John 8.31-36 Translations and notes (Reformation Sunday)

The Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives

John 8.31-36 is the text designated for Reformation Sunday. The incident takes place while Jesus is in Jerusalem and teaching on the Temple Mount.

The passage actually starts at 8.12 when Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” But this causes controversy with the Pharisees whether he is testifying about himself and whether it’s true. This leads into a discussion about who Jesus’ father is, and then Jesus says “I am going away, and you will look for me but will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.” The Jewish authorities speculate that this means he plans to commit suicide. Jesus says that they are clueless. That’s why they will die in their sins, unless they believe, Jesus says, that “I am.” They now ask Jesus who he is, and Jesus says, “When you lift up the Son of Humanity, then you will know that I am.” It’s reported that this exchange caused many people to believe in him. 

Things only get worse following the exchange in 8.31-36 and ends in 8.59 with people picking up stones to stone Jesus.

It's helpful to keep in mind that John is a 2-level story:

• The story of what happened in Jesus' life
• The story of what has been happening in the Johannine community whose experiences parallel Jesus’ experiences

I.e., the Gospel of John is a meditation on the life of Jesus that reflects the experiences of the Johannine community. It is a community that understands themselves in faithful continuity with Jesus. 

Here are a collection of translations, including my own, and my notes on translating this passage. At the end of the document is my translation along with an introduction to the text.

• John 8.31-36 translations and notes PDF

Corinth to Lechaion Walking Paths

Lechaion and Corinth Roads

This summer I had the pleasure of working a couple weeks on an archaeological dig at the Lechaion Harbor Project directed by Paul Scotton and the Corinthian Ephorate. I took the opportunity to do a lot of hiking in the area. I previously reported on the routes Paul might have taken between Corinth and Cenchreae, the Corinthian harbor on the Saronic Gulf to the east. I also am persuaded that Paul probably had occasion to go through Corinth's Lechaion harbor to the north on the Gulf of Corinth. (I provide rationale for this claim in the document I've linked below.)

The document link below is a summary of the routes I investigated. There has been uncertainty about the routes between Corinth and Lechaion. The so-called Lechaion Street that visitors can walk in the Roman forum of Corinth does have evidence of a road that extends straight north toward the harbor. (Green line on graphic above) It ends up somewhat west of the harbor, however, so some have suggested another route further to the east that goes directly there. (Navy blue line on graphic) Because of swampy conditions, a route further to the west (purple) is also possible.

Realizing how much has likely changed over 2000 years, I can only make reasoned guesses, but here is what I think is most probable.

• There were probably multiple routes between the two sites.
• There are really only two 'indentations' or cuts in the ridge to get up to Corinth, so it is more likely that roads pass through them.
• It makes good sense to me that the Lechaion Street route and its extension to the harbor was likely a prominent route. It runs straight on a north-south axis (which Romans liked) and goes through one of the cuts in the ridge passing by the Asklepion and the Waters / Baths of Aphrodite. (Romans would have enjoyed a water feature upon entering a city.)
  

If anyone is interested in walking any of the routes, I provide background to the area, suggestions for walking, and links to further information. The document is 18 pages long, but you may enjoy simply checking out my pictures at the end!

•  Corinth to Lechaion Routes and Walking Paths
• Google Maps link to walking paths

Vocabulary Range of the Greek of the New Testament Books

As a way of determining the vocabulary range of the Greek of the New Testament books, I ran searches on each book calculating the total number of words in the book and the number of unique roots. It is an easy task using Accordance (as I am for this exercise) or Logos Bible software. I typed the results into Excel and could then calculate a percentage of unique word roots per total words in each book.

The results can only be approximate, of course, because they are highly dependent on the number of words in the selection. For example, a 5-word sentence is likely to have 5 unique words and thus be a 100% ratio. I.e., the longer the document, the lower the ratio one should expect since commonly used words (articles, conjunctions, names, etc.) are going to be used more frequently and thus dilute the uniqueness of words overall. E.g., in the whole NT of Nestle Aland 28, there are 138069 words with 5432 unique roots and a uniqueness ratio of 3.93%. For 3 John, the shortest document, there are 221 words with 112 unique roots and a uniqueness ratio of 50.68%. The table confirms this expected result. Still, despite the length factor, there are some clear and interesting results which are both predictable and surprising.

