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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 It has the feel, almost, of an anachronism, as if this attitude that illness/disability = sin has become outdated by this time.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.
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.
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.
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 8:39-47
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”.
John Chapter 8:25-30
This was supposed to be part of the previous section, the post including Verse 21-30. But, that was just too long. So let’s get back to it.
Translation from previous section added for continuity:
(21) So he said again to them, “I am departing, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you are not able to come.” (22) So “The Jews” said, “Will he kill himself, as he says, ‘Whither I go, you cannot follow’?” (23) And he said to them, “You are from things below, and I am from things above. You are of this kosmos/world; I am not from this kosmos/world. (24) So I say to you will die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am (he: this is not in the text), you will die in your sins”.
25 ἔλεγον οὖν αὐτῷ, Σὺ τίς εἶ; εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Τὴν ἀρχὴν ὅ τι καὶ λαλῶ ὑμῖν;
26 πολλὰ ἔχω περὶ ὑμῶν λαλεῖν καὶ κρίνειν: ἀλλ’ ὁ πέμψας με ἀληθής ἐστιν, κἀγὼ ἃ ἤκουσα παρ’ αὐτοῦ ταῦτα λαλῶ εἰς τὸν κόσμον.
27 οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ὅτι τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῖς ἔλεγεν.
So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “What do I say (now) and in the beginning to you?”
The Greek of Jesus’ answer is funky. One commentator says that each word could be taken in more than one way. A number of modern editions end up with something like “What have I said that (I am) in the beginning?” as a literal translation. The verb Jesus uses is present indicative active rather than an aorist, but in English we might expect a perfect, or perhaps imperfect to convey the sense of “what have I been telling you since the beginning?” which is how it’s frequently rendered.
The question asked of Jesus is the logical follow-up to his statement that “you don’t believe that I am (he–IE, the anointed)”. There is a lot of discussion in the commentaries that the question is hostile as indeed it is. But what the commentators mostly comment is that “The Jews” don’t want to believe Jesus when he says he is the anointed, which accounts for the somewhat exasperated tone of Jesus’ answer: What have I been telling you? Dullards (implied)! So there is a degree of combativeness in this discussion not present heretofore. In a sense, we’re reverting to the Jesus of Mark who often loses patience with his disciples and rebukes them rather sharply. Speaking of disciples, has anyone else noticed that they’re not involved in a lot of this? Heck, they’re not even mentioned. Where are they during this ongoing exchange?
So, yeah, this is a different Jesus than we’ve seen in Matthew and/or Luke.
25 Dicebant ergo ei: “Tu quis es?”. Dixit eis Iesus: “In principio: id quod et loquor vobis!
26 πολλὰ ἔχω περὶ ὑμῶν λαλεῖν καὶ κρίνειν: ἀλλ’ ὁ πέμψας με ἀληθής ἐστιν, κἀγὼ ἃ ἤκουσα παρ’ αὐτοῦ ταῦτα λαλῶ εἰς τὸν κόσμον.
27 οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ὅτι τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῖς ἔλεγεν.
“I have much to speak and to judge about you; but the one having sent me is true, and I having heard beside him speak these things to the world (kosmos)”. (27) They did not know that he spoke to them (of) the father.
Let us begin with the grammatical quirks. “Having heard beside him” obviously doesn’t make sense in English. The implication is that this is knowledge imparted to Jesus because he was at the side of the father; at the father’s right hand, as it were. And I’ve relented in my hard-and-fast non-translation of kosmos; “world” is obviously the intended meaning here. And it literally means “spoke the father to them”. It’s accusative case, so the father is being spoken. Again, this is one of those joints where it’s really difficult to maintain fidelity to the original while not spouting gibberish in English.
While we’re at it, the literal translation of the first clause of Verse 26 is “I have much to speak about you and to judge”. But Greek has the capability to use the pronoun once as the subject to two different verbs; well, English does the same, but an English sentence requires a specific word order whereas Greek allows more flexibility due to the case endings.
As for what this all means, while we still lack consensus on a lot of the details of the individual thoughts, the overall thrust of this seems plain enough. Jesus continues to hammer home his relationship to/with the father, and that “The Jews” do not understand. Of course, by the time John wrote, the breach between Christians and Jews was final and irrevocable. So, just as the Synoptics were required to do, John has to explain this to the world at large. So he does. And forgive me, but it seems like he he goes over the same ground many, may times. Or is it just me? I find myself scratching for comment because it has gotten to feel repetitive.
