John Chapter 9:35-41

In which we conclude the chapter. We have bee taught how it is “The Jews” whose eyes have yet to be opened.

Text

35 Ἤκουσεν Ἰησοῦς ὅτι ἐξέβαλον αὐτὸν ἔξω, καὶ εὑρὼν αὐτὸν εἶπεν, Σὺ πιστεύεις εἰς τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου;

36 ἀπεκρίθη ἐκεῖνος καὶ εἶπεν, Καὶ τίς ἐστιν, κύριε, ἵνα πιστεύσω εἰς αὐτόν;

37 εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Καὶ ἑώρακας αὐτὸν καὶ ὁ λαλῶν μετὰ σοῦ ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν.

38 ὁ δὲ ἔφη, Πιστεύω, κύριε: καὶ προσεκύνησεν αὐτῷ.

Jesus heard that they had out-thrown him out, and finding him (the man) he (Jesus) said, “Do you believe in the son of man?” (36) He answered and said, “And who is he, lord, in order that I may have begun to believe in him?” (37) Jesus said to him, “And you have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” (38) And (the other) said, “I believe, lord,” and he prostrated himself.  

First, verb used is exo-ballein, the verb to “throw” augmented by the prefix for “out”. The fact of “out” which is then emphasized by the stand-alone preposition “out”. So the very clumsy English of “out thrown him out”. The Latin verb does not have the prefix, so it pretty much follows the same rule as English, simply “to throw” + stand-alone preposition “out”. Secondly, the verb for “believe” in Verse 36 is once again in the aorist subjunctive, so I’ve more or less fallen into a convention of treating the aorist, a single action, like a perfect, repeated action. So, “that I may have begun” to believe. The “may” captures the uncertainty, and the “have begun” the fact that it’s past tense. Literally, it should be “may began” to believe, but that makes no sense in English. Most modern translations simply render this as “that I may believe”, catching the uncertainty while ignoring the past tense. That it’s an aorist does change the meaning by conveying the sense that the beginning of belief has occurred already, so it’s an action in the past tense.

Then we get to “son of man”. John uses this term the fewest times in the Gospels, and Matthew uses it the most. A Google search of the question will return slightly different numbers, which, I suspect, is a function of how you count. Does use of the term twice in one verse, or in consecutive verses, count as one instance or two? Regardless, the total for John is in low double digits, 10 or 12 or so. It occurs twice as much the HS as it does in the NT; this, I suspect, includes use of the term as “a son of man”, which is to say “a person”. The term is problematic, largely because it’s enigmatic, but that is perhaps the point. It has been suggested that the term means nothing other than “person”, and that is hardly a ridiculous position. However, since John uses it so seldom, one’s (well, my) first reaction is that he has reserved it for a special purpose; however, upon further review, perhaps not. When the term “son of man” has been used to this point, it very obviously does not simply mean “person” or “human”. It refers to a being that is more than human, on whom angels ascend and descend, or who is in heaven, or who provides eternal life. In fact, this is the first time the term has been used where it does not clearly refer to an entity that is more than human, although it can certainly be argued that “believing in the son of man” implies an elevated being. When compared to the term “son of God”, there does not seem to be too much difference in the insinuations. As such, by this point it would seem that the term is something of a tradition, that it’s used in all the gospels so John uses it too. 

But let’s come back to that and dispense with the word I translated as “prostrated”. We’ve discussed this before, but it’s been a while so it may deserve to be revisited. The word in Greek is pros-kynesis. Literally it means something along the lines of “roll over and show your belly like a dog”; the second half of the word, kynesis, literally means something like “canine”, “dog”. It is in fact directly related to the Latin canis, as in canis familiaris, the domesticated dog. So the whole word means something like, “act like a dog in front (prefix pros-) of someone”. What dogs do to show submission is lay on their back to expose their belly, which is a vulnerable part of their anatomy. In the kingdoms of the ancient Near East, the standard practice for a lesser being coming into the presence of the king was to fall on one’s face, largely because the lesser being was not worthy to look at the face of the king. Moses did something similar in the presence of the burning bush. Anyway, the Greeks first came into contact with Near Eastern monarchs in the late 6th or early 5th Century BCE, mostly in the form of the Persians. They were the successors of the Near Eastern empires stretching back through Babylon and Assyria and beyond, and the Persians very much insisted that the custom of groveling on one’s belly before the Great King be maintained. The Greeks, OTOH, had no such custom, largely because they did not consider any one man to be innately superior–in the sense of divinity–to another. They found this Persian custom of falling on one’s face repulsive, and gave it the derogatory term of “acting like a dog before someone”; which is to say pros-kynesis. That is what the man did before Jesus. Just remember that when you see the expression “worshipped him”. The Latin is adoravit; the Latin lyrics to the refrain of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” are “Venite adoremus…” “Come let us adore (him implied)” So, come, let us fall on our faces before him in worship; although, having said that, the Latin was written by an Englishman in the 1700s, so the idea of falling prostrate on one’s face was likely not intended.

Let’s get back to “son of man’ and the fuller implications of Jesus question. It has never occurred to me to ask what the term “son of man” would have meant to a First Century Jew. But that’s not entirely true, because I have read things in which possible interpretations of the phrase are discussed. The most common is the “human being” theory , based, I believe, on the passage in Daniel where someone is said to appear “as a son of man”; this to say your standard, garden-variety person. So why does the NT rely on it? And I should specify the gospels, since it apparently does not show up in Paul, although Romans 8:3 kinda sorta comes close. I came into this paragraph with the notion that I could or did have something to say, but it appears I was mistaken about this. The use of the term is very much an open question as far as I can tell. 

Regardless, however the man understood–if he did–the term, he was moved to worship Jesus. A quick look shows that the term appears a number of times; IOW, Jesus was worshipped numerous times. Upon arrival at Herod’s court, the Magoi want to worship the new king. The mother of the sons of Zebedee worships Jesus when she want to ask that her sons sit at Jesus’ right and left hand in the kingdom. I guess what we need to take from this is that the man had his eyes opened in more ways than one. There were his physical eyes, of course, but he also became aware of who Jesus was, so the eyes of his awareness were opened as well. This, also of course is in contrast to “The Jews” whose eyes remained closed. The Man Born Blind recognized that the healing was a sign, and this sign indicated that Jesus was a prophet (at least)–as he said in Verse 17. Actually, going back to the meaning or understanding of the phrase “son of man”, it’s worth noting that the man is a tad confused himself by the expression. While he recognized that Jesus performed a sign, he did not equate the performance as something that would be done by someone referred to as “the son of man”. That is, he did not recognize that “the son of man” was a prophet, let alone the anointed one. When this is pointed out to him, he accepts this readily. Again, in contrast to “The Jews”.

35 Audivit Iesus quia eiecerunt eum foras et, cum invenisset eum, dixit ei: “Tu credis in Filium hominis?”.
36 Respondit ille et dixit: “ Et quis est, Domine, ut credam in eum? ”.
37 Dixit ei Iesus: “ Et vidisti eum; et, qui loquitur tecum, ipse est ”.
38 At ille ait: “ Credo, Domine! ”; et adoravit eum.

39 καὶ εἶπεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Εἰς κρίμα ἐγὼ εἰς τὸν κόσμον τοῦτον ἦλθον, ἵνα οἱ μὴ βλέποντες βλέπωσιν καὶ οἱ βλέποντες τυφλοὶ γένωνται.

40 Ἤκουσαν ἐκ τῶν Φαρισαίων ταῦτα οἱ μετ’ αὐτοῦ ὄντες, καὶ εἶπον αὐτῷ, Μὴ καὶ ἡμεῖς τυφλοί ἐσμεν;

41 εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Εἰ τυφλοὶ ἦτε, οὐκ ἂν εἴχετε ἁμαρτίαν: νῦν δὲ λέγετε ὅτι Βλέπομεν: ἡ ἁμαρτία ὑμῶν μένει.

And Jesus said, “I came to judge this kosmos, so that those not seeing may see, and those seeing may become blind. (40) Those of the Pharisees being with him heard, and said to him, “But (surely) we are not also blind?” (41) Jesus said to them, “If you had been blind, you had not had sin; but now you say that ‘We see’. Your sin remains.”  

The verb tenses are a little funky in Verse 41. Or, rather, one of them is. Most modern translations render this as “If you. had been blind, you would not have had sin”. This makes sense in English, or from our perspective. We would put the “have” into the subjunctive–or at least the conditional–to get across that this is an hypothetical, an unreal set of circumstances. In fact, the Latin also puts this into the subjunctive, you would have had no sin. However, the Greek sees this differently; both verbs are imperfect, which is often used for an action completed prior to the main verb. Consider: “When the introductions had been made, the show began“. “Had been made” is imperfect, and this action finished prior to the show beginning, which is simple past tense. So having both verbs in the imperfect is a bit awkward for English, and perhaps even for Latin, explaining why the Vulgate modified the tense/mood in the same way as the modern translations do. One actually wonders if John–or a copyist–maybe just made a mistake. I point these things out just in case anyone reading this is working on their Greek. No, you did not make a mistake; it truly does make no sense. 

With all that out of the way, we can consider the import of the passage. Basically, this is John’s way of expressing the sentiment that Jews have been superseded, or supplanted. This time I did not use the scare quotes around “The Jews” because I am referring to all adherents of the religion. We saw events in the other gospels indicating that followers of Jesus had jumped to the front of the line. My favorite example of this is the story of the Wedding Guests: those invited–aka “the Chosen People”–decline to come to the feast, so the king sends his slaves out to round up whomever he can find and have them attend in the stead of those actually invited. This what we have here: those with sight–the aforementioned “Chosen People”–become blind while those formerly blind–everyone else–gain their sight. Not sure there’s much to say beyond that.

So we have a quick wrap-up to the chapter.

39 Et dixit Iesus: “In iudicium ego in hunc mundum veni, ut, qui non vident, videant, et, qui vident, caeci fiant”.
40 Audierunt haec ex pharisaeis, qui cum ipso erant, et dixerunt ei: “Numquid et nos caeci sumus?”.
41 Dixit eis Iesus: “Si caeci essetis, non haberetis peccatum. Nunc vero dicitis: “Videmus!”; peccatum vestrum manet”.

John Chapter 9:22-34

As with previous chapters, this one is a continuation, to some extent the entire chapter is a single story, or pericope, or–wait for it–logos. Note that “story” and “pericope” are not synonyms for “word”; one could, however, attempt to stretch and say that those two words could fit into verbum. This is the Man Born Blind logos. [Note: just because I can use logos in this way doesn’t mean I should, or that it’s the best translation, but it’s not wrong. And the computer keyboard has shown me how much I like italics for emphasis.]

This is actually fairly short.

Text

22 ταῦτα εἶπαν οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ ὅτι ἐφοβοῦντο τοὺς Ἰουδαίους, ἤδη γὰρ συνετέθειντο οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἵνα ἐάν τις αὐτὸν ὁμολογήσῃ Χριστόν, ἀποσυνάγωγος γένηται.

23 διὰ τοῦτο οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ εἶπαν ὅτι Ἡλικίαν ἔχει, αὐτὸν ἐπερωτήσατε.

His parents said these things because/due to fearing “The Jews”, for indeed, “The Jews” came to a conclusion so that if someone should have agreed (that he was) the messiah, that person would have become (someone having been) expelled from the synagogue. (23) It was on account of this that they said, “He is of age, ask him”. 

First, this verse really should have been included with the previous post. This line comes after the parents tell ‘the Jews” that their son is of age and can speak for himself. Verse 22 explains why they were less than direct in answering. Second, the verb for “to fear” is passive in Greek, but I can’t think of a way to twist my translation to account for both that and that “The Jews” is in the accusative as a direct object. Call me lazy, but close enough. Third, the last two verbs, should have agreed and would have become are two more examples of aorist subjunctive; that is, a past tense indicating uncertainty of some sort. In English, this really doesn’t work all that well since the uncertainty has usually been resolved by the time we’re talking about past tense. Fourth, note that the someone having been expelled from the synagogue is all included in one word, the adjective, ἀποσυνάγωγος; i.e., apo-synagogus, the prefix apo- indicating motion away from, so “from the synagogue”, the part about expelled from being understood from apo-. And note that, while technically an adjective–even Liddell & Scott categorize it as such–at base the word, or the form is that of a participle, that is, a verb. Fifth, this is the only known use of this word in all of the literature of ancient Greek. John may have coined the word, but it quite possibly existed in Jewish writings of the time.   

But it’s Verse 23 that is telling, because it explicitly states that the parents were afraid of “The Jews” who could negatively affect their standing in the synagogue. 

22 Haec dixerunt parentes eius, quia timebant Iudaeos; iam enim conspiraverant Iudaei, ut, si quis eum confiteretur Christum, extra synagogam fieret.
23 Propterea parentes eius dixerunt: “Aetatem habet; ipsum interrogate!”.

24 Ἐφώνησαν οὖν τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἐκ δευτέρου ὃς ἦν τυφλὸς καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῷ, Δὸς δόξαν τῷ θεῷ: ἡμεῖς οἴδαμεν ὅτι οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἁμαρτωλός ἐστιν.

25 ἀπεκρίθη οὖν ἐκεῖνος, Εἰ ἁμαρτωλός ἐστιν οὐκ οἶδα: ἓν οἶδα, ὅτι τυφλὸς ὢν ἄρτι βλέπω.

