Jesus, the Woman at the Well, and John's Gospel

The story recorded in the Gospel of Yokhannon (John) about Yeshua's interaction with the woman from Shomron (Samaria) is one of my favorite encounters recorded in the Gospels. Not only is the encounter touching and tender, but it is also intriguing from a cultural, linguistic, and religious point of view. In fact, despite Yeshua's compassionate treatment of the woman, it seems that they do experience a sort of standoff between each other. To see this standoff, follow the narrative:

When Yeshua mentions that he possesses the mayim khayim (living water in Hebrew; מַיָא חַיֵא, maya khaye in Aramaic), the Shomroni woman eagerly asks that he give this water to her, so that she won't be thirsty again. Then Yeshua tells her to get her husband and bring him.

She answered and said to him, "I have no husband."
And then Yeshua says to her,

You are right to say, "I have no husband."
You have had five husbands and the one
you have now
is not your husband.
What you have spoke is the truth.

Touche. That hurts.

Then the woman realizes that Yeshua is a prophet and tries to take the focus of the conversation away from herself (feeling guilty at this point, undoubtedly) and onto a certain theological squabble that the Jews and Samaritans had at this time in history.

First, a quick history of the relationship between the two groups. Essentially, the Samaritans (Shomronim in Hebrew) were part of those Israelites who remained in the land of Israel (the northern half) when the Assyrians deported many of the Judaeans in 722 BCE. The Shomronim claim that they are direct descendants of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Shomroni historiography reports that there was a schism in the days of Eli the high priest, and that one part of the people stayed loyal to Eli (who became the Samaritans), and the other part went astray and worshipped other gods. Needless to say, saying that most of the Jews don't have the truth is a theological affront. Therefore, the Jews and Samaritans have always been claiming that each other is wrong and that they themselves have the truth. I suppose the relationship between Jews and Samaritans (who still exist to this day, with a population of around 700 people) resembles the relationship between Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians - originally the same, yet now strongly differentiated into rival factions with major theological differences.

The Shomronim claim that their mountain, Mount Gerizim, is the mountain upon which God wants people to worship. In fact, according to them, Eli built a temple there in his day. The Jews, obviously, claim that Zion is God's mountain and there they have built the Jerusalem temple. Additionally, the Shomronim even have their own version of the Torah, which is quite different in places from the Jewish Torah, and reject anything beyond these five books of Mosheh. So needless to say, the relationship between Jews and Samaritans is tense, especially more so in the first century.

And it is toward these differences that the woman at the well redirects the conversation, away from herself.

My lord, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain [Mount Gerizim], but you say Yerushalayim is the place where we must worship.

The woman tries to incite a theological argument. Yeshua responds,

Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
when not on this mountain
nor in Yerushalayim will you worship the father.
You worship what you do not know.
We worship what we do know
since salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming and is it now
when the true worshippers will worship the father
in spirit and truth,
for the father seeks such people to worship him.
God is spirit
and those worshipping him must worship him
in spirit and truth.

Can you say intolerant? Yeshua basically says to the girl that the Samaritans don't even know how to worship God correctly. But he couches the correction with compassion, claiming that in a certain time, God won't care how you worship him or who worships him, as long as they worship him "in spirit and truth" (Complete Jewish Bible: "spiritually and truly). It won't matter if you're Jewish, Samaritan, or whatever. As long as you worship the father in spirit and truth, then God won't care who or how it is. Form (liturgy, order, etc.) will be replaced with heart - intention. In that day, all who call upon the name of YHWH shall be saved. This sentiment is also echoed in Rabbi Sha'ul's statement in his epistles thirty years later that, "in messiah, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female; for you are all one in messiah." Yeshua was evidently speaking of the messianic age, which he was inaugurating with his life's work.

The woman responds to the effect that she'll ponder what Yeshua has told her, almost dismissing him to the effect that she can't decide now but that she'll consider it at a later time.

"I know that messiah is coming (the one who has been called christ). When he comes, he will declare to us all."

The woman dismisses Yeshua with the statement that when messiah comes, everyone will know the truth.

Then Yeshua is like, um, just look at me.

Yeshua says to her, ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ λαλῶν σοι.

I, he who is speaking to you, am.

