Summary John Chapter 10x

It’s often hard to judge the length of a post before I start writing; there are numerous factors. The chief is whether or not I have a burst of insight as the words come off my fingertips.

First it needs to be stated that this first part of Chapter 10 is actually a continuation of Chapter 9, wherein Jesus gave sight to the man blind from birth. Let us note that the division into chapters ad verses did not occur until long after they were written; by “long after, we mean centuries. As such, it’s important to keep in mind that a later–much later–editor was not working from the same basic assumptions as the original writer(s). In the long run, or the final analysis, the message contained in the words is the same regardless of where the lines for chapter breaks are artificially inserted. It’s the words themselves that matter. The point remains, however, that we need to recognize this for what it is. And by “we”, I mean “me”. Many of you reading this have much more experience with the NT than I do; experience is not what I bring to the table. My contribution is background and perspective, both of which are derived in the pagan context of the world being described in the NT. Background and perspective include history, cultural, language, and the sense of development of these ideas outside the standard Christian framework. Many of the ideas expressed in the NT neither began nor ended with Christianity. There was a prehistory, and there was a non-Christian development of these concepts. The latter was the result of the cross-fertilization of NT thought with pagan thought; each influenced the other over the course of several centuries in which practitioners and believers interacted with each other, talked to each other, and argued with each other. The result is, consciously or not, practitioners on both sides walked away with ideas that they probably did not have when they began the conversation, debate, or argument.

If we look back over the gospel in toto, a certain pattern has emerged since the last part of Chapter 4. For the most part, Jesus delivers some indication that he is, indeed, a divine personage. Sometimes a sign is performed which is not believed fully by “The Jews”; other times, the message is verbal, to which “The Jews” also take exception. Giving the man blind from birth his sight is an example of the former, and Chapter 10 has provided an example of the latter. We should note that the action in this chapter takes place n the environs of the Temple; the fact is, most of the action of the entire gospel takes in and around Jerusalem, if not always within the Temple precinct itself. The chapter as a whole consists of two different messages of Jesus as he addresses the assembled crowd.

I stated in the last post of this chapter, we didn’t particularly break much new ground from a theological or a message standpoint, but there is a very significant exception. While Jesus has taken pains to distinguish his message from that of “The Jews”, in the opening verses of this chapter he is more or less condemning Judaism as a whole. He does this with the metaphor of the gate to the sheep. The premise is that the sheep are in the sheep fold, more or less a pen into which they are herded, likely for protection and to keep them from wandering off. For the parable to work, we have to assume that it was common practice for the members of a community, say a village, all to drive their sheep into one large fold. This is the situation that Jesus steps into; the sheep, people, specifically the Jewish community as a whole, are in the pen. There are two ways to enter the pen: through the gate, or by climbing over the wall. The legitimate shepherd does the former, entering the fold, he calls his sheep and they respond to him because they recognize his voice and they follow him. While his sheep follow him, the others do not, presumably because they respond to another voice. So far, this is fairly neutral. The gate keeper has let the shepherd in because he is legitimate; the gate keeper does not allow others to enter because they are not legitimate. These shepherd wannabes are, after all, thieves, who have gained entry only by climbing over the wall and breaking into the fold by criminal means. The sheep who remain in the pen do not follow Jesus because they have listened to a voice that came before him, the voice of one of these thieves.

That’s where this gets sticky. Up to this point, Jesus has been contending with “The Jews”, who seem to be the leading members of the community. In previous gospels these leaders would have been labeled as the Pharisees. In both cases, they are somehow distinguished from the rest of the Jewish community as a whole. We said that those in the pen do not recognize Jesus’ voice because they have been trained to follow voices that came before Jesus. Those sheep that belong to Jesus have not, did not listen to these previous voices. And why should they? These voices were those of criminals who broke in and entered the fold illegally.

But who are these voices? Think about it: How can they be the anything but the voices of the prophets and teachers of established Judaism? Jesus is teaching in the Temple. This is the physical and spiritual center of Judaism. In this location Jesus is speaking to Jews, all Jews, about Jews, and he is stating, or at the very least, strongly implying that the prophets and the Patriarchs were  criminals. It’s not that the current leaders have gone off the rails and are leading the people astray, it’s that the entire edifice is illegitimate.

Am I going too far with this? Perhaps. He is a step or two away from crossing the line into an overt and explicit charge or condemnation of Judaism as a whole, but the steps are small ones. JD Crossan has written a book called Who Killed Jesus? The book is not so much an actual examination of the situation as it is an examination of the role of the gospels in creating an environment in which Anti-Semitism has been able to flourish. Christ killers. Crossan ultimately places the blame primarily on the Romans and I fully agree with that assessment. I’m pretty well convinced that is was the Romans, who were not about to be bullied or pushed into something they didn’t want to do by subject people. The Romans killed Jesus because the Romans wanted to kill Jesus. The man is a problem? Crucify him and get him out of our hair. He’s not a citizen, so who cares? But if we’re going to be honest with ourselves, we have to recognize that Christians have, all too often and for far too long, been willing to foster beliefs that have contributed to Anti-Semitism. Crosssan recognizes that the Gospel of John may be especially guilty of this, and this passage is a prime example.