26 εἶπον οὖν αὐτῷ, Τί ἐποίησέν σοι; πῶς ἤνοιξέν σου τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς;

27 ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς, Εἶπον ὑμῖν ἤδη καὶ οὐκ ἠκούσατε: τί πάλιν θέλετε ἀκούειν; μὴ καὶ ὑμεῖς θέλετε αὐτοῦ μαθηταὶ γενέσθαι;

So they called the man a second time, the one who was blind, and said to him, “Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner.” (25) So he answered, “If he is a sinner I do not know. I know one (thing), that being blind I see again.” (26) They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” (27) He answered them, “Indeed I told you already and you did not hear. Why do you wish to hear again? Unless you also wish to become his disciples?“

This is strictly a literary observation: There is an awful lot of repetition. This is, I believe, pretty clear indication that the gospel was meant to be heard rather than read. These sorts of almost call-and-response exchanges are the sort of mnemonics that help a listening audience keep up with the story line. When I did corporate training, the instruction for  was: in your intro, tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em, then tell them, then in the conclusion tell ’em what you told ’em. That’s kind of how John is approaching this. I’m not sure what, if any, the implications of this might be; as far as teachings and beliefs, there are none, but they are significant as far as how the teachings and beliefs spread. That’s good historical information. It is, however, interesting to note that this did not launch John to be the most popular of the gospels; that honor likely falls to Matthew, with the birth narrative of Luke taking precedence. After all, the early church considered Matthew to be the primary gospel, which is why the NT is organized the way it is: Matthew-Mark rather than the proper chronological order. 

As for the contention between “The Jews” and the Man Born Blind, this falls into the category of additional emphasis that “The Jews” are at best clueless, at worst malign. Take your pick here; it’s a judgement call in the final analysis. The Man manages to disagree with his interlocutors without contradicting them–which is no mean feat–even if his reply is a bit snarky. “I told you already…” The zinger about them wanting to become Jesus’ disciples induces a wry smile as well.  

24 Vocaverunt ergo rursum hominem, qui fuerat caecus, et dixerunt ei: “Da gloriam Deo! Nos scimus quia hic homo peccator est”.
25 Respondit ergo ille: “Si peccator est nescio; unum scio quia, caecus cum essem, modo video”.
26 Dixerunt ergo illi: “Quid fecit tibi? Quomodo aperuit oculos tuos?”.
27 Respondit eis: “Dixi vobis iam, et non audistis; quid iterum vultis audire? Numquid et vos vultis discipuli eius fieri?”.

28 καὶ ἐλοιδόρησαν αὐτὸν καὶ εἶπον, Σὺ μαθητὴς εἶ ἐκείνου, ἡμεῖς δὲ τοῦ Μωϋσέως ἐσμὲν μαθηταί:

29 ἡμεῖς οἴδαμεν ὅτι Μωϋσεῖ λελάληκεν ὁ θεός, τοῦτον δὲ οὐκ οἴδαμεν πόθεν ἐστίν.

30 ἀπεκρίθη ὁ ἄνθρωπος καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, Ἐν τούτῳ γὰρ τὸ θαυμαστόν ἐστιν ὅτι ὑμεῖς οὐκ οἴδατε πόθεν ἐστίν, καὶ ἤνοιξέν μου τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς.

31 οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἁμαρτωλῶν ὁ θεὸς οὐκ ἀκούει, ἀλλ’ ἐάν τις θεοσεβὴς ᾖ καὶ τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ ποιῇ τούτου ἀκούει.

32 ἐκ τοῦ αἰῶνος οὐκ ἠκούσθη ὅτι ἠνέῳξέν τις ὀφθαλμοὺς τυφλοῦ γεγεννημένου:

33 εἰ μὴ ἦν οὗτος παρὰ θεοῦ, οὐκ ἠδύνατο ποιεῖν οὐδέν.

34 ἀπεκρίθησαν καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῷ, Ἐν ἁμαρτίαις σὺ ἐγεννήθης ὅλος, καὶ σὺ διδάσκεις ἡμᾶς; καὶ ἐξέβαλον αὐτὸν ἔξω. 

And they reviled him and said, “If you are a disciple of his, we are disciples of Moses. (29) We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know whence (comes) this one.”  (30) The man answered and said to them, “For in this is the wonder that you do not know whence (he came) and he opened my eyes. (31) We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if someone may be a servant of God and may do his will, to this one (God) listens. (32) From the aions (eons, since forever) he did not hear that someone opened the eyes of one born blind. (33) If he is not with/from/(lit = beside) God, he is not able to do nothing” (double negative for emphasis). (34) They answered and said to him, “You were completely born in sin, and you teach us?” And they threw him out.  

Well, we know whose eyes were, and whose eyes were not opened. Of course this is an extended metaphor for the new…covenant, I suppose. “The Jews” cling to Moses and the old ways, having been born into them and they do not–cannot–see things differently because their eyes are not, or have not been opened. The Man was also born in the old ways; that is he was born in sin, as Jesus said back in Chapter 6, just as “The Jews” were, but his eyes have been opened, so he will not die in sin as “The Jews” will, according to that pronouncement back in Chapter 6. This is all very well done as an example of literary writing; however, perhaps the pièce de résistance comes in Verse 32, “from the aions/since forever” the eyes of no one born born blind have been opened. This hearkens back to the reference to Matthew/Luke and Isaiah that we mentioned in the previous post, that the blind see, the lame walk, etc. By stating that no one born blind has ever had their sight, John is declaring that Now Is The Time. This is John putting forth another reason, or perhaps the reason why “The Jews” got it wrong in his opinion.

28 Et maledixerunt ei et dixerunt: “Tu discipulus illius es, nos autem Moysis discipuli sumus.
29 Nos scimus quia Moysi locutus est Deus; hunc autem nescimus unde sit”.
30 Respondit homo et dixit eis: “In hoc enim mirabile est, quia vos nescitis unde sit, et aperuit meos oculos!
31 Scimus quia peccatores Deus non audit; sed, si quis Dei cultor est et voluntatem eius facit, hunc exaudit.
32 A saeculo non est auditum quia aperuit quis oculos caeci nati;
33 nisi esset hic a Deo, non poterat facere quidquam”.
34 Responderunt et dixerunt ei: “In peccatis tu natus es totus et tu doces nos?”. Et eiecerunt eum foras.

John chapter 9:8-21

Here we are going to run into another situation where there is no reasonable break for much of the chapter. As such, it will be necessary to create such a place in the narrative, which usually makes for an awkward transition that sacrifices continuity. My apologies in advance. We continue on with the story of the Man Born Blind.

Text

8 Οἱ οὖν γείτονες καὶ οἱ θεωροῦντες αὐτὸν τὸ πρότερον ὅτι προσαίτης ἦν ἔλεγον, Οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ καθήμενος καὶ προσαιτῶν;

9 ἄλλοι ἔλεγον ὅτι Οὗτός ἐστιν: ἄλλοι ἔλεγον, Οὐχί, ἀλλὰ ὅμοιος αὐτῷ ἐστιν. ἐκεῖνος ἔλεγεν ὅτι Ἐγώ εἰμι.

10 ἔλεγον οὖν αὐτῷ, Πῶς [οὖν] ἠνεῴχθησάν σου οἱ ὀφθαλμοί;

11 ἀπεκρίθη ἐκεῖνος, Ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὁ λεγόμενος Ἰησοῦς πηλὸν ἐποίησεν καὶ ἐπέχρισέν μου τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς καὶ εἶπέν μοι ὅτι Υπαγε εἰς τὸν Σιλωὰμ καὶ νίψαι: ἀπελθὼν οὖν καὶ νιψάμενος ἀνέβλεψα.

So his neighbors and those seeing him who was a beggar said, “Is he not the one being seated and begging?” (9) Others said that, “He is (that man, eg)”. Others said “Nay, he is another similar to him.” He said, “I am (he)”. (10) They said to him, “How were your eyes opened?” (11) He answered, “The man who is being called Jesus made mud and smeared my eyes and said to me, ‘Get yourself to the (Pool) of Siloam and wash.’ So I having gone and washed I recovered my sight”.

This was a planned break, but the timing worked out–no thanks to any planning on my part. The last word of Verse 11 is the compound verb ana (up) – blepō (look) >> “to look up”. However, it also has the special and specific meaning of “to recover sight”. Even better, it is used in this manner by a pagan, and even a Classical author named Herodotus. For those unfamiliar, Herodotus is known as the “Father of History” because he wrote a rather long history of the war(s) between Greece as a whole–if abstract–and the the Persian Empire, the most powerful empire in the world at the time. Of course, Herodotus is famous for his digressions, which can often consume many pages, so we get so much more than a simple narrative of what could have been the account of the first Persian amphibious attack in 490 BCE, and then the full-scale invasion launched and led by the Persian king Xerxes himself. There is actually an entire book just on Egypt. Historians are forever grateful for his prolix nature, because he provided so much incidental information. I think of him as the older guy who comes to have dinner and then sits up most of the night telling his stories, but the hosts do not mind in the least so they invite him back the next night. The book is fascinating. So, the point is that “to recover one’s sight” is a legitimate, Classical translation.

Honestly, aside from that, there isn’t a lot of actual information in these four verses. It’s really just narrative to set up the story as a whole. I would wonder, or perhaps I would suspect that these four verses were not part of the original story as it was first told. Rather, I would suspect that these verses were added as the story was re-told. This is exactly the sort of incidental information that gets appended to the main body of the story for dramatic purposes. We all know someone like that: he tells a story, but it takes five minutes of really unnecessary set-up until we get to the actual guts of the story. Then, Herodotus is kind of like that, except he’s entertaining because he’s talking about stuff we don’t–and wouldn’t–otherwise know. But, this is how the narratives of legends grow over time. John wants to establish beyond a doubt that those who witnessed the event have their input to verify the circumstances. 

8 Itaque vicini et, qui videbant eum prius quia mendicus erat, dicebant: “Nonne hic est, qui sedebat et mendicabat”;
9 alii dicebant: “ Hic est! ”; alii dicebant: “ Nequaquam, sed similis est eius!”. Ille dicebat: “ Ego sum!”.
10 Dicebant ergo ei: “Quomodo igitur aperti sunt oculi tibi?”.
11 Respondit ille: “Homo, qui dicitur Iesus, lutum fecit et unxit oculos meos et dixit mihi: “’ ‘Vade ad Siloam et lava!’. Abii ergo et lavi et vidi”.

12 καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῷ, Ποῦ ἐστιν ἐκεῖνος; λέγει, Οὐκ οἶδα.

13 Ἄγουσιν αὐτὸν πρὸς τοὺς Φαρισαίους τόν ποτε τυφλόν.

14 ἦν δὲ σάββατον ἐν ἧ ἡμέρᾳ τὸν πηλὸν ἐποίησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ ἀνέῳξεν αὐτοῦ τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς.

15 πάλιν οὖν ἠρώτων αὐτὸν καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι πῶς ἀνέβλεψεν. ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, Πηλὸν ἐπέθηκέν μου ἐπὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς, καὶ ἐνιψάμην, καὶ βλέπω.

16 ἔλεγον οὖν ἐκ τῶν Φαρισαίων τινές, Οὐκ ἔστιν οὗτος παρὰ θεοῦ ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ὅτι τὸ σάββατον οὐ τηρεῖ. ἄλλοι [δὲ] ἔλεγον, Πῶς δύναται ἄνθρωπος ἁμαρτωλὸς τοιαῦτα σημεῖα ποιεῖν; καὶ σχίσμα ἦν ἐν αὐτοῖς.

17 λέγουσιν οὖν τῷ τυφλῷ πάλιν, Τί σὺ λέγεις περὶ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἠνέῳξέν σου τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς; ὁ δὲ εἶπεν ὅτι Προφήτης ἐστίν.

And they said to him, “Where is he (Jesus)?” He (the man) said, “I don’t know.” (13) They led one previously blind to the Pharisees. (14) It was the Sabbath on the day Jesus made the mud and smeared it on his eyes. (15) So and again the Pharisees asked him how he saw. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed and I saw”. (16) Then some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not with God, that he does not keep the Sabbath”. [But] Others said, “How can a man make such a sign?” And there was a schism amongst them. (17) So they spoke again to the blind one, “Who is it you speak about, that opened your eyes?” And he said that “He is a prophet”. 

First, there is no verb in Verse 13 aside from “they led”. The sentence is rendered in various translations as “They led him/the one who was formerly blind”. It’s better English–I suppose– and it doesn’t affect the meaning of the text,  but it’s not in the Greek.

It is also interesting to note that the Pharisees do not play anywhere near the major role in John that they do in some of the other gospels. They get three one-off mentions in chapters 1-4 and they appear in a single story in Chapter 7, in which the word is used numerous times. There is another single usage in Chapter 8, they mentioned here appear here several times and, in another extended appearance in Chapter 11, twice in Chapter 12, and then they disappear until a single mention in Chapter 18. Why they have faded into the wallpaper here is a good question. It would seem most likely to indicate that the Pharisees themselves as a group had begun to fade from the scene at this point in the history of Judaism, but I would not take my word on that based on this inference of mine. I would not just accept this on my say-so, either. I want confirmation of this from someone who knows much more about the history of Judaism and/or of Judea/Palestine than I do. It’s rather a specialist’s field and not something amenable to speculation by a dilettante such as I.

Really though, there are two main things being put across here. The first is the repetition of the story about Jesus making mud. The magical practice is recounted in Verses 8-11 and then again here in 12-16. That is also worth asking why? As mentioned, I’ve been reading about magic in the Hellenistic world–which includes the history of Rome from about the 2nd Century BCE, after the conquest of the Greek east and its incorporation into the Empire before the beginning of the Common Era. While there were periods when it was generally ignored, it was always held somewhat in disrepute by the more respectable in society. If nothing else, it was low-class; it was common as the British would say with a sniff. It wasn’t something one wanted to emphasize. And yet here we have John repeating the story several times to remind us of Jesus’ reputation as a sorcerer. And Jesus did have this reputation, at least posthumously. We know that he was called such by the pagan Celsus, and that Eusebios disputed the charge and hurled it back at Apollonius of Tyana. I don’t have an answer. The Gnostics were not particularly fond of magic, so we can’t blame them. I just don’t know. 

