John 4 represses Samaritan hope for a prophet

 John 4 represses Samaritan hope for a prophet

Guide: CJB emphasis in bold (CJB online), text I emphasize in green; NIV in magenta; footnotes to CJB in superscript sky blue; Nomads* discussion in yellow; and my comments in gray. I may use endnotes to cite outside literature or extensive comment.  

*Participative Sunday-school-class at UBC led by Ken Tipton. My continually improved statement about Genesis 1:26-28 is at the end of this post.

Chief concerns and possible insights:

Theologically, it seems Samaritans are Israelites competing over a shrine tradition (at Shechem rather than near Jerusalem), doctrinally competing. This encounter comes after the Passover following Yeshua’s visit to the Temple, on his way back to Galilee, and is thus not a direct precursor to Easter.

1.       God is spirit and requires truth

a.      Does truth equate to works, as in obeying the Torah?

b.     Is truth believing in John’s Yeshua or practicing Yeshua’s influence?

2.       Yeshua is humble to “the Father”

a.      But Yeshua will tell us everything

b.     Yeshua humbles himself to the woman, admitting he is the Messiah.

c.      But the villagers say he is the savior of the world rather than Israel only.

d.     Both Samaritans and Judeans seem heretics to The God’s duty: provide and maintain order to life on earth.

3.       The writer, John, seems biased toward “signs” and metaphors unto arrogance

a.      Salvation from the Jews to the world

b.     Eternal life

c.      He substitutes “messiah” for “prophet” in reaching back to Deuteronomy 18:18, repressing “forever” the Samaritan belief in a future prophet

4.       Yeshua is returning from Passover in Jerusalem to Galilee, perhaps 3 years before the Passover that became Easter to Christians.

5.       I learned to read the Orthodox Jewish Bible rather than Complete Jewish Bible for Old Testament scripture.

Working considerations:

1.     V9 Jews are distinguished from Samaritans because Eli disputed Uzzi’s shrine at Gerizim with a rival shrine at Shiloh. Theologically, Samaritans are Israelites. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritans; “Samaritans marking Passover on Mount Gerizim, near modern Nablus and ancient Shechem, 2006”

a.      V27 also discounting women?

2.     John uses some metaphors

a.      V10 Water as Yeshua’s civic influence to “eternal life”.

b.     V32 food as Yeshua’s duty to the one who sent him

c.      V35 fields as people to persuade to eternal life

d.     V38 others have persuaded and Yeshua’s apostles are benefitting.

                                                             i.      Are John the Baptizer’s disciples the “others”?

3.     John constructs a case for supernatural power, with 2 more “signs”

a.      V18 knowing she had 5 husbands.

b.     V45 miracles at Jerusalem Passover convinced even Galileans

c.      V46 also wine from water

d.     V50 saved royal official’s son.

4.     John argues theologically

a.      V22 Samaritans don’t know what they worship

                                                             i.      Salvation comes from the Jews.

1.     Had presented the lamb of God in John 1:29 (blood)

                                                           ii.      V23 But the Father requires worship spiritually and truly

1.     Does “truly” mean humbly? By works? Sincerely? Belief?

2.     John 1:17, quoting John the Baptizer, “For the Torah was given through Moshe; grace and truth came through Yeshua the Messiah.

3.     Does “truly” mean pursuing to practice Yeshua’s civic influence or believing in his blood?

                                                        iii.      V24 God is spirit

                                                         iv.      V25 anointed one will tell us everything

1.     This phrase comes from Deuteronomy 18:18

2.     Adonai promises a future replacement for Moses

a.      From the Levites

b.     A prophet rather than anointed one.

                                                           v.      V26 Yeshua tells her he is the anointed one.

                                                         vi.      V42 Samaritans are convinced Yeshua is the Savior of the world.

The CJB text:

4 When Yeshua learned that the P’rushim Pharisees had heard he was making and immersing gaining and baptizing more talmidim disciples than Yochanan ² (although it was not Yeshua himself who immersed but his talmidim), ³ Yeshua left Y’hudah and set out again for the Galil. ⁴ This meant that he had to pass through Shomron Samaria [Samaritan: adhering to a form of Judaism accepting only its own ancient version of the Pentateuch as Scripture.]

