Conservative Friends Bible Study of The Gospel of John #31

John 19:1-27

We read John 19 closely and keep running into the same question: who really holds power when empire, religion, and fear all collide. We track how John’s Greek wording and narrative details reshape what we think we already know about Pilate, the charges against Jesus, and the meaning of spiritual authority.
• Jesus’ “kingdom not of this world” as a rejection of political definitions of God’s reign
• Purple robe and crown of thorns as mocking symbols of royalty and insurgency
• Why “a son of God” may fit the Greek better than “the Son of God”
• How John’s use of “Jews” often points to opposing leaders rather than an entire people
• Exousia as power and authority with real-world implications for conscience
• Pilate’s fear and political vulnerability under pressure from accusations of disloyalty to the emperor
• Letter versus Spirit as a way religious power can reverse good and evil
• Ambiguities in “handed him over” and “Hebrew” meaning Hebrew or Aramaic
• The inscription in multiple languages and why INRI appears in Christian art
• "Woman” as a polite address (like "ma’am") and Christ's tenderness of care on the cross
The quote in our introduction is from what is commonly referred to as the Quaker Peace Testimony.  A more accurate name would be A DECLARATION FROM THE HARMLESS AND INNOCENT PEOPLE OF GOD.  It was presented to King Charles II of England in 1660.  

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Transcript

Kingdom Not Of This World

Henry Jason 0:02

This is the Ohio Yearly Meeting Greek Bible Study. This is session number 31. And we are reading the gospel according to John. And we left off at the very beginning of chapter 19 of John. The one comment I'd like to make, because I've seen this quoted a number of times in traditional Quaker writings, is verse 36 of chapter 18, where Pilate has asked him if he is the king of the Jews. And what Jesus says in verse 16 is, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here. When I've seen this quoted, it's often in reaction to the understanding of some Christians of a more physical, material, political, social kind of kingdom rather than the spiritual kingdom of Jesus, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of heaven. And this is a verse that you'll see quoted in reaction to that more materialistic understanding of the kingdom of God. Okay,

Mock Kingship And The Purple Robe

Henry Jason 1:19

I think what I will do here is I'll read, uh begin reading chapter 19. I'm reading from the New Revised Standard Version. Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged, and the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and striking him on the face. Pilate went out again and said to them, Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him. So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, Here is the man. When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him. I find no case against him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and according to that law, he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God. Okay. The first comment I'd like to make is in verse 2 they dressed him in a purple robe. Why purple?

SPEAKER_09 2:30

Henry, I think I've heard that only the emperor was able to use those dyes that were give you purple. It's from some particular seashell, but there was a monopoly on it. So it's a way of saying he's imperial, but in a mocking way.

Henry Jason 2:49

Yeah. What I'd like to um state is that the only people that could wear purple were royalty. And they're mocking Jesus here by dressing up in a robe made of the color purple. He's being convicted of being an insurgent, insurrectionist, a rebel, revolutionary. At least that's the accusation against him, King of the Jews. So that's why it's a purple robe. And of course, they're mocking him by calling him king of the Jews and then striking him. But what's also interesting is then, right after the soldiers have done that, and the chief priests say, crucify him, of course, it's Pilate who has that final authority. Pilate gives it to them saying, Take him yourselves and crucify him. I find no case against him. But this is bizarre because if he finds no case against him, why is he allowing the Jewish leaders to crucify him? One other very subtle thing here. I read in verse 7 at the very end, because he, Jesus, has claimed to be the Son of God. Does anyone have a different translation than that?

SPEAKER_07 3:56

King James says, because he made himself the son of God.

Henry Jason 4:01

That's a correct translation, but it's not the verb

The Greek Behind “A Son Of God”

Henry Jason 4:05

that I'm interested in, it's the article, the son of God, the son. There's no the there in the Greek. What it should be translated as is he made himself a son of God, a indefinite article. Ancient Greek did not have an indefinite article, the word a or an. What they did is just leave it out. So what they're saying is he made himself a son of God as if he's something better. They're not saying the son of God. That it would be a Christian understanding, the unique son of God, the monogenace, the uh only begotten, unique. So it's not quite correct to use the article the or the in that phrase. They're just saying he's making himself to be a son of God.