The other thing is the keeping of the Sabbath. This charge against Jesus has cropped up a couple of times before. In fact, we could almost call it a recurring theme in the gospel at this point. Again we need to ask why this is important. Here I believe the answer is a bit more clear, or at least it’s easier to come up with what could pass for a reasonable explanation. In all instances, “The Jews”, or here The Pharisees condemn Jesus for performing beneficial acts of healing. The purpose here is pretty obvious, IMO. Having endured years of religious instruction at Maple Grove St Michael’s as a lad, I recognize that the teaching was meant to show Judaism at its worst. The Pharisees were more concerned about the Letter of the Law, and not at all with its spirit. John apparently sees the benefit of pointing this out repeatedly. Just as Jesus’ revelation of his identity, this seems to be a theme of the gospel.

I did not translate schism; I left it transliterated because this is another of those words that has taken on a very specific and almost exclusively religious connotation. I say “almost exclusively” because the word is encountered when discussing secular ideologies such as capitalism; in such discussions the term “heresy” also crops up from time to time, but the dichotomy of theology and ideology is largely a distinction without a difference. In English, there is a difference between a “schism” and a “division” outside of the religious/secular context. “Divisions” between opinions are mundane and a dime a dozen; a schism, OTOH, is much more serious, implying a degree of near permanence. So what about here? Should I have left the word untranslated? Or should I have followed suit with the professional translators? Being honest, leaving the term as “schism” in English probably paints too harsh a picture. There is a large-ish group of people and some of them disagree. There is no reason to assume this has hardened into an irreparable split between the groups. That being said, I believe it was worthwhile to have this discussion to demonstrate how words take on meaning in English that are not present in the Greek. Like angellos, or baptismo, or euangelia.  

Now finally we come to the matter of the sign. I teased that a sign was coming at the outset of the previous post; however, we’ve only just now gotten to the sign. I would say that only part of the crowd is calling the healing a sign, but I don’t think that is accurate. Recall that a sign is a step above a miracle, or a “mighty work” or “deed of power”. I often quote that “the sky hung low in the ancient world, and the traffic in both directions was heavy”. That may not be the exact quote, but it the point becomes clear when it is understood that the air and sky and heavens was full of powers of various sorts, generically called daimones, which, whether benign or malevolent were capable of effecting such deeds of power. So while a deed of power was impressive, or at least above ordinary, a sign was entirely a different matter. A sign means something more than the mere suspension of natural laws; bear in mind that natural laws were largely unknown, so their suspension wasn’t that far out of the grasp of most people. Who knows? Some deeds of power may have involved the invocation of unknown natural law rather than their suspension. Wonder workers were not all that uncommon; reading literary works of Rome or Greece we find the character of the wonder worker to be fairly common, a type that most people would recognize.

But a sign takes us to a different level of supernatural significance, largely because it was understood to be significant. It was from God, meant to manifest his will amongst his people. This is why the Jews were so insistent on a sign; The Jews ask for a sign and the Greeks seek wisdom, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:22. This is why the man whose sight was restored asks how a sinner can produce such a sign. For when the disciples of the Baptist asked Jesus if he were the one, the part of the latter’s response was that the blind see; of course this is a reference to Isaiah 35, which I saw labeled as the Joy of the Redeemed. So if Jesus is restoring sight, then that is a pretty clear indication that he is not a sinner. In fact, it’s a pretty clear indication that he is the Messiah, as foretold by Isaiah. So is the formerly blind man being a bit disingenuous when he says that Jesus is a prophet? Or is he afraid of speaking too boldly? 

12 Et dixerunt ei: “Ubi est ille?”. Ait: “Nescio”.
13 Adducunt eum ad pharisaeos, qui caec us fuerat.
14 Erat autem sabbatum, in qua die lutum fecit Iesus et aperuit oculos eius.
15 Iterum ergo interrogabant et eum pharisaei quomodo vidisset. Ille autem dixit eis: “Lutum posuit super oculos meos, et lavi et video”.
16 Dicebant ergo ex pharisaeis quidam: “Non est hic homo a Deo, quia sabbatum non custodit! ”; alii autem dicebant: “ Quomodo potest homo peccator haec signa facere?”. Et schisma erat in eis.

 18 Οὐκ ἐπίστευσαν οὖν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι περὶ αὐτοῦ ὅτι ἦν τυφλὸς καὶ ἀνέβλεψεν, ἕως ὅτου ἐφώνησαν τοὺς γονεῖς αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἀναβλέψαντος

19 καὶ ἠρώτησαν αὐτοὺς λέγοντες, Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς ὑμῶν, ὃν ὑμεῖς λέγετε ὅτι τυφλὸς ἐγεννήθη; πῶς οὖν βλέπει ἄρτι;

20 ἀπεκρίθησαν οὖν οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ καὶ εἶπαν, Οἴδαμεν ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς ἡμῶν καὶ ὅτι τυφλὸς ἐγεννήθη:

21 πῶς δὲ νῦν βλέπει οὐκ οἴδαμεν, ἢ τίς ἤνοιξεν αὐτοῦ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἡμεῖς οὐκ οἴδαμεν: αὐτὸν ἐρωτήσατε, ἡλικίαν ἔχει, αὐτὸς περὶ ἑαυτοῦ λαλήσει. 

 So “the Jews” did not believe he who had been blind and whose sight was restored, until they heard the parents of him whose sight was restored (19) and they (“The Jews”) asked them (the parents), saying, “Is he your son, who you say was born blind? So how exactly does he see?” (20) So the parents of him answered and said, “We know that he is our son and that he was born blind. (21) How he now sees we do not know. Ask him. He has (requisite) age, he speaks for himself.”

At the end of the last section, I asked why the formerly blind man referred to Jesus as a prophet, rather than as the Messiah. It now occurs to me that I provided the quote about the blind seeing; it’s not part of the text, so the reference to Isaiah is only in my mind rather than in the story. We will assume John was fully aware of the reference, oblique as it may be. One suspects that this is why the report to the Baptist includes the phrase about the blind seeing in Matthew and Luke. Matthew likely would have been aware of Isaiah; would Q have known? There is a question that deserves to be asked. My hard copy Greek NT has the cross references in the margins, which is immensely helpful in cases like this. Matthew, being the HS scholar that he was, to the point of coming up with “He will be called a Nazarene” likely added the report to the Baptist about the blind regaining their sight as further demonstration of the foretelling of Jesus in the HS.

The question then becomes whether John expected his audience to catch the allusion made here. Naturally, this would require rather a high degree of proficiency and understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures. There is no overt repetition of the phrase regarding the blind. We have the stark account of the story. In his book Jesus Before the Gospels, Ehrman hypothesizes that the community of John the Evangelist consisted of people with a strong background in Judaism, even if not actually raised as Jews. This community had come to the point where they decided it was time to cut their ties with the Jewish religion and become fully Christians, rather than continue on as Jewish-Christians. It’s an interesting hypothesis and it really helps explain the degree of animosity John expresses towards “The Jews”. If true, one inference to be drawn is that the audience for this gospel probably did have a decent degree of knowledge about the HS in general, and perhaps of Isaiah in particular. We must realize that, as Christians, in some ways Isaiah is more significant for us than it is for Jews, who probably put more emphasis on Ezekiel. Of course, that is a horridly subjective statement on my part, but that has been my overall impression. BUT!! that impression is based on very little evidence, so take what I say with way more than a grain of salt. I cannot even begin to formulate an argument for my position; at best, it’s sort of a vague, hazy, inchoate feeling, not at all something even remotely suitable for a serious scholarly judgement.

The point here is that there is a decent chance that the audience may not have picked up on the reference to Isaiah. We would have to assess just how thoroughly familiar the “average Jew” of the early Second Century was with the HS. I don’t know. Observant Jews would have attended Temple at least some of the time, one would think, but based on the degree of knowledge a lot of the Catholics I grew up with had of the Bible, even regular attendance at church on Sunday was hardly sufficient to impart any deep knowledge. I don’t think I’m atypical of my peers, and there is even reason to think that maybe I got a little more than most; regardless, there have been numerous passages and stories that I had never heard before. And I’m just talking the NT; as for the so-called “Old Testament” as it was known in my youth, well, I got a sketchy outline of some of the major events in the first three books, a few stories here and there about Saul and David and Solomon, Jonah, the Dry Bones of Ezekiel, and the impression that Isaiah was very important. So based on my experience, I wouldn’t really be surprised if many people in John’s ekklesia did not catch the allusion. OTOH, perhaps this group was more robust in their belief and their practice than the standard American Catholic congregation. But then, my experience could have been atypical; perhaps most congregations were/are much more fervent in their learning than the rural parish in rural Michigan where I was raised. 

Because if the ekklesia was as clueless as I’m suggesting as possible, the whole point of the Sign would be lost. The question of the sign was apparently some of “The Jews”, who should be takem as more learned. They would get the allusion; indeed, it’s probably safe to say they did get the allusion since they consider the event before them to be a sign. 

But that was all relevant to the passage above; here the discussion focuses on the man’s parents. They are very cagey about their answers; they apparently understand that there are significant implications to the event, even if they maybe don’t grasp the full depth of the problem. Perhaps they do, which is why they’re so evasive. Or, at least, John is suggesting that they did because while the likelihood that these events transpired is not zero, the odds are very close to that. Given all the back and forth we’ve been hashing out, I think the reasonable conclusion is that John did expect his audience–at least the most learned segment of it–to grasp the idea of the sign as it related to the  “prophecy” of Isaiah. That is, after all, why this is a sign. 

17 Dicunt ergo caeco iterum: “Tu quid dicis de eo quia aperuit oculos tuos?”.  Ille autem dixit: “Propheta est!”.
18 Non crediderunt ergo Iudaei de illo quia caecus fuisset et vidisset, donec vocaverunt parentes eius, qui viderat.
19 Et interrogaverunt eos dicentes: “Hic est filius vester, quem vos dicitis quia caecus natus est? Quomodo ergo nunc videt?”.
20 Responderunt ergo parentes eius et dixerunt: “Scimus quia hic est filius noster et quia caecus natus est.
21 Quomodo autem nunc videat nescimus, aut quis eius aperuit oculos nos nescimus; ipsum interrogate. Aetatem habet; ipse de se loquetur!”.

Vindcation

Anyone who has been following this blog has probably/possibly heard me say that I suspect that Luke and Jewish historian Josephus influenced each other. I’ve based my conclusion on what I see as some pretty obvious overlaps between the material of the two. Now, if Luke was written in ca. 85 as is the traditional view, then Josephus, writing in the early-mid 90s, would have/could have used Luke as a source.

In the YouTube video below, Dr Bart Ehrmann tells us that the traditional date for Luke may be too early. According to Ehrman, in the past 20 years or so, some scholars have started suggesting that Luke was dependent on Josephus, and so they push the date of Luke/Acts back to 120 or so. This has become the high-end date for John, so we’re moving further away from the time of Jesus. This has obvious consequences for the historical reliability of Luke/Acts and John. However, I would suggest that the precedence is backward. IMO, it is more likely that Josephus used Luke rather than the other way around. Why? Both Luke and Josephus are likely based on Christian sources, but there were very few–if any–written Christian sources other than the NT. There is basically nothing else that Josephus could have used as a source aside from one of the gospels, whether Luke or Matthew. The Roman historians who mention Christians were written later, definitely in the early 2nd Century. As a result, Josephus needed Luke much more than Luke needed Josephus. Luke had the other two (and perhaps more) gospels but Josephus had nothing else. Even so, I’m claiming vindication because I came to this conclusion about Luke/Josephus entirely independently, based on a simple reading of the two. In particular, it’s based on reading Luke as an historical document, treating it as a Classics major would read any Greek or Roman writing, whether intended to be historical or not.

By the way: The Roman historians that are trotted out to prove the existence of Jesus do no such thing. None of them provide evidence for Jesus. They all talk about Christians, but say nothing about Jesus himself. Tacitus explains that Christians are named from their founder Chrestos, but that simply an inference from the name. The Greeks & Romans tended to attribute all sorts of things, such as land areas and rivers, to some eponymous hero who obligingly donated his or her name to an area. For example, “Europe” was named after Europa, whom Zeus carried off while he was in the form of a bull. The Peloponnese, meaning “Island of Pelops” was named after the mythical hero Pelops. So deriving “Chrestos” from “Christian” is perfectly in line with this logic.

One analogy to Jesus and his followers may be the Apology of Socrates, the speech Socrates gave when he was on trial for his life on the charge of impiety. Spoiler alert: his defense was unsuccessful and he was executed. Both Plato and Xenophon wrote versions of this speech, and they don’t exactly line up with each other. Which is “correct”? Probably neither. But each can tell us things, and comparing these things can lead to other conclusions. And this analogy may be particularly apt: both The Apology of Socrates and the Passion narratives are accounts of the capital trial of the Teacher written after the fact by disciples. None of them completely agree with the others. The PNs are much more alike than than they are different but that proves nothing about their reliability; rather, it indicates that each telling was heavily dependent on the previous accounts.

The point here fairly simple. I do not have a background in NT studies, and I am starting to realize just how much I don’t know. I recently published an update to 1 Corinthians 9-16 that incorporated information from reading Hippolytus Romanus and Dr Elaine Pagels The Gnostic Paul; I would not have made the update unless I had read both of those sources. Ergo, as I have said numerous times, any and all of my conclusions are subject to revision without advance warning because I have no problem revising, changing, or even contradicting something I said previously because I came across new or better information. My conclusions are just that: conclusions that are logically–one hopes!–supported by the evidence supported. Change or increase the evidence, the conclusion should change. That is how this process is supposed to work. That being said, I am pleased (with myself!) to report that a lot of what I have drawn as conclusions have also been suggested or argued by others who have a much stronger background than I do in NT Studies. My instincts are pretty good, so you can feel some confidence when I draw historical conclusions, such as suggesting that Matthew began life as a pagan rather than a Jew; I’m not the first to suggest that. Or that there was a connection between Luke and Josephus, which has also been suggested. Or that Jesus was not actually from Nazareth; which I believe I am the first to suggest.