SORTED BY BOOK LENGTH
	Total Words	Unique Roots	Unique Roots / Total Words
LUKE	19483	2043	10.49%
ACTS	18451	2028	10.99%
MAT	18348	1681	9.16%
JOHN	15633	1016	6.50%
MAR	11305	1340	11.85%
REV	9853	912	9.26%
ROM	7113	1058	14.87%
1COR	6832	958	14.02%
HEB	4955	1029	20.77%
2COR	4480	785	17.52%
EPH	2424	529	21.82%
GAL	2232	521	23.34%
1JOH	2143	236	11.01%
JMS	1747	555	31.77%
1PET	1682	546	32.46%
PHIL	1631	441	27.04%
1TIM	1594	537	33.69%
COL	1583	433	27.35%
1THES	1484	364	24.53%
2TIM	1241	454	36.58%
2PET	1102	396	35.93%
2THES	826	250	30.27%
TIT	661	298	45.08%
JUDE	460	228	49.57%
PHLM	337	140	41.54%
2JOH	248	98	39.52%
3JOH	221	112	50.68%

 EXPECTED RESULTS

• As one might guess, the Johannine literature with it spirals of dialogues and community-shaped language has the lowest ratio of unique roots. The Gospel of John is particularly striking in relation to the other three gospels for having such a lower percentage. Unsurprisingly, 1 John has an extremely low ratio compared to its peers in size like Ephesians and Galatians.
• It is also perhaps expected that Revelation is a bit lower than expected.
• As one might also expect, Luke has the highest ratio among the gospels.

SOMEWHAT UNEXPECTED RESULTS

• What may come as a surprise, however, is the somewhat higher than expected ratio of unique words in Mark
• More striking, though, at least to me, is the lower than expected ratio in Matthew. It may be, however, that Matthew’s ratio is average in relation to its number of words, and in that case, it makes Luke’s ratio all the more remarkable for being so high.
• Given the wider range of topics and incidents, I was expecting the ratio for Acts to be higher than Luke, but that they are so similar might be taken as confirmation that the same author wrote both.

How else might this data be used?

THE ENDING OF MARK

There have been many arguments regarding the ending of the gospel of Mark.

		Total Words	Unique Roots	Unique Roots / Total Words
1	Mark1.1-16.20	11305	1340	11.85%
2	Mark1.1-16.8	11132	1323	11.88%
3	Mark16.9-20	171	99	57.89%
4	Mark3.9-20	167	81	48.50%

What do these results show?

• Comparing Mark 1.1.1-16.20 (row 1) and omitting 16.9-20 (row 2) does show that the ratio goes up a bit even though the number of words has increased. This only confirms which many others have already noted that the vocabulary of 16.9-20 is not fully consistent with the rest of the gospel.
• Just looking at Mark 16.9-20 (row 3) on its own, the ratio is only slightly higher than what might be expected for a selection of that length. I did look at a random range elsewhere in Mark of similar length (Mark 3.9-20, row 4), and the difference is significant.
• I.e., though certainly not proof, these results suggest different authorship of 16.9-20 from the rest of the gospel.

PAULINE AND DEUTERO-PAULINE LETTERS

There have been many arguments regarding which letters are authentically Paul’s and which are disputed (highlighted in blue in the table).

	Total Words	Unique Roots	Unique Roots / Total Words
ROM	7113	1058	14.87%
1COR	6832	958	14.02%
2COR	4480	785	17.52%
EPH	2424	529	21.82%
GAL	2232	521	23.34%
PHIL	1631	441	27.04%
1TIM	1594	537	33.69%
COL	1583	433	27.35%
1THES	1484	364	24.53%
2TIM	1241	454	36.58%
2THES	826	250	30.27%
TITUS	661	298	45.08%
PHLM	337	140	41.54%

What do these results show? 

• If the disputed letters are removed from the table, the ratios are expected and consistent in relation to the total number of words.
• The main outliers are 1 and 2 Timothy which have a significantly higher ratio than expected. I.e., though certainly not proof, these results suggest different authorship of 1 and 2 Timothy from the genuine Pauline letters.
• Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians are in the expected range of unique roots, so that cannot be used as an argument against their authentic Pauline  

Anyone else see anything in these results?