SPEAKER_09 4:55

In a different Bible study that was going through the book of Mark, I had noted that the centurion at the cross says what either is translated as this is a son of God or this is the son of God. And one of the English translations simply omits the article. So it's it's exactly as you say here. And the centurion was not likely to know these distinctions, these theological things.

Henry Jason 5:24

Right, he's a pagan. So that's correct. That's the other case I was going to bring up that this is a pagan saying, so he's seeing him as something unique, uh not necessarily unique, but but very special. So a son of God would be the correct translation there.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Henry, does this have any connection to Quakers calling themselves children of the light? Or I guess that's another Bible verse somewhere else.

Henry Jason 5:49

That refers to something else. I think we already went, yes, we already referred to that. Oh, I don't remember what chapter that was in. Actually, there are a couple of places. I can't say at the moment, I don't recall exactly. Okay, I'm gonna read on another paragraph. Now, when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, Where are you from? But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you? Jesus answered him, You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore, the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin. From then on, Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor. And of course, I've mentioned this several times. This word that is just translated as Jew, Eudios, means one, any ethnic Jew, or two, the Jewish leaders opposed to Jesus and their followers. And in reading this gospel, it's always important to sort out which meaning is meant by this. Of course, Jesus is a Jew, and the chief priests are Jews. Of course, those are the ethnic Jews, but in context, it's clearly these Jewish leaders and those other people opposed to Jesus. And I'm not saying all Jewish leaders. We know people like Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and others were not opposed to Jesus.

SPEAKER_07 7:38

I think that 11 again reinforces that idea that Jesus is seeing the larger picture and identifying where the true power is. It's not with those who are persecuting and crucifying him. It's with God. When he says, Thou couldst have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above. So throughout 18 and now into 19, it's an issue

Power From Above And Quaker Peace

SPEAKER_07 8:10

of power that is being played out, and the authorities are exerting their power over Jesus' body and Jesus's demise. But he is staying with where the true power is and is making that plain to them that where the true power is is not political or social or the religion. It's spiritual and it comes from above. I think that the power issue is crucial in this. There's a power struggle going on in this. One is of the world, worldly power, and the other is not of the world, but heavenly power. And Jesus is standing up for the heavenly power, which is greater than the worldly power. And the persecutors are insisting that the worldly power is stronger. So there's this conflict going on.

Henry Jason 9:12

It's the same today. It hasn't changed any. Political powers want to be seen as being the ultimate final power, but Jesus is making it very clear they're not.

SPEAKER_07 9:26

Yeah, and that's why I think that it's important to sort of loosely associate the persecutors with the Jewish authorities, because this is true across the board in any society. It will be the social political powers that are at odds with the spiritual power. Doesn't matter the ethnicity of the group.

Henry Jason 9:48

That comes in play with regard to the peace testimony, our peace testimony and whether we submit ourselves as conservative friends to the state telling us that we must fight for them with outward physical weapons. And our understanding is no, we are not to do that.

SPEAKER_07 10:08

I think another perhaps more parallel analogy would be what the early friends encountered with the social and political and religious powers of their time, and how they too were asserting the superiority of the spiritual power, which they knew and which they exemplified. So it is the same in every time. And I think that it's being played out really clearly in these two chapters that we've been looking at.

Henry Jason 10:40

It's an ongoing battle with especially more authoritarian, totalitarian regimes, administrations, whatever.

SPEAKER_09 10:50

I have a question about the underlying Greek word exusia. And about half of my translations say power, and the others say authority. And uh can you unpack that a bit?

Henry Jason 11:04

The Greek, the word still is in modern Greek, exusia means power or authority. Let me look it up again to see if there's anything, any finer detail here I can find as to its more specific meaning. It's a common word, it's not uncommon.

SPEAKER_09 11:21

It it's different than what one finds in physics or electricity, or whatever the root is that we have for dynamic or a dynamo.