FYI. But, as always, take it with a grain or two of salt.

Relevant section approx 5:35 – 5:55

Summary John Chapter 8

Where to start? We started our commentary with the story of the woman caught in adultery. This story is not in all mss traditions, and there is good reason to suspect that it was not part of the original text as written by “John”. That being said, the NIV, NASB, ESV, RSVP, NRSVC, and KJV all include it in the chapter. The REB does not. It’s a famous story, and it appears more often than not, so it’s worth a few words of summary.

It would be extremely valuable to know when, where, and how this got added into the text, but we don’t. Regardless, it’s a great example of how little we know about the actual texts as they were written, before they were copied many multiple times over. It’s a great lesson on how stuff gets added to the text; I’ve said many times that legends grow over time. The stories get longer and more complex as details an even entire people are added–not subtracted–from the legend. Always bear that in mind. A story like the Centurion’s Slave is another great example. It wasn’t in Mark, and it wasn’t in Q because there was no such thing. This leaves us to conclude that the story was added, the whole thing. It was created after–probably long after–Jesus’ death, and probably even after Mark. Then there are the stories unique to Matthew and Luke, such as the Talents, or Workers in the Vineyard and the Widow of Nain, or Zaccheus; where did those come from? In this instance we are fortunate to have competing mss traditions that tell us in no uncertain terms that at least some of the content of the texts is a bit dodgy at best. It can be argued that the story was original to John and omitted in some traditions, which makes the story…I’m not sure what. Think about it: what monk, or what believer is going to take it upon himself to cut out a story about the Lord? Seems a bit presumptuous, to put it mildly. Of course the scribe could have just lost his place in the ms, but to skip over 11 lines is really falling asleep on the job.

As for the story itself, it’s very interesting, in no small part because the message is not as obvious as we might suppose. The people in the Temple are very willing, even eager, to punish the sinner, and the Law said they had legal justification to do so. Jesus, however, intervenes with his famous axiom about sin. With that we may be forgiven to think that the message is one of mercy: She, and so we, should not be put to death for our sins; but there is an element missing, and it’s arguably the most important part of the message. Jesus does not forgive her. He tells her to sin no more, but there is no, “Daughter, your sins are forgiven”. He forgave the sins of the paralytic at the Sheep Gate/Pool. Why did he not forgive hers? That is a doctrinal question way above my pay grade. It seems inconsistent with the message we get elsewhere, when we are told that all sins can be forgiven, except for one against the spirit. Adultery is more or less the defining “sin of the flesh”, so it should be forgivable, but forgiveness is not forthcoming. So what we get is that Jesus is more than willing to intervene and to stand against the pitiless strictures of the Law, but he is not willing to forgive her sin. Was she not repentant? Was the paralytic? Not really, but it can be argued that his sin was not so overt, but how do we know that? The conclusion to be drawn seems to be that the story was added by someone who sympathized with the Prodigal Son’s older brother, or the Vineyard Workers who worked the whole day. Or something. Bottom line is that I do not have the chops to explain this.

From here we get back to the ongoing debate or argument or whatever between Jesus and “The Jews” in which Jesus seeks to explain how things have changed now that he is in their midst. As such, the Cast the First Stone story is a not unsuitable introduction. Jesus is very clearly demonstrating that the Law is not necessarily the proper standard any longer. Yes, she “should” have been stoned to comply with the Law, but such compliance is no longer the concern. Another standard has taken hold. “The Jews” do not understand, or do not realize this so they have to have it spelled out for them. Now, this is arguably the reason why they do not understand who Jesus is, or why he is, and why he says that they are not the children of Abraham, but the children of the Devil. And their lack of understanding means that they will die in their sins. That is a very harsh judgement. The last several chapters have involved Jesus in dialogue with people in the Temple, and for the most part it has not been exactly friendly. There is tension, most of which is due to Jesus chastising his audience for not understanding who Jesus is, or what Jesus’ message is. To the casual observer, to some degree, the puzzlement, or ignorance of the audience can be understood; after all, Jesus is presenting a novel message, no? Or is Jesus a bit peeved–and he sure seems to be–because “The Jews” are not understanding the full message of their own sacred writings? Or is it both of the above?

But if we step back to look at the bigger picture, this ongoing discussion between Jesus and his fictional audience began in Chapter 5 and ends here with Chapter 8. Despite some minor contextual differences, these chapters more or less form a unit, the theme of which is Jesus attempting to  explain who he is to “The Jews”. Of course, the real audience is not “the Jews”, but us. In Chapter 5 we had the healing of the paralytic at the Sheep Pool, which led to a discussion of Jesus’ right to break the Sabbath and his temerity to call God his father. Here Jesus begins to explain what the Son of Man is allowed to do, and the scope is extensive, including the ability to give life and to pass judgement. Of course, these would normally be considered the prerogatives of God alone, and so of course “The Jews” are outraged and wish to kill him for claiming equality with God. In Chapter 6 we had John’s version of the Feeding story. This led to Jesus’ declaration that he is the Bread of Life. This event took place (at least partially) in Galilee, and so Jesus’ presumption resulted in him outraging and entirely new group of Jews, especially when he claimed to have come down from heaven.

As a side note, I’m not sure I caught this at the appropriate time. In Chapter 6, after Jesus has fed the 5,000, he crosses the Sea of Galilee (V-16), departing from Tiberias to return to Caphernaum. The folks from Tiberias who had witnessed the feeding follow, and it is with this group that Jesus has his discussion, during which he made the claim about coming down from the sky in Verse 38. Without any sense that the location of the discussion, or the participants have changed, the crowd grumbles and says, do we not know that this is the son of Joseph? We know his father and mother. How can he claim to come from the sky? This takes us back to the discussion of whether Jesus was actually from Nazareth. As many of you know, I do not believe he was. Mark mentions Nazareth exactly once, in 1:9. John mentions it twice, in 1:45 & 1:46, when Philipp and Nathaniel are talking about Jesus. And here we have John very strongly implying that the crowd in Caphernaum know his family. Recall that Nazareth is some distance from Caphernaum. A quick Google puts the distance at 50 km by the modern roadway, but another entry says Jesus walked 40 miles to get from one to the other. The two don’t quite square since 49.7 km = 30 miles. Close enough. Or rather, either way the distance is much more than a casual stroll. Average walking speed is 3 mph, so that’s a ten-hour hike for 30 miles. I say this to demonstrate that the amount of back-and-forth between the two towns would not have been substantial. It takes purpose to walk for ten hours, so the chances of the people of Caphernaum knowing Joseph and Mary are not great. Some of them probably did, but not all of them. Yes, one can posit a lot of plausible ways for the crowd to come to know Jesus family, but we’re making stuff up when we do that. We don’t know if Jesus’ entire family moved to Caphernaum when he did. We don’t know if/how/why the residents of Caphernaum knew Jesus’ family if they didn’t reside there. My point is that we need to determine what the text tells us. Mark tells us once, in a passage that could easily be an interpolation added later when Nazareth became fixed on the tradition. Strictly speaking, Matthew and Luke disagree. Matthew tells us Jesus, Mary, and Joseph actually lived in Bethlehem, and only moved to Nazareth after their return from Egypt. Luke is actually the most definite on the Nazareth tradition, stating that they lived in Nazareth but the birth occurred in Bethlehem due to the cockamamie notion that Joseph had to return there to be counted in a census that likely never happened. But then he reinforces this in 4:16, in the Prophet Without Honor story which he says took place in Nazareth. The point is that John places this story in Caphernaum. Whether Jesus was from Nazareth is, frankly, at best peripheral to the message of the gospels, so we are best off taking the weight of the textual evidence which puts him in Caphernaum.

In Chapter 7 we get a discussion of Jesus vis à vis Moses. In Chapter 8 we tuned to Abraham and slavery and other assorted issues. There are threats, or the desire to kill Jesus, but mostly he’s still trying to explain himself. Chapter 8 is a crescendo of sorts because Jesus tells the Jews that they are going to die in their sin. Having now finished Ehrman’s Jesus Before The Gospels, I can pass along some of his insights. This is cheating to a degree, because my purpose was to do the translation and commentary more or less cold without secondary sources or interpretation. That way I see what I see, not what someone else tells me is there. This may seem like a very noble goal, and it is, more or less. In some ways. Yes, we get my opinion, . My opinion is just that, my opinion often unsupported by any outside evidence. This is perhaps as much a bug as a feature. Be that as it may, having Prof Ehrman’s insight is useful for Chapter 8.

I am pleased to inform you that my instincts for historical and/or textual analysis seem to be pretty good. He agrees with me (ahem) that the overall theme of John is very different from that of the Synoptics, whether singly or as a group. As I said above, John is interested in telling us, definitively and in no uncertain terms, who and what Jesus was: A divine entity that was somehow the same as, yet different from God the Father. We have spent the last four chapters reading about how Jesus went about explaining himself. Ehrman says that this attempt to summarize and/or explain is due in some part to the timing of when the gospel was written. At the time of writing Christians and Jews had become two separate and distinct groups. And of course, in John’s opinion, the Jews were completely wrong. Hence we get the condemnation that they will die in their sins. By this time “The Jews” had rejected Jesus which meant the path to salvation was closed to them, so there would be no eternal life for them. So here in Chapter 8 we got the pronouncement of the verdict, or perhaps the sentence: They would die in their sins.

While John contrasts with the Synoptics, there are parallels, just as I have drawn parallels to the birth stories of Matthew and Luke. They are different, but they share an underlying organization; that is, the logos of the two gospels is very similar, or perhaps even identical in the essential* qualities. Just as the Sermon on the Mount gave us many of the foundational principles of Christian ethics and practice, so John gives us many of the statements that tell us who Jesus is. He is The Word who was there In the Beginning. He is the Light of the World. He is the Bread of Life. He is the Resurrection and the Life. As Dr Ehrman says, Jesus “proclaims his divine identity publicly and repeatedly” throughout the gospel. So I stick by my earlier assessment that John’s gospel is, in effect, a summary of Jesus’ career, with the purpose to let us all know that Jesus is, in some very real and essential* way.

*Essence in the technical, philosophical, Aristotelean definition, essence being the nature of an entity’s being at the most fundamental and inalterable level.

Update Notice

I have never done this before, but I wanted to send out a separate notice that I have updated a previous post. It concerns my commentary on 1 Corinthians 2:9-16 that was originally published in November 2013. So yes, it’s very old, but I have come into some new knowledge about Paul that substantially changes the implications of my original commentary. The details are in the update section, which is at the top of the post.

This is the link to the post, which can be found in the archives under November 2013. Which I just realized is pretty much exactly ten years ago.

1 Corinthians Chapter 2:9-16 Updated 12/12/23

John Chapter 8:54-59

We continue. The goal here is (finally) to finish this chapter. We are still not half-way through the gospel. It seems like this is really slow-going, but the unique material in John requires additional analysis; my hope is that I’m doing it some justice. As has become the trend, the last part of the previous post included for continuity, since we are breaking the posts in mid-conversation.

Text

[Thus] “The Jews” said to him, “Now we know you have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets (died), and you say ‘If you do not keep my teaching, you will not taste death forever’. (53) Are better than the father of us Abraham, who died? Or the prophets who died? What do you make yourself?” (= “what do you make yourself to be”, or “who do you think you are?”)

54 ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς, Ἐὰν ἐγὼ δοξάσω ἐμαυτόν, ἡ δόξα μου οὐδέν ἐστιν: ἔστιν ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ δοξάζων με, ὃν ὑμεῖς λέγετε ὅτι θεὸς ἡμῶν ἐστιν:

55 καὶ οὐκ ἐγνώκατε αὐτόν, ἐγὼ δὲ οἶδα αὐτόν. κἂν εἴπω ὅτι οὐκ οἶδα αὐτόν, ἔσομαι ὅμοιος ὑμῖν ψεύστης: ἀλλὰ οἶδα αὐτὸν καὶ τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ τηρῶ.

56 Ἀβραὰμ ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ἠγαλλιάσατο ἵνα ἴδῃ τὴν ἡμέραν τὴν ἐμήν, καὶ εἶδεν καὶ ἐχάρη.

Jesus answered, “If I will glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my father who glorifies me, who you say is our God. And you do not know him, but I know him. And if I say I don’t  know him, I will be like (lit = equal to) you, a liar. But I know him and I keep his word/message. Your father Abraham rejoiced exceedingly, in that he somehow saw my day, and he saw and rejoiced.” 

It’s always tricky to get the aorist subjunctive into an English sentence that does justice to the subjunctive, as it mixes a past action with uncertain or unreal conditions. That is what we get in the last half of Verse 56, which I very clumsily rendered as “he somehow saw my day“. This is  followed by two aorist verbs, “he saw” and “he rejoiced”, both singular actions completed in the past. The subjunctive can also be used for emotional states, but then it would be more appropriate for the second clause, for the exultation rather than the seeing. The point is that Abraham was able, somehow, to see Jesus’ day. The somehow is meant to convey the unreal or uncertain condition, so I guess that makes sense. “Abraham, even though he died centuries ago, somehow, via some unspecified mechanism, saw Jesus’ day, and he saw and rejoiced”. The repetition of “he saw” is more or less necessary to confirm that the unspecified mechanism did indeed function properly, so we can use the aorist and so state with certainty Abraham, indeed, saw Jesus’ day. 

Is it just me, or is this all getting a tad repetitious? Those in the audience don’t know God, so they don’t understand Jesus.