⁵ He came to a town in Shomron called Sh’khem Sychar, near the field Ya‘akov had given to his son Yosef. ⁶ Ya‘akov’s Well was there; so Yeshua, exhausted from his travel, sat down by the well; it was about noon. ⁷ A woman from Shomron came to draw some water; and Yeshua said to her, “Give me a drink of water.” ⁸ (His talmidim had gone into town to buy food.) ⁹ The woman from Shomron said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for water from me, a woman of Shomron?” (For Jews don’t associate with people from Shomron.) [From Wikipedia, The origins of the Samaritans have long been disputed between their own tradition and that of the Jews. Ancestrally, Samaritans affirm that they descend from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh in ancient Samaria. Samaritan tradition associates the split between them and the Judean-led southern Israelites to the time of the biblical priest Eli, described as a "false" high priest who usurped the priestly office from its occupant, Uzzi, and established a rival shrine at Shiloh, thereby preventing southern pilgrims from Judah and the territory of Benjamin from attending the shrine at Gerizim [just south of Shechem or Sychar]. Eli is also held to have created a duplicate of the Ark of the Covenant, which eventually made its way to the Judahite sanctuary in Jerusalem.] ¹⁰ Yeshua answered her, “If you knew God’s gift, that is, who it is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink of water,’ then you would have asked him; and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ She said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket, and the well is deep; so where do you get this ‘living water’? ¹² You aren’t greater than our father Ya‘akov, are you? [Jacob was the father of Eli, who begot Moses. Its seems John is lessening Moses’ law.] He gave us this well and drank from it, and so did his sons and his cattle.” ¹³ Yeshua answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I will give him will never be thirsty again! On the contrary, the water I give him will become a spring of water inside him, welling up into eternal life!”

¹⁵ “Sir, give me this water,” the woman said to him, “so that I won’t have to be thirsty and keep coming here to draw water.” ¹⁶ He said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” [John represents that Jesus lied to her, knowing she had no husband. I do not follow a leader who would bait an innocent person. John chose to represent the story this way, and I do not trust John’s writing.]¹⁷ She answered, “I don’t have a husband.” Yeshua said to her, “You’re right, you don’t have a husband! ¹⁸ You’ve had five husbands in the past, and you’re not married to the man you’re living with now! You’ve spoken the truth!”

¹⁹ “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet [mind reader?],” the woman replied. ²⁰ “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain [Gerizim?], but you people say that the place where one has to worship is in Yerushalayim [Shiloh?].” ²¹ Yeshua said, “Lady, believe me, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Yerushalayim. ²² You people don’t know what you are worshipping; we worship what we do know, because salvation comes from the Jews. ²³ But the time is coming — indeed, it’s here now — when the true worshippers will worship the Father spiritually and truly, for these are the kind of people the Father wants worshipping him. [John causally contradicts John 6:37-40, which claims that God elects Jesus-believers.] ²⁴ God is spirit; and worshippers must worship him spiritually and truly.”

²⁵ The woman replied, “I know that Mashiach  Messiah” (called Christ) is coming” (that is, “the one who has been anointed”). “When he comes, he will tell us everything.” [This verse should have a footnote to Deuteronomy 1:18. Here’s a Christian commentary on this story, which hides John’s theological dispute between Judean elites and Yeshua’s contemporary Samaritans. John does this by substituting “messiah” (anointed one) for “prophet” (divine emissary). The woman’s belief “he will tell us everything” quotes Deuteronomy 18:18, Orthodox Jewish Bible, quoting Moses representing Adonai, “I will raise them up a Navi (prophet) from among their achim (Levites), like unto thee, and will put My words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” Yeshua was a Judite rather than Levite, and therefore could not fulfill the Samaritan argument. I do not doubt Yeshua’s scholarship but strongly doubt John’s writing.] ²⁶ Yeshua said to her, “I, the person speaking to you, am he.”

²⁷ Just then, his talmidim arrived. They were amazed that he was talking with a woman; but none of them said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” ²⁸ So the woman left her water-jar, went back to the town and said to the people there, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done. Could it be that this is the Messiah?” ³⁰ They left the town and began coming toward him.

