From the Narrow Desert

Continuing on from the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman:

[27] And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?

Since none of the disciples witnessed Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, the account in the Gospel must be based on information from either Jesus or the woman, or else on hearsay. Since the disciples were astonished to see Jesus conversing with a Samaritan, we can assume that they themselves would never do such a thing, and that the Gospel account is therefore not based on a direct interview with the woman. We are also told here that the disciples didn't ask Jesus any questions about his conversation with the woman. It's possible that Jesus later told them the whole story, but it seems more likely that the account we have is hearsay, based on rumors circulating in Samaria about how he "told her everything that ever she did." Some of the more sensational details, then, such as the five husbands, may be nothing more than rumor, but I would assume that the author of the Gospel, who knew Jesus and his ideas well, would have captured the latter fairly accurately in his record. Whether or not the actual conversation was much like the Gospel account, I think we can be fairly confident that the statements about living water, Mt. Gerizim and Jerusalem, etc. represent actual teachings of Jesus.

[28] The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, [29] Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? 

[30] Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.

Remember that the Samaritans acknowledged no prophets other than Moses and the Messiah (Taheb), and many held that even the Messiah would not be a second prophet but would be the second coming of Moses himself. From the Samaritan point of view, if Jesus was a prophet -- as his paranormal knowledge of the woman's life would suggest -- he could only be the prophet, the Messiah himself.

I have discussed elsewhere the Samaritan expectation that the Messiah would "tell us all things" -- which apparently derives from an alternative reading of Deuteronomy 18:18.

[31] In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat.

[32] But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.

[33] Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat?

[34] Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.

"Meat" here just means food, with no connotation of animal flesh.

Was Jesus really like this in conversation? It seems like it would have been rather maddening! I guess the justification for this mode of discourse -- deliberately confusing his interlocutors, letting them talk among themselves for a minute trying to figure out what he mean, and then explaining -- is that it would have engaged the disciples' attention more fully and made the final epigram more memorable.

The characterization of the Father as "he that sent me" is distinctively Johannine. The string "sent me" occurs 34 times in the Fourth Gospel and only 7 times in the other three Gospels combined.

Finishing God's work sounds like a once-and-for-all thing -- but Jesus calls it his food. Eating food is not the grand culmination of one's life's work; it is something we have to do again and again, day after day, for as long as we live. It is interesting to juxtapose this saying with the prayer, attributed to Jesus in the Synoptics, "Give us this day our daily bread"; also with the line from Deuteronomy supposedly quoted by Jesus when tempted by Satan, "man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live."

Elsewhere in the Gospel it is suggested that God's work can be "finished" more than once. Shortly before his execution (apparently at the "Last Supper") Jesus says "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do" (John 17:4), even though few would be willing to say Jesus had already finished his work before his death. Later, on the cross, his last words are "It is finished" (19:30), but I think it's safe to say his work wasn't really finished until the resurrection -- or, for those who expect a Second Coming, not until then. Come to think of it, if we believe Moses, God's work had already been pronounced "finished" long before the time of Jesus: "the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work" (Genesis 2:1-2). The belief that, pace Moses, God's work wasn't really finished until the resurrection is probably what underlies the longstanding Christian custom of keeping Sabbath on Sunday rather than on the seventh day.

Is the work of God ever really finished? The Book of Mormon prophet Nephi criticizes those who would say, "behold there is no God today, for the Lord and the Redeemer hath done his work" (2 Nephi 28:5). "There is no God today" is rather a striking way of putting it -- Joseph Smith anticipated Nietzsche's famous statement "God is dead" by some 50 years -- but isn't a God who is done, who is never going to do anything ever again, world without end, the functional equivalent of one who no longer exists?