But one aspect of this that we have not noted is the way Jesus seems to separate himself from God. The father is the one who glorifies, and he glorifies Jesus. Jesus keeps his father’s word. Here is where/how/why it becomes difficult to believe that John was not fully aware of the Synoptic gospels. After all, we started this gospel with “and the Logos was God”, an assertion of the identity of the “two” who in fact were one. They are not the same, but the Logos is God. When reading this one needs to keep in mind that the idea of the Trinity is still several hundred years in the future. The Trinity is strictly speaking biblical; the Trinity is an inference compose from the amalgamation of “The Logos was God” and “It is my father who glorifies me”. Now, I have to admit that I’ve probably spent too much time messing around with Plato, Augustine, and Aquinas, so my perspective may be a bit overly-formal and perhaps downright archaic. However, some of this is just plain historical analysis where we have to understand what the text actually says, and it says that the Logos was God and the father glorifies the son. Those two statements are not exactly contradictory or mutually exclusive, but they are also not fully compatible with each other–unless you posit the Trinity. Then the two statements make sense in relation to each other. But then we have to ask ourselves if John truly had this intention in mind when he wrote? I am not at all sure how we can make that statement.     

The point here is that when John says things like “the father glorifies me”, he is very much aligned with the Christology of the Synoptics, wherein the father and son were separate entities. These are the sorts of comparisons that need to be made. There is certainly a vast discussion of the difference between “Blessed are the poor” and “Blessed are the poor in spirit”. There is an enormous debate about differences in wording, but not so much about the implications of the words used. I mentioned Ehrman’s book, Jesus Before the Gospels–which I do recommend; in it he discusses at some length whether we can trust stories, or aspects of stories, but then he falls back on his buried assumptions about the historicity of much of the NT. This shows up when he discusses  those facts that we can take as given–as data. Anyone who remembers–or doesn’t–geometric proofs, the givens are the statements set out at the beginning that can be accepted as true and accurate. Ehrman doesn’t really look at his givens; rather, he believes we can build our house on the foundation of Jesus was from Nazareth without really examining the various gospels to see if this is actually a valid conclusion. I believe it is not. I believe the texts overwhelmingly indicate that Jesus was born, raised, and lived in Caphernaum, and that his extended family lived there too. Now, whether or not Jesus was born/raised in Nazareth really does not have much impact on the rest of it, but it’s a great example of simply accepting an assumption as something that has been proven.

In the final analysis, these verses further John’s position that “The Jews” have misunderstood Jesus.  

54 Respondit Iesus: “Si ego glorifico meipsum, gloria mea nihil est; est Pater meus, qui glorificat me, quem vos dicitis: “Deus noster est!”,

55 et non cognovistis eum. Ego autem novi eum. Et si dixero: Non scio eum, ero similis vobis, mendax; sed scio eum et sermonem eius servo.

56 Abraham pater vester exsultavit, ut videret diem meum; et vidit et gavisus est ”.

57 εἶπον οὖν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι πρὸς αὐτόν, Πεντήκοντα ἔτη οὔπω ἔχεις καὶ Ἀβραὰμ ἑώρακας;

58 εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Ἰησοῦς, Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγὼ εἰμί.

59 ἦραν οὖν λίθους ἵνα βάλωσιν ἐπ’ αὐτόν: Ἰησοῦς δὲ ἐκρύβη καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ἐκ τοῦ ἱεροῦ.

So “the Jews” said to him, “Five hundred years and have you seen Abraham?” (58) Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen I say to you, before Abraham became, I am there.” (59) So they picked up stones in order to throw them at him, but Jesus hid, and went out of the temple.

So “the Jews” more or less made my point, that how did Abraham see Jesus half a millennium prior to Jesus birth? But then Jesus picked up on my other point that the Logos was there in the beginning. So here, I think, it would behoove me to reconsider my earlier point about John had the intent to introduce the concept of the Trinity. Granted, there are not yet Three Persons, but we have Two who seem to be the same and yet different, separate but equal, as it were. Jesus said Abraham had seen Jesus’ day, meaning the present time when Jesus is on earth and so can be seen, but now he adds that he was before Abraham became; that is, Jesus existed before Abraham was born. This is another way to say that “in the beginning was the Logos”. This sort of concept might seem to indicate that the author of John was, to some degree, familiar with some of the concepts of Greek philosophy; by “Greek philosophy” I mean the formal study of Plato and Aristotle and the principles of being, existence, soul, time, and the like. Augustine and Aquinas were familiar with these concepts, and they imported this sort of thinking into Christianity. The merger of Greek and Hebrew thought was never complete and this caused all sorts of problems in the Later Middle Ages. And throughout, there were Christians who were arguably Platonists, and Christians who abhorred Plato and his argumentation and insisted on doctrines of faith that did not rely on rational proof. The end result of this tension was the Reformation, although that did not solve anything; the philosophical questions and conundrums–mutually exclusive absolutes being a big one–remain, but we now understand that they don’t really matter. This is summed up nicely by the Roman Church when it declared that something was a mystery that was beyond human comprehension, so just drop it. Kind of a cop-out, but also eminently practical. We can get on with our lives.

And here we see the result of this tension in Verse 59. “The Jews” felt the abyss of irreconcilable truths: how could Jesus exist now and yet have been seen by Abraham. There was no clear answer, and there still isn’t. Baffled by this inability to understand, they fall into the all-too-human universal solution: violence. Destroy what you cannot understand. But the real kicker is Jesus’ reaction: he hid. In Luke, when Jesus found himself hemmed in by angry townsfolk, Jesus simply passed through the crowd, apparently while still visible, although that is conjecture on my part. Here, he hid. That makes one consider the logistics of such an act. The Temple was enormous, something like 3-5 American football fields according to Ehrman’s book that I’m reading. So, assuming it was full of people during the festival (Sukkoth), are we to assume further that he ducked into the crowd? It’s plausible. What I want to know is whether the floor was paved or not. If so, where did they get the stones?  

57 Dixerunt ergo Iudaei ad eum: “Quinquaginta annos nondum habes et Abraham vidisti?”.

58 Dixit eis Iesus: “ Amen, amen dico vobis: Antequam Abraham fieret, ego sum”.

59 Tulerunt ergo lapides, ut iacerent in eum; Iesus autem abscondit se et exivit de templo.

John Chapter 8:48-53

These brief introductions to each section have become a tad repetitive. We are still in the Temple–on that second day, presumably–Jesus is still talking to “The Jews”–as will be manifiest in the first verse–and there is still no logical place to break. All that being said, let’s have at it.

Text

(45) “But I speak the truth, (and) you do not believe me. (46) Who from (amongst) you refutes me regarding sins? If I speak truth, why do you not believe me? (47) The one being from the father hears the words of the father. On account of this you do not hear because you are not from the father.”  

Just a final word (famous last words?) about these last three verses of the previous post. We talked about different aspects of “refuted”, but never quite cut to the chase about what Jesus is saying. If you’ll recall, the verb I’ve rendered as “refuted” is frequently translated as “convicted”. To be honest, I’m not really sure what that would mean. Jesus said that the audience would die in their sin(s) because they did not believe in him. No one refuted him on this statement. Ergo, the statement stands because no one presented a counter-argument (arguit, in Latin). I suppose someone could have convicted Jesus for being wrong about this, but I’m not entirely sure how that would work, so I’m not sure that presents an accurate translation. OTOH, refuting him makes perfect sense to my mind.

48 Ἀπεκρίθησαν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῷ, Οὐ καλῶς λέγομεν ἡμεῖς ὅτι Σαμαρίτης εἶ σὺ καὶ δαιμόνιον ἔχεις;

49 ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς, Ἐγὼ δαιμόνιον οὐκ ἔχω, ἀλλὰ τιμῶ τὸν πατέρα μου, καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀτιμάζετέ με.

50 ἐγὼ δὲ οὐ ζητῶ τὴν δόξαν μου: ἔστιν ὁ ζητῶν καὶ κρίνων.

51 ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐάν τις τὸν ἐμὸν λόγον τηρήσῃ, θάνατον οὐ μὴ θεωρήσῃ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.

“The Jews” answered and said to him, “Do we not speak well (i.e.= accurately/properly) (saying) that  you are a Samaritan and you have a demon?” (49) Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my father, and you dishonor me. (50) But I do not seek my own glory (i.e., glory for myself). That is the one seeking and judging. (51) Amen, amen I say to you, if someone may have kept my word (logos), he may not behold death until eternity”.  

Notice the end of the previous post, how he tells his listeners they are not from the father. Recall that this can have all sorts of unpleasant implications. Now note that the listeners, those who are “not from the father” consist of “The Jews”. Again, this does not mean all Jews, but getting there is not a very large step. And to be clear, I do not mean to cast aspersions on John’s words or motives; the problem arises that if words can be misconstrued, or misrepresented, or misinterpreted, they will be, especially in the course of 2,000 years. Somebody, somewhere, at some time is take things the wrong way. Or in a negative way. And we cannot deny that it’s happened, so it’s important to realize that people did not just make stuff up. They felt justified in taking action as they did.

Calling Jesus a Samaritan is interesting. Apparently this was more or less a general term of derision among Jews of the time; in similar fashion, a Bostonian will call someone a “New Yorker” as a term of scorn. The two are not exact correlations; “New Yorker” usually refers to manners, or lack thereof, and I suspect “Samaritan” was mostly so amongst the more “religious” sort, in some sort of religious context. That would certainly be applicable here. When reading this it’s useful to think back to Chapter 4, when Jesus met and engaged the Samaritan woman and even sojourned for a spell in Samaria. Recall that she and other Samaritans were a little askance that a Jew would interact with them, and they eyed him with not a little suspicion. Really, the upshot of the term is that Jesus is not quite right (in the head?) when it came to his religious beliefs. This of course is made doubly plain by claiming he has a demon. This is interesting because it hearkens back to Mark Chapter 3, when it is said Jesus can drive out demons because he has a demon. So here is another example where John took a set of circumstances found in the Synoptics and modified them for a different time, place, and setting.

We saw John do something similar back in Chapter 5, when he adapted the story of the paralytic on a litter from Mark Chapter 2 and transpose it to the Sheep’s Gate/Pool in Jerusalem. The details were similar even if the overall story was rather different. When we discussed that passage we noted that John actually combined elements from a couple of stories. And that wasn’t the first time he’d done it either. So now we’re on the third iteration, so even if this is the final time he does it, we have something that can be called a pattern. In these instances, his purpose and motivation are relatively clear, and the implications even more so. This is the sort of thing one does when one understands the underlying principles and realizes their importance over and above the peculiarities of a particular story. The first implication is that none of these three episodes can be taken seriously as the record of an actual event in the life of Jesus. They are “types”, or perhaps fables, stories where the moral or lesson matters more than the individual events. The assumption–or mine, anyway–is that John is the one who is coming up with these amalgamations of different events into single stories. It is, of course, very possible that the pericopes became mingled over time via oral repetition and John recorded the “new” version. To be honest I’m not entirely sure which of the two methods of commingling is to be considered more likely. My immediate impulse is that John did it as an author, but upon further reflection I’m not so sure. When people retell stories, they usually retell parts of stories which then get attached to parts of other but similar stories. Or the person doing the writing seeks ways to condense older material in order to include it while still making room for newer material. And there is no reason that there has to be a single method; for example, the story of the Temple Official/Centurion’s Slave could easily have become garbled in the retelling, whereas this one would be John importing the idea of Jesus having a demon to fit the circumstances of Jesus preaching in the Temple rather than having dinner at someone’s house. 

What does matter, I believe, is that this demonstrates that the ideas contained in the Synoptics were widespread. This is to say that the various gospels were all in circulation, allowing the ideas contained in the stories to cross-fertilize and reproduce the ideas in new format.

The whole word/logos thing is wearing me down. I’m ready to cave. What I am coming to realize is that the idea, the concept of The Word of God is a real entity. It is a phrase that has come to equal more than the sum of its parts, and so the idea of “word” cannot be segregated out and taken on its own, or as a stand-alone, concept. In Verse 51, “keeping my word” is the effective equivalent of “believing what I say” or “believing in me”. The expressions. it would seem, are more or less synonymous and interchangeable. That may be obvious to most of you, but I don’t come from a scriptural background. But what is Jesus’ word? Os there one, single word that encapsulates his message of how to attain eternal life? Or am I being overly literal, which I freely admit is possible. So, to my mind, replacing “my word” with “my message”, or “my teaching” makes ever so much more sense; this is why I’ve been pedantic enough to leave logos untranslated. The four modern translations, NIV, ESV, NASB, and RSVP*, all choose “word”. However, the Vulgate prefers sermo, “sermon”, a bunch of words strung together in a meaningful manner, the KJV uses “my saying”, and the REB renders as “my teaching”; so perhaps my obsession with this isn’t the most cockamamie thing you’ll run encounter today.

Now that we’ve established the multifarious forms for logos, it’s time to ask what Jesus’ word, or message, or teaching, or saying is. That is to say, what has he prescribed as the means of attaining eternal life? Is it simply to believe who he is, and who he is in relation to the father? Taking a look at Strong’s Words, no form of metanoiō, appearing as noun or verb in Mark 1:4 and 1:15 respectively turns up in John’s gospel. In 1:4, John is preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, and in 1:15 he is telling people to repent. To be fair, the word in whatever form is not all that common in any of the Synoptics, but it’s completely absent from John. Assuming Luke/Acts shares a single author, this is the big winner for repentance, the concept being mentioned 14 and 18 times respectively. After that it’s Revelation clocking in at 12 occurrences, Matthew at 8, Authentic Paul at 3, Deutero-Paul at 4, and 2 Peter at 1. Given that this was supposedly the underlying theme of the Baptist’s preaching, and that Jesus supposedly took over for John upon the latter’s arrest, he doesn’t seem to have carried the torch all that effectively. Luke, or more so in Acts is where we find it most often. What happened? Why does it go underground in Matthew only to reappear with a vengeance in Luke and Acts? Is this another “correction” of Matthew by Luke? But then it disappears in John and most of the non-Pauline epistles only to resurface in Apocalypse? In contrast, believing/having faith shows up a lot throughout all the books of the NT. That perhaps gives us our answer.