The point is that, by the time John wrote, Christians and Jews had severed whatever links existed between them on a corporate level. For the most part, Christians no longer considered themselves Jews. Some of this is simple geography; as the nascent church spread, it moved into areas where the Jewish population was much smaller than in the Near East. Large cities had substantial Jewish populations, but that percentage dwindled as one moved away from urban centers like Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. There was certainly friction, and John’s gospel reflects this to varying degrees. This half ends with “The Jews” reviling Jesus, while others marvel: Could a demon do what Jesus did?

The story shifts in time, but not in space. We are now celebrating what we now call Hanukkah, so the story has progressed to December whereas the story of Jesus giving sight was in the autumn. John provides the detail that he was in Solomon’s Portico/Porch/Colonnade. This was supposedly a remnant from the first temple supposedly built by Solomon and so bearing his name. This architectural detail is mentioned in a couple of other places in the NT as well as by Josephus. Here’s the thing: this portico would have been destroyed in 70, and the Temple was never rebuilt. That means John, writing perhaps as much as 50 years after its destruction may not ever have seen the Second Temple. It’s hardly of the question; he could have been a boy of ten in 70, which would make him 60 or so when he wrote. Now, there are a couple of variables here; John traditionally wrote around 100, whereas the theory now is that it was closer to 120. Regardless, it is wholly conceivable that he could have seen the Temple himself and remembered at least some of the details. It’s also possible that John read about this portico from Josephus, whom we know for certain saw the Temple. He wrote in the 90s, and the other references to the portico could be derived from him. I have a personal suspicion that Luke and Josephus wrote at a time when one would have been able to use the other as a source; but, as I suspect that Josephus got his Christian information from Luke–it would have been the new bestseller when Josephus was writing. At first blush, we might take this to mean that Luke could not have mentioned the portico in Acts given that Josephus wrote after Luke. Well, that conclusion rests on one of two assumptions. That Luke wrote–and published–his gospel and Acts at the same time. There is no evidence to support this. A hiatus of a year or two have allowed Josephus to hit the market in the interim and so be available as a source for the evangelist. And this timeline of Josephus-after-Luke also assumes that Luke and Acts were, indeed, written by the same person. There is reason to suspect that there may have been two separate authors, so the gap between the gospel and Acts could have been greater still. This would allow plenty of time for the author of Acts to use Josephus for the detail of the portico. Just to be thorough, it’s also eminently possible that an older contemporary of John who had seen the Second Temple and described it to the evangelist. So there are any number of ways that John could have come by his information about the Portico of Solomon.

Jesus gets into trouble when he engages with the crowd. His audience wants to know, plainly, once for all, if he is the Messiah. His answer does not satisfy them so they consider stoning him again. Yeah, sure, “The Jews”, yadda-yadda-yadda. The answer is very much of a piece with the things he’s been saying throughout the gospel when he is questioned. Given that, to us, our reaction is “How thick are these people? What more do they want?” This is…accurate, to some degree, but it’s looking at the situation as a whole and the question in particular from our point of view. That is to say, our assessment is filtered through a Christian lens. Of course it is. But let’s stop a moment and consider it from the perspective of those asking it. That is, let’s consider it from a Jewish perspective, from the perspective of the First Century.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know the sort of religious education I got as a child from the nuns at Maple Grove St Michaels. That they were nuns is probably relevant, to some degree, but it’s also got something to do with being a Christian in a Christian environment. I’ve read a lot of Mediaeval History; it’s probably the area I should have specialize in rather than Classics. I very distinctly remember reading Norman Cantor’s Mediaeval History* (the first edition, and that matters).  I remember how it occurred to me that the history of Mediaeval Europe is in no small part a history of the Catholic Church. Having been raised Catholic, this presented no real problem since a lot of the theology was familiar. But, I recall thinking, what if I wasn’t Catholic? That would have created more difficulty. Just so, for us as Christians, it takes an act of will to get ourselves out of our Christian point of view and realize that Christians and Jews are largely speaking two different languages when we discuss some of these concepts. One big one is “salvation”; what we mean and what Jews meant in the First Century are only barely-related concepts. The idea of salvation as Christians understand the concept had not been, or was in the process of being, invented. More so with the term Messiah. Jews were expecting a political figure, not a spiritual one. Various members of the Ptolemaic and especially the Seleucid dynasties carried the surname “Savior”. The concept was obviously of this world and largely political; these kings were saving their kingdoms, the ones here on earth. And this is what the Jews expected, and they expected Jesus to answer the question in those terms. He did not, neither here nor elsewhere. This evoked a certain amount of frustration on the part of “The Jews”. They wanted a straight answer to the question: Are you the guy that’s going to restore the kingdom of David?” Instead, Jesus starts rambling about the actions of God and his own and, to his audience, they’re getting nowhere. Again. Just like the last time they asked.