If the work of God can ever be completely finished, what then? An eternity of nothing to do, of hanging around, of resting on laurels? But on the other hand, supposing the work of God can't ever be finished, doesn't that reduce everything to a sort of Sisyphean futility? The only solution that works for me comes from combining the Book of Mormon with Spinoza: "Men are that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25), and "Joy is man's passage from a lesser to a greater perfection" (Ethics, 3, defs. 2 & 3). There is no endpoint of absolute perfection such as the Classical Theist imagines God to enjoy, but the lack of a finish line does not make the race an exercise in futility, since the joy in the passage to a greater perfection, not in the static enjoyment of absolute perfection. Another way of expressing the same point is to say that God's definitive role is not "Supreme Being" but rather Creator -- characterized not by static perfection but by continuous making-things-better. "The knowledge and power of God are expanding," says a Mormon hymn to which many a Christian might object. But of course they are; otherwise, how could he have joy?

[35] Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. [36] And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. [37] And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. [38] I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.

The harvest of wheat and barley (the crops being alluded to by "the fields are white") was typically in April or May, so this episode apparently took place four months earlier, in December or January.

This was a favorite passage of Joseph Smith's, alluded to again and again in the Doctrine & Covenants, apparently with reference to the work of proclaiming the gospel and "harvesting" converts. It's hard to be sure whether or not that was also the meaning originally intended by Jesus.

[39] And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did. [40] So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days.

[41] And many more believed because of his own word; [42] And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.

This is one of only two places in the Bible where the title "Saviour of the world" is used; the other is in the anonymous First Epistle of John (4:14) -- called "of John" because it is almost certainly by the author of the Fourth Gospel, for whom the name John has become conventional. It seems highly likely that the author is here putting his own ideas in the mouths of the Samaritans. Neither the Jews nor the Samaritans were anticipating a savior of the world; the Taheb and the Messiah were only expected to save Israel.

As discussed elsewhere on this blog, Jews and Samaritans had different understandings of what sort of person the Messiah was supposed to be. The entire Messianic tradition of the Samaritans is derived from the 18th chapter of Deuteronomy. Their Messiah is a prophet like Moses -- the only prophet besides Moses, in fact -- who will tell us all things. The Jews, on the other hand, added to this the Messianic writings of the prophets, in which David has largely eclipsed Moses as the Messiah's most important precursor. If the Samaritan Messiah is essentially a prophet like Moses, his Jewish counterpart is primarily a king like David. The two visions are not mutually exclusive -- both peoples expected the Messiah to be both a prophet and a king -- but they represent very marked differences in emphasis.

Corresponding differences in emphasis are found in the Four Gospels. A writer with a more "Samaritan" idea of the Messiah might be expected to mention Moses more often, and to give the Samaritans themselves a more prominent role in the Gospel story. A writer whose views were more traditionally "Jewish," on the other hand, would mention David more often and speak more of kings and kingdoms.

I searched each of the Gospels for the strings "Moses," "Samari-," "David," and "king-." (Why not also "Jew" and "prophet" to contrast with "Samaritan" and "king"? Well, naturally most of Jesus' story takes place among the Jews, so of course every Gospel will mention them a lot. "Prophet" is also not useful for distinguishing between the two Messianic visions, since the Samaritans see the Messiah as being primarily a prophet, while the Jewish Messiah is based on the writings of the prophets.) Here are the results.

To control for the varying lengths of the Gospels, the numbers indicate what percentage of verses in each Gospel contain the target string.

The pattern is clear, and confirms the impression I already had. The Fourth Gospel ("of John") emphasizes Moses and the Samaritans, while downplaying David and Jesus' role as king; Matthew shows the opposite pattern; and Mark and Luke are intermediate.

I should mention that it is already my opinion, for reasons unrelated to this issue, that the Fourth is the most trustworthy of the Gospels and that Matthew is the least so.

Having completed my survey of Messianic prophecies and their applicability to Jesus (qv), I notice that I appear to have missed one of the Messianic expectations recorded in the Fourth Gospel. Look back at the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4.

[25] The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

[26] Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. . . .

[28] The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, [29] Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?

