Tuesday, October 23, 2012

I am not "yet" going to the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:1-9)


Jesus' brothers tell Jesus to go to the Feast of Tabernacles to show himself to the world.  Jesus declines because his "time has not yet come".  This probably means that Jesus knows his enemies would try to kill him at the feast.

Later, Jesus goes to the Feast and arrives halfway through and in secret.

So, about this declining by Jesus, but then showing up.

A quick survey of the exact phrase in various translations on Biblegateway shows something akin to "I am not going".  (7:8).  Several translations make a note to say that there is a discrepancy among the early manuscripts about whether Jesus actually said "I am not yet going".  The latter translation would be a truthful statement, but the former would be not.  A third possibility is that Jesus simply changed his mind.  
  
So, which is the "right" reading?  

I can offer a bit more based on context.  Jumping ahead, Jesus makes a public appearance at the Feast.  We can reasonably infer that his brothers would have known that Jesus was there, but there is no record of them telling Jesus "hey, you lied to us".  In fact, they later become believers.

Further, at the feast, a central issue Jesus encounters is whether he can be trusted or not.  If he had actually lied to his family about not going, his enemies would have picked up on this. 

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