But wait, it gets worse. In Jewish understanding, the Messiah was not a divine figure. Jews and Muslims are very strict monotheists; only God is God. So for Jesus to try to answer their question by starting to talk about his relationship–verging on identity–with the father, this is not only irrelevant, but it’s blasphemous. Yes, we have become inured to that term to some extent, to the point that we–or at least I–don’t feel full impact of what the term means. I do not understand fully the horror a blasphemous statement would evoke. And I think “horror” is the proper and correct term. This was a world, after all, in which God could intervene at any moment in some very horrific manner, like to the point of thinking “Stand back so you don’t get hit by the lightning!” Yes, we know better, but if you can put yourself in their place for a moment, there reaction would perhaps makes a bit more sense. This is not to say it’s not extreme, or an overreaction, but I think, maybe, we can put ourselves in the ballpark of how the might have felt. This perhaps is especially true when he does answer their question in a manner that is wholly unsatisfying to them as he tries to convince them that his deeds are warranted because they are the deeds of the father, and he’s a little miffed that they don’t–won’t–accept this as some sort of..something. If not actual proof, then as some sort of implication. Perhaps as a sign, if you will. Their response is to state explicitly that are not interested in his deeds. What bothers them, they say is his words, which are blasphemous. 

In short, Jesus saying his deeds demonstrate who he is; “The Jews” are saying his speech demonstrates he is a blasphemer.

So reading this, my question is this: Is this the only place in the NT when this statement is made so bluntly? It feels like I’ve been trying so tease out some of this stuff, trying to disentangle it from the thicket of prickles in which it’s embedded. And now Poof! here it is, all spelled out so nicely. Actually, the real question is why John tells us this here and now rather than earlier or later? I suppose not earlier for the dramatic tension of Jesus leading them along to pop this on them now. Perhaps it’s positioned here due to the upcoming raising of Lazarus, which is more or less the culmination of the signs he performs. It is interesting that they don’t hold the deeds against him; is this because they all lived in a world in which there were many wonder workers? I suspect that may have something to do with it, and that it may be debated for a long time. 

John Chapter 10:31-42

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

Text

31 Ἐβάστασαν πάλιν λίθους οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἵνα λιθάσωσιν αὐτόν.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

42 καὶ πολλοὶ ἐπίστευσαν εἰς αὐτὸν ἐκεῖ.

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

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

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

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

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

Summary John Chapter 9

This is being published on Good Friday, 2024, at 3:15, a quarter-hour after the traditional time of Jesus’ death. The tradition I was taught as a lad at Maple Grove St Michaels is that he was on the cross from noon until 3:00.

According to my records, I have not posted since late January, a full two months ago. Since I’m no longer working for the man–or anyone–I should theoretically have a plethora of time. Theoretically. But let’s also be honest: I got involved in reading  piece of theology written in Latin by St Bonaventure, who went on to found a university in Olean, NY. Naturally, doing the translating took longer than expected, but I cannot stress enough the importance of reading other primary sources in their original Greek or Latin if one wishes to have a reasonable understanding of how other languages work. Bonaventure wrote in the 12th century so he uses a bunch of “standard” words rather differently than Classical authors. This is good practice to help broaden one’s approach: if you’re paying attention, you will become aware of alternative nuances which may color your understanding of what the text could mean. If you approach a work like the NT with this more open understanding, you will realize that some passages can be read in different ways. My latest is paradidomai, “to hand down or hand over”. In that crucial passage of 1 Cor 11:23-29, Paul uses the word at least twice. Once it is translated, pretty much universally, as he “handed down” the word that have become the words of the consecration of the bread in Catholic & Episcopalian (and other?) masses. The other time it is translated as “betrayed”. Both are valid. But–a key aspect of the Passion Narrative is based on that reading of “betrayed”. This is the closest piece we have approaching a primary source for the Lord’s Supper and what happened. If that is not “betrayed”, then the whole Judas thing disappears. Think about that.

Anyway, the point here is that learning “NT Greek” is good, but, by itself, it won’t give you a real grasp of how the Greek works and how reading the original will provide new insights. Of course, I am a Classicist, and we are known to be snobs, and with justification. We are snobbish and pompous and those are our good qualities.

To the text.