26 Multa habeo de vobis loqui et iudicare; sed, qui misit me, verax est, et ego, quae audivi ab eo, haec loquor ad mundum”.
27 Non cognoverunt quia Patrem eis dicebat.
28 εἶπεν οὖν [αὐτοῖς] ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Οταν ὑψώσητε τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, τότε γνώσεσθε ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι, καὶ ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ ποιῶ οὐδέν, ἀλλὰ καθὼς ἐδίδαξέν με ὁ πατὴρ ταῦτα λαλῶ.
29 καὶ ὁ πέμψας με μετ’ ἐμοῦ ἐστιν: οὐκ ἀφῆκέν με μόνον, ὅτι ἐγὼ τὰ ἀρεστὰ αὐτῷ ποιῶ πάντοτε.
30 Ταῦτα αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος πολλοὶ ἐπίστευσαν εἰς αὐτόν.
So Jesus said [to them], “When you have seen the son of man lifted up, then you will know that I am, and I do nothing on my own (i.e., authority), but accordingly as the father taught me I speak. (29) And the one sending me is with me; he has not left me alone, so that I do the things pleasing him always”. (30) He having spoken these things, many believed in him.
We start in Verse 28 talking about the son of man being “lifted up”. My first instinct was that this was a reference to the Ascension as told in Acts 1; however, a quick check told me that the word used here is not the same word used to describe Jesus being lifted up to…actually, the text does not tell us where he went. We are only told that he was lifted up and a cloud took him from their sight. Presumably that means he went up to the sky, since that’s where clouds are, but “Luke” does not use the word. In any case, the word here is different. The word in Acts is a compound of the base verb for “to receive” whereas here we have an entirely different word. Is significant? Perhaps. The word in Acts carries the sense of being taken up physically, while the word here has more the connotation of being elevated in a figurative sense. The most common translation for the word here is “exalted”, and this very different from being physically lifted as occurred in Acts. The fact that it confuses us in English is a problem with English; this sort of confusion would not really occur in Greek because the words are different. To use “exalt” would not engender the notion of lifting someone, say, off the ground. While the choice of word is perhaps not entirely clear, I do believe that the idea of Resurrection is fully intended. But what about Ascension? Of that, I’m not so sure. That is part of the reason I’m quibbling about “exalt” vs “physically lift”. Had John used Luke’s word, I would definitely suppose he was referring to Ascension. Without it, I’m not so certain.
Then we get to the term “son of man”. This is rare for John, it’s one of only a 10 or 12 (depending on the source; I didn’t go through and count them) times that he uses the term. There is an interesting parallel passage in 3:14:
…Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up…
And another in Chapter 12:32, wherein Jesus says:
…when I am lifted up from the earth…
Note that it specifically says “from the earth”, so there is no question that we are speaking of an event like the Ascension. Then in Verse 34, the crowd asks
…‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this ‘Son of Man’?”…
In all three instances use the verb used here in 8:28, and the term. “son of man” appears in all three places. In addition, these are the only times in the NT where this word for “raising up” is not translated as “exalt”. Is this significant? Patterns are worth recognizing, despite being more of a literary convention than something related to historical analysis judgement, but even so my inclination is to say this matters. Note the use in 3:14 refers to a snake being physically borne aloft, just as in 12:32 Jesus is physically raised off the earth.
It has been suggested–plausibly, I might add–that “raising up” could refer to crucifixion, being raised on a cross. In this case, the parallel with 3:14 about Moses lifting a snake seems pretty clear. I suppose it works equally well with the occurrences in Chapter 12 as well. But what about “son of man?” The term is used by all Synoptics. The lower number of examples in John may indicate the term was falling out of use, superseded perhaps by “Son of God”. I have no explanation for this; not even a guess, really. It’s a pattern, which caught my attention, but that is not to say the pattern has meaning.
In Verse 28, Jesus also says that the father is with him. This hearkens back to the very beginning of the gospel, when the Logos was with God, but the overall gist is to repeat, again, the special relationship between Jesus and the father. Now to this point Jesus has consistently made it clear–intentionally or not–that he and the father are separate entities; this will change, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, while separate entities, Jesus emphasizes the very close relationship between him and his father. So let’s consider “the father is with me”. This is obviously not an accurate statement in anything resembling shared, objective reality. The audience does not see this father, and back in verse 19 they asked where his father is. So Jesus is speaking metaphorically. But what does “with me” mean in a metaphysical sense, one that transcends whatever I mean by “objective reality?” The answer does not puzzle us: by metaphorical relationship, we understand spiritual relationship. The spirit of God is with him, or God is with him in spirit.