Henry Jason 11:31

I have three columns of uh on this word. I don't want to spend the rest of this hour uh doing that. Okay, one, a state of control over something, freedom of choice, right. Two, potential or resource to command, control, or govern, capability, might, power. Three, the right to control or command, authority, absolute power, warrant. Four, power exercised by rulers or others in high position by virtue of their office, ruling power, official power. Five, the bearer of ruling authority, the authorities, you know, the like human authorities, the officials, the government. Uh, and that goes into all sorts of subdivisions. Then six, the sphere in which power is exercised, domain. Seven, well, various opinions are held among the meanings of some of these other ones, a means of exercising power. So power, authority, and all sorts of variations is what that word and it occurs quite often in the New Testament.

SPEAKER_08 12:37

Thanks. I'd like to pick up on what Pat was talking about, and there's another scenario at work, and that is the ultimate power was the Roman power, not the Jewish power, right? And Pilate was the representative in this situation of the Roman power, and the Jews had power within the Jewish temple and the Jewish uh nation, were the chief priests and the other elders, and that that was a lesser power, but we see neither power, Pilate nor the Jewish power really were sensing Jesus' divine authority and his divine source, that they sort of actually it it challenged the Jewish authorities that his claims that he was the Son of God. And so we see repeatedly that Pilate was not comfortable to himself condemn Jesus. And we see that the Jewish authorities kept pushing against Pilate's reluctance. Over and over and over, they say, crucify him. So there's that play between the two levels of authority at work here, and the ultimate one, uh, the Roman one, really would have preferred not to have crucified him. Pilate yielding finally to the pressure from the Jews to do it, but the Jews themselves could not do it. They said in their law, if they did it, it would be wrong. But if they do it, they sort of thought if they did it through the Roman authority, then it was okay.

Henry Jason 14:14

Well, my understanding is it says we have a law, and according to that law, he ought to die because he claimed

Roman Pressure And Religious Self Protection

Henry Jason 14:20

to be a son of God. I should make a point that I learned a number of years ago that Pilate was really hated by the Jews, and he really did not like the Jews either, even though he was the governor of them. And eventually, a few years later, he was recalled to Rome by the emperor because of all the opposition that he had. He didn't probably want to give in to these Jewish leaders who were opposed to Jesus just because he couldn't stand them. But he gave in in the end. We're about to read here, you know, where it says, If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor.

SPEAKER_08 14:58

That's an important so the Jews the Jews sense that Pilate's office was sort of not firm, right? They were playing on that to sort of pressure him. They definitely are. With the Roman authorities in Rome, they considered Pilate sort of tenuous in his office as governor of Judea. So the Jews are playing on that too.

Henry Jason 15:23

Exactly. And they actually the next phrase: everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor. They're just making it a lot harder for Pilate to release him by saying this because he does not want the word to get back to the emperor that he's freeing people who are potential rivals to the emperor.

SPEAKER_08 15:43

Yeah, we might sense that Pilate sense the innocence and perhaps the calling, the gift that Jesus had. And so he he was reluctant to just condemn him.

Henry Jason 15:55

Right, I agree. Even there, he was afraid when the uh Jewish leaders were saying that he claimed to be a son of God. Oh, is there something more going on here than I should be concerned about as to I think what Pilate might be thinking? But then again, they just make it even harder for him saying, You're letting go a revolutionary. Do you want the emperor to hear that? No. So now there's an interesting political battle going on between these folks.

SPEAKER_07 16:22

George Fox said that those who put the letter or the light will put light for darkness and darkness for light. So these religious authorities are elevating the letter or the law for what should be the spirit. The spirit should have the precedence, and they put the letter for that instead. And so they reverse what is good and what is evil. So they condemn Christ, who is good, and they elevate themselves, which is evil. So Fox recognizes very important principle that happens among the religious when they do not have a clear understanding and experience of the spirit and light, they will condemn those who do, and they will elevate themselves to the position of being in truth. And it's a complete reversal, and that's what's happening here between the religious authorities and Christ.

Henry Jason 17:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 17:36

Could I interject one more thing about Pilate? He was also in another gospel warned by his wife not to take any action against Jesus from a dream she had had.

SPEAKER_04 17:50

Okay, let me One thing I was wondering about was it seems strange to me that the Jews say that was wrong of would be wrong for them to crucify him, but they're pushing their desire to do that onto somebody else. How would that justify them? That seems like they're not really thinking at all. They would be killing him if they're insisting on somebody else killing him.