The Samaritans had been expecting the Messiah to prove his identity by specific signs: by producing the ark of the covenant, the rod of Moses, and the omer of manna -- things that would prove that he was quite literally a "prophet like unto Moses" -- but the Samaritan woman said nothing about any of that. Her proof was simple: he "told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?"

In John 1, it is strongly implied that the Jews, too, expected the Messiah to be someone who could tell them things no one else could know.

[47] Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!

[48] Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me?

Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.

[49] Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.

[50] Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.

Jesus knew, apparently by supernormal means, Nathanael's character and whatever it was that happened to him under the fig tree -- and that was enough to prove to Nathanael that he was the Messiah.

Nowhere in the prophecies I looked at is there anything that says the Messiah will be distinguished by his supernormal knowledge or his ability to "tell us all things," and yet both Nathanael and the Samaritan woman seem to take this for granted as a sign of the Messiah.

There is of course a sense in which any sufficiently impressive miracle would show that Jesus was someone very special and thus perhaps the Messiah. We could easily imagine someone seeing him walk on water and concluding that he must be the Messiah, even in the absence of any specific prophecy that the Messiah would do anything like that. This perhaps suffices to explain Nathanael's reaction, but not that of the Samaritan woman, who said, "I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things." This implies a specific prophecy. No one would have said, for example, "I know that when Messias is come, he will walk on water."

Now my survey of Messianic prophecies was not exhaustive. As I have explained in other posts, I wanted to find those few prophecies that define the Messiah -- that tell us what the claim "I am the Messiah" means -- not every single Old Testament passage that might conceivably be about the Messiah. My first thought, then, was to go back and comb through the prophetic books once again looking for this elusive "tell us all things" prophecy -- but then I remembered that this was the expectation of a Samaritan, which makes things much simpler. The Samaritans' only prophet is Moses, their only scripture is the Torah, and their only Messianic prophecy is in the 18th chapter of Deuteronomy. Nothing Isaiah or Zechariah or any other Jewish prophet may have written is of any relevance.

Sure enough, that chapter turns out to be the probable source of this prophecy. Here is Deuteronomy 18:18 as it reads in the King James Version:

I [God] will raise them [Israel] up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee [Moses], and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

I propose that the bolded passage is the source of the prophecy alluded to by the Samaritan woman. English grammar requires that "that I shall command him" be a restrictive relative clause, so in English this cannot mean that the Prophet will tell them everything, but only everything-that-God-commands. But what if the distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers is less clear-cut in Hebrew than in English? What if the passage in question could also be translated as "he shall speak unto them all, as I shall command him"? If the relative clause does not restrict the scope of reference of the word "all," then here is our prophecy of a Messiah who "will tell us all things."

How grammatically defensible is this reading? Speaking as a linguist who is almost entirely ignorant of Hebrew, I have no idea. Setting those professional scruples to one side, though, and speaking as a Bible reader, I feel quite confident that the Samaritans simply must have read Deuteronomy this way. Where else could the prophecy have come from?

My post on Jesus and the Samaritan woman raised the question of whether the Samaritans really used the term Messiah, and if so what they meant by it. A bit of digging led me to what I was looking for: a slim volume entitled The Messianic Hope of the Samaritans, consisting of a 1906 letter by Jacob ben Aaron, High Priest of the Samaritans, together with his responses to some specific questions put to him by his Protestant correspondents. I quote some relevant passages.

The reference concerning the establishment of the Second Kingdom, affirming the appearance of "THBH" [Taheb] or a Prophet at the end of time of whose appearance we have a promise, is found in Ex. xx, in the last verses, which are not found in the Torah of the Jews. It reads, "They said well. Let their consciences uphold my fear, and the keeping of my commandment, all the time: so that it may be done well unto them and their children. I shall set up for them a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and I shall put my words into his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And it shall be that the man who harkens not to the words which he speaks, I shall make him thereto responsible." These words concern the prophet in whose coming we believe. Again, "The prophet who dares to address words in my name and speaks what I have not commanded him, and he that speaks in the name of foreign gods shall be killed." The same is stated again in Deuteronomy, as also one may find in the Torah of the Jews, Deut. xviii. 15.