The idea of the spirit of God goes to the foundation of Judaism, way back to Genesis 1 when “the spirit of god moved over the waters”. But the “spirit of God” and the “breath of God” are not, or at least may not be the same thing. In most instances we do not think of “breath” when we consider “spirit”. We do know talk about “School Breath” or “should the breath move you”. However, if you replace each instance of “spirit” in English with “breath”, in the vast majority of the time the sentence will make sense and will still be valid. But what would a Jew of this time have understood Jesus saying “he is beside me”? Belief in non-corporeal entities was not outside of Jewish belief; the messengers (angeloi) of God, or demons fell into this category. Would they have just written it off as metaphorical? My guess is no, since John’s life may have overlapped with that of Philo of Alexandria who was writing extensively that the HS should be understood metaphorically. This is pretty clear indication that, for the most part, the HS were not taken as metaphor by most Jews.
I don’t have an answer to this, but it seems important to mention it. Having the father beside him is a way to make sure he’s presenting the correct message. It’s Jesus appealing to authority. But that what we all do.
Then we get to Verse 30, which I find a bit perplexing. Seriously, what has he said between Verses 21 and 30 to make anyone change their mind? Or, are we to assume that Jesus was having these discussions with “The Jews”, meaning the leaders and important figures while a crowd of onlookers looked on and listened? Upon further reflection, this is perhaps not a far-fetched notion; this is the Temple, after all, with a large courtyard (per my understanding) where all sorts of activities took place. Whatever the origin or genesis, I have the image of a sort of Hyde Park, where preachers of all sorts held forth and those passing would stop to listen to one or another, or to many or to all or to none. If this proposed scenario has any validity, then the final words of Verse 30 can make perfect sense.
Much of this, I suppose, ties to the idea of how reliable John is as history. The bulk of what we have read of this gospel to date is different both in content and tone from the Synoptics. I hold to my belief that John wanted to write a summary that put the theological case for Jesus on solid ground. He was aiming for Truth, so looking for factual accuracy is rather beside the point. So far, Jesus is teaching who and what he is, and “The Jews” are acting accordingly. For the moment, let’s not go past that point.
28 Dixit ergo eis Iesus: “Cum exaltaveritis Filium hominis, tunc cognoscetis quia ego sum et a meipso facio nihil, sed, sicut docuit me Pater, haec loquor.
29 Et qui me misit, mecum est; non reliquit me solum, quia ego, quae placita sunt ei, facio semper”.
30 Haec illo loquente, multi crediderunt in eum.
John Chapter 8:21-24
Here is the attempted re-creation of the lost material. Of course this will end up being an entirely different post than the lost one. Some good points were probably lost, but I think some good points added. It feels more of a unit than the previous draft, thereby presenting a darn good argument for why I should write multiple drafts. But, I I did that, we’d probably still be in the middle of Matthew rather than here in John
This does give me the opportunity to get out front on this. I have been operating under the belief that the remark Jesus made when being arrest about “I taught daily in the Temple and you did not arrest me” was found in John, but not the Synoptics. This is exactly backwards. It appears in all three Synoptics and not in John. It’s a great example demonstrating that one’s logic can be flawless but one can still be dead wrong. Exhibit 1 for this is Aristotle. His premises were faulty, his logic impeccable, and so his conclusions were dead wrong. This is a very interesting point. In the Synoptics, Jesus travels to Jerusalem exactly once*, and he did not survive. On that trip, he entered Jerusalem on Sunday and was executed on Friday. Granted, he did teach in the Temple in the interim, but the reference about “daily” would seem to imply more than three or four instances. In John, Jesus indeed teaches in the Temple daily. The section below is the continuation of the teaching we covered in the last post, and it is generally understood that this represents a separate, the following day from events in 12-20.
