἐκ τοῦ πατρός: διὰ ποῖον αὐτῶν ἔργον ἐμὲ λιθάζετε;

33 ἀπεκρίθησαν αὐτῷ οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, Περὶ καλοῦ ἔργου οὐ λιθάζομέν σε ἀλλὰ περὶ βλασφημίας, καὶ ὅτι σὺ ἄνθρωπος ὢν ποιεῖς σεαυτὸν θεόν.

Once again “The Jews” picked up rocks in order to stone him. (32) Jesus responded to them, “I have shown to you many good works from the father; on account of what work of his do you stone me?” (33) “The Jews responded to him, “We do not stone you because of (“regarding”, is a shade more literal) good works, but regarding blasphemy, and that you being a man make yourself God/a god.”

Now, those wishing to stone him have come up with a pretty clear, succinct, and accurate definition of “blasphemy”. Indeed, a man stepping above his station to try to take a place amongst the gods was pretty heinous in the eyes of Greeks, too. That’s sort of the definition of hubris. So the would-be stoners (?) have a legitimate point.

31 Sustulerunt iterum lapides Iudaei, ut lapidarent eum.
32 Respondit eis Iesus: “ Multa opera bona ostendi vobis ex Patre; propter quod eorum opus me lapidatis? ”.
33 Responderunt ei Iudaei: “ De bono opere non lapidamus te sed de blasphemia, et quia tu, homo cum sis, facis teipsum Deum ”.

34 ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς [ὁ] Ἰησοῦς, Οὐκ ἔστιν γεγραμμένον ἐν τῷ νόμῳ ὑμῶν ὅτι Ἐγὼ εἶπα, Θεοί ἐστε;

35 εἰ ἐκείνους εἶπεν θεοὺς πρὸς οὓς ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ οὐ δύναται λυθῆναι ἡ γραφή,

36 ὃν ὁ πατὴρ ἡγίασεν καὶ ἀπέστειλεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον ὑμεῖς λέγετε ὅτι Βλασφημεῖς, ὅτι εἶπον, Υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ εἰμι;

37 εἰ οὐ ποιῶ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πατρός μου, μὴ πιστεύετέ μοι:

38 εἰ δὲ ποιῶ, κἂν ἐμοὶ μὴ πιστεύητε, τοῖς ἔργοις πιστεύετε, ἵνα γνῶτε καὶ γινώσκητε ὅτι ἐν ἐμοὶ ὁ πατὴρ κἀγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρί.

39 Ἐζήτουν [οὖν] αὐτὸν πάλιν πιάσαι: καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ἐκ τῆς χειρὸς αὐτῶν.

Jesus responded to them, “Is it not written in your Law that ‘I said, you are gods’ ew? If it speaks (of) those gods, against whom did the Logos of God come into being, and the scripture is not able to be dissolved, (36) which the father made blessed and and sent to the kosmos, you say that ‘Blasphemy’, that I spoke, ‘Am I the son of God?’ (i.e., you say ‘Blasphemy’, because that I spoke, ‘Am I the son of God’? (37) If I do not do the works of my father, you will not believe me. (38) If I do (the works of God) and you do not believe me, you believe in the works, so that you know ad understand that the father is in me and I am in the Father. (39) So they sought again to pressure him; but he went away from their hands (ie: he slipped through their grasp).

I have to say, from the point of commenting, this gospel is getting/has gotten a tad redundant. Jesus says something provocative, “The Jews” protest, Jesus explains the situation in a manner that does not reflect well on his interlocutors, and now there is this desire to stone him. Note the verb that “The Jews” sought: to pressure him, or to press him, or to squeeze him. The modern translation simply use the terms “arrest” or “apprehend” or some such neutral word. The word here only appears in John, starting in 7:30, again in 8:20, and will recur a few more times later. Thus it doesn’t relate to the word Paul used, of which “press” or “pressure” was an acceptable translation. Now, this may be my overactive imagination, but there was a form of execution that was related to stoning, but didn’t involve throwing stones. Rather, the accused was places under a board, maybe the size of a door, and then rocks were piled on top until the victim was crushed to death. One of the men accused in the Salem witch trials was executed thus. It would relate back to the desire of his interlocutors to stone him back in Verse 31. But I am not 100% certain that this was a means of execution used at that place and in that time.

Aside from that, there is very little that is novel in this section. Jesus resorts to something like a syllogism to prove that he is in the father, and the father is in him. It’s interesting to note that our author is still rather coy about having Jesus assert himself. Or is he? After all, Jesus was the Logos who was there in the beginning. But, OTOH, this is about “The Jews”, and their inability, or unwillingness to understand Jesus. In some sense we have a sort of correlation to the “Messianic Secret” that we encountered in Mark. Jesus is all-but telling them who he is, in so many words. It’s not John or Jesus being coy, it’s that “The Jews” are a bit slow on the uptake.