Yeshua lets her know that she is speaking to none other than the messiah himself. In the Greek, Yeshua only says ἐγώ εἰμι, one of the fabled "I am" sayings of Jesus supposedly asserting his divinity, but which merely assert, if anything, his 'messianity.' In context, ἐγώ εἰμι means not, "I am" as in the One who exists eternally without beginning or end, but rather, "I am the person you are talking about," or, as most modern translations render it, "I am he" (i.e., in this context, the messiah). Even the blind beggar whom Yeshua heals in chapter 9 says ἐγώ εἰμι, in context meaning, "I am the man you are looking for." Obviously, the blind man was not making a claim to deity.

Eventually, the woman at the well does believe that Yeshua is messiah and goes on to tell everyone else in the town of Shekhem, who also come out to listen to him and subsequently believe in him.

Anyways, I love the narrative drama in this encounter. The years of tension and hatred are boiling beneath the surface, and it takes a stubborn woman and an itinerant carpenter and rabbi to ease it. This passage is also eye-opening from a grammatical perspective. I wish to focus on verse 25, the woman's statement that she knows messiah is coming.

In the Greek, it reads:

(John 4:25 MGNT) λέγει αὐτῷ ἡ γυνή οἶδα ὅτι Μεσσίας ἔρχεται ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός ὅταν ἔλθῃ ἐκεῖνος ἀναγγελεῖ ἡμῖν ἅπαντα
legei auto hay gunay oida hoti messias erkhetai ho legomenos khristos hotan elthay ekeinos anangelei haymin hapanta.
The woman says to him, "I know that messiah is coming, he who has been called christ. When this man comes, he will announce everything to us."

The interesting thing is the line ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός, "he who has been called christ." What is extraordinarily interesting is that the woman, in the Greek text, uses both the Hebraic and Greek words to reference the messiah. First, the woman uses the Hebraic word Μεσσίας (messiah) to reference the messiah, and then uses the Greek word Χριστός (Christ), which also means messiah. The woman, then, uses two words for messiah that are equivalent in meaning, although different in etymology — one derived from the Greek and one derived from the Hebrew

Μεσσίας is a transliteration into Greek of a Hebrew word, מָשִׁיחַ, mashiakh, that means "anointed (one)." A מָשִׁיחַ is a person that God has anointed with oil (i.e., consecrated or chosen) for a specific task or mission. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh, מָשִׁיחַ variously describes Israelite kings, Israelite high priests, a future prince (in Daniel 9:25f), the Hebrew patriarchs, and the Persian prince Cyrus, whom God used in his plan to bring back the Jews from Babylon to Israel. In summary, Μεσσίας is a transliteration into Greek letters of the Hebrew word meaning "anointed."

Now Χριστός, on the other hand, is the native Greek word for the same concept. Χριστός also means "anointed." Χριστός is used in the Greek-language translation of the Tanakh (that is, the Septuagint, abbreviated by scholars as LXX - a reference to the seventy scholars that translated it, according to legend) and in the New Covenant texts. Χριστός in the plays of the Greek playwrights Aeschylus and Euripedes refers to that which is rubbed on, that is, ointment or salve. When one anoints someone with oil, they rub the oil over them, so Χριστός means anointed. In summary, Χριστός is the Greek word that means "anointed."

So Χριστός, not the transliteration Μεσσίας, is the word that a Greek-speaker would use for the messiah. If the woman and Yeshua both spoke Greek, she would not have said, "I know that the Μεσσίας is coming, he who has been called Χριστός." She is basically repeating herself, in two different languages. If she spoke Greek, there would have been no reason to use Μεσσίας and then use Χριστός. She would have just used Χριστός. This doubling of meaning suggests, rather, that the Greek explanation with is not original to the woman, but is an authorial or scribal gloss. In other words, the woman never said Χριστός - that word was added later by the author or the scribe so that the Greek-speaking reading audience would know what Μεσσίας, a Hebraic word, meant.