³¹ Meanwhile, the talmidim were urging Yeshua, “Rabbi, eat something.” ³² But he answered, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.” ³³ At this, the talmidim asked one another, “Could someone have brought him food?” ³⁴ Yeshua said to them, “My food is to do what the one who sent me wants and to bring his work to completion. ³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘Four more months and then the harvest’? Well, what I say to you is: open your eyes and look at the fields! They’re already ripe for harvest! ³⁶ The one who reaps receives his wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the reaper and the sower may be glad together — ³⁷ for in this matter, the proverb, ‘One sows and another reaps,’ holds true. ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you haven’t worked for. Others have done the hard labor, and you have benefited from their work.”

³⁹ Many people from that town in Shomron put their trust in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all the things I did.” ⁴⁰ So when these people from Shomron came to him, they asked him to stay with them. He stayed two days, ⁴¹ and many more came to trust because of what he said. ⁴² They said to the woman, “We no longer trust because of what you said, because we have heard for ourselves. We know indeed that this man really is the Savior of the world.” [“Savior of the world” seems neither the Messiah that came from the Jews nor from the Samaritans.]

⁴³ After the two days, he went on from there toward the Galil. ⁴⁴ Now Yeshua himself said, “A prophet is not respected in his own country.” [Mark 6:4] ⁴⁵ But when he arrived in the Galil, the people there welcomed him, because they had seen all he had done at the festival in Yerushalayim [Passover, John 2:23]; since they had been there too.

⁴⁶ He went again to Kanah in the Galil, where he had turned the water into wine. [John 2:1-12] An officer in the royal service was there; his son was ill in K’far-Nachum. ⁴⁷ This man, on hearing that Yeshua had come from Y’hudah to the Galil, went and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸ Yeshua answered, “Unless you people see signs and miracles, you simply will not trust!” [How can such belief be valued goodness?] ⁴⁹ The officer said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” ⁵⁰ Yeshua replied, “You may go, your son is alive.” The man believed what Yeshua said and left. ⁵¹ As he was going down, his servants met him with the news that his son was alive ⁵² So he asked them at what time he had gotten better; and they said, “The fever left him yesterday at one o’clock in the afternoon.” ⁵³ The father knew that that was the very hour when Yeshua had told him, “Your son is alive”; and he and all his household trusted. ⁵⁴ This was a second sign that Yeshua did; he did it after he had come from Y’hudah into the Galil.

[I can’t relate John 4 to Genesis 1:26-28. John 4 seems to promote dependency on reported miracles.]

[Genesis 1:26-28, a first simplification from previous presentations:

I read to consider and apply perhaps 5500 year old Sumerian political philosophy. The polytheistic Sumerians are religiously referenced by Semite scribes of 3900 years ago, in Genesis 1:26-28; in my paraphrase:  Female-and-male-human-being may and can choose to independently and collaboratively constrain political democracy on earth: on earth, civic humankind has the power and authority to pursue necessary goodness and constrain the bad. Civic citizens may and can use the rule of law to develop statutory justice. 

Political and religious philosopher Yeshua* affirmed Genesis 1:26-28, contributing ideas in each Matthew 18:18 (no peace-power above humankind), Matthew 19:3-8 (mutual spousal loyalty), Matthew 5:48 (pursue your personal perfection), 19:4-6 (don’t divide/lessen goodness), and in other direct dialogue, such as “go and sin no more”.

The next Bible canon could and should include the law codes of Sumer and competing civilizations. Resulting insights would take the heat off Judeo-Christianity, a Christ vs Messiah** vs The God competition vs Yeshua’s civic influence.***

Notes:

*In 4 BC, Yosef and Myriam of Nazareth begot Yeshua. For more, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua.

**In addition to prophecy of an anointed king for Israel, Cyrus, 600 BC, is called a messiah; see Isaiah 45:1.

***Competitive monotheism survives on war rather than on necessary goodness.

Discussion

Personal and institutional monotheistic competition egregiously deludes Yeshua’s influence to necessary goodness. The collaborative view could accelerate mutual pursuit of human being (verb) and lessen habitual baby killings, like those happening in Israel, in Ukraine, and in the U.S. in the year 2025.