SPEAKER_05 18:19

Nicodemus did not go along with that, neither did Joseph of Arimacia.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Right.

SPEAKER_05 18:25

But anyway, they were not really in unity, but I don't know how they figured who got to do what. But I think they had their own agenda. They didn't really care really about the law that much. They just wanted to keep their position in this society.

Henry Jason 18:41

Right. I think that's very important. They wanted to keep their position in society as it was at that time. They had still had very cushy positions in the Sanhedrin in the Jewish council that ruled under, of course, Pilate. And they saw Jesus as a troublemaker that could perhaps cause problems for them with the Romans. It's all with power, power again. As Papa is saying, it's this political power versus this spiritual power.

SPEAKER_05 19:09

And the political power Well, neither Pilate nor the Jews really believed in the spiritual power from the way they're acting.

Henry Jason 19:17

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

And I think what Jesus is is um doing is an act of love by not resisting this evil that's coming towards him. It's really, I think, an act of ultimate love, including for the people that are crucifying him and the people that are spitting on him. But he chooses not to make himself an enemy of them. It seems like he could stop this in a number of different points, but so I see that as love kind of overcoming this evil. There's a great love here happening, I suppose.

Henry Jason 19:49

I I can't describe it better, but you're reminding me of what's said in one of the other gospels about when Jesus is getting arrested by the temple guards and the police and the Romans in the Garden of Gethsemane. Put down your swords. If God wanted to, he could send a legion of heavenly help to him, but that is not doing the will of God here. I'm also reminded in the very last chapter of the book of Revelation, where there's a comment about not resisting evil with the assumption with physical outward weapons. We're not to do that. What's that fable about the tar baby? You know, the more you punch a tar baby, the more you get stuck in the mess of that tar and that tar

Handed Over Text Questions And Three Languages

Henry Jason 20:35

baby. All right, let me continue here from verse 13. When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge's bench at a place called the stone pavement, or in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover, and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, Here is your king. They cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate asked them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but the emperor. Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. They have no king but the emperor. They're leaving out any concept of God being king here.

SPEAKER_08 21:19

Who's them that he handed them over to?

Henry Jason 21:22

I'm assuming to the Jewish leaders and their guards and police.

SPEAKER_08 21:28

But see, it's not legal for them to crucify him.

Henry Jason 21:32

It's not legal according to Roman law. I mean, Pilate has to allow them to do that. I mean, it is the Romans who are crucifying Jewish laws.

SPEAKER_08 21:40

It's not legal for the Jews to kill another person.

Henry Jason 21:45

But it's the Romans who are killing him or who are crucifying him.

SPEAKER_08 21:49

But Pilate handed over them to them. And that's the case.

Henry Jason 21:53

Let me check what the Greek says. Yeah, let me check. Hold on a second here. What verse is that? It's 16. Okay, then therefore he handed him over to them in order that he be crucified.

SPEAKER_09 22:08

It is ambiguous as to who them is.

Henry Jason 22:11

Yeah, though the them there is ambiguous.

SPEAKER_09 22:14

The interlinear that I'm reading, simply said, and Pilate handed him over to the soldiers to be crucified. So we're we have to infer who it is. And yeah, all of the law in the history is that the Romans carried it out. They're the ones who split up his garments and all that.

Henry Jason 22:34

There's a linguistic issue here too, that them in the Greek as well in as in English can be ambiguous. In some other languages, there would be a distinction, there would be two different words for them, depending on what the referent is, what it's referring to in the previous sentence. You'd have a different word for them. We don't have that in English or in ancient Greek. I don't know about Aramaic or Hebrew, but that's all I can say. It is ambiguous in those languages. In uh 13, where it says hebraisti. Let me go to that. This word hebraisti means in Hebrew. I also believe it can also mean in Aramaic. Uh, I'd have to really check on that. Let me see if I can check on that. Um, because sometimes some of these words that refer to the language can refer to either Hebrew or Aramaic.

SPEAKER_09 23:34

I've seen in several translations where yes, it does mean both.

Henry Jason 23:39

It means in Hebrew or in Aramaic. They did not make a distinction in the Greek between the two languages. Of course, they're very similar, they're closely related to each other, and they both use the Hebrew letters.