Finally, I cannot bring myself to translate amen. It has become fashionable to do so, but the fashion is not for me. But then, I’ve finally started to read The Iliad in Greek, and I find myself reverting to such anachronisms as “waxing wroth”. Guess I’m a bit of a traditionalist. Either that, or the versions I read as a kid just stuck with me.  

*There is no particular reason that I use these. In fact, they came up by default, and I’ve never seen fit to change them. I also have a hard copy of the REB, so it seems like a reasonable selection. I tend to prefer the NIV, ESV, and REB, but I’m not doctrinaire about the choices. They seem to be very stolid, both for good and ill. The other two are a bit more colloquial, so, with the Vulgate (in Latin) and the KJV, this seems like a decent cross-section. Your mileage may vary.

48 Responderunt Iudaei et dixerunt ei: “Nonne bene dicimus nos, quia Samaritanus es tu et daemonium habes?”.

49 Respondit Iesus: “Ego daemonium non habeo, sed honorifico Patrem meum, et vos inhonoratis me.

50 Ego autem non quaero gloriam meam; est qui quaerit et iudicat.

51 Amen, amen dico vobis: Si quis sermonem meum servaverit, mortem non videbit in aeternum”.

52 εἶπον [οὖν] αὐτῷ οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, Νῦν ἐγνώκαμεν ὅτι δαιμόνιον ἔχεις. Ἀβραὰμ ἀπέθανεν καὶ οἱ προφῆται, καὶ σὺ λέγεις, Ἐάν τις τὸν λόγον μου τηρήσῃ, οὐ μὴ γεύσηται θανάτου εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.

53 μὴ σὺ μείζων εἶ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἀβραάμ, ὅστις ἀπέθανεν; καὶ οἱ προφῆται ἀπέθανον: τίνα σεαυτὸν ποιεῖς;

[Thus] “The Jews” said to him, “Now we know you have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets (died), and you say ‘If you do not keep my teaching, you will not taste death forever’. (53) Are better than the father of us Abraham, who died? Or the prophets who died? What do you make yourself?” (= “what do you make yourself to be”, or “who do you think you are?”)

Was the idea of eternal life a novelty for Jews of the period? This reaction makes it seem possible–likely?–that it was. Abraham and the prophets died, and there is no suggestion that they went on to any kind of extended existence, whether in this world or some sort of other world that is above, or beyond, or outside, or in any way different from, this one. The problem is that the question, “What did mainstream Jews believe happened after death?” cannot be answered. By this point, Judaism had been exposed to Greek ideas of an immortal soul for several centuries and it would be impossible if some hints of Greek thought didn’t creep–subtilely–into Jewish belief. However, it may not have gone past the “resurrection of the body” rather than the continuance–in whatever fashion–of  an immortal soul. With this in mind, the bluster of the audience makes a different kind of sense. Are they angry at Jesus because he’s arrogating status to himself that he does not warrant? That is, he is committing blasphemy? Sure. But I also think there is a bit more: The audience members are upset and angry because they are confused. What in blazes is Jesus talking about? Eternal life? Where in the name of Moses did that come from? The idea is more or less alien to Jewish thought; of course they are confused! And angry! Have to ay I really like this interpretation; unfortunately, I don’t think it can stand up to scrutiny. As noted, by the time this was suppposed to have occurred, Jewish thought had been in contact with Greek thought for several centuries. If these people in the crowd were in any way leaders of the Jews, they would have been educated. As such, they would have been exactly those most likely to have been exposed to Hellenistic thought. They probably spoke and read Greek, so it’s not likely they were surprised or confused. So what then?

The key becomes the “do you think you’re better than they were? Mind you, as phrased, this particular exchange is probably not blasphemy. Jesus is not comparing himself to God. Here. Of course he has more or less done that in previous chapters, but he hasn’t done it here. It also occurred to see if John has used any form of “blaspheme”, whether noun or verb, in any of the conversations recorded. I didn’t recall encountering it, and a check of Strong’s Words confirms my impression. John has not used any form of the word. It will appear in Chapter 10, in two verses–33 & 36–and then disappear completely. This opens another kettle of fish: if John is trying to pin the execution of Jesus on “The Jews”–and he is–and the reason for them doing so was that Jesus has stepped over some religious line. And yet John is apparently reluctant to have “The Jews” accuse Jesus of blasphemy. This is the sort of thing that constitutes an internal inconsistency, which renders the text suspect for reliability.

On that note, I’m reading a book by Bart Ehrman entitled Jesus Before The Gospels. I don’t want to get into it now, but at some point I’m going to do a special post on his conclusions. Suddenly, I don’t look or feel so much like a raving lunatic about the historicity of a lot of this. Of course, individual reactions will depend on individual assessments of Bart Ehrman. He’s written a lot of books and has lots of YouTube videos, so I have the impression he’s generally respectable in the field of Biblical Scholarship.

 52 Dixerunt ergo ei Iudaei: “Nunc cognovimus quia daemonium habes. Abraham mortuus est et prophetae, et tu dicis: “Si quis sermonem meum servaverit, non gustabit mortem in aeternum”.

53 Numquid tu maior es patre nostro Abraham, qui mortuus est? Et prophetae mortui sunt! Quem teipsum facis?”.

John Chapter 8:39-47

Jesus is still talking to a group of those assembled in the Temple. Again, since this is an ongoing discussion, the last few verses of the previous post are included. Otherwise we would begin with Jesus answering an unknown question.

Text

(37) “So if the son may set you free, you will be truly free. (37) I know you are the seed of Abraham, but you seek to kill me, because my logos (my message, the account I am giving,) does not remain in you. (38) I have seen the things beside my father, (and) I speak: and so you did the things of my father which you have heard.”

39 Ἀπεκρίθησαν καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῷ, Ὁ πατὴρ ἡμῶν Ἀβραάμ ἐστιν. λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Εἰ τέκνα τοῦ Ἀβραάμ ἐστε, τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ ἐποιεῖτε:

40 νῦν δὲ ζητεῖτέ με ἀποκτεῖναι, ἄνθρωπον ὃς τὴν ἀλήθειαν ὑμῖν λελάληκα ἣν ἤκουσα παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ: τοῦτο Ἀβραὰμ οὐκ ἐποίησεν.

41 ὑμεῖς ποιεῖτε τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν. εἶπαν [οὖν] αὐτῷ, Ἡμεῖς ἐκ πορνείας οὐ γεγεννήμεθα: ἕνα πατέρα ἔχομεν τὸν θεόν.

They answered and said to him, “Our father is Abraham.” Jesus said to them, “If you are the children of Abraham, you do (= would be doing) the works of Abraham. (40) Now you seek to kill me, the man who has spoken the truth to you which I heard beside (= by the side of {?}) God. Abraham did not do this”. (41) You do the works of your father.” [So] they said to him, “We are not born of fornication; we have one father, God”.

Once again, let’s start with grammar. The verb in “You do the works of Abraham” is a present tense indicative active. You do, You are doing. English would usually require some sort of conditional, if not an actual subjunctive. The Vulgate recognizes this, and uses an imperfect subjunctive active, something like “you would have”. The subjunctive carries the sense of unreal condition, imperfect the idea that the action would have (!) occurred in the past. So once again, kind of makes one wonder–well, makes me wonder, at least–if the ancient Greeks perceived time in the same way we do. Second point is the “beside God”, which seems like it should be “picked up from being by the side/beside God”. The {?} is meant to indicate that the parenthetical insert is a possible render for Greek text that doesn’t quite work as it should. Again, the preposition used, para, can mean “from”, but it usually doesn’t. It means “beside”, as in “par-en-thetical”, “put by the side”. As in the last post, what was John thinking? Perhaps he was showing off, or trying to. Goodness knows that Thucydides pulled some weird grammar stunts.

Honestly, I’m not sure that much needs to be said about this. It seems pretty straightforward. The listeners are trying to claim their heritage grants them privilege, or rights, a claim to considering themselves righteous. It seems the twist here is that Jesus is holding them accountable as individuals, who are not granted dispensation based on their heritage. Rather they need to take personal responsibility for their own actions. Now my knowledge of the mainsprings of Jewish morality are limited at best, but I don’t want to imply that Jews did not have to take responsibility for their own actions. This is why all the prophets in the HS, and the Baptist were constantly haranguing their listeners with calls to repent. But Jesus seems to be drawing a contrast to their traditional views or ideas, and what he expects of them. At a minimum, this should include foregoing their desire to kill him. Since they decline to do so, Jesus says they are born of fornication, which is another way to say they are illegitimate, which means they have no claim to be heirs of Abraham. IOW, the rules they expect to use as their moral compass have changed. If they can’t–or won’t–adapt, they will be left behind, or be kept outside where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. This is seemingly a direct reference to Matthew 8:12, where the claim to be descendants of Abraham also was given short shrift in the context of the new way to define righteous behavior. In Matthew, it is the lack of faith of those claiming descent from Abraham compared to the implicit and unquestioning faith of the centurion. I describe this as “seemingly” because the cite is not explicit and the circumstances are different; only the supersession of the descendants of Abraham remains constant. And, actually, even at that, there is no direct statement that others, pagans, have moved to the front of the line is not explicit. And in reality, there are numerous places in the Synoptics when Jesus has told his Jewish audience that their place as the Chosen People has been taken by pagans. Still, it bears taking note of the specific example in Mt 8:12.

This is a good example of what I mean about reading the actual content. On the surface, there is really no direct connection to the story of the Centurion’s Slave. As such, we cannot count occurrences of kai vs de, or compare for a “more primitive” version. And yet, the message is the same. Isn’t that what really counts? Textual people spend too much time looking at the text qua text, and not nearly enough on meaning. I need to take notes on these things, but it feels like we’ve run into a situation like this once or twice before. In fact, it seems like Luke did this frequently with Matthew; the only example that comes to mind is how Luke took the underlying themes of Matthew’s birth narrative and disassembled the thematic pieces which he then put back together under, or behind new window dressing. In place of the Star, Luke provided the Heavenly Host–both spectacular celestial displays. Instead of the Magi, Luke brought the shepherds: both groups of people who recognized Jesus for who he was. So did John read and/or use Matthew and Luke? I think he most certainly did. If John wrote as late as 120, then those who would become the Church fathers were already debating which books were and were not to be considered canonical. The canon was not finalized until Nicaea in the early 4th Century, but the debate was ongoing. The question is whether the various gospels circulated widely, but given that Pope Clement I, Roman Bishop #4, was writing to the Corinthians probably at the end of the First Century, it seems likely that the Christian network was sufficiently robust to allow, or even ensure the circulation of all three Synoptic gospels throughout the various and scattered Christian assemblies. 

39 Responderunt et dixerunt ei: “Pater noster Abraham est ”. Dicit eis Iesus: “Si filii Abrahae essetis, opera Abrahae faceretis.

40 Nunc autem quaeritis me interficere, hominem, qui veritatem vobis locutus sum, quam audivi a Deo; hoc Abraham non fecit.

41 Vos facitis opera patris vestri”. Dixerunt itaque ei: “ Nos ex fornicatione non sumus nati; unum patrem habemus Deum!”.

42 εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Εἰ ὁ θεὸς πατὴρ ὑμῶν ἦν, ἠγαπᾶτε ἂν ἐμέ, ἐγὼ γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθον καὶ ἥκω: οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ ἐλήλυθα, ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖνός με ἀπέστειλεν.

43 διὰ τί τὴν λαλιὰν τὴν ἐμὴν οὐ γινώσκετε; ὅτι οὐ δύνασθε ἀκούειν τὸν λόγον τὸν ἐμόν.

Jesus said to them, “If God was your father, you would love me as a result (indicated by the particle ἂν) for I came out of God and came (from God). For I have not spoken by me (= by my own authority), but he sent me. (43) On what account do you not know what I am saying? Because you are unable to hear my Word (logos).

As I noted in the translation, the little particle ἂν carries the sense of “as a result”. Greek has a number of particles, and most of the time they cannot be translated into English. In this case it can be, and should be translated since a direct causal connexion is stated. Also, I trust that the idea of “came out of God” is clear enough? If not, perhaps the way to think of it is an emanation. Now, given the time of writing of this gospel, emanation is rather loaded a loaded word. The one thing that most of the Gnostics seem to believe in is the idea of emanations from the ultimate source, by way of a secondary source (or sources) usually called the Demiurge. In fact, Hippolytus Romanus, who, for good or ill–mostly the latter I suspect–is our best source for early Gnosticism, goes on at some length about the various emanations. These are like a series of begettings, where the causal entity produces the effect of creating or bringing into existence another being, or class of being. It can be very confusing, and I suspect that this is not an accident. One could almost believe that Hippolytus is being deliberately obfuscatory in an attempt to make Gnostic ideas seem a tad silly to the reader. But that is what we’re getting here, if only in attenuated form. I hope that I’ve explained this idea sufficiently. The point is that this sort of Gnostic imagery was very much a part of the milieu in which John was writing, especially if we accept the later date of 120, but even the more traditional date of 100 exposes John to a much higher degree of Gnostic thought and ideas than would have been true of the Synoptics. Actually, it occurs to me that the lack of Gnostic stuff is a decent argument against Luke being written as late as 120.

Back on the subject, again, basing ourselves on Hippolytus, the earliest Gnostics had some connexion to the Simon Magus of Acts; Gnosticism emanated from Simon. His appearance in Acts puts him in the 30s or 40s, and time would be required for his teaching to take root, more or less in parallel to the development and spread of Christianity. Gnosticism seem to be in full flower around the turn of the century, which is the earliest standard* date for John. This is not to say we should swallow Hippolytus hook, line, and sinker because he had a particular set of ideas he wished to promote, but taking him as a general outline is probably harmless enough. The Greek word “came out of” (exō–ēlthon) is fairly neutral, so it can insinuate itself into a number of different nuances. The prefix, exō, is the preposition for “outward”, as in exoskeleton. Given this notion of outwardly directed, the transition to the Latin emanare, literally to “flow out” is a straight line. The Latin is just a little more specific: “to flow out” rather than the more general “come out”.