Moreover, this doubling of terms suggests that the evangelist (the gospel-writer) did not write in Greek, unless he were merely recording the woman's words. But if he were recording her words, the only reason to not use Χριστός in her mouth would be for stylistic effect. Surely, the woman did not say, "οἶδα ὅτι Μεσσίας ἔρχεται ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός" (I know that Messiah, the one called christ, is coming)! Are we expected to believe that the woman said, in her language, "I know that messiah is coming, he who has been called christ"??? The woman, who is not a Greek-speaker, would not have explained to Yeshua what Μεσσίας means, much more less in a language that neither of them knew (namely, Greek). Yeshua and the woman did not know what a christ was, as they did not speak Greek. The only option is that ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός is not what the woman spoke to Yeshua. Rather, those words are a scribal gloss, either by the evangelist himself or a later scribe.

Μεσσίας is used in the New Covenant scriptures only twice, both in John, one of them being here. The other is in the first chapter of Yokhannon's gospel, when Yeshua is entering his ministry. One of the talmidim (students, learners) of Yokhannon the immerser (aka John the Baptist/Baptizer) meets Yeshua and goes to tell his brother, who happens to be none other than Shimon Kefa (Simon Peter).

"First," the writer tells us, "he finds his own brother Shimon and says to him, 'We have found the messiah' (which is, having been translated, 'christ')."
(John 1:41 MGNT) εὑρίσκει οὗτος πρῶτον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τὸν ἴδιον Σίμωνα καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ εὑρήκαμεν τὸν Μεσσίαν ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Χριστός

Here, we have another gloss, obviously not spoken by Shimon, a Jew, to his brother, both of whom spoke Aramaic and would have known some Hebrew from synagogue, but certainly not Greek. The words ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Χριστός, explaining in Greek the meaning of "messiah," were added by the writer or another scribe.

Another gloss of a like nature in the same chapter suggests that the gospel-writer himself did not originally write the gospel in Greek.

Just beforehand, the talmidim of Yokhannon the immerser ran after Yeshua and ask him where he is staying the night.

(John 1:38 MGNT) στραφεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ θεασάμενος αὐτοὺς ἀκολουθοῦντας λέγει αὐτοῖς τί ζητεῖτε οἱ δὲ εἶπαν αὐτῷ ῥαββί ὃ λέγεται μεθερμηνευόμενον διδάσκαλε ποῦ μένεις 
And having turned and having seen those following him, Jesus says to them, "What are you seeking?"
And they said to him, "Rabbi! — which says, having been translated, 'teacher!' — where are you staying?"

Again, are we to believe that these Jewish talmidim interjected a translation into Greek of rabbi while speaking to a rabbi? Did Rabbi Yeshua not know what a rabbi was? Did he not know that a rabbi was a teacher? Obviously the words ὃ λέγεται μεθερμηνευόμενον διδάσκαλε are a scribal or authorial gloss.

A final instance is in verse 42, where Yeshua gives to Shimon the appellation "Peter."

(John 1:42 MGNT) ἤγαγεν αὐτὸν πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐμβλέψας αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν σὺ εἶ Σίμων ὁ υἱὸς Ἰωάννου σὺ κληθήσῃ Κηφᾶς ὃ ἑρμηνεύεται Πέτρος.
And he led him to Jesus. Having looked at him, Jesus said, "You are Shimon, the son of Yokhannon. You shall be called Kefa" — which is interpreted, "peter."

In his native tongue, Yeshua calls Shimon Kefa, which is the Aramaic word for stone or rock. Similarly, Greek Πέτρος means stone or rock. Are we to expect that Yeshua, in their native Aramaic, calls Shimon a "stone," and then, to make sure he got the message, also calls him a "stone" in Greek, a language which they did not speak? Surely, Yeshua renamed Shimon "rock" or "stone" in their native Aramaic, and the Greek explanation is a later gloss for a Greek-speaking audience.

These examples serve to show some of the many instances where Yokhannon's gospel (and the other gospels) retains spoken Hebrew or Aramaic terms and then renders them into Greek as an explanatory gloss for Greek-speaking readers.

Now the question remains, why did the author retain these Hebraic and Aramaic terms in the first place? Why not simply use the Greek word, since they are writing the rest of the sentences in Greek?

Obviously, as I stated above, these glosses could be stylistic elements included by the author. Sort of like local color or William Faulkner or Mark Twain writing in "Black" English (or more academically, "African American Vernacular English"). But, for being supposedly literary effects, these glosses seem awfully stilted ("which, having been translated, means...").