The chapter tells the story of how Jesus gives sight to a man blind from birth. Since this was congenital, we cannot say that Jesus “restored” the man’s sight since he had never had it. This detail is meant to emphasize the wonder and power of the mighty work–remember, there are no ‘miracles’ in the NT. Restoration is more readily effected since the apparatus was in place and operational at some point. Jesus is, in effect, creating the man’s sight from scratch, if not quite ex nihilo. And it appears that this is the only instance where Jesus actually gave someone sight for the first time; in other instances, Jesus restored a faculty that had been lost. In fact, John stresses the point in Verse 32 where the healed man says that it has never been heard that someone born blind has had sight given to them. This does help explain why the authorities drag his parents into the discussion. This emphasis explains why the newly-sighted man suggests that this is a sign. More on that later.

The most pertinent passage of this chapter, IMO, starts with Verse 6. This is where Jesus spits on dirt to make mud. As we mentioned in the commentary, this detailed description–or prescription– for restoring or initiating a man’s sight appeared in Mark, but was scrubbed from Matthew and Luke for reasons we can only guess. The process described can only be called a “magical practice”, as I have named it; that is to say it’s the sort of thing one might expect to find in a grimoire. For those who may not know, a grimoire is a book of how to cast spells; sort of a magician’s cookbook, as it were. I’ve read excerpts from a few different ones. I’m about halfway through translating Cornelius Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy from the original Latin. First, “occult” is misleading. The Latin is de Occulta Philosophia, so the root is obvious, but the meaning is not. This is one of those words where the meaning has shifted over time; occulta, simply means “hidden”, but the meaning can be completely non-sinister. For example, kids might play a game of occulta-and-go-seek. It can simply mean not obvious to the naked eye. Like magnetism. Or gravity. Both could be understood to be “occult” phenomena, or powers, according to the Latin meaning of the term. But in any case, Agrippa has hundreds of little “cures” or “prescriptions” involving body parts of various animals or stones to cure ailments or afflictions. It’s where the “Eye of newt/and toe of frog” came from in Macbeth, IV.1. The description of Jesus’ actions here–and in Mark–are fully consistent with the sort of thing that Agrippa would discuss a millennium-and-a-half later, 

And that is very interesting. Magic, as in the real thing with hocus-pocus and wands went in and out of favor amongst the Roman elite over the course of the first century. Tiberius was dead-set against it, and the records indicate that he executed a large number of magicians during his reign. Interestingly, Jesus was executed during the reign of Tiberius. Coincidence? I am increasingly of the opinion that it may not have been. I have come to suspect that Jesus was executed precisely because he was considered a magician. Pilate could easily have had Jesus arrested and executed as a magician and his boss Tiberius would have applauded the effort. Two points: First, there is solid and a not-insignificant amount of evidence that later pagans, into the second century and beyond, considered Jesus to have been a powerful magician, to the point that pagan magicians invoke Jesus as a power that can help cast an effective spell. His name appears on gemstones used as amulets, on lead tablets that were used to cast spells, and he is mentioned in pagan texts on magic. Second, Apollonius of Tyana–who has been called the “Pagan Jesus/Christ”, and whose name still gives the Vatican the willies–also had to fend off charges of being a magician. He, too, lived an ascetic life as a wandering teacher who cured people, and there were those who said he did it by magic. And “magic” at the time, carried heavy connotations of the invocation of spirits, who were not always benign.

So there was good reason for Matthew and Luke to scrub such magical practices from their versions of the gospel. It was a safe thing to do; it removed the possibility of misunderstandings and helped prevent Jesus’ name from falling into disrepute. It helped keep him respectable. This being the case, we have to ask why John put this back into his gospel? Of course, that brings up the question of whether or not John was aware of his predecessors. Personally, I find the idea that he was not to be rather ludicrous. There was an entity that can justifiably be called a “Church” by the time John wrote, and this Church kept things moving. I think that people don’t realize how much travel occurred within the Roman Empire in the First and Second Centuries. These were the years of the Pax Romana, the Roman peace, and trade and commerce were thriving, and all sorts of people were traveling for all sorts of reasons. In fact, in the Second Century a chap named Pausanias wrote a what can only be described as a guidebook for tourists visiting Greece. The Christian communities communicated with each other. The Didache, written somewhere in the early-mid Second Century describes how communities should treat visiting preachers. These various communities were not isolated islands, but part of a network of believers. The aforementioned Apollonius of Tyana and Philipp the Apostle both supposedly traveled to India. Part of the reason people want to believe that John was not aware of the Synoptics is that this keeps John as an independent source, which bolsters the credibility of the records preserved in the gospels. But, as with Q, wishing it true don’t make it so.

The description of the process by which Jesus made the man whole is, while not verbatim, identical. The closeness of the details of the account can only have come about in two different ways. The first is that John read Mark. Otherwise, we almost have to posit that the early Christian communities continued a tradition of restoring sight by using saliva to make mud which is then applied to the eyes of the sufferer. Honestly, this argument would be easier to make, and make coherent, than the “argument” for Q. The ritual was described in the 70s, and then again 30-50 years later.