I think Genesis 1:26-28 informs humankind to flourish in necessary goodness rather than accommodate badness and allow evil. Quoting below,

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. See notes, below.

Acceptance of the power, authority, and responsibility to rule on earth is human being (verb). Reliable human-beings pursue necessary goodness to actual reality.

Since monotheism is a human construct, I use the phrase, “The God, whatever it may be”, to express objection to any doctrinal God yet reserve humility to ineluctable evidence and remaining unknowns.]

 

Appendix

https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/99221/what-verses-in-the-torah-did-samaritans-build-their-hopes-for-a-messiah-upon? Hermeneutics - Wikipedia

Hermeneutics is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts.

 

 

What verses in the Torah did Samaritans build their hopes for a Messiah upon?

Ask Question

There is a conversation between Jesus and a local Samaritan woman in which she declared:

The woman said, "I know Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us." (John 4:25)

 

Since the Samaritan religion only included the Torah in their scriptures---and none of the prophetic books of the Jewish religion---they would not have included any of the Messianic prophecies in their religion found in those later prophetic writings.

So what are the verses in the Torah that "they" would consider Messianic prophecy? Are there any ancient Samaritan writings (commentary) that shows which verses they picked?

We know of limited (obscure) verses Christians might choose, but which would the Samaritans choose that specifically speak of "a coming Messiah"?

• messiah
• torah
• samaritansasked Nov 18, 2024 at 21:50

ray grant

·         Is this question assuming the only source of Samaritan belief is the Samaritan Pentateuch? Samaritans are not a sola scriptura religion 

– Avi Avraham

 CommentedNov 19, 2024 at 13:57

·         @ Avi Avraham - Can you help us by listing some of the "other scriptures" or Samaritan commentaries? That would be awesome! Peace. 

– ray grant

 CommentedNov 19, 2024 at 20:33

Add a comment

2 Answers

 

As the OP's question implies, the Samaritans based their faith on the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch containing only the Torah. Messianic predictions there are few but still exist. See my list below - there are possibly others.

Torah Prophecy	Fulfilment
Gen 3:15 - And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.	Matt 1:20 - But after he had pondered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to embrace Mary as your wife, for the One conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Gal 4:4 - But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.
Gen 12:3 - I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” Gen 18:18 - Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and through him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Gen 22:18 - And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”	Acts 3:25 - And you are sons of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers when He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all the families of the earth will be bless . Gal 3:8 - The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and foretold the gospel to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”
Gen 49:10 - The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes and the allegiance of the nations is his.	Heb 7:14 - For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. See also Luke 3:33, Matt 1:2
Num 24:17 - I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come forth from Jacob, and a scepter will arise from Israel. …	Matt 2:2 - “Where is the One who has been born King of the Jews? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

answered Nov 19, 2024 at 9:09

Dottard

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·         A fine answer: +1. 

– Saro Fedele

 CommentedNov 19, 2024 at 17:39

·         @ Dottard - These are scriptures that Christians (Jews?) are accustomed to use, to be sure. But did the Samaritans of the past, and modern Samaritans, use them as well? Are there any Samaritan commentaries and writings to answer this? 

– ray grant

 CommentedNov 19, 2024 at 20:30

·         @raygrant - there are some references in here >> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan_Pentateuch 

– Dottard

 CommentedNov 19, 2024 at 20:43 

·         @ Dottard - Excellent! Thanks. 

– ray grant

 CommentedNov 19, 2024 at 21:18

Philip alluded to the passage in Deuteronomy in the following.

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” (John 1:45, ESV2026)

The Samaritans had this passage.

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— 16 just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17 And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. (Deut. 18:15–22ESV2026)

Also see Why did the Samaritan woman use the term, Messiah, in John 4:25?

 

edited Nov 18, 2024 at 22:41

answered Nov 18, 2024 at 22:34

https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/62812/what-did-jesus-mean-in-john-147-regarding-nathanael-an-israelite-indeed