Jesus prays a “prayer of thanksgiving” before commanding Lazarus to come out of the tomb. This prayer has been discussed with respect to the possibility of historicity – is it the type of prayer that Jesus might have prayed in this context? Some scholars dispense with the historicity of the prayer as an addition by the writer of the Gospel. For example, R. H. Fuller, (Interpreting the Miracles) wrote that:
To the modern reader this prayer is irritating, if not offensive. The whole thing looks like a put-up show, anything but genuine prayer. Jesus knows he need not pray, but apparently stages a prayer to impress the bystanders.
Rather than an “irritating prayer”, this is actually a Prayer of Thanksgiving as prayed by Jews commonly in the context of first century Palestine. Following J. M. Robinson, Bingham Hunter has demonstrated that there are formal parallels to a Jewish thanksgiving prayer. As a Jewish Hodayoth, the prayer is intended to be heard by the audience for which it is prayed. The cited article lists many examples (including in the Pauline and Qumran literature) indicating that this sort of prayer was not only common enough in the first century, but expected in a religious context such as the one Jesus finds himself in John 11.
Because of its form the prayer seems to be genetically related to and a part of a tradition of piety exemplified by the Jewish personal thanksgiving psalm. Thanksgivings of this sort are characteristically prayers that both God and spectators are meant to hear.
With respect to the scholars that find offense in the prayer, Hunter points that the offense is entirely modern. Read in the context of the first-century, the prayer is exactly the sort of thanksgiving prayer we might have expected.
Bibliography: R. H. Fuller, Interpreting the Miracles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963); W. Bingham Hunter, “Contextual And Genre Implications For The Historicity Of John 11:41b-42” JETS 28:1 (March 1985) 53-70.
When his brothers encourage him to go up to Jerusalem, Jesus initially refuses their request because “his time has not yet come.” However, he does eventually go to Jerusalem in secret. His apparent refusal leads to some textual variation, since it is clear that Jesus says one thing and does another. One way to explain this is that Jesus said that he would not go now, but he would go later, separate from the family.
D. A. Carson, for example, tries to explain that when Jesus says “my time has not yet come,” he means that his time for leaving for the Feast has not yet come. Carson thinks that the next line (you can go anytime but I cannot) means that Jesus is simply thinking about when he was leaving for the Feast. This is possible, since the point of the rest of the chapter is to argue that Jesus does not act unless the Father directs him. Perhaps this simply means that the Father directed Jesus to leave a few days later than his brothers.
It is also likely this is another example of Jesus initially refusing a request but eventually granting the request. In John 2, Jesus appears to refuse Mary’s request to “do something” about the wine. Just as Mary’s request was on an earthly level and Jesus’ answer was on the higher, messianic level, so too here with his brothers. They are thinking solely of Jesus’ status as a religious leader (“Go to Jerusalem where those sorts of people hang out”), Jesus is thinking about his real mission to die on the cross at the next Passover. (Nicodemus and the woman at the well also mix up the earthly and the spiritual, except in those cases Jesus says something spiritual and they take it as earthly.)
The timing of Jesus’ death is to be at the Passover, not the Feast of Tabernacles. If he appears there at the beginning of the Feast, there may be a unintentional “triumphal entry.” His actions would therefore be seen as messianic and probably develop into a riot!
Jesus “time” is therefore the time of the crucifixion, resurrection, and glorification.
In John 3, where do the words of Jesus end and the words of the John begin?
Many “red-letter” Bibles will mark the entire section as the words of Jesus. The ESV, for example, marks the whole section red, but drops the quote marks at 3:15 with an explanatory footnote. The NIV2011 drops the red letters starting in 3:16, while many editions of the KJV run the words of Jesus through the end of the section. The fact that an edition of the Bible prints letters in Red is a an editorial decision. The pew Bibles in my church do not have red letters at all. In fact, according to Wikipedia, the first Red-Letter Bible was printed only in 1900! For many people, the “red letters” are more important that the “black letters” because they are the words of Jesus. In fact, I recently spoke to someone who told me they only read the Red Letters. I suppose that limits one’s reading in the Old Testament, but I think his point was that he wanted to read the Words of Jesus and the color helped him in his Bible reading.
