John was the last Gospel written according to early church tradition and internal evidence places it’s writing sometime at the end of the 1st century. You’ll notice that John never mentions the Sadducees in his Gospel. The Sadducees ceased to exist as a Jewish party after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. About 90 percent of what we will read in John’s Gospel will be unique. It may seem strange indeed compared to the Synoptic Gospels. Craig Blomberg, a N.T. scholar writes, “Much that is central to all three Synoptics is entirely absent in John: Jesus’ baptism, the calling of the Twelve, the exorcisms, the Transfiguration, the parables, and the institution of the Lord’s Supper.”1 He goes on to discuss areas where John and the Synoptic Gospel’s ‘overlap.’
This week we read two rather lengthy texts of Jesus meeting two very different individuals. Both texts have been used for numerous sermons. The first is that of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus and the second is Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan Woman. The encounter with Nicodemus is pretty straightforward and doesn’t require a lot of background information other than understanding the various Jewish religious parties at play in the early first century. The encounter with the Samaritan woman is somewhat different. To fully understand what is going on we need background information from the Old Testament as well as historical information from the period between Malachi and the New Testament. We need ‘intertestamental’ information. Blomberg’s book Jesus and the Gospels mentioned above has a chapter titled ‘Political Background—An Overview of the Intertestamental Period’ where he gives a summary of this period that is very good. We could also check several entries in a good Bible Dictionary or Encyclopedia. The Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary recommended by George Guthrie has articles on SAMARIA, SAMARITANS; SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH; APOCRYPHA, OLD TESTAMENT; and INTERTESTAMENTAL HISTORY AND LITERATURE. The first and last articles mentioned are especially informative. Longer articles with somewhat more detailed information can be found in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia available in the Church Library. So, what are the main points we can learn from using these “Helpful Tools to Discern the Context” as Guthrie put it in A Short Guide to Reading the Bible Better?
After King Solomon died the nation of Israel split between North and South. In 722 BC the Northern Kingdom was defeated and taken into Assyrian captivity and the area was repopulated by non-Israelites. Those Israelites that had been left in the land eventually intermarried with the non-Israelites and became known as Samaritans. The Southern Kingdom was defeated by Babylon in 586 BC and was also taken into captivity. After Persia defeated Babylon those that wanted to return and rebuild the destroyed Temple were allowed to do so. The Samaritans wanted to help with the project but were not allowed to help. They produced their own ‘Bible’ containing only the books of Moses that differed from the Hebrew Bible in about 6000 places. They understood their ‘Bible’ to teach that the Temple was to be on Mt. Gerizim and built one there. Their temple on Mt. Gerizim was destroyed in 128 BC by John Hyrcanus who was the Governor and High Priest of Judea. The animosity seen in our passage in John 4 began with the split between North and South after Solomon’s death, continued and intensified when the Samaritans were not allowed to help with the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, increased as each claimed to have the Books of the Law written by Moses, each were also sure they were worshiping at the location assigned by God and the Samaritan’s Temple was destroyed by the Jews. Into this arena Jesus walked and asked a Samaritan woman of ill repute for a drink of water from her bucket. What a Savior!
1Blomberg, Craig L. 1997. Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers. p.156 (Available in the Church Library)
This week we read two rather lengthy texts of Jesus meeting two very different individuals. Both texts have been used for numerous sermons. The first is that of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus and the second is Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan Woman. The encounter with Nicodemus is pretty straightforward and doesn’t require a lot of background information other than understanding the various Jewish religious parties at play in the early first century. The encounter with the Samaritan woman is somewhat different. To fully understand what is going on we need background information from the Old Testament as well as historical information from the period between Malachi and the New Testament. We need ‘intertestamental’ information. Blomberg’s book Jesus and the Gospels mentioned above has a chapter titled ‘Political Background—An Overview of the Intertestamental Period’ where he gives a summary of this period that is very good. We could also check several entries in a good Bible Dictionary or Encyclopedia. The Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary recommended by George Guthrie has articles on SAMARIA, SAMARITANS; SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH; APOCRYPHA, OLD TESTAMENT; and INTERTESTAMENTAL HISTORY AND LITERATURE. The first and last articles mentioned are especially informative. Longer articles with somewhat more detailed information can be found in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia available in the Church Library. So, what are the main points we can learn from using these “Helpful Tools to Discern the Context” as Guthrie put it in A Short Guide to Reading the Bible Better?
After King Solomon died the nation of Israel split between North and South. In 722 BC the Northern Kingdom was defeated and taken into Assyrian captivity and the area was repopulated by non-Israelites. Those Israelites that had been left in the land eventually intermarried with the non-Israelites and became known as Samaritans. The Southern Kingdom was defeated by Babylon in 586 BC and was also taken into captivity. After Persia defeated Babylon those that wanted to return and rebuild the destroyed Temple were allowed to do so. The Samaritans wanted to help with the project but were not allowed to help. They produced their own ‘Bible’ containing only the books of Moses that differed from the Hebrew Bible in about 6000 places. They understood their ‘Bible’ to teach that the Temple was to be on Mt. Gerizim and built one there. Their temple on Mt. Gerizim was destroyed in 128 BC by John Hyrcanus who was the Governor and High Priest of Judea. The animosity seen in our passage in John 4 began with the split between North and South after Solomon’s death, continued and intensified when the Samaritans were not allowed to help with the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, increased as each claimed to have the Books of the Law written by Moses, each were also sure they were worshiping at the location assigned by God and the Samaritan’s Temple was destroyed by the Jews. Into this arena Jesus walked and asked a Samaritan woman of ill repute for a drink of water from her bucket. What a Savior!
1Blomberg, Craig L. 1997. Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers. p.156 (Available in the Church Library)
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