This passage from Deuteronomy (duplicated, apparently, in the Samaritan version of Exodus), is the sole scriptural basis for the belief in the Taheb.

The High Priest explains, with numerous scriptural quotations (and some rather strained interpretations!) that the primary role of this prophet will be to restore Israel to power in their ancestral lands, where they will rule over everything from the Nile to the Euphrates. He then lists the signs by which the prophet -- or Messiah -- may be known.

As to the Messiah, with whose coming we are promised, there are proofs and demonstrations in regard to his coming. As our learned men have explained in their voluminous commentaries, he will rise and perform miracles and demonstrations; he will uphold religion and justice. Among other proofs he will produce the following three:

1. The production of the ark of testimony, which is the greatest attestation for Israel. [. . .]

2. He will produce, at his hand, the staff which was given by the Creator (who is exalted) to our lord Moses (upon him be peace), about whose attribute a reference is made as follows: "And this shall be to thee as a sign," in order that miracles be performed thereby.

3. He must produce the omer of manna which our fathers ate, while in the wilderness, for forty years. This is the greatest proof, because, after all this period, it will be found to have undergone not the slightest change. When our ancestors, in the days when manna used to fall, would keep some of it till the morrow, it would become rotten and wormy. Therefore, it would be a proof none could deny if it should appear sound after this long interval and remain in its sound state. Thus the people of the second kingdom might see it and confess reverently and increase in exalting and glorifying the Creator (who is exalted), for the power of producing such a marvel.

These three proofs must be verified by the Prophet; and without them his claim would be considered illegal.

The title Messiah was used, then, for the Taheb, at least by the Samaritans of the early 20th century. The three signs generally amount to an expectation that the Messiah would do what Moses did.

The quotations that follow are from William E. Barton, reporting some questions that were put to the High Priest and his answers.

In the little treatise the Messiah was depicted as a prophet. But the Christian Messiah is spoken of as "Prophet, Priest and King." It seemed an interesting question whether the Messiah of the Samaritans were to be more than a prophet. The High Priest answers this inquiry:

"There is nothing in prophecy to say whether he will be of the priestly line or not. Some of our learned men say he will come from the children of Aaron, and be a priest. Others say that he will be of the children of Joseph and 'like unto his brethren.' My own private opinion is that he will be of the children of Joseph."

Of course the Samaritan hope is not colored by any of the Jewish memories of the throne of David, and the treatise gave no hint as to any kingly role. Asked concerning this, the High Priest answers:

"The Messiah will be a prophet, and will be acknowledged as a prophet. That will be his title, as the prophecies give it. But he will also be a king."

Asked about Genesis 3:15 and 49:55, generally understood by Christians to be Messianic prophecies, the High Priest replied that they had "no Messianic significance whatsoever."

Barton reports the High Priest's replies to several more questions.

To Christians it will be interesting to know whether the Samaritan Messiah is expected to be in any sense divine. The High Priest answers: 

"The Messiah will not be in any sense a Son of God. He will be a prophet like Moses and like his brethren, as it is told in Deut. xviii. 15-22 [. . .] This is the passage of the Torah which tells us what the Messiah will be, and I hope you will read it with a clear eye, as you always read everything." 

Another thing was asked of the High Priest, namely, what would be the attitude of the Messiah toward Christians and other nations. He answers: 

"The Messiah will be a prophet, as I have told you, and will no doubt work signs to prove his mission. There will be unusual signs and wonders, which I described in the little book. But he is to be a king, and rule the earth from Shechem, the ancient seat of power, and from his holy mountain, Gerizim. He will call all the world to acknowledge him, and they will do so. He will bring blessings to all nations that acknowledge him." 