While this tradition of printing the words of Jesus in red is relatively recent, the tradition of decorating the “special words” in the Bible goes back to medieval manuscripts. For example,the tenth century Codex 565 is considered one of the most beautiful of all texts, and is housed now at the public library in St. Petersburg. The Gospels are written on purple vellum with gold lettering. The 14th century manuscript Codex 16 contains the Gospels in Greek and Latin written in four colors of ink. The regular text is vermillion, the words of Jesus and the angels, and Jesus’ genealogy are in red, words quoted from the Old Testament and the words of the disciples, Zachariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon, and John the Baptist are in blue. The words of the Pharisees, the centurion, and Judas are in black.
Most often Bible editors break off from Jesus’ words after 3:15, making 3:16-21 an exposition of Jesus’ words by the author of the gospel. John 3:13-15 are though to be the words of Jesus since uses the title “Son of Man,” a phrase used elsewhere only by Jesus to refer to himself. The beginning of 3:16 implies an explanation of the preceding section (Köstenberger, John, 114). There is quite a bit a of difference between scholars on where to end the words of Jesus. For example: Raymond Brown and Francis Maloney think that Jesus’ words continue through verse 21 Ben Witherington starts John’s section a 3:12. Schnackenburg starts John’s section at 3:13.
In addition, the use of μονογενής, “only born son” in 3:16 is an echo from John’s prologue (1:14, 18). Clearly the prologue contains the words of the gospel writer, not Jesus. The light / dark motif in 3:19-21 is typical of John as well, from the prologue and the epistles of John. That the gospel writer should step in and comment on the words of Jesus is not unusual in John – it occurs again in 3:31-36 where the words of John the Baptist are expanded.
Does this issue matter? The fact is that John is recording Jesus’ words in his own language, making it very difficult to sort out when he is offering a commentary on the words of Jesus and when he is reporting Jesus’ teaching. For many, the idea that Jesus did not say John 3:16 is a shock, although the content of that verse is echoed in the dialogue with Nicodemus. Some editors have decided that Jesus’ words in in 3:15 for good reasons and communicate that decision with a splash of red-ink.
To me, this is a matter of truth – what did John intend when he wrote John 3? It seems as though his intention was to offer a theological explanation of Jesus’ words, developing several themes which he originally raised in the prologue. Certainly the whole passage is authoritative, whether the words are from Jesus or the inspired author of John.
Bibliography: Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to St. John I-XII (AB 29A; New York: Doubleday, 1966). Andreas Köstenberger, John, (BENTC; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2008). Francis Maloney, The Gospel of John (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1998). Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John (trans. C. Hastings; 3 vol.; New York: Crossroad, 1990). Ben Witherington, III, John’s Wisdom (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990).
John’s gospel quite different from the synoptic Gospels in that he includes a few stories from the “other disciples.” For example, in Galilee Jesus finds Philip and simply tells him, “follow me.” Philip is featured in John in several contexts (6:5–8; 12:21–22; 14:8–10). In the other gospels Philip. only appears in the lists of apostles.
At the feeding of the 5000, Philip does not anticipate the miracle, but focuses on the problem of feeding such a large group (John 6:5-8). We know that Jesus’ question was a test, and we have a sense that Philip did not “pass” the test. But what is it that Philip should have said or done?
In this context, what was Philip to think? Jesus asks him where they were to buy food – the only answer to that question would seem “nowhere” since we do not have the money, nor is there a place to buy sufficient food. Perhaps Philip was to search his memory for a scriptural context for the event in which he was about to participate. If he knew the scripture well (as was implied at the time of his calling), then he ought to have recalled that the Lord did in fact provide food for Israel in the wilderness, and that one of the images of the messianic age was supposed to be provision of food, so that no one would be hungry in true Israel. Philip therefore looks at the problem from a perfectly acceptable human perspective (this is too great of a problem to handle!), while Jesus looks at the problem from a divine perspective – God owns all the food in the world and provided for his people in the wilderness in the past.