After that we get back to Jesus citing his sources. He comes/flows out of the father, but he also comes from the father. He does not speak on his own (authority understood from the Greek.) It’s probably worth mentioning that the idea that Jesus was sent carries the implicit notion that he was sent for a reason. We don’t dispatch people unless we want them to accomplish some task. I suppose the implicit rationale was so implicit that I did not notice it, or think of it until now. It was a buried assumption: something that’s there and has influence but its presence is not consciously noted. Like gravity. We conduct our affairs assuming gravity works and will continue to do so; the assumption is just there. So anyway, Jesus was sent by the father to deliver a message, a word which can be covered by logos. It is interesting to note that the audience is not able to hear his word/message/logos. This raises some interesting theological implications. It would be one thing if the audience heard Jesus’ message and disregarded it, whether consciously or not. This is the sort of behaviour that requires one to repent. Ignoring an instruction includes moral guilt, or responsibility for one’s (non)actions. But if my boss is in the the other room with the door shut and gives me instructions I do not–I cannot–hear, it is not reasonable to hold me responsible for my (non)action. I didn’t know because I was not able to know. I can’t fly, either (more’s the pity), but holding me guilty for this failing is not reasonable. So why does Jesus say they cannot hear his word? This really makes me anticipate Augustine and his idea that Original Sin has so corrupted our human nature that we are absolutely unable to do anything good or positive unless we are endowed with prevenient grace; I believe that’s the correct flavour of grace. I have no clear idea what non-Catholic doctrine on this idea might be, but do we at least see the logic of the point I’m make? Or, trying to make? Remember, because those in the audience do not believe in Jesus, they are more or less condemned to die in their sin(s). So yeah, once we open this can of worms all sorts of unpleasant consequences emanate from that can.

But think about it: you do not know what I am saying because you are unable to hear my word. That’s pretty much a tautology. If any of you are muttering–or even shouting–that I’m an idiot and a pompous ass, I don’t know what you said because I can’t hear your words.

*Earlier dates have been suggested, but the arguments for anything prior to 100 are flimsy at best. This is the date of John that was taught to me in elementary school at Maple Grove St Michaels.

42 Dixit eis Iesus: “ Si Deus pater vester esset, diligeretis me; ego enim ex Deo processi et veni; neque enim a meipso veni, sed ille me misit.

43 Quare loquelam meam non cognoscitis? Quia non potestis audire sermonem meum.

44 ὑμεῖς ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστὲ καὶ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν θέλετε ποιεῖν. ἐκεῖνος ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἦν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς, καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ οὐκ ἔστηκεν, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἀλήθεια ἐν αὐτῷ. ὅταν λαλῇ τὸ ψεῦδος, ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων λαλεῖ, ὅτι ψεύστης ἐστὶν καὶ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ.

“You are from your father the slanderer and you wish to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer of people from the beginning, and he did not stand inside the truth, and the truth is not in him. When he speaks lies (lit = false things) he speaks from himself, because he is a liar and your father.      

If any of you are familiar at all with the Greek letters, you may be able to pick τοῦ διαβόλου out of the text. It transliterates as diabolou. If any of you are familiar with either Spanish or French, you will probably recognize El Diablo, or Le Diable. I.E., The Devil. If you look at the Latin below, you will see Diabolo, the root of the Spanish and French. And our English word. Perhaps. German is Der Teufel, which sounds a lot like the English. I suspect that we actually got the word from German, but since it’s a Christian concept German took the word from Latin. This is why assuming etymology from similar-sounding words can be tricky. Given Google, if you really want to know, Google it.

Now, the Greek diabolos is of a similar pattern to aggelos, or angelos. No matter how much you think it looks like “angel”, that is categorically NOT what the word meant when the NT was written. It meant “messenger”. It came to mean angel, just as the word for “to dunk” ended up as “baptize”; both of these eventual English words taking a non-specific Greek word and giving it a very specific and sacred meaning in English. But that is not what the evangelists or authors of the epistles meant when they wrote. Now that we’ve cleared that up, the next question is “does it matter?” And what did John have in mind when he used the word? Something as vanilla-white-bread as “slanderer”? Probably not. The rest of the verse actually gives us a pretty good clue. My guess is that the word John would most agree with is “Liar”. Really, John pretty much defines the word for us: he does not stand in(side) the truth, he speaks false things–aka, “lies”–etc. Of course, John also calls him a murderer (lit = person-killer), but that’s sort of BTW. One of the classic titles of The Devil is “The Father of Lies”, so this is all consistent. 

Now that we’ve cleared both those up, what about the other times that the word is used by John, or in the gospels, or in the NT as a whole? It is interesting to note how seldom the word is used. John uses it thrice; two of them refer to Judas Iscariot, the betrayer. In those instances “Liar” is not entirely inappropriate; it’s a stretch, but it’s in the ballpark. The word is never used the in the authentic letters of Paul. “Satan” is used a little more often. It’s worth pointing out that one of the places diabolos appears is in the story of the Temptation of Jesus back in the earlier chapters, and it’s interesting to note that diabolos and “Satan” in this pericope in both Mark and Matthew. It appears from a very cursory look that diabolos is s common noun, while Satan is a proper noun.

Now this sort of messes with my diatribe up there; I considered deleting, or at least rewriting it so it’s not such an embarrassment for me, but I decided to leave it. Why? Because it stands true, but for a time earlier than the NT. Neither the Greek nor the Latin form appear to have been at all common; Liddell & Scott and its Latin version of Lewis & Short have many cites at all for either word. The Greek is used a bit more, but only because it also appears as the adjective “slanderous”. Even so, it appears that the Latin is ultimately derived from the Greek, as there is a Latin noun diabole, which is “a slander”. Here the form is more or less just a transliteration of the Greek word. We only know what a word meant in Classica Greek or Latin by correlating its various occurrences, so when a word is seldom used, it becomes more difficult to pin down a meaning or definition. This is more or less my problem with so-called “NT Greek”, which was only spoken by unicorns and centaurs. A very significant portion of NT vocabulary does not appear frequently enough to give us a true sense of how the word was actually intended. The more occurrences we can muster, the higher our degree of certainty that we are understanding it at least approximately as it was intended by the author. One thing I need to do is to correlate the uses of diabolos and “Satan” and look at the frequency, context, etc. That will take a bit of doing, but I’ll add it to my agenda.   

Regardless of what John specifically had in mind, we know that Jesus is saying the father of his audience is a Liar, which is in no way flattering.

44 Vos ex patre Diabolo estis et desideria patris vestri vultis facere. Ille homicida erat ab initio et in veritate non stabat, quia non est veritas in eo. Cum loquitur mendacium, ex propriis loquitur, quia mendax est et pater eius.

45 ἐγὼ δὲ ὅτι τὴν ἀλήθειαν λέγω, οὐ πιστεύετέ μοι.

46 τίς ἐξ ὑμῶν ἐλέγχει με περὶ ἁμαρτίας; εἰ ἀλήθειαν λέγω, διὰ τί ὑμεῖς οὐ πιστεύετέ μοι; 

47 ὁ ὢν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ τὰ ῥήματα τοῦ θεοῦ ἀκούει: διὰ τοῦτο ὑμεῖς οὐκ ἀκούετε, ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἐστέ. 

“But I speak the truth, (and) you do not believe me. (46) Who from (amongst) you refutes me regarding sins? If I speak truth, why do you not believe me? (47) The one being from the father hears the words of the father. On account of this you do not hear because you are not from the father.”  

The second half of Verse 47 is pretty damning. The logic getting there is a trifle confusing, or perhaps confused, so we may not want to be too eager to conclude that Jesus has proven his point. On this, he is not Aristotle. To some degree, Jesus presents an Argument from Force (ad baculum), although this is the result of his legitimate (?) claim to higher authority. Jesus is from the father; they are not. Ergo, he is correct and they are wrong. And it’s appropriate to throw in the logic, since he asked in Verse 46 who has refuted him, as in a debate or argument. If you notice, the corresponding Latin is arguit; I’m guessing we can tell what that means. I chose “refute”. However, I notice that my crib translations choose “convict”, which is not included in the definition as provided by Liddell & Scott. It shows up in the NT Greek lexicon that accompanies the https://thebible.org site that I use for quick reference and the occasional cheat, but mostly in cases like this where I want a quick survey of how the *ahem* best translators around are approaching the particular passage. I get their point. I suppose. But it seems a bit off. Jesus is, I believe, actually trying to convince them. I also suppose he in correct in asserting that no one has refuted–or convicted, if you will–him regarding the “doctrine” of sin he has been expounding; however, I’m not sure he’s really been expounding anything. It feels more like browbeating, which is why I brought up the fallacious Argument from Force.

Lets pause a moment to consider the damning accusation. “You are not from the father”. The Greek preposition is ek, the Latin equivalent being ex. As in, ex nihilo, “from nothing. So Jesus is making something of an existentialist statement here. “You did not originate from God”. Somehow this feels more extreme than the previous accusation that the father of those listening is the devil. There is a certain amount of hyperbole in that statement after all. Sort of like telling someone to “Go to The Eternal Fire”. It gets tossed out, often thoughtlessly. But even a bad person, even on perhaps fathered by the devil, is still a person. “Your substance, your very being and existence, did not originate in God; you are not of divine origin” is a philosophical, theological, and categorical statement. “Your very being is cursed”. It is important to realize that these words, existence, being, substance, are the vocabulary of metaphysics, which brings us back to the question of John’s underlying intentions, or the depth of his understanding. One thing the Gnostics really emphasized and helped move into more mainstream thinking was the distinction of flesh and spirit. It also pays to remember that Gnosticism is often considered a Christian heresy, an interpretation of Christianity that was not acceptable to the Church as a whole. The potential Adoptionism found in Mark’s baptismal narrative is another good example or analogue. Personally I believe that while Christianity and Gnosticism overlap to whatever extent, at root I believe they are fundamentally different belief-systems. The very idea of knowledge as the crucial step for salvation stands in a direct lineal descent from Plato–and there’s that word again: from Plato. The point here is that Jesus’ statement means that the very essence–another technical metaphysical term–of those listening is corrupt and so evil. Again, this is another foreshadow of Augustine who claim that human nature was almost irredeemably corrupted by Original Sin. Thus humans as a whole were evil and thoroughly incapable of any good unless bestowed by a free gift of grace (all three of those words mean the same thing) granted by God from his infinite mercy. 

Now is this what John meant? I don’t think so. Additional centuries were required before these theological concepts would come to fruition. But John has laid the groundwork for Augustine. 

Unfortunately, John has also laid groundwork for another thread of Christian thought. Those listening to Jesus were Jews, and by John saying that “You are not from God”, it’s a very short step to saying “Jews are not from God”. It’s the transitive property: If a = b, and b =c, then a = c. 

You (b) are not from God (a) Note that b = a is the equivalent of a = b by virtue of the Symmetric property, so this is the logical equivalent of a = b

You (b) are Jews (c) Transcribed from b = c

Jews (c) are not from God (a) The result a = c

We can debate whether “You are not from God” is more extreme than “Your father is the devil”. It is, but only when taken on a metaphysical level. I am not sure John understood the one to be more damning than the other but later generations did. By saying people are “corrupt by nature”–“nature” being another technical word–then these people are irredeemable; from there, it becomes a small step for some people to say, “They are inherently evil” and so to be able to justify any number of atrocities. 

45 Ego autem quia veritatem dico, non creditis mihi.

46 Quis ex vobis arguit me de peccato? Si veritatem dico, quare vos non creditis mihi?

47 Qui est ex Deo, verba Dei audit; propterea vos non auditis, quia ex Deo non estis”.

John Chapter 8:30-38

We’ve got another segment of the same extended conversation between Jesus and his audience. It’s the continuation of the last section, and it appears to run until the end of the chapter. As a result, there are few natural places for these sections to be broken into clean and discreet chunks. Jesus has been talking to the group about his relationship with the father.

I have overlapped Verse 30 from the previous post because I noticed I gave short shrift to the implications of the verse.

Text

30 Ταῦτα αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος πολλοὶ ἐπίστευσαν εἰς αὐτόν.

Having said these things, many believed in him.

One suspects that “the many” do not include those considered to be “The Jews” since Jesus dialogue with them continues into the chapter. Ergo, the sentiment expressed in this verse feels a little awkward or out of place. In the last post we alluded to the image of the Temple courtyard as sort of a Hyde Park, where speakers held forth and people either gathered to listen or not. Or, this image could be from The Life Of Brian, which has a scene with various orators orating in what memory glosses as the marketplace. So people hearing Jesus in the Temple nodded in agreement. This leads to the question that necessarily arises in every discussion of the Passion Narrative: how did we go from the alleged rapturous acceptance of Palm Sunday to mob screaming for his blood on Friday? One commentator notes that the belief here expressed was a shallow and ephemeral thing since these believers were the same persons who would be in th mob on Good Friday morning. So it may be. And here is where John’s Jerusalem-centric narrative presents a special–unique, really–set of problems for commentary. As always keep in the front of your mind that the gospels had one task that is under-appreciated by modern scholars: They had to explain to their new pagan converts, or those they wished to convert, why there were still Jews. Mark’s solution was the Messianic Secret wherein Jesus didn’t tell the crowds who he was. With or without that the problem is not so acute for the Synoptics; since Jesus did not go to Jerusalem until the last week of his life (?) Jerusalem would have been full of Jews who had never heard Jesus preach and so would have been unlikely to become followers. In John, this doesn’t quite work as well. The “fickleness” explanation actually works better if the transition took place within a few days. If it was of some standing, then it becomes rather more difficult to wave it away. But then the Synoptics say that Jesus taught in the Temple daily, implying this happened more than a few times in a single week. This is why there needs to be a discussion about this inconsistency. 