The implications of this are much larger than the events of this chapter, or any single chapter. This is an issue of historiography, about the historical presentation of the life of Jesus as presented in the four gospels. It presents a potential internal inconsistency, and at least an implied self-contradiction within our sources. As such, this is a bigger issue than can be dealt with in this post. It will require some research and consideration, and will likely become a Special Topic. In the meantime, my apologies for misleading anyone. And I particularly apologize to anyone like me who shouts at the TV when an historical drama completely misses the point, or at a book when a real scholar seems blithely unaware of some major circumstance.
*The trip with his parents when twelve as told by Luke excluded.
So Jesus is still in the Temple, and still engaged with…whom? I went back to look and realized that after his admonition about casting stones, in Verse 9 we are told he was left alone with the woman after the non-stoners slinked off in chagrin. Then in Verse 10 he begins speaking with them, but who they are is never made apparent. Presumably the scribes and Pharisees, as in the beginning of the chapter…? He is still in the Temple; the others left but he did not.
It is perhaps fair to say that this is a bit of a narrative glitch of some sort. If John were recapitulating something from one of the Synoptics, we could perhaps write this off to “editorial fatigue”, but this is all John, so that won’t work. Again, John’s historical value is apparently the lowest of the four, so it may not be fair to bring this up, but here goes. This is a pretty clear indication that John has no pretense that he is writing anything that resembles actual factual history, nor that he is he even particularly concerned with recounting an event with any sense of accuracy, or completeness. This, in turn, indicates that the “event” being recounted was likely not an event that occurred in any fashion resembling objective reality. Now, if we are to assume that all the NT is the inspired Word of God, then statements like the one I just made are nonsensical. However, we are not–or at least, I am not–operating under the assumption of divine inspiration aside from the most ordinary sort. After all , divine inspiration goes back to Homer, and his “Sing, O Muse, the wrath of Achilles…” The Greek word I’ve given as “muse” is simply thea, goddess. I suppose what I mean is inerrancy. That is not our purpose here. There is a plethora of books written working from the assumption of inerrancy, so if that is what you seek (I doubt it or you wouldn’t have gotten this far) there is plenty for you to find. However, this is one of a very precious few written from the perspective of actual factual history, by a (more or less) trained–but by no means professional–historian.
The question then becomes, did John understand that he was not recounting an actual event? If we believe he thought he was in the true story department, then why the lack of attention to detail? The most likely answer is that he believed that he was imparting eternal Truth, so minor details did not matter. This possible distinction between Truth and mere factual accuracy is one that I first identified as an undergrad. The revelation probably occurred in my fourth year, when I spent a year reading Tacitus and Thucydides; one was fourth year Latin and the other fourth year Greek, respectively. These are the two “scientific” historians of the ancient world, and the way they approached evidence was telling. Herodotus is notorious for rambling accounts, presenting two sides of the story but usually not concerned with evaluation of the credibility of one side or the other. T&T, on the other hand, present themselves as above the fray of competing stories, with Thucydides being interested in cross-questioning sources and Tacitus with his famous dictum of writing sine ira et studio, without damning on side nor slavishly presenting only the good of the other side. And yet, and yet, they both manage to arrange their material so that examples of good or proper behavior are provided. That is, they wanted to present factual accuracy, but always in the service of imparting a higher, perhaps eternal, Truth.
Compared to these two, in my judgement John was not really concerned about the factual accuracy of his narrative. His focus was the eternal Truth. Interestingly, in reading Luke, I came away with the notion that he was concerned with the factual details, and that he re-wrote Matthew with the purpose of “correcting” the latter. We have mentioned this: when Mark and Matthew provide a full narrative, Luke will condense. When Matthew leaves stuff out of his account of Mark, Luke will add much of the material back in.
Text
21 Εἶπεν οὖν πάλιν αὐτοῖς, Ἐγὼ ὑπάγω καὶ ζητήσετέ με, καὶ ἐν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ ὑμῶν ἀποθανεῖσθε: ὅπου ἐγὼ ὑπάγω ὑμεῖς οὐ δύνασθε ἐλθεῖν.
22 ἔλεγον οὖν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, Μήτι ἀποκτενεῖ ἑαυτόν, ὅτι λέγει, Οπου ἐγὼ ὑπάγω ὑμεῖς οὐ δύνασθε ἐλθεῖν;
23 καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς, Ὑμεῖς ἐκ τῶν κάτω ἐστέ, ἐγὼ ἐκ τῶν ἄνω εἰμί: ὑμεῖς ἐκ τούτου τοῦ κόσμου ἐστέ, ἐγὼ οὐκ εἰμὶ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου.