So why does John bring this back? Because it was omitted by Matthew and Luke? We have seen how ofttimes Luke restored things that had been in Mark that Matthew omitted. The Gerasene Demonaic is a good example of Luke restoring detail to the account that Matthew cut from his. Of course, it’s difficult not to suggest that the overall opinion of magic had changed since the times Matthew and Luke wrote. What had been scandalous, perhaps to the point of dangerous, for them had become benign in the subsequent generation.

Was Jesus a magician? Some people thought so. Josephus has an unusual term for Jesus: a man who performed paradoxōn ergōn, a man who did unexpected or extraordinary things, deeds one  normally wouldn’t expect. The word itself is rather unusual, rarely used by pagan writers and appearing less than a dozen times in the NT, and in most of these instances it is used to indicate someone (usually Jesus) who was not acting as one would expect a practicing Jew to act. Often this meant transgressions against the Sabbath. It’s difficult to tell what Josephus means by using the word; a single instance by an author is not really sufficient to get a sense of what s/he means by the word. It generally gets translated as “wonderful” as in the sense of a “wonder-worker”, but given the usage in the NT, one has to wonder what Josephus is saying about Jesus. Was he calling him a wonder worker? Or was he calling Jesus someone who did not behave as a pious Jew might be expected to behave? That’s how it’s used in the NT for the most part, and Josephus was a rough contemporary of Matthew and Luke.

That discussion ran longer than expected. Much longer, in fact. But in the final analysis it’s the most unusual aspect of the whole chapter. Most of the rest is something of a recapitulation of the themes that we have encountered to this point. Jesus is in contention with “The Jews”, the leading citizens and/or prominent members of the synagogue or the community. If you’ll recall, it’s not entirely clear where exactly Jesus is, and where this action unfolded. He was “passing by” and saw the man born blind. Not that the end of Chapter 8 is necessarily going to provide reasonable information on this, but he was in the Temple last chapter. If we are to assume, or infer, or surmise that he still is, that would make the authorities truly “The Jews”, the religious and more or less (puppet) secular leaders of the population of Jerusalem. With one exception, it’s interesting to note that the name of Caiaphas, who was supposedly the High Priest, does not occur in any of the gospels until we get to the Passion Narrative. That exception will crop up in Chapter 11 of John. I will have more to say on that when we get to it.

Regardless of where this occurred, we have the authorities refusing to accept that Jesus is an agent of God. The Man Born Blind is incredulous about this; surely, he said, Jesus has performed a Sign, and yet the authorities question whether he is from God? How can that be? This is largely a recapitulation of the interactions Jesus had with “The Jews” in most of the other chapters we’ve read. In some ways this is analogous to the “Messianic Secret” encountered in Mark. To underscore, we get the loaded question at the very end of the chapter when some of the Pharisees ask “are we blind?” I referred to this as a loaded question; perhaps “rhetorical question” is more accurate. Of course they are blind. That is why John is writing this gospel: to show the world just how blind “The Jews” were. After all, in this chapter Jesus performs an actual Sign and they ask how he can be from God if he doesn’t observe the Sabbath? How much more blind can one be? Recall that the crowed asked for–demanded?–a sign in Mark 10, and earlier in this gospel when Jesus crossed back to Caphernaum from feeding the 5,000. I guess they wanted it hand-delivered with a bow and an instruction manual and “SIGN” written in big red letters.

Really though, the insistence that this was, indeed, a sign just makes the inclusion of, and description of, the magical practice all that more curious. Why does God need to make a plaster? God made the eyes to begin with; surely he can retrofit an operational pair of them into a factory reject? The biggest problem that people had with magic was that it usually involved the invocation of a spirit, or daimon, or some lesser superhuman entity, and that these entities were often not to be trusted. God created the kosmos in six days ex nihilo, from nothing. And if Jesus is one with the father, the mere thought or intent should have been enough to give the man his sight.

Curious, indeed.

John Chapter 9:1-7

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A thousand pardons for the length of time between posts. John is proving to be by far the most difficult of the gospels to provide commentary. Not only are there few logical breaks in the chapters themselves, but as I hope I pointed out in the summary to Chapter 8, the themes carry on between the chapters. A cursory glance ahead shows that we might be entering into a phase in which the topics are more episodic, but time will tell. We begin with a story about a Sign. As we do so, please remember that the word miracle* does not appear in the NT as written. Jesus is about to perform a sign.

Text

1 Καὶ παράγων εἶδεν ἄνθρωπον τυφλὸν ἐκ γενετῆς.

2 καὶ ἠρώτησαν αὐτὸν οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ λέγοντες, Ῥαββί, τίς ἥμαρτεν, οὗτος ἢ οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ, ἵνα τυφλὸς γεννηθῇ;

And proceeding along, he saw a man blind from birth. (2) And his disciples asked him saying about (the man), “Rabbi, who sinned? Was it he, or his parents, so that he was born blind?”  

