John 19:28-37 & associated Hebrew scriptures

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MrMacSon
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John 19:28-37 & associated Hebrew scriptures

Post by MrMacSon »

The account of the death of Jesus in John 19:28-37 (ESV) -

.
28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst1.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

31 Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. 32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs2.

34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear3, and at once there came out blood and water. 35 He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. 36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken2.” 37 And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced3.”
.

Thirst and not breaking his bones have been tied to Hebrew scriptures, but, as far as I know, the soldier piercing his side with a spear has not been; or at least not tied to 2 Sam 2:16.

1 Psalms 22, 42, 63, and 69

Psalm 22:15
My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death.


Psalm 42:1-2:
As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?


Psalm 63:1:
O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.


Psalm 69:
Save me, O God...

I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God....

Do not hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.

Draw near to me, redeem me, set me free because of my enemies....

They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink....

Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them....

Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous.


2 Psalms 34:20, 35:10, Exodus 12:46

Psalm 34:20
He/God protects/keeps all his bones; not one of them will be broken.


Psalm 35:10
All my bones shall say, “O LORD, who is like you, delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him, the poor and needy from him who robs him?” (some versions use 'robber').


Exodus 12:46
It must be eaten inside one house. You are not to take any of the meat outside the house, and you may not break any of the bones.


3 2 Samuel 2:16, Zech 12:10

2 Samuel 2:16 -
12 Abner son of Ner [the commander of Saul’s army], together with the men of Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, left Mahanaim and went to Gibeon. 13 Joab son of Zeruiah and David’s men went out and met them at the pool of Gibeon. One group sat down on one side of the pool and one group on the other side.

14 Then Abner said to Joab, “Let’s have some of the young men get up and fight hand to hand in front of us.”

“All right, let them do it,” Joab said.

15 So they stood up and were counted off—twelve men for Benjamin and Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, and twelve for David. 16 Then each man grabbed his opponent by the head and thrust his dagger into his opponent’s side, and they fell down together. So that place in Gibeon was called Helkath Hazzurim [field of daggers or field of hostilities].

17 The battle that day was very fierce, and Abner and the Israelites were defeated by David’s men.

  • Ish-Bosheth son of Saul had previously been made 'king over Gilead, Ashuri and Jezreel, and also over Ephraim, Benjamin and all Israel ... he reigned two years' (2 Samuel 2:8-10).
  • 'The tribe of Judah, however, remained loyal to David. 11 The length of time David was king in Hebron over Judah was seven years and six months' (2 Samuel 2:10-11).

Zech 12:10 -
7 “And the Lord will give salvation to the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not surpass that of Judah. 8 On that day the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord, going before them. 9 And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

Him Whom They Have Pierced
10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.



Could John 19:34 be related to the ascendancy of David (of the House of David, or both) over the House of Saul?

Could there be vague allegory to the House of Hillel [eventially] overshadowing the House of Shammai?


Last edited by MrMacSon on Sun Aug 12, 2018 3:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Stuart
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Re: John 19:28-37 & associated Hebrew scriptures

Post by Stuart »

Thanks, that is a useful list. Of course I think most of the passage is a later layer as the earlier layer went to great pain to reject OT scriptures and their fulfillment (e.g., 7:40-42 makes clear this Jesus is not fulfilling the scriptures, and 10:34 makes clear that John refers to the Law as the entire OT, or that is at least the books of Law and Prophets; and he refers to it as "Your Law" that is the books of the Jews, and not applying to him).

#2 seems pretty clearly Psalms 34:20 (33:21 LXX) is the fulfilled prophecy. There is also relatively close word match
κύριος φυλάςει πάντα τὰ ὀστᾶ αὐτῶν ἓν ἐξ αὐτῶν οὐ συντριβήσεται

John 19:37 ὀστοῦν οὐ συντριβήσεται αὐτοῦ

Exodus 12:46 is an interesting match as well. It is about the commandment for the Passover meal. It also matches the Greek even more closely
ὀστέον οὐ συντρίβω ἀπό αὐτός

I think both could apply as they are speaking of God protecting the righteous in Psalms and the Paschal meal, which of course relates to the Christian Eucharist meal. But Exodus passage is a command, which is difficult to parse as a prophecy, whereas Psalms 34:20 fits more easily.


#3 I think you are correct on Zechariah 12:10 as it appear in MT. The LXX doesn't match but the MT דָּקַר equals the Greek ἐκκεντέω we find for pierced in John 19:37.

Note that weeping and morning is referenced in Zechariah passage, something not depicted in John's account, but only in Luke 23:27-28. That this seems to have been in the mind of the writer of this passage suggests some harmonizing going on here, as well as the Eucharistic allusion.

Also note, that the use of the Hebrew text and translating directly into Greek for the prophecy fulfillment rather than the LXX is a telling sign for both lateness and the education level of the editor responsible.

Final comment. The added prophecy fulfillment of the passion sequence actually begins a bit earlier in John 19:23-24 with reference to Psalms 22:18 (my bible also references Exodus 28:32, but this is just a description of how to make a robe that cannot be torn, not a prophecy).

As I mentioned above, prophecy fulfillment was not in the early layers of John, save perhaps the ironic antithesis prophecy fulfilled in 15:25.

Of course there is 17:12 in which Jesus seems to identify the son of perdition with Judas, or rather Satan entering in him per 13:27. Which could explain the possible association of this son or perdition (ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας) with Ephesians 2:3, 5:6 (and bracketed in Colossians 3:6) with the sons of disobedience (τοὺς υἱοὺς τῆς ἀπειθείας), and most closely in the passage of 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 where the lawless one is the son of disobedience (ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἀνομίας, ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας), whose coming (παρουσία) is according to the work of Satan (κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν τοῦ Σατανᾶ) with all power and signs. This sort of sounds like Judas coming again (shades of Dracula 2000 for B movie buffs).