SPEAKER_09 23:54

What were you saying? There's a footnote in the New Revised Standard Version, at least as printed in the Renovari Bible, it really corrects it says that is Aramaic. So even though in Greek is, well, it's Hebrew, no, it's really an Aramaic word.

Henry Jason 24:11

And the reason they do that is because the word itself must look like the Aramaic pronunciation rather than the Hebrew. There might be a couple of sounds different between the two. Okay, let's continue. Verse 16, 17. So they took Jesus and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called the place of the skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this inscription because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew or Aramaic, in Latin and in Greek. Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, Do not write the King of the Jews, but this man said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written. When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic. Now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it. This was to fulfill what the scripture says. They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots. And that is what the soldiers did. What interesting thing here is that there are only three people being crucified. Ordinarily, when the Romans crucified people, they'd crucify a whole lot of folks, a dozen, twenty, whatever, or after big revolts or whatever, hundreds. This is unusual that you just have three here. And this inscription written on the cross is the accusation, what he was found guilty of, king of the Jews. He's being convicted, sentenced to death because of this insurrection, saying that he was king of the Jews. There's no king under the emperor other than those kings that the emperor himself allows to be kings under him.

SPEAKER_09 26:34

Henry, sometimes in religious art you see the letters I N R I uh on the cross. And that would be the Latin.

Henry Jason 26:46

Yes, let's go there. If I can remember the Latin. And that's for the Latin. And that's Latin. It says Jesus, the Nazarene of Nazareth, King of the Jews. So that's what you have here.

SPEAKER_09 27:16

It's pretty clear that uh Pilate wants to rub it in. Oh, he is rubbing it in. He's thumbing his nose at these guys.

Henry Jason 27:24

I think probably the description had not the initials, but the whole thing. And Greek and Greek was the international language of that part of the world. The Hebrew or Aramaic was the spoken language of that part of the world. And the Latin was the language of the empire of Rome. So that's why you have those three languages there.

SPEAKER_06 27:45

I've got a perhaps minor observation about this. At one point, when Pilate pulls Jesus inside, he says, Where are you from? And that's when Jesus won't answer. And then Pilate says, Don't you know I can set you free or I can kill you? And Jesus responds to that. But then somehow Pilate writes, Jesus of Nazareth. So somehow Pilate decided where Jesus was from.

Silence Before Pilate And Care At The Cross

SPEAKER_06 28:05

He's decided to answer that question, even though Jesus wouldn't. That's been kind of nagging at me. Why would Jesus not answer the simple question?

Henry Jason 28:11

What verse is that in?

SPEAKER_06 28:12

Okay, we go back to verse 9, where he says to Jesus, where are you from? And Jesus doesn't answer.

Henry Jason 28:18

Let me just check that word. It might not only be physically where you're from.

SPEAKER_06 28:25

It's pothen in the Greek.

Henry Jason 28:27

Yeah, that's the question word. Pothan does mean from where, but I want to just check it because I'm wondering if it's only physically. Pothan, pothen, pothen. Oh, okay. It's not just physical place. It's an interrogative expression of extension from a local source. From what place? From where? Okay. It's also an interrogative expression of derivation from a source. From what source? Or brought about by whom? Given by whom? Born of whom. Also, it means it's an interrogative expression of cause or relation, how or why, in what say. So it isn't only physical, that question. I would assume that's the first thought we have, of course, when, and that's what my I would think in in the Greek anyway. It's from where physically, but there's more being asked there, I think. You know, what group are you from? Okay, let's see here. In verse 20, many of the Jews read this inscription. Of course, those are the ethnic Jews, not just those opposed to Jesus. Of course, Father would not change what he had written. He's just rubbing it in with the priests there.

SPEAKER_07 29:38

Could we go back for a minute to the question of why he doesn't answer that question in verse 9?

Henry Jason 29:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 29:46

I think that Jesus is there thinking, well, he's from heaven. He's sent by the Father. And the reason he doesn't answer it is because he doesn't want to give that information to Pilate. That would be giving too much of himself in a situation that is very hostile to him. There's really no reason for him to start engaging on a discussion about the Father who sent him in this situation. He knows what's going to happen, and he's holding back the strength of knowing that he is sent by God by keeping it to himself. If he opened himself up there and started engaging in a conversation that meant something with Pilate, he would be making himself somewhat vulnerable because the other person would have an understanding of who he was and could use that to harm him in his uh resolve and his strength to uh carry out his mission. So I think he's protecting himself there by playing his cards close to his chest.