Let’s start with the most obvious point here; it’s so obvious that it’s easy to overlook. “And (they were) proceeding along”. “Proceeding along…” where? At the end of the last chapter Jesus was going on the lam to escape the wrath of “The Jews” in the Temple. Is this part of that flight from justice–as imposed by Temple authorities? Are they still in Jerusalem? We don’t know. To call this intro “abrupt” is rather an understatement. 

However, that’s all beside the real point. To some degree, the question about sinning seems a bit off. It has the feel, almost, of an anachronism, as if this attitude that illness/disability = sin has become outdated by this time. But then, in the wider world, there are several pagan temples that functioned as sort of a combination of hospital and Lourdes, where the sick and afflicted gathered and prayed for a cure, often delivered in the form of a dream and taking the form of a sacrifice. So, while there is a very real difference between an illness/affliction being caused by sin, and offering a sacrifice in thanksgiving for a cure. It doesn’t matter. The point is that the idea of a physical affliction being caused by sin is hardly an odd one in the ancient world. BUT, this just feels a bit too…perfect. It’s a set-up for what comes next. In addition, if the man was blind from birth, how could the sin have been his? IIRC, the idea of the sins of the father being visited on the sons, or children, is part of Hebrew/Jewish/Canaanite tradition, so again this question is not surprising in any generalized cultural sense, but it does seem a bit…odd.

But now let us circle back to the first point, about the abrupt opening. The combination of that opening with the too-perfect question leads me to suspect that John encountered this story as a complete unit in one of his oral sources. Like Luke’s story of the Widow of Nain, it had developed amongst one or some of the groups that followed, or at least paid attention to Jesus. That is how the legends of Jesus developed, and it is how legends in general develop: stories sort of spring up organically. To say that they are concocted, or made up, or fictional is rather to miss the point. No, the stories did not occur in anything resembling factual reality, but that was not necessarily seen as a problem. Again, we’re talking Truth, not factual accuracy. The latter has nothing to do with the former. It was believed that it could have been accurate as well as True, and that was what mattered in the long run; it was the sort of thing that could have been True, just as Thucydides wrote speeches that were the sort of thing that woulda/coulda been said at the time and place and by the speaker in question. At the risk of offending, the word we’re looking for here is myth. If you read Joseph Campbell–which I cannot recommend highly enough–you will understand that myth does not mean “fairy tale”, or deliberate lie. It’s a story that illustrates a very essential aspect of our lived reality. So this is the sort of thing Jesus would have done, so it becomes True. 

1 Et praeteriens vidit hominem caecum a nativitate.
2 Et interro gaverunt eum discipuli sui dicentes: “Rabbi, quis peccavit, hic aut parentes eius, ut caecus nasceretur?”.

3 ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς, Οὔτε οὗτος ἥμαρτεν οὔτε οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ, ἀλλ’ ἵνα φανερωθῇ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ.

4 ἡμᾶς δεῖ ἐργάζεσθαι τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πέμψαντός με ἕως ἡμέρα ἐστίν: ἔρχεται νὺξ ὅτε οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐργάζεσθαι. 

5 ὅταν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ὦ, φῶς εἰμι τοῦ κόσμου.

Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned, but (he was blind) so that the works of God may have been made manifest in/through him. (4) You must do the works of the one having sent me until it is day. Night comes that no one is able to work. (5) Whenever I may be in the kosmos, I am the light of the kosmos.   

Here is the real proof that we are in the realm of myth. The man is not blind due to sin, but so that he may make manifest the works of God. Think about that for a moment. It sort of takes us into the outer ambit of the moral realm of Predestination. This man was not born only to be damned upon his death, but he still spent a chunk of his life blind so that God could show mercy by making him whole. Now, the attitude I’ve just expressed is very much the attitude of an era much later than the time of Jesus. The horrors of life were much more obvious back then. As proof I offer the tombstones of 17th Century Boston. In the burying ground next to Old South Church on Tremont street are very grim tombstones, with carvings of skulls and skeletons that are depicted snuffing out the candle of life. As time progressed and some of the grim aspect of life had been ameliorated the skulls grew wings and morphed into angels, a much more positive image. So I suspect we feel the grim aspect of this man’s fate more keenly than he did. And even if this particular man is “fictional”, there were scores of others in the same or worse condition scattered throughout the towns of Judea. So here is where the myth aspect really comes into play: I doubt anyone hearing this story at any point prior to the Reformation thought of the man’s circumstances as I have. It was a story that imparted a Truth about life. People were born blind. But this man was actually fortunate to have encountered Jesus who (spoiler alert!) will restore his sight. He is one of the lucky ones, and we should rejoice in his good fortune. But these sorts of implications, many of them probably unforeseen by the authors of the NT, raised the sorts of questions that led to the development of theology as something apart from philosophy. Stories like this led to debates among churchmen, starting in the Second Century, proceeding through Augustine in the 4/5th Century and raging throughout the Middle Ages. And the questions that cropped up are still valid, even if we have come to some sort of consensus about them.