Near the end of Jesus’ ministry, several Greek converts to Judaism ask to see Jesus.They ask Philip to arrange this meeting, but Jesus has told the disciples not to go to Gentiles. This raises a problem, so Philip tells Andrew (John 12:21-22). This too can be taken as a misunderstanding of the scripture. It is not that Gentiles will never be able to come the to the Messiah, Isa 25:6-8 makes it clear that the nations will come to Zion at the time of the Messiah’s banquet. But there is a stream of Judaism which did not think any nations would survive this encounter! Of all the disciples, Philip (the guy with the Greek name) should have understood this most clearly. If he lived in a gentile city, what did he think would happen to his neighbors when messiah came?
At the last supper, Philip misunderstands Jesus’ statement “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:8-10). Jesus says that he is about to go back to the father, but Philip cannot seem to understand this rather complex theological statement. Just show us the father, Philip says, and forget about these theological claims about yourself. “Philip’s words here are easy to understand because they represent the general human longing to gain a firsthand personal and practical confirmation of theological ideas and assertions” (Borchert, John 12-21, 112).
Here is the problem: Philip’s misunderstanding prevents him from hearing Jesus’ statement about himself. Jesus is claiming to be God here, Philip sets that aside rather easily. Jesus rebukes Philip, although Jesus does uses the plural pronoun. All the disciples misunderstand that the messiah is not just a deliverer, but the Glory of God incarnate.
Was Philip a rationalist? (Borchert says this, more or less.) Not really, but his pre-conceived ideas about who messiah could be has blinded him from hearing this (somewhat clear) revelation form Jesus that the Messiah is in fact God, dwelling among men, so that he can solve the problem of sin once for all.
We know far less about Andrew than Peter, James and John, although he is often listed along with these three in the gospels. Andrew and Peter were brothers, as were James and John, working in the same fishing village in Galilee when they are called to be followers of Jesus. But all four seem to have been looking for the coming of the Messiah, as we see from reading John 1.
When John the Baptist was still baptizing in the Jordan, Andrew is following him. They encounter the Lord and John the Baptist announce that Jesus is the Messiah. In John’s gospel, this is the third day, usually significant in the Bible! The witness of John starts a “chain reaction” as Jesus is followed by Andrew and another disciple of John the Baptist (1:35-39).
John declares that Jesus is the lamb of God, this time some of his disciples begin to follow Jesus, in effect transferring from John’s ministry to Jesus’. Andrew is one of the disciples simply mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels. In John he figures significantly in several stories. In each story, he is described as bringing someone or something to Jesus. This other disciple may be the “disciple whom Jesus loved” in the second half of the gospel. Andrew declares that Jesus is a teacher and Messiah, and bring Simon, Cephas (Peter) to Jesus.
The next day (the fourth over all), Andrew invites his brother Simon to follow Jesus (John 1:40-42). Andrew confesses to Simon that they have found the Messiah. This is a unique occurrence of the word Messiah rather than the common Greek translation, “Christ.” It is significant that Peter’s brother makes this confession early on, later Peter will make the same statement in 6:68, although he uses the title, “holy one of God,” something of a higher Christological statement than Andrew. Andrew is therefore the first disciple to actually call Jesus the Messiah in John’s gospel, although we are not at all sure to what extent he understood the term.
The second time Andrew appears in the story of John’s gospel is at the Feeding of the 5000 (John 6:1-14). John contrasts two disciples, Phil and Andrew. Philip, we are told, was tested and his response is a bit flat. Perhaps Andrew too was tested, although I wonder if his response is a great deal better. Obviously he sees the same problem as Philip, it is going to be impossible to feed all of these people. But rather than state the impossibility of the situation, he begins to find a solution. He made a start at the impossible task, even though it looks a bit weak to the other disciples.
Jesus honors Andrew’s offering, weak as it was, and uses the five loaves and two fish to not only do a great miracle, but also to demonstrate something very important about himself – he is the bread of Life, just as Israel had manna in the wilderness, so too Jesus gives food in the wilderness. This is an extremely important connection, given that this is around the time of Passover.
Andrew therefore did the right thing, although it seemed fairly insignificant at the time.
Because of its form the prayer seems to be genetically related to and a part of a tradition of piety exemplified by the Jewish personal thanksgiving psalm. Thanksgivings of this sort are characteristically prayers that both God and spectators are meant to hear.