That we encounter the attitude of  sneering at mobs, one point needs to be made. For the most part, educated persons in the ancient world were wont to do just that: sneer at mobs. The crowd of the people was considered to be fickle, emotional, inconstant, and violent. Hence the abhorrence of democracy as a form of government. This attitude goes back as far as we have writers who wrote about forms of government–usually within the various poleis, the term translated as “city-states”. Thucydides adds fuel to the fire with his reporting on the Athenian assembly and its prosecution of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Plato was not a fan of democracy since it was the Athenian assembly–AKA “mob”–that voted to execute Socrates. In Book II of his History of Rome—Ab Urbe Condita— Livy describes the rationale for the Republican–not democratic–form of government instituted after throwing off the yoke of the Etruscan kings. Then in Book VI of his history, the Greek Polybios* describes and praises the republican government as a major factor for Rome’s defeat of Hannibal; the Founders of the US, being members in good standing of Enlightenment principles who were well-schooled in their Classical literature, consciously modeled the US government on the description of Rome. This is why the Constitution institutes Congress in Article I and does not establish the President until Article II. Congress was meant to be the leading organ of government since the President was elected by popular vote. Sort of. So when we get commentators sneering at the mob for being fickle, these commentators stand in a long tradition of such sneering.  

However…

This almost feels like quite the opposite. It feels more like John is holding up these individuals who accepted Jesus as the Good Guys who are opposed to the elitist rulers/leaders of “The Jews” who want to kill Jesus. This is why this topic needs some in-depth analysis.

30 Haec illo loquente, multi crediderunt in eum.

31 Ἔλεγεν οὖν ὁ Ἰησοῦς πρὸς τοὺς πεπιστευκότας αὐτῷ Ἰουδαίους, Ἐὰν ὑμεῖς μείνητε ἐν τῷ λόγῳ τῷ ἐμῷ, ἀληθῶς μαθηταί μού ἐστε,

32 καὶ γνώσεσθε τὴν ἀλήθειαν, καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια ἐλευθερώσει ὑμᾶς.

So Jesus said  to those Jews having come to believe him, “If you will remain in my word, truly you will be my disciples, (32) and you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” 

One commentator points out a subtle (?) difference in Jesus’ wording between Verse 30 and 31. In Verse 30, the Greek is they believe εἰς αὐτόν, while in Verse 31 they simply “believe him”. Verse 30 literally translates as “believe into/unto him”. The KJV renders this as “on him”, while most modern translations, mine included, render this as “in him”; to be frank, the KJV version is not exactly what I would call correct, and it does not particularly make sense in English. Honestly, I don’t even like “in him”. In Greek and Latin both the <preposition + accusative> formation, which is what we have here, generally signifies “motion towards/motion to/motion into”, as in “I go to/in/into the house”. The most common preposition for “on” is different, and takes a dative in Greek. The other thing is that “believe in him” in English is not quite the same nuance as the Greek use of the preposition. “Believe in him” does not have the sense of movement towards, which is the key aspect of the preposition in Greek and the corresponding preposition in Latin. So the translation here would imply something like “they moved into belief in him”, or “they moved into believing him”. This last would scarcely be different from the “believing him” we find in Verse 31.

If my last statement is anywhere close to accurate, it is proper to ask how significant is the change. I’m not sure it is. One commentator says that the more perfect acceptance is shown in the first expression whereas the second is more transitory. I’m not sure about that. The same commentator opines that “so careful a writer” would not have made an accidental mistake. I might beg to differ. We’ve perhaps seen a couple in this chapter alone. We must always remember that John probably wasn’t a native speaker of Greek, that writing Greek was an accomplishment of scholarship, so he was bound to make mistakes. They all were. Although, this does make me wonder about how the process of copy-editing, and regular editing, and copying gospel manuscripts. What happened when John was finished? Did he revise? Did he simply hand it over to secretaries to start cranking out copies? I’ve never seen this discussed, but, once again, it should be.      

Of course the real payoff is the last part of Verse 31 and Verse 32. Believe, and remain in one’s belief and the truth shall set you free. Of course Jesus is talking about freedom from sin, so people don’t have to die in their sin(s). This is obviously of critical importance to the overall message, but the import and implications seem so pellucid that I don’t know what else needs to be said about this. There are potential implications when we get to the matter of salvation–a word John rarely uses–whether the key is faith or right behaviour/works, assuming there is a difference; in the 16th Century, a whole lotta Christians killed a whole lotta Christians over this basic question. I grew up in the Roman Rite and the RR of my youth was heavily invested in the latter, but we shan’t go into that. I’m not sure what you may think of the notion of being set free by the truth, the idea was several centuries old by the time John set this to paper. It is the fundamental belief of Platonism, or perhaps the fundamental flaw of Plato. He believed that it is necessary to know what is good before one can act in a good or just or appropriate manner. Nay, it goes beyond that. He believed that if one knows the good, one will act in a good or just or appropriate matter. If only. Needless to say, this is a hopelessly naïve attitude. Plenty of people know how to behave properly but choose to act in a most wicked and reprehensible fashion. This is part of the problem of evil. 

Now, I grant that this is a slightly different take on Plato and Platonism, but only slightly. Jesus’ statement is not an effort to teach us, at least not in the way that Plato tried to teach through his Dialogues. Rather than learn per se, it’s a question of recognition. We must recognize, and so understand who and what Jesus is. The distinction I’m suggesting between knowing and recognizing is subtle; knowledge is not possible without recognizing that it is accurate. Rather, as Jesus puts it, the wrinkle, or maybe the implement or process required is faith rather a syllogism. Faith in Jesus allows the epiphany that comes in a flash, as it were, although the same could be said for a revelation of knowledge. Truly, it is impossible to completely sever the idea of recognition from that of learning unless we get down into some heavy-duty logic chopping. It is always possible to create distinctions where none is obvious, but that path was abandoned in the 15th Century by the Humanists. They rejected the hyper-logical, and ultimately sterile arguments of the so-called Scholastics who quibbled about angels dancing on heads of pins*, a rather took a meat-cleaver to the Gordian Knot** of hyper-logic.

Regardless, Jesus’ take on Plato is a wrinkle. The question then becomes: What does this say about John’s outlook on the world, or about his philosophical inclinations? Has anyone done that? In two millennia of scholarship, we would think someone had gone into this, but one never can be certain. It requires a certain warped perspective to raise the question, no? 

*It pains me to resort to using this rather inaccurate example. There was a purpose to the debate, and angels on pinheads was metaphorical. Still, at the most obvious level, the degree of absurdity is patent and easily recognized and understood as an exercise in futility, no matter how learned the arguments presented.

**Google it.

31 Dicebat ergo Iesus ad eos, qui crediderunt ei, Iudaeos: “Si vos manseritis in sermone meo, vere discipuli mei estis

32 et cognoscetis veritatem, et veritas liberabit vos”.

33 ἀπεκρίθησαν πρὸς αὐτόν, Σπέρμα Ἀβραάμ ἐσμεν καὶ οὐδενὶ δεδουλεύκαμεν πώποτε: πῶς σὺ λέγεις ὅτι Ἐλεύθεροι γενήσεσθε;

34 ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν δοῦλός ἐστιν τῆς ἁμαρτίας.

35 ὁ δὲ δοῦλος οὐ μένει ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα: ὁ υἱὸς μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.

They answered towards him, “We are the seed of Abraham, and we were never enslaved to no one (double negative = force modifier). How do you say that we will become free?” (34) Jesus answered them, “Amen, amen I say yo you that all committing sin is the slave of sin. (35) And the slave does not remain in the dwelling to the extent of eternity; the son remains forever.

As with most languages that are not English, the double negative in Verse 33 reinforces rather than negates the negative. Even so, I found this statement that they are enslaved to no one due to their heritage from Abraham a bit odd considering that the Exodus was such a significant part of their national/religious identity. And really, what makes it odd is the citation of Abraham, harkening back to their ancient past. But this is one of those cases where the author is rather boxed in by circumstances and so ends up overstating, or sliding down that slippery slope into conditions that may not be exactly accurate. Then, of course, there is the question of the *cough* Roman occupation *cough*. Which followed a couple of centuries of Greek occupation.

The point Jesus makes is metaphorical as we all understand. Or is it? This notion of bondage to sin will have a long, very long history in Christian thought and imagery. It is probably part of the reason why the “paying off the pawn ticket and getting us out of hock to sin” has proven so popular. And now thinking about the topic, this “redemption (from hock)” analogy is the most common explanation of the reason for Jesus’ death. It crops up early and often, starting right off the bat with Paul. Certainly Augustine and the Mediaeval thinkers would take this and run with it; I think of Advent songs, like my favorite:

O come O come Emmanuel / And ransom captive Israel

The concepts of ransoming a hostage to sin is not entirely different from redeeming us by paying off the pawn ticket. I really don’t have the theological chops to question whether the notion makes sense, so let’s leave it at that. Jesus died for a reason. He died for our sins. And here Jesus is pretty much telling his audience that believing in him is the key to redemption, that it’s a matter of faith rather than works. The two are not mutually exclusive to our mind, but these conflicting notions caused a lot of grief back in the day.

More than that, however, Jesus is telling the audience that the corporate redemption of the Jewish people as a whole has been superseded by an individualistic redemption. As the descendants of Abraham the Jews were the Chosen People by blood; redemption of the race was a birthright for each Jew. It was inherited. Now Jesus is saying, it must be merited by believing in who Jesus is/was. Again, I don’t want to get into the debate about whether we can or can’t merit salvation, or even help ourselves; that one caused a lot of grief, too, starting with the Pelagians and leading eventually to Calvin and his doctrine of double predestination. Here Jesus seems to be, or could be taken to be, saying that the first act of attaining redemption starts with us. We choose, or we seem to have the capacity to choose whether we believe what Jesus tells us about his relationship to the father. One interesting and (perhaps?) unique take on eternal life that we get here is the idea of remaining in eternal life. Now I would put “eternal life” in the same category as being “unique”. The word unique cannot be qualified, it means “one of a kind” so something either is, or it is not, unique. In the same way, is it possible to qualify “eternal”? Doesn’t seem like it offhand. “Eternal” means eternal, as in forever. Anything else may be a very, very long time, but it’s not eternal. My suspicion is that the word got away from John; I’m not sure he intended to write “remain”. Another strike against the careful writer hypothesis.

33 Responderunt ei: “Semen Abrahae sumus et nemini servivimus umquam! Quomodo tu dicis: “Liberi fietis”? ”.

34 Respondit eis Iesus: “Amen, amen dico vobis: Omnis, qui facit peccatum, servus est peccati.

35 Servus autem non manet in domo in aeternum; filius manet in aeternum.

36 ἐὰν οὖν ὁ υἱὸς ὑμᾶς ἐλευθερώσῃ, ὄντως ἐλεύθεροι ἔσεσθε.

37 οἶδα ὅτι σπέρμα Ἀβραάμ ἐστε: ἀλλὰ ζητεῖτέ με ἀποκτεῖναι, ὅτι ὁ λόγος ὁ ἐμὸς οὐ χωρεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν.

38 ἃ ἐγὼ ἑώρακα παρὰ τῷ πατρὶ λαλῶ: καὶ ὑμεῖς οὖν ἃ ἠκούσατε παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ποιεῖτε. 

“So if the son may set you free, you will be truly free. (37) I know you are the seed of Abraham, but you seek to kill me, because my logos (my message, the account I am giving,) does not remain in you. (38) I have seen the things beside my father, (and) I speak: and so you did the things of my father which you have heard.”

Grammar points. The word bolded & highlighted in blue in Verse 37 of both the Greek above, and the Latin below, as well as the “because” that is bolded & black font in the translation all refer to the same word. The Greek is actually the original. Now, while it can be used as “because”, but it almost never is. In Greek, it means “that/so that”, implying that the action occurring in the coming clause is the effect of what happened in the preceding clause. “I did X so that Y would happen after doing X”. Rendering as “because” reverses the temporal and so the causal chain: “I did X because Y, which happened before X”. Now, “because” is a legitimate use of the Greek ὅτι, but it’s Definition B, well down the list, after Definition A, Ex I, II, III, IV, & V. The Latin is clear, the standard word for “because” in the sense used here. My question is “why?” what was John thinking? Was he trying to be confusing? Or was he confused? The Greek word is pretty common, occurring in the NT scores of times, a few dozen in John alone. To be fair, it appears that it is used for “because” at least twice before this in John; apparently, I was able to twist myself enough in those instances that it didn’t phase me too much. But it does here. So again, why? Why be deliberately obfuscatory, or even difficult? Was he showing off his detailed grasp of the finer points of Greek prose? 

Really, these are actually vocabulary points, but regardless, there is another one. Of course it concerns logos, a couple of words after “because” in the translation. Of course, the Vulgate chose to render as sermo, “word”, a in John 1:1. And, to be fair, logos here is singular as is sermo, and “word” is a perfectly legitimate translation. I realize (finally! finally?) that I may be missing something. I understand the thought behind “the word of God”, but what Jesus is teaching goes well beyond a single word. Doesn’t it? That’s what I may be missing. I understand Jesus to be teaching about a means of attaining eternal life; that seems to require more than a word, no? Don’t we need a more complete text? Again perhaps I’m being to literal about a word, If so, my apologies.

As for the actual meaning of the text, it’s pretty straightforward: believe in Jesus and do the things of the father as Jesus has instructed. This actually does put some weight oh the side of works and not just faith. We are essentially getting a foreshadow of “I am the Way…”

36 Si ergo Filius vos liberaverit, vere liberi eritis.

37 Scio quia semen Abrahae estis; sed quaeritis me interficere, quia sermo meus non capit in vobis.

38 Ego, quae vidi apud Patrem, loquor; et vos ergo, quae audivistis a patre, facitis”.