Finally there is Jesus’ pronouncement in Verse 6. “I am the light of the kosmos/world”. Having even rudimentary background in astronomy and Hermeticism and Gnosticism that I do, the choice of “world” really matters, and I wonder how someone in the Second Century would have understood the term kosmos, which is the word John used here. When we hear “light of the world” we think of our terrestrial home and its daystar, AKA the sun. And really, that is the image John means to evoke as he compares and contrasts against night, when no one is able to work since it is dark. Here is where one wonders how familiar John was with Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount. In particular I think of Mt 5:14 & 16, and 6:23. In Verse 5:14 Jesus tells his audience that “you are the light of the world”; in 5:16, they are admonished to let their light shine before men through their good example. Finally in 6:23 he says that if one’s eyes are evil their body will be full of darkness. Similar sorts of implications, but still distinct. Did John sort of remember his Matthew, more or less, but not quite get the nuances right? Or did he remember his Matthew and adapt to different circumstances? Did John develop the theme of light from the ideas of one of his predecessors?

It’s impossible to answer that question. Of course the light/dark dichotomy can be traced back to Paul in the NT, and all the way back to Zoroaster in Near Eastern thought. I mentioned Elaine Pagels’ The Gnostic Paul; light/dark was prominent in Gnostic belief, and I will suggest that the rise in the popularity of Gnosticism would have led to this theme to spill into the culture as a whole. It would have been something of a commonplace, at least in some circles. These circles would have been comprised of educated individuals, since this is the prime market for beliefs that value knowledge of any sort. John was educated, as is demonstrated by the fact that he could write. As such, I would suggest that John conceived the idea of the light of the world in some sort of semi-Gnostic understanding. Now, I have just unloaded a whole pile of unsubstantiated speculation, so don’t be too eager to quote me. With that caveat in mind, however, I believe my suggestion is eminently plausible given a certain amount of diffusion of Gnostic thinking and belief. In such a system, the idea of the Light of the Kosmos–not “the world” as we understand it–is well in keeping with the high claims John has made about who Jesus is. I am suggesting that if John is writing under Gnostic influence, he is likely not talking about the mundane, physical world of our common understanding. He is more concerned about the kosmos, the cosmic realm of all creation. Can I prove that? Of course not. All I can do is make the suggestion as a reminder that this gospel that we have been reading an commenting on for a couple of millennia is not a settled fact. It is a consensus–at best.  We need always to bear in mind that the NT was part of a much larger milieu, which is why I so vehemently insist that there is no such thing as “NT Greek”. It’s an artificial creation, a circumscribing, or a cordoning off of the authors of the NT from the wider world around them, and this will lead to an overly narrow understanding of the words they wrote. As such I fully believe that John could easily have had something well beyond what shows up on a globe when he had Jesus say, “I am the light of the world”.

But let’s reel this back in a bit. Or a lot. Even to be the “light of the world” as it fits on a globe is one heckuva claim to make. Jesus is the light that shines to show us eternal life, and this clim is the culmination of the train of thought first put forth in Matthew. We all know Matthew’s birth narrative; many of us probably heard it read in church in the past week or two (I write this on 1/2/24) We are all familiar with the Star of Bethlehem that was observed by astrologers in the East who came to pay homage to the Infant King. We call them “Three Kings of Orient”, but “kings” covers up the term “magi”, which is the Latinized form of magoi, which is the Greek word borrowed from the Persians that meant, among other things, “astrologer”, and is the root of “magic” and “magician”. They observed a star, a new star that announced the birth of the new King. Having had an interest in astronomy as a lad, I can assure you that a new star is A Big Deal. A Very Big Deal. In 1054 the light of a stellar explosion in the constellation Taurus reached the earth, and was recorded by Chinese astronomers and other observers. This was a “new star”, something that appeared in the sky where there had never been a star. Technically, this wasn’t a star, but a supernova, one of the most spectacular events in the heavens. The star appeared in July of 1054 and then disappeared from view by the naked eye in April 1056; however, it is still visible with the aid of a smallish telescope as the Crab Nebula. It is the first object in the Messier Catalogue, a listing of non-cometary celestial objects such as galaxies or nebulae. The French astronomer Charles Messier found it while looking for Halley’s Comet, and he mistook the nebula for the comet. To avoid confusion in the future, M Messier created the catalogue of such objects, and this catalogue–greatly expanded–is still used by astronomers. The objects are listed in the catalogue with the letter M (for Messier) and a number, which are sequential in order of discovery. The Crab Nebula is M 1 in the catalogue.  

