New Testament 141

New Testament 141 April 18, 2015

 

Bloch, "Christ Healing the Sick"
Carl Bloch’s very large 1883 painting of Christ healing the sick, long beloved among Latter-day Saints, now belongs to Brigham Young University’s Museum of Art, where it hangs in the main hall.

 

John 5:2-47

 

Just a quick comment on this wonderful story:

 

We often quote John 5:39 as an imperative, exhorting us to study the scriptures:  “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”

 

That’s a good use of the passage.  But it’s probably built upon a misunderstanding.

 

The verb likely isn’t an imperative, and the passage is aimed at zealous Jews who already did study the scriptures, but who, failing to recognize Jesus, were missing the point of the scriptures.  Here’s a more sound translation, with some context, from the New Revised Standard Version:

 

39 “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.40 Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

 

The site of the pool of Bethesda (or, as some texts say, Bethzatha), in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem, is now far below the surface of the ground, which (as is common in very ancient cities) has risen over the centuries.  But it can be visited and seen today, nonetheless, and tour groups to Jerusalem (mine included) routinely go there:

 

Bethesda today.
Click to enlarge.

 

The location wasn’t found until the nineteenth century.  Until then, some skeptics maintained that the account in the gospel of John was fictional, and that Bethesda was an imaginary place.

 

 


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