Martijn Steegen, «M. Steegen: To Worship the Johannine 'Son of Man'. John 9,38 as Refocusing on the Father», Vol. 91 (2010) 534-554
Important early textual witnesses show John 9,38-39a to be absent. Because of the use of uncharacteristic vocabulary, the use of rare verb forms such as e¶fh and pistey¥w, and the unique confession of faith and worship of Jesus as “Son of Man” during his earthly life, John 9,38 has been said to stand outside Johannine theology. I argue that, although John 9,38-39a confronts the Gospel’s reader with uncharacteristic vocabulary, this does not necessarily imply that these words were added by a later hand under liturgical influence. Instead of standing outside Johannine theology, the confession of faith and the worship by the man healed from his blindness function as the first fulfilment of the proleptic prediction of the words in 4,23 kaiù gaùr oO pathùr toioy¥toyv zhtei˜ toyùv proskynoy˜ntav ayßto¥n. Then, I confront the absence of 9,38-39a with yet another text-critical problem in the larger pericope 9,35-41 — the replacement of the title yiOoùv toy˜ aßnurw¥ poy in 9,35 by yiOoùv toy˜ ueoy — and argue that these two text-critical problems cannot be separated from one another. Finally, I explore how the designation “Son of Man” functions within the framework of pistey¥w and proskyne¥w. The worship of the Johannine Jesus can hardly be seen as a goal in itself. Instead, it is an acknowledgement that the Father is made known in the person of Jesus (cf. 9,3), and hence is typically Johannine.
537
TO WORSHIP JOHANNINE “ SON MAN â€
THE OF
in 1749. At the time, however, the absence went completely
unnoticed. In 1862, Constantin Tischendorf was the first to observe
the absence of 9,38-39a in his publication of the complete text of
the fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus (a). In the Codex Freerianus
(W ; fourth, or fifth century), published by H.A. Sanders in 1912,
precisely the same words were again absent from the text. Twelve
years later when Herbert Thompson published a fourth-, fifth-
century Coptic manuscript (Q) of the Fourth Gospel, the same
textual phenomenon appeared 7. Finally, when Victor Martin and
Rodolphe Kasser published the Papyrus Bodmer XIV-XV ( 75 ;
third century) in 1961, John 9,38-39a was again absent. However,
the Codex Vaticanus, reflecting a later form of the text-type
exhibited in 75, contains the passage in question.
1. The Textual Phenomenon as Liturgical Addition?
Porter supports a reading of John 9 without 9,38-39a. In his
view transcriptional probability supports 9,38-39a as a later
addition to the Gospel’s text. Porter does not find persuasive
arguments to explain the absence of 9,38-39a as an unintentional
omission on the part of an early scribe (e.g., homoioteleuton).
Moreover, Porter does not find any reason why a copyist would
have deemed this passage to be obscure or contrary to liturgical
usage or ascetical practice 8.
According to Porter it is the use of the rare verb forms eφh and
¶
pisteyw in 9,38 that calls the authorship of the verses into
Â¥
question 9. Furthermore, the use of proskynew with Jesus as its
Â¥
H. THOMPSON, The Gospel of John According to the Earliest Coptic
7
Manuscript (British School of Archaeology in Egypt and Egyptian Research
Account, 36; London 1924).
PORTER, “John IX. 38, 39aâ€, 389.
8
PORTER (“ John IX. 38, 39aâ€, 389-390) argues that transcriptional
9
probability supports 9,38-39a as a later addition to the Gospel’s text. See also
M.-É. BOISMARD – A. LAMOUILLE, L’évangile de Jean (Synopse des quatre
évangiles en français 3; Paris 1977) 246: “Le style n’est pas johannique. La
formule ‘celui-ci déclara’ (ho de ephè) ne se lit qu’ici chez Jn, comme aussi le
verbe ‘croire’ (si fréquent chez Jn) utilisé sans complément (cf. Mc 9,24 ; Ac
27,25 ; 1 Co 11,18). C’est également le seul passage dans Jn où quelqu’un ‘se
prosterne’ devant Jésus. ... Nous tiendrons donc le v. 38 et le début du v. 39
pour une addition de scribeâ€.
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