All of this is meant to demonstrate just how much of a Big Deal a new star is. We have seen nothing of the sort since 1054, and I will let you do the math on that. Given that Jesus’ birth was marked by a new star, we can understand that Matthew saw this birth as an event of cosmic significance. That is the term I used when we read Matthew, but I did not fully understand the implications of what I said at the time. By introducing a New Star, Matthew was beating us over the head with implications of just how big a deal the birth of Jesus was; however, at this point, the Star of Bethlehem is just part of the wallpaper of Christmas, something mentioned in a song, or that decorates a creche. So when John says Jesus claimed to be the “light of the kosmos”, φῶς εἰμι τοῦ κόσμου, I think we need to sit back and take notice that John had something in mind that goes way beyond our humdrum earth, our globe. Betcha don’t find that in another commentary.

3 Respondit Iesus: “ Neque hic peccavit neque parentes eius, sed ut manifestentur opera Dei in illo.
4 Nos oportet operari opera eius, qui misit me, donec dies est; venit nox, quando nemo potest operari.
5 Quamdiu in mundo sum, lux sum mundi”.

6 ταῦτα εἰπὼν ἔπτυσεν χαμαὶ καὶ ἐποίησεν πηλὸν ἐκ τοῦ πτύσματος, καὶ ἐπέχρισεν αὐτοῦ τὸν πηλὸν ἐπὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς

7 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Υπαγε νίψαι εἰς τὴν κολυμβήθραν τοῦ Σιλωάμ {ὃ ἑρμηνεύεται Ἀπεσταλμένος}. ἀπῆλθεν οὖν καὶ ἐνίψατο, καὶ ἦλθεν βλέπων. 

Saying this Jesus spat on the ground and made mud from the spittle, and smeared mud upon his eyes. (7) And Jesus said to him (the blind man). “Withdraw, wash to the pool of Siloam {which translates as “Sent”}. So he went away and washed, and he came seeing. [Usually rendered as “he came back seeing”.]  

OK. A couple of things to get us started. First, the construction “he came seeing” is odd. Changing this to “came back seeing” makes sense in English, but it is not what the Greek–nor the Latin, for that matter–says. This doesn’t really affect the narrative, but one wonders at the clumsy nature of this. Second, the words in the {brackets} are almost certainly interpolated. Mark has a number of Aramaic expressions that he translates into Greek, but they are translated much more smoothly than what we get here. This just screams “Marginal Note!” In fact, it screams it so loudly that I wonder if the “he came back seeing” is not also an interpolation. After all, without it, we are not exactly informed that the cure occurred. But, in the grand scheme, the insertion of a couple of phrases is not a big deal one way or another. 

What is a big deal, in my opinion, is how we are thrown back into Mark, and the way Mark described what I termed the magical practices of Jesus. Twice in Mark we are told that Jesus used his saliva to cure people; the first time in 7:31-37, it was a man who could not hear or speak, the second time in 8:23-25 it was a man who was blind. These are the only three instances where the Greek word ptuō, “to spit” is used. (Ptuō is a wonderful example of onomatopoeia, IMO.) I have been paying attention to such things because I have a theory that Jesus may have been executed for practicing magic. This position is not a common one, but it’s not entirely unusual, either. It crops up more in discussions of pagan magical practice than in Christian writing, and it has been suggested more than once. It bears mention that Jesus’ name occurs in incantations of pagan magicians; Jesus is invoked as a magician of some power. And then Jesus’ later contemporary, Apollonius of Tyana, was also accused of sorcery. The comparison of the biographies of the two men provide some really interesting parallels, to the point that Christian writers up until, say, Augustine, would go apoplectic at the mention of Apollonius. If you have never heard of him, then you can appreciate how successful the Christians between John and Augustine were in extirpating the memory of Apollonius, but the latter’s memory survived in no small part to imperial patronage of his status. Back when we discussed Matthew and Luke, I made sure to point out how these two evangelists neatly omitted those parts of Mark in which these magical practices of Jesus were described. 

We will discuss this further as the chapter progresses. I would like to close this section with two comments. First, it’s amazing how long some of these can drag out. Until I got to it, the idea of explaining about the Crab Nebula had never occurred to me. Now, one hopes that this sort of context adds value. There are a lot of cross-currents swirling about in the First Century, just as there are in any period. And I do suspect that you will not run into this sort of explanation elsewhere. Or maybe you will. Second, this whole magic bit is curious, to say the least. Third, it appears that there is no mention of a “sign” in this chapter. That is also curious.

6 Haec cum dixisset, exspuit in terram et fecit lutum ex sputo et linivit lutum super oculos eius
7 et dixit ei: “ Vade, lava in natatoria Siloae! ” — quod interpretatur Missus —. Abiit ergo et lavit et venit videns.

*I published a post called Miracles back at the end of June explaining the etymology of “miracle”, which is a Latin word. As such, it does not appear in the Greek original; nor in the Vulgate, for that matter. The term was coined by later Christian writers.