24 εἶπον οὖν ὑμῖν ὅτι ἀποθανεῖσθε ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν: ἐὰν γὰρ μὴ πιστεύσητε ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι, ἀποθανεῖσθε ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν.
So he said again to them, “I am departing, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you are not able to come.” (22) So “The Jews” said, “It’s not like he will kill himself, as he says, ‘Whither I go, you cannot follow’?” (23) And he said to them, “You are from things below, and I am from things above. You are of this kosmos/world; I am not from this kosmos/world. (24) So I say to you will die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am (he: this is not in the text), you will die in your sins”.
To start, the “again” is our clue that this is a separate day. Yes, it could be interpreted differently, but I’m not sure there is a need to try too hard. This day-after-day has been the way the gospel has proceeded, and it’s a reason why we have the issues about Jesus’ time(s) in Jerusalem as mentioned above; in this gospel we are shown the numerous time Jesus taught in the Temple. This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if this is deliberate on John’s part? Was he trying to demonstrate conclusively that Jesus did teach in the Temple daily, in order to vindicate what the Synoptics said about this? Is anyone tempted by that suggestion? Honestly, I doubt this was John’s motivation. Rather, he’s from the Greater Jerusalem Metropolitan Are, so most of his experience is going to be focused on that city. And what does one do while in the city? Preaches in the Temple. In this way John has come up with a mechanism and a vehicle to have Jesus explain himself, at length, in a way that doesn’t happen in any of the other gospels. The longest single “speech” (logos) Jesus in any of the Synoptics is the Sermon on the Mount; however, the subject matter is very different. Jesus is teaching in the Sermon; in all these passages in John he is expounding on theology–or more accurately, Christology. We said at the outset that this was John’s purpose: to provide a more-or-less systematic account (logos) of who Jesus was, and what his relationship is to the Father.
I would like to point out one thing. Regarding the one day/two day split of the chapter so far, Verse 21 is rather an abrupt intro if this is to be taken a the day following the events ending with Verse 20. This is a stylistic judgement, with no bearing on the overall narrative. Just as the evangelists were not concerned with writing history, or even with factual accuracy, so they were not concerned with a polished piece of literary prose. This may hardly seem relevant to anything, but it does matter. This is a small insight, the hint of a clue into the mindset of those who wrote the gospels, which, one has to admit, is a peculiar thing to do. But such details as this may indicate that a writer who is slipshod about small things may not be exactly diligent about the bigger things.
“He won’t kill himself (will he implied)?” That’s a literal translation of the text, so nothing is being read into the original. People did kill themselves back then; there was Judas, of course, but suicide, and noble suicide committed as a protest, was part of the Roman mindset. After all, Macbeth asks, “Why should I play the Roman fool and die on mine own sword” (Macbeth, V.7). And we are in the heyday of the Roman Empire, if only at the outset of the imperial form of government. Even so, this question, as asked by this audience, is a bit shocking since Jewish attitudes to suicide are not so different from Christian attitudes. I’ve never read this part of the gospel before, so I had no idea this was in here. The ideas of “Jesus” and “killing himself” really don’t lend to combination. More, the commentaries are all over the place on what this means; some even call it darkly sarcastic. In situations like this, when you see a variety of explanations that contradict each other, the logical conclusion is that no one is really sure; ergo, it would seem I’m not the only one to be perplexed about this. Or am I?
The first word of the sentence, Μήτι, is one of those indicators that a negative response is expected, so we should not read this as if the speakers thought he might kill himself; rather, it’s a question that they themselves are truly baffled. Of course, this leads into Verse 25 and the above/below distinction. Above/below is akin to the contrasts of light/dark and spirit/flesh. The first word of each pair is good/ideal in opposition to the second word which is not-ideal/bad, the less desirable of the two. “The Jews” do not understand why they cannot follow because they are caught up and so trapped in the things of below, the dark and the flesh, and so they cannot see upward to the light and spirit. In Greek thought, spirit was refined, it was lacking in density and weight and so it rose upward to the sky/heavens/heaven. Flesh was dense and dark and sank down to the earth, or even below, to the underworld. Being embroiled in the things of the flesh prevented the spirit from rising, prevented understanding or enlightenment, and so apprehension of the truth. Historically speaking, Jewish thought did not posit this dichotomy of spirit and flesh, so “The Jews” would be especially susceptible to missing the point Jesus is trying to make. I think. Hence, “the Jews” are of this kosmos, whereas Jesus is not of this kosmos. In this particular instance, a reasonable translation of kosmos might be “realm”, in the sense of the “spiritual realm”. Here, kosmos has too universal a nuance, and “world” is too, well, mundane.