On the other hand, it would make more sense that Yokhannon wrote his gospel in Aramaic and that a later scribe added these glossal emendations when the gospel was translated into Greek.

For evidence of an Aramaic primacy for Yokhannon, compare the Gospel as rendered in Aramaic with the Gospel as rendered in Hebrew.

John 1:38 in the ancient Aramaic/Syriac text does not have the gloss ῥαββί ὃ λέγεται μεθερμηνευόμενον διδάσκαλε (...rabbi! — which says, having been translated, 'teacher!'). Instead, the Aramaic text simply has רַבַּן, rabban, without any Greek gloss.

However, the modern Hebrew translation of the Society for Distributing Hebrew Scriptures has רַבִּי אֲשֶׁר יֵאָמֵר מוֹרִי, "...rabbi — which says, 'my teacher!'" Professor Franz Delitzsch's modern Hebrew translation, however, omits the scribal gloss.

John 1:41 in the ancient Aramaic/Syriac text reads simply, without a gloss, אֵשׁכַּחנָיהי לַמשִׁיחָא "we have found the messiah." (In Aramaic messiah is mashikha; in Hebrew it is mashiakh.)

In the modern Hebrew translation, it is, מָצָאנוּ אֶת־הַמָּשִׁיחַ אֲשֶׁר בִּלְשׁוֹן יָוָן כְּרִיסְטוֹס, "we have found the mashiakh, which, in the Greek tongue, is Keristos." The Hebrew translation is trying to transliterate Greek Χριστός into Hebrew as כְּרִיסְטוֹס, keristos. How barbaric! Delitzsch, in his Hebrew translation, omits the scribal gloss.

John 1:42 in the ancient Aramaic/Syriac text omits the gloss, reading, תֵּתקרֵא כּאִפָא, "you shall be called Kifa."

The Society Hebrew translation reads, לְךָ יִקָּרֵא כֵיפָא וּבִלְשׁוֹן יָוָן פֶּטְרוֹס, "and to you it shall be called Keifa, and in the Greek tongue, Petros." Delitzsch renders it לְךָ יִקָּרֵא כֵּיפָא וְהוּא בִיוָנִית פֶּטְרוֹס, "and to you shall be called Keifa and it, in Greek, is Petros."

John 4:25 in the ancient Aramaic/Syriac texts also omits the gloss, reading דַּמשִׁיחָא, mashikha.

The Society Hebrew translation reads, מָשִׁיחַ הַנִּקְרָא כְרִיסְטוֹס, "mashiakh, called keristos." Similarly, Delitzsch too keeps the gloss, הַמָּשִׁיחַ אֲשֶׁר יִקָּרֵא לוֹ כְּרִיסְטוֹס, "mashiakh, which is called to him keristos."

The pattern is striking. The ancient Aramaic and Syriac texts uniformly do not render the glosses, simply omitting them. But the Hebrew translations alternately render or omit the glosses — Delitzsch renders two of them and omits the other two, while the Society for Distributing Hebrew Scriptures translation always renders the glosses in its own peculiar way into Hebrew.

The conclusion? There are two options. (a) Somewhere along the line, the Aramaic scribes omitted the glosses when they were translating the Gospel of Yokhannon into Aramaic. (b) The Gospel of Yokhannon was originally written in Aramaic, and the glosses were added when it was translated into Greek. The answer is up to you, the reader. Maybe by the time we are worshiping the father in spirit and truth we will have found the answer.

Sources

The English translation is predominantly taken from Willis Barnstone, The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas (New York: Norton, 2009), which, besides translating noncanonical gospels, is a wonderful and innovative translation of the Greek, rendering the names in a more Hebraic form and putting most of Yeshua's speech, the epistles, and the Apocalypse into poetic verse.

The Hebrew translations used were The New Testament in Hebrew and English (Middlesex, Society for Distributing Hebrew Scriptures, n.d.); also Franz Delitzsch, Hebrew New Testament, originally published Leipzig, 1877.

The Aramaic text is taken from the Peshitta NT online, http://www.dukhrana.com/peshitta, which makes use of the Peshitta NT published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1905/1920.