Subject: John 5:4

From: Jim West <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 13:58:55 -0500 (EST)

The overwhelming majority of early Greek mss omit John 5:4.  Do the
versions (particularly the Syriac and Arabic) contain this verse?

There seems no good reason for including it.  Yet it is, after all, possible
that it was accidentally dropped fairly early.

Thanks,

Jim

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Jim West, ThD
Adjunct Professor of Bible, Quartz Hill School of Theology
Managing Editor, The Journal of Biblical Studies
http://web.infoave.net/~jwest/index.htm

[email-masked]

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 16:14:20 -0400 (EDT)

> versions (particularly the Syriac and Arabic) contain this verse?

According to N27, sy-p and sy-h(**) as well as part of the Bohairic
version contains this verse and also the closing portion of 5:3.  

Note that the "overwhelming majority" of all Greek MSS _except_ the early
minority of predominantly Alexandrian and Western witnesses _include_ the
verse, along with verse 3b, which is similarly omitted by many of the
early witnesses, though with less reason. Note that, even among the
witnesses that include vv.3b-4 there is some minor internal variation. 

> that it was accidentally dropped fairly early.

If it were not originally part of the autograph (as modern eclectic theory
supposes), how does one make sense out of verse 7, where, after Jesus asks
the man, "Do you want to become whole?" he responds "I have no man, that
he should cast me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I
am [trying to] come, another goes down [into the pool] before me." 

Certainly my position regarding this variant is already known, even if I
have not spoken on it in this forum (as expected, I will support the
Byzantine/Majority reading as original). But granting for the sake of
argument that, since the Egyptian and Western traditions omit the phrase
3b-4, the shorter form was in fact the original form of the text, there
still is a major interpretative problem in v.7 which is extremely
perplexing without _some_ explanation having been previously stated in the
earlier verses. 

My concern in this regard is _what_ type of exegetical/hermeneutical
explanation can one make regarding the intent of the autograph of John
reading as it does in verse 7, if neither vv3b-4 nor any other explanatory
phrase ever was present originally.

My own viewpoint is that the omission of vv.3b-4 reflects deliberate
recensional activity, performed primarily by the orthodox (thank you,
Bart!) in order to remove a passage which superstitiously might have
encouraged a false worship of angels, exaggerated claims regarding
"healing spas" or the like in the early centuries, particularly in Egypt
and the Western regions of the Empire.  

Accidental omission hardly seems likely in regard to such a variant,
especially when some witnesses only omit verse 4 while others omit 3b and
4, and still others include 3b and omit 4.  Such "mixed" recensional
activity was faulty, however, in that it none of it addressed (for
whatever reason) the problem of the wording of verse 7; yet that easily
could have been recensionally altered by a similar curtailing and
replacement of the text into something like "Do you want to become whole?" 
"Sir, I have no man, in order that he should assist me").  Yet recensional
activity, even when clearly evidenced, is not always wholly rational, so
this fact occasions me no major difficulty, even when charging recensional
activity in those early witnesses in regard to vv.3b-4.

_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
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