This leads to the repetition in Verse 24 of what I consider a very harsh and very dark pronouncement in Verse 21: “You shall die in your sin(s)”. It is to be noted that Verse 21 has the singular form while Verse 24 has the plural form. Twice. Now, in English, the difference between “sin” and “sins” is a matter of dropping a single letter; this is an easy thing to do, a common handwriting mistake. It’s a bit more complicated in Greek, since there is the demonstrative pronoun to consider as well as the noun itself. Even without being able to read the words, the difference between τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ in Verse 21 and ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις in instances in Verse 24 is apparent: tē hamartia vs tais hamartias. Both the demonstrative and the noun it modifies have to agree with each other in number and case; ergo, it takes a bit of doing to get it wrong by accident. There are several explanations offered in the commentaries, just as there were for the implications of Jesus killing himself. In both these instances, and as a general rule, multiple answers indicate that no one of them is entirely satisfactory, so people keep trying. Frankly, especially regarding sin/sins, I don’t see where singular/plural really affects the outcome of the overall meaning or the implications. IMO, it’s possible that Verse 21 refers specifically to their lack of belief, which will cause them to die in their many sins, as predicted in Verse 24. That is not exactly an elegant solution, but it’s serviceable enough. It’s either something like this, or one of the suggestions made by the other commentators, or it’s that John just lost track of his thought. This last solution is only a problem if we accept inerrancy as a first premise. The point is that “the Jews” presented here will not find redemption, will die in their sin(s), because they are of the world below, of the flesh, of the dark. That, I believe, is the key to all of this.
As a final note, the Greek of the end of Verse 24 reads “If you do not believe I am”. Most–but not quite all–modern translations add the word “he”, so it becomes “if you do not believe that I am he”; that is Jesus is not he who is part of the father, he who brings the message and prospect of eternal life. And, just for emphasis, the Vulgate follows the Greek exactly, not supplying the predicate noun/pronoun, nor a predicate adjective. “If you don’t believe that I am” is an existential or metaphysical statement, not altogether different from “If you don’t believe in ghosts”. It supposedly refers back to John 7:42, and means that “if you do not believe I am he, he who is is the anointed”. That is certainly a nice and tidy explanation. There is one problem, which is not insurmountable, but it’s a problem nevertheless. The conversation or discussion in Chapter 7 supposedly occurred the day before; therefore, such a reference as this would assume that most of the people he addressed on this second day had also been present on the day prior. Truly, it is not inconceivable that there was a large degree of overlap in the audience, but even so, the reference is pretty oblique and not at all pellucid. It’s the sort of thing we can pick up on as people reading the text, multiple times, comparing and contrasting, checking and cross checking and contemplating references. Jesus in this chapter is delivering the words verbally to people who may or may not have been present the day prior. And even if we work under the assumption that events in the two chapters occurred on the same day, the reference is still on the vague side, is it not?
This is the second…glitch in this section. It’s the second time that something hasn’t quite squared off cleanly. Was this Day 2 or still Day 1? Was it sin? Or sins? Again, neither of these in and of themselves, or even taken together are anything monumental indicating a clear internal contradiction, but they demonstrate a narrative that has perhaps not been edited thoroughly. Given this supposed reference to the previous chapter, I question if we are indeed supposed to take this as a two-day affair. As always, feel free to disagree.
21 Dixit ergo iterum eis: “Ego vado, et quaeretis me et in peccato vestro moriemini! Quo ego vado, vos non potestis venire”.
22 Dicebant ergo Iudaei: “Numquid interficiet semetipsum, quia dicit: “Quo ego vado, vos non potestis venire”?”.
23 Et dicebat eis: “Vos de deorsum estis, ego de supernis sum; vos de mundo hoc estis, ego non sum de hoc mundo.
24 Dixi ergo vobis quia moriemini in peccatis vestris; si enim non credideritis quia ego sum, moriemini in peccatis vestris”.
Commenting on the Bible 
John chapter 9:8-21
Jan 12
Posted by James, brother of Jesus
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!”.
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