Really should say a word about Jesus slipping through their fingers and making his escape. Luke has a similar situation, or turn of events, in Chapter 4. It comes at the end of the Prophet Without Honor narrative. The residents of Nazareth are outraged that Jesus claimed–or at least implied–that he was the fulfillment of the Scripture passage he had just read. The crowd was taking him or pushing him to the edge of the hill to throw him off, but he passed through their midst unharmed. And so here. Are we to take this as a supernatural event? I don’t know. The commentators on this verse mostly don’t believe so; the verb used is prosaic and ordinary, so they conclude his departure was ordinary. At most, one commentator suggests that Jesus slipped off while the crowd was plotting to seize him. I suppose. But there is a decided reluctance to attribute Jesus’ departure to any sort of miraculous occurrence. In contrast, at least some of the commentators on Luke 4:30 are willing to consider, or even suggest that Jesus’ escape from Nazareth was due to divine intervention of some kind. Why the difference? Not sure. In my opinion, it’s easier to believe that the crowd in Nazareth may have suffered a lapse of conviction when they were on the precipice–literally on the crest of the hill, and figuratively on the brink of actually killing Jesus. Mob psychology being what it is, it’s easy to work oneself into a frenzy in a crowd when the deed is still abstract, but confronted with the actual execution–again, both literally and figuratively–of the deed, it may only take one or two individuals to come to their senses and cause the crowd to deflate. This would seem to be all the more likely since many, or most, of them knew Jesus. This crowd, OTOH, didn’t know Jesus and had no pleasant history with him as a young lad. If there were no pangs of conscience, why not go through with it?

One commentator said that Jesus’ “hour had not yet come” as an explanation for the escape. But isn’t this an example of divine intervention? “His hour” is a circumlocution for, to paraphrase,  not even Zeus can can escape destiny*. Events are fixed and must occur at their time. Well, who did the fixing? Some guy down the street? No, it’s a divine thing, at least in the broadest sense. Astrology and the gods and the planets and the stars are all intertwined, and various groups have differing mixtures, but all of them agree that results are set by some Higher Entity, or combination of Entities. Pagans were rather set on the Fate thing, and the Christian doctrine of Free Will was, at least in part, a reaction to fatalism, an attempt to undermine and banish the idea of fate. But then Augustine opened the door to the idea of Predestination, and that created a lot of problems throughout the next millennium or so.

*Please note that the mythology on this is conflicting. Some–most, actually–say Zeus can escape Fate, or a least override it, while a few say he cannot. To some degree it’s a matter of the literary context, the lesson to be imparted, and here I choose to go with the minority as a point of emphasis.

34 Respondit eis Iesus: “ Nonne scriptum est in lege vestra: “Ego dixi: Dii estis?”.
35 Si illos dixit deos, ad quos sermo Dei factus est, et non potest solvi Scriptura,
36 quem Pater sanctificavit et misit in mundum, vos dicitis: “Blasphemas!”, quia dixi: Filius Dei sum?
37 Si non facio opera Patris mei, nolite credere mihi;
38 si autem facio, et si mihi non vultis credere, operibus credite, ut cognoscatis et sciatis quia in me est Pater, et ego in Patre”.
39 Quaerebant ergo iterum eum prehendere; et exivit de manibus eorum.

40 Καὶ ἀπῆλθεν πάλιν πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου εἰς τὸν τόπον ὅπου ἦν Ἰωάννης τὸ πρῶτον βαπτίζων, καὶ ἔμεινεν ἐκεῖ.

41 καὶ πολλοὶ ἦλθον πρὸς αὐτὸν καὶ ἔλεγον ὅτι Ἰωάννης μὲν σημεῖον ἐποίησεν οὐδέν, πάντα δὲ ὅσα εἶπεν Ἰωάννης περὶ τούτου ἀληθῆ ἦν.

42 καὶ πολλοὶ ἐπίστευσαν εἰς αὐτὸν ἐκεῖ.

And he again went around the vicinity of the Jordan, to the place where John (the Baptist) first was submersing, and he remained there. (41) And many came to him and all said that while John gave no Sign, whoever spoke (said) that (what) John (the Baptist) (said) regarding this man (Jesus) was true. (42) And many believed in him there.

That’s a really clumsy sentence there for Verse 41. Or, actually, the sentence is rather good Greek, with enough left as understood that translating it into English requires some additional words and some circumlocutions. This is the bane of the novice learning Greek and Latin: the habit of not saying everything, but leaving common verbs–is/was, said, etc–implicit rather than stated explicitly.

But I suppose this is a new development. Jesus returns to the area of the Jordan River where the Baptist first preached. Here we get another reminder that John was likely from the environs of Jerusalem rather than Galilee. The latter place has barely figured in the narrative of this gospel; Jesus is spending virtually all of his time in and around the capital. One thing occurs to me: it seems possible that this is the area where John’s community originated and/or was located. That would explain the last line that “many believed”. It would also explain the focus on Jerusalem and its environs, and naturally it would explain the favorable press the area is receiving here. Unlike “The Jews” in Jerusalem, this group was composed of believers and followers. That is a reasonable historical inference to be drawn from these last two verses. They do not really advance the narrative, they don’t really figure into the course of events to follow–or do they? Time will tell…–so there must be a reason to add them. Ink and papyrus were not materials to be wasted with unnecessary words; ergo, John felt that the words were important and so necessary. Regardless, this is just an inference on a semi-minor point. To my mind, it seems likely, perhaps pushing a 70% probability–or more. Take this for what it’s worth.

And yes, the verb behind “submersing” is baptizōn.

40 Et abiit iterum trans Iordanem in eum locum, ubi erat Ioannes baptizans primum, et mansit illic.
41 Et multi venerunt ad eum et dicebant: “Ioannes quidem signum fecit nullum; omnia autem, quaecumque dixit Ioannes de hoc, vera erant”.
42 Et multi crediderunt in eum illic.