SPEAKER_05 30:58

How does what was just said jive with chapter 18, verse 36?

SPEAKER_07 31:04

Well, it's put in the negative there. So he's not really giving something that's saying something in positive. He's just putting up some kind of a shield there when he says, My kingdom is not of this world.

SPEAKER_05 31:18

Some kind of a what did you say?

SPEAKER_07 31:21

He's putting it in the negative. He's not saying my kingdom is of heaven, because that would be putting the statement in a positive form. But he's just saying, my kingdom is not of this world. So, in a way, it's denying Pilate information about him, but just giving in a negative way. That probably isn't very clear, but I do have a sense of what I mean. I'm just not able to say it very well.

Henry Jason 31:48

Okay, let me make another comment here before I forget in verse 17 of chapter 19. Carrying the cross by himself. No, you've seen these images of Jesus dragging the cross down the Via Dolorosa behind him. That was not what was done. The cross would have been way too heavy. What was carried was the crossbar, the top part was the only part that would be carried. But even that was too heavy for Jesus after having been flogged and spat at and everything else. But that was how they did it. They only carried the top piece of there's a Latin name for that, and I don't recall it at the moment, but it was that horizontal piece. But even that was too heavy for Jesus in his weakened state. Okay, we just got a few minutes here. Maybe, let me see. All right, let's let's go on to one short paragraph coming up here in verse 25. Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopus, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, Woman, here is your son. Then he said to the disciple, here is your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. This probably doesn't sound how can I put this? This is a very messy scene here in terms of what we know about Jewish customs. Who is this beloved disciple? The obvious source, as we know at the end of this gospel for this particular gospel, was this Lazarus. Who was it? Anyway, the issue has to do with his mother and his mother's sister Mary, the wife of Clopus. And Mary, you got three Marys here. What is Jesus asking this beloved disciple, his closest friend, to do in taking her into his home? Ordinarily, not ordinarily, it just would be natural that others in the family would be taking her into their home. We would understand that she still lived up in Nazareth, was down perhaps in Jerusalem for the festival, for the Passover. And there are a lot of issues around here. I don't think there's anything major here, but we don't know. There's not enough information for us here to really understand. Was it taking her into his home for the time being while she was in Jerusalem or what? It's not a major thing, but I do want to point one other thing, too, where in verse 26 Jesus says, Woman, here is your son. Just looking at the Greek here. Okay. Jesus would never call his mother a woman. None of us would ever address our own mothers as woman. This is a mistranslation. I I've mentioned this before at the beginning of this gospel. Let me go to um gunai, is the imperative form, not the imperative, the evocative form of this word gune, which means woman. But a second meaning is that in Greek it's a polite form of address.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

What seems sort of incredible to me is that he seems to have said this while he was actually on the cross.

Henry Jason 35:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Which makes me wonder: is there any allegorical meaning to this rather than just passing on the tending of an elderly relative?

Henry Jason 35:30

Well, again, we don't seem to have enough information for us to know what really was being said here and why and how. Too often in a number of translations, they think of the translation woman, but if you look at your dictionaries, your bigger dictionaries, it's the way you would politely address any woman. In English, we might say, ma'am, you know, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, or madam, or lady, or something like that. And this happens often enough that a word has more than one meaning in the Greek, and it might be the wrong translation that you see in your English translation of your particular English translation. Even though that word does have that meaning, it wouldn't have that meaning in a given context. I can say this happens over and over again. I've thought often maybe just doing a little talk on pick out a half a dozen or dozen of these expressions that have more than one meaning and just show you why the uh translation that you have in a given translation is not the right one.

SPEAKER_07 36:39

Could this be a consideration for his mother? This exchange here. He knows that his mother is going to be missing him terribly, and so he puts in his stead the disciple whom he loves. Chances are he loves his disciple because the disciple is very close to his own spirit and understanding, and that the mother will see that in this other man, this this uh disciple, and it will ease her grief to see some of her in this disciple.

