John 9:1-41 and the Johannine Beef with the Pharisees

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Introduction: Two Views on the Johannine Community

In today’s Sunday Post we continue to read from the fourth gospel. We’ve already engaged the Johannine community in this post about Jesus’s purported encounter with Nicodemus and this one about his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. Repeating our rules of engagement here, I am treating these texts as human-authored narrative constructions that use an independently circulating source and are written from a particular theological and political viewpoint, with theological and political viewpoints in mind.

The appeal to human authorship and what’s called a “source critical” approach need not threaten your confessional stance, if that is how you engage the text. Funny as it may sound, serious discussions about the Biblical texts need not rely on the existence of God or your particular beliefs. The Bible, as human authored source documents, edited, and selected for particular uses at particular times, is worthy of study and need not come to bear on your held beliefs—though, if you are open to that experience, lean into it!

As a caveat, I would urge strongly against views of the Bible as inerrant (no mistakes or contradictions) and univocal (speaking from one common voice and perspective throughout). There is a difference between negotiating the text and reconciling with your beliefs, on the one hand, and asserting readings, interpretations, and doctrines that are not within the text, on the other.

We’ve examined claims about the Johannine Community in prior posts. After the curse introduction, I want to add complexity today. Namely, to question whether this community existed as its own distinct group—a characterization that I’ve followed—or if this explanation is unsupported by the evidence. In a series of recent papers (appearing in the year 2020; I’ve reference one already, in a prior post) this debate was re-visited by a few leading scholars. If learning more about this debate is interesting, comment and tell me that you’d like to read more on the topic of the Johannine Community, from competing perspectives. Three comments in support, and I’ll get to work on that!

Anyway, Paul Anderson (Fox Hollow University) outlines the central elements of the debate:

It is fair to say that there may be more disagreement over the five Johannine writings (the Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse of John) than any other sector of the New Testament. But this is understandable. Consider, for instance, John’s theological tensions—the humanity and divinity of Jesus; the Son’s equal and subordinate relation to the Father; the Spirit’s proceeding from the Father and the Son; tensions over eschatology, miracles, salvation, Judaism, and ecclesiology, to name a few. And, how about John’s historical conundrums—tensions between the mundane and the transcendent; John’s omissions of synoptic material and synoptic omissions of Johannine material; differences in chronology and topography between John and the Synoptics; John’s Jesus not speaking in parables, and the synoptic Jesus not uttering “I-am” sayings; John’s Jesus (and the Baptist) speaking in the language of the narrator?

I won’t say too much more on this here, today, but we should be clear-eyed about the fact that long-held characterizations of the Johannine Community are under continued examination. This is a good reminder that in scholarly discussion—as in science and other fields of inquiry—matters are rarely resolved and put to rest. Fallible conclusions are tacked to the cork board, never chiseled in stone. And yet, only very rarely does a conclusion undergo a complete and total overturning. This is the nuance and complexity of scholarship, and it is an invitation to join centuries of careful thought. I find it personally to be a privilege to join in a legacy of taking the Bible seriously (and not literally).

The Text: A Blind Man at the Pool

In the Revised Common Lectionary, this week Christian communities are assigned John 9:1-41, a scene that describes Jesus’s purported encounter with a man, “blind from birth,” who Jesus is portrayed as offering sight. This is another sign that Jesus performs, consistent with the semaia, or signs source, that appears central to the composition of the gospel according to John.

My effort is to save any personal conclusions for the end of our discussion, and first, I try to faithfully provide what the text says and the relevant references to other ancient traditions that would likely be on the minds of the original audience. But to say again, we lack original manuscript access to complete versions of these texts, and not a single gospel account provides first-hand testimony. We shouldn’t feel strange about applying our own interpretive lens; the ancient authors have already done just that!

I use the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE) translation, unless otherwise noted, and I’m leveraging the Jewish Annotated New Testament (JANT) and the Jewish Publication Society Jewish Study Bible (JPS) for the bulk of the commentary in this post. Following the practice I’ve used in prior posts, I’ll interrupt the original text (normal text block) with commentary (blue indented text). Footnotes or alternative readings are set off in brackets […] in my copying of the text.

John 9:1-41; NRSVUE:

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

A common view for Jesus’s time was that illness and impairment signaled improper behavior on behalf of the ill or impaired. Jesus, or the portrayal of him, appears to support this view earlier in the fourth gospel. In chapter five, Jesus addresses a person whose ability to walk had been restored: “Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you” (John 5:14).

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. [I] must work the works of him who sent me [us] while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.

JANT suggests that from blindness to sight parallels the spiritual journey of disbelief to belief, and while it is day, Jesus’s anticipated death was coming, from day to night.

“As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes…

Between 77-79 CE (John’s gospel is dated to 85-95 CE), Pliny the Elder advised that secretions from a crocodile be mixed with honey and rubbed on the eyes as a remedy for cataracts: “It is recommended as one of the most efficient remedies for cataract to anoint the eyes with crocodile’s gall, incorporated with honey.” For pure interest and fun fact, Pliny suggested that a captured crocodile be fed a strict diet of rice!

…saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent).