Still 17:12 (and 13:18b which is related) is problematic as Jesus has not yet lost Judas, and verse 18:9 does not say Scripture is fulfilled, rather the word of Jesus (verse 13:19 which references 13:10-11, 18a), and also he says he lost not one, whereas verse 17:12 adds the caveat of Judas, seemingly relating him to the lawless one to come in 2 Thessalonians 2:9.

I digressed here a bit, but more to point out that Scripture fulfillment doe snot seem to be from the original version (where it would be inconsistent), rather from the revised version in the form we have handed down to us.
Last edited by Stuart on Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
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MrMacSon
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Re: John 19:28-37 & associated Hebrew scriptures

Post by MrMacSon »

Stuart wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 1:46 am Thanks, that is a useful list ...
Cheers Stuart. Thanks for your added commentary.


Regarding -
Stuart wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 1:46 am Of course I think most of the passage is a later layer as the earlier layer went to great pain to reject OT scriptures and their fulfillment (e.g., 7:40-42 makes clear this Jesus is not fulfilling the scriptures, and 10:34 makes clear that John refers to the Law as the entire OT, or that is at least the books of Law and Prophets; and he refers to it as "Your Law" that is the books of the Jews, and not applying to him).
- are you saying the chapters either individually or in groups represent 'layers'? As if it has been put together piecemeal?
Stuart
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Re: John 19:28-37 & associated Hebrew scriptures

Post by Stuart »

MrMacSon wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 11:17 pm
Stuart wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 1:46 am Thanks, that is a useful list ...
Cheers Stuart. Thanks for your added commentary.


Regarding -
Stuart wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 1:46 am Of course I think most of the passage is a later layer as the earlier layer went to great pain to reject OT scriptures and their fulfillment (e.g., 7:40-42 makes clear this Jesus is not fulfilling the scriptures, and 10:34 makes clear that John refers to the Law as the entire OT, or that is at least the books of Law and Prophets; and he refers to it as "Your Law" that is the books of the Jews, and not applying to him).
- are you saying the chapters either individually or in groups represent 'layers'? As if it has been put together piecemeal?
Layers are not by chapter specifically.

The case was laid out for John being in two layers all the way back to 1925 when Joseph Turmel (pseudonym Henri Delafosse) wrote Le quatrième évangile. Of course he saw a Marcionite first layer, but the concept of Marcionite authorship of that layer has pretty much fallen out of favor even among those who propose two or more layers.

Actually five layers have been proposed by some scholars with good grounds. That position is somewhat closer to my view as well. And just to give background, without writing a 200 page thesis to explain all the hows and whys, is my basic view:

1) There are two primary published versions

2) The first published version comprised two layers which makes up easily over 90% of the content of the first 18 chapters, plus parts of 19 and 20
- the first layer was the story of Jesus without narrative
- the second layer was the narrative voice, seemingly after every Jesus speech, and which differs subtly in theology from the first layer (this includes John 3:16-21). The "Signs" are probably from this layer

This is the one Turmel analyzed with it's anti-Mary theology. This first version reveres the Marcionite Gospel and loathes Matthew's Gospel. But while the author is clearly somewhere in the Gnostic like camp, he is decidedly not Marcionite, being at great variance with Marcionite theology on a few key points, such as John the Baptist's role and the God to which he belongs. I can't pin him down much more than that.

3) The Catholic version, or 2nd published version, seems to have undergone the work of 3+ editorial hands
- chapter 21 (most of it anyway) may well have been the first, extending the post resurrection with the fisherman calling stories
- the "Peter" layer (also could have been first) which added all the Peter verses to the story to harmonize with the other Gospels
Note: in my view John originally did not have Peter appear in the Gospel at all
- e.g., verse 13:36-37, 18:13-26 are added to tell the Peter denial story (the big reason he was added) to conform to the Synoptic Gospels
- 18:10-11 is secondary and expands on the Synoptic account, gives Peter a greater role as defender of Christ
- useless duplicate material to add Peter to critical scene (e.g., 1:40-42, 13:24, possibly 13:6-9)
- Peter replaced a generic "disciple(s)" (e.g., 6:68, 20:2 similarly 1:44 "the city of Andrew and Peter" and 6:8 "Andrew, Simon Peter's brother")
The reason for adding this layer was primarily to add the denial story. It is irrelevant to John's presentation of Jesus. Peter's presence shows how doctored it was.

The other clearly added layer was the Thomas layer, which has been dealt with extensively by others, and is generally conceded to be late . The unnamed disciple I have suspicions about, that he could have been a literary device to explain a revised 2nd version of John, as surely for a generation there were those who know the first version - if so then his verses would represent another layer.

Chapters 19 and 20 are a mess, heavily doctored and interlaced with new material, such that only part of the original remains.
- all the various OT proof at the crucifixion scene likely added, and perhaps the veneration of Mary "your mother" comment
- Peter added to the tomb scene
- Mary redeemed at the tomb (my comments about Mary never recognizing John's Jesus, always siding with the Jews/Jewish Christians)
- the 2nd appearance in the house for Thomas' benefit 20:24-29 is not original

I generally don't even try to analyze most of that except as part of the later Catholic version, since the new material replaced some original, unlike in other places where it was just inserted along side the original. I simply recognize that it is inconsistent theologically with the material of the first 18 chapters (sans Peter).

But to answer your question, prior to chapter 19 additions seem to be almost strictly on an inserted verse basis (with a couple of phrases here and there as exceptions - but still simply added), but in chapter 19 and part of chapter 20 it's interwoven. What is amazing is how much of the first 18 chapters is from the first version and fully intact.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
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