Henry Jason 37:19

I should say that what some scholars think, and I kind of think this possibility here, that this disciple, this beloved disciple, may have been a relative of Jesus in some way, if it is Lazarus himself. But this is all speculation, and I don't want to go too far into this, but I just wanted to mention that scholars are thinking about these things when they think about Lazarus. Again, the word Lazarus goes back to the uh Hebrew Eliezer, that's the Hebrew form. We don't have much information here.

SPEAKER_07 37:52

Scholarly, but emotionally, it makes sense to know that Jesus is trying to ease the grief of his mother.

Henry Jason 38:00

Oh, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

In regard to the woman, the word woman, the everyday Bible paraphrases that as dear woman, which may capture the spirit of it a little more.

Henry Jason 38:12

I mean, you know, you know, in the uh episode of the wedding at Cana, Jesus calls his mother their woman. It's ma'am or some polite form of addressing your mother, however you want to put that in English. I can give another example in the epistles of John and elsewhere, you've got various words for child or children, but when the writer, John, or whoever the writer was of those epistles, addresses his congregants there, he calls them children. We don't call adults children who are in a learning situation, the teacher and those who are learning. And then even when it's used in a diminutive, a hypochoristic form, which is a kind of endearing form. In colloquial English, we might just say you guys, but that would be a little too familiar. But you know, we're getting into all the linguistic stuff here.

SPEAKER_09 39:05

I think we've had a number of illustrations in what we've read today about how John and the Johannine community has some very different sources from what's in the synoptics. For instance, here it says that he carried the cross alone, no awareness of Simon of Cyrene, who is described by the others, in fact, right down to his sons, the names of his sons, who probably were part of the Christian community, converted through the experience of their father. And also, who were the women? Well, we have different lists. So it really doesn't matter because the thrust of the story is the same. And I'm particularly glad that the scene into emotional tenderness and caring, even right to the last, is narrated by John or in the Gospel of John. The others apparently don't have it, but I think that it means different people remember different things or had different sources to them. And the uh writer of John uh has another decade or so to gather this together that the synoptics did not have.

Henry Jason 40:13

It appears that the house where the Last Supper took place was the house of a Mary whose son, among whom may there may have been others, may have been John Mark, who you know was the uh writer of the gospel according to Mark. And he was supposedly the interpreter or translator for Peter on his travels. Peter apparently did not speak good Greek. He also may have been the person who was in that garden watching what was happening, the Garden of Gethsemane. And when the soldiers try to grab him, you know, it's dark and it's night, they grab his pajamas and tear him off, and he goes back home naked, probably very close. But still, there's a lot of family connections here that we ought to think that they were there, but we don't know all the details. There, you know, there are allusions to these sorts of things in early Christian writings, like who's getting married at Cana, you know, one of the uh disciples of Jesus, one of the apostles? Well, there are a lot of other things going on with that. But anyway, we we better stop now and we'll continue next week with verse 28. But are there any other comments?

SPEAKER_06 41:22

I'm coming back to Greek after decades, so it's a little bit rusty. But when it says that John received her into his house, it uses the neuter plural of his own stuff, ta idea.

Henry Jason 41:33

And it's more than just stuff, it's right.

SPEAKER_06 41:35

But hold on, hold on, hold on. My point is that in the first chapter of John, it says, When Jesus came unto his own and his own did not receive him, when he came into his own, it's that ta idea, and his own did not receive him was hoi ideoi. So here's the same phrase of being received. In this chapter, the woman's being received. In the first chapter, Jesus was not received. And when I read a different language, these odd things jump out at me. There's a parallelism there that I just think I don't know if the author intended it. That here is Jesus' mother being received, and in chapter one, Jesus himself was not received. So in chapter one, chapter one. In chapter one, it's verse 11.

Henry Jason 42:14

11. That's referring to people, his own people.

SPEAKER_06 42:18

But it's new.

Henry Jason 42:19

And here it's his own, not people, but place or or whatever.

SPEAKER_06 42:25

Yeah, that's why what was gonna hit for next week. It takes perhaps a little more discussion.

Henry Jason 42:29

Yeah. All right, so uh Nancy's gonna tell me to turn off the recording, right, Nancy?