We need to be nuanced when introducing extra-Biblical, archaeological evidence. That evidence does not prove the factual truth of the story, but it does show that John’s author expressed familiarity with the geography and locations around the Temple in Jerusalem. In fact, the pool of Siloam has been excavated. Check out this story reported by NBC News. This pool would have been a stop for Jews to engage in ritual bathing before entering the Temple. This practice, and the ritual bath known as a “mikvah” continues today. Many Jewish communities maintain a mikvah (or multiple) to serve the needs of the community.

Ritual purity isn’t about physical cleanliness. Ritual cleanliness was about the cultic practice to bring only the ritually clean and unblemished before God, whose seat was the Temple. Again, even today, when purchasing cultic elements, say the menorah for Hanukkah or the citron, a citrus fruit, for use in the rituals of Sukkot, it enhances the performance of the commandment to select the most beautiful items, without blemish.

Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am he.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

I interject here only to say that we have yet another example of Jesus’s close relationship with the Temple. He, Jesus, is at the Temple, and he instructs a man to engage in ritual bathing. If Jesus, or the portrayal of him, were concerned with liberating people from a “Temple domination system,” it would be odd for him to instruct people to engage in the cultic practices of the Temple!

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

Note that the author has Jesus questioned about his activities on the Sabbath (see below), but the Pharisees gathered to question or debate reminds us of the priestly court, which was forbidden on the Sabbath!

Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight.

They are referred to as Pharisees here, but as “Jews” in verse 18, see the boldfaced text below.

He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?”

This is a trope that recurs in the gospel accounts: That it would be a sin to violate the rules of Sabbath rest to heal on that day, when all work is to be suspended. This is inaccurate, life always supersedes law, and even among the most orthodox communities today, all Torah laws are to be broken in the case of saving a life. For healing, the issue is far from resolved. You can read portions of the debate between Jewish sages in the Gemara, an ancient extra-Biblical collection of debates that were contemporaneous with at least the second century, but the oral law likely preceded the written composition. These debates show that the Johannine author claims too much in their assertion. Healing was far from forbidden outright.

And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

Recall that the Samaritan woman also claimed Jesus to be a prophet, after he, Jesus, correctly remarked on the Samaritan woman’s past husbands.

The Jews…

The Pharisees

…did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age…

The Jewish ritual of Bar Mitzvah signals adulthood begins at 13 years old. This is when the Mishnah, like the Gemara I referenced above, indicates that a boy begins to follow Torah. Another view suggests that the Torah sets the criteria for military service at 20. That is not to say this man is 13 or 20, but it would suggest that he is at least that old.

…He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus [the christ] to be the Messiah [Son of God] would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

Here we see the theological viewpoint of the Johannine community. And it’s plainly driven by an agenda. This would be an anachronistic claim. If we infer at least some veracity of the gospel texts; that is, if we acknowledge that the gospels are second-hand accounts written by human authors, but with some historical grounding, then we learn that Jesus was actively teaching at both the Temple and synagogue settings. If followers of Jesus were not allowed in the synagogues, it wouldn’t make sense to find Jesus himself there! Further, the Pharisees were officers of the Temple, not the synagogues, so they had neither the authority nor the concern with being put out, or putting out others, from the synagogue.

So why do we read this here? Something of a split must have occurred with the Johannine community. Without an advanced degree worth of study, we can’t conclude much here, but whether the Johannine community severed its ties with other movements, or was forcibly ostracized, we cannot say, but these claims that occur in John only point to something happening that made them to feel resentful and unwelcomed, and so they read and inserted their political situation back into their constructed narratives about Jesus.

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

This is a not a phrase, “disciples of Moses,” that we find elsewhere in the Greek scriptures or Hebrew Bible.

We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man [him]?” He answered, “And who is he, sir [Lord]? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord [Sir], I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

The Johannine author may be drawing from the prophetic tradition here, namely, Isaiah 6:9-10. In this chapter, God is portrayed as so angry with the Hebrew people that God no longer desires that the Hebrew people turn toward God’s Torah (turn toward, in other words, repent! Where else do we hear a call for repentance? Oh yeah, Jesus!

God does not wish reconciliation in Isaiah 6, but to express righteous anger. What does God say to Isaiah? That their eyes may be shut so that they do not understand! Sounds an awful lot like “you say, ‘We see,’ yet your sin remains.” Here’s the text fro Isaiah:

And he said, “Go and say to this people:

‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.’
Make the mind of this people dull,
    and stop their ears,
    and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes
    and listen with their ears
and comprehend with their minds
    and turn and be healed.”

Conclusion

What does the text suggest? How might we acknowledge and be aware of our own presuppositions and biases that we apply when reading the text? My key takeaways are these:

• This further sign performed by Jesus is in service of Jesus’s divine capacity to carry out God’s works, and it is central to the composition of John’s gospel

• Jesus is portrayed as being actively engaged in cultic Temple practices

• The Pharisees (or “The Jews”) are literary devices to serve as a foil to Jesus, with the aim of amplifying Jesus’s authority

• Concerns raised by the Pharisees are inconsistent and anachronistically inserted, but some schism between the audience of John’s gospel felt some alienation from other Jesus/Jewish movements

• John’s author drew on the prophetic tradition (Isaiah) to associate the Pharisees (or “The Jews”) with God’s people who refused to perform teshuvah, or repentance; turning toward Torah