Still one thing more was asked the High Priest as he sat in his tent while the fires were heating the ovens for the sacrifice of the lambs for the Passover, Will the Passover continue after the Messiah comes? 

He answered: 

"The Passover will continue after the Messiah comes. It is a perpetual feast. It has no reference whatever to the Messiah."

 Barton closes the volume by summarizing what the High Priest has said thus:

So far as the treatise indicates, the Samaritans do not look for any vicarious sacrifice on the part of their Messiah. His career, when he comes, would appear to be one of victory and tranquil rule, primarily religious, but with some political significance. The sacrifices are declared not to be prophetic of his mission. The passages quoted by Christians from the Pentateuch as Messianic are held not to refer to him. Practically the whole content of Samaritan Messianic prophecy appears to be derived from Deut. xviii. 15-22, in which the Messiah is a prophet like unto Moses, raised up from among the people, and one of their own brethren.

Assuming (and, yes, it is a bit of an assumption) that the beliefs of the 1st-century Samaritans were transmitted more-or-less intact to their 20th-century descendants, these comments by the High Priest help us understand what the Samaritan woman would have understood Jesus to be claiming when she said, "I know that Messias cometh," and he replied, "I that speak unto thee am he."

Woman at the Well, Carl Heinrich Bloch

[1] When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, [2] (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,) [3] He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee.

This may be the first reference in this Gospel to Jesus as "the Lord," though some manuscripts say "Jesus" instead.

The use of "Jesus" (rather than "he") for the second reference strikes me as highly unnatural -- borderline-ungrammatical in English, though I can't be sure about Greek. My first thought was that this probably indicated that the text had been tampered with, that the first reference to Jesus had been added later, that perhaps the original was something like "When therefore the Pharisees had heard . . ." -- but that would leave the "he" in v. 3 without a plausible antecedent. All in all, I think the most defensible reading is to imagine quotation marks around "Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John." This was, apparently, a quasi-proverbial statement that was going around -- roughly analogous to "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands" -- and which the Pharisees had heard. Since John's name was synonymous with baptism, "baptized more than John" would have an effect similar to "more Catholic than the Pope."

Did Jesus actually baptize anyone? Although John 4:2 says he did not, John 3:22 says he did: "After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized." Given the parenthesis in John 4:2, I think we are to understand that "Jesus baptized" only in the same loose sense in which we might say "Khufu built the Great Pyramid" or "Scipio destroyed Carthage" -- in other words, that those who did the actual baptizing did so under his direction.

Another possibility is that "and baptized" in John 3:22 is an interpolation, and that the rumor the Pharisees had heard was incorrect. (After all, in none of the other Gospels do Jesus or his disciples baptize anyone at all during his mortal ministry,  although both Matthew and the longer version of Mark have him instructing his disciples to go out and baptize after his resurrection.) Under this interpretation, Jesus' disciples were baptizing of their own initiative (unsurprisingly, given how many of them had been disciples of John), and while Jesus must have at least tacitly approved of this, it was not something that he was personally doing or promoting.

Apropos of this, it is also interesting to note that the Fourth is the only Gospel that never uses John's title "the Baptist." There are several ways to interpret this fact. It could be because Jesus is also a "baptist" in this Gospel, so that the title is no longer unique to John, or it could be because the apostle called John does not appear in this Gospel, making the disambiguating title unnecessary -- but another possibility is that the omission of the conventional title is a way of de-emphasizing baptism, just as St. James is rarely referred to as "the Moor-slayer" now that Moor-slaying has gone out of fashion. It may be for similar reasons that the Fourth Gospel (uniquely) omits any direct reference to Jesus' being baptized by John.

Why did Jesus leave Judaea as soon as he became aware of the rumors that he "baptized more than John"? Apparently to get off the Baptist's turf and avoid the appearance of competing with him. Jesus did not want to interfere with John's ministry, as they had complementary roles. Perhaps that is what we are to understand from the fact that his disciples baptized -- that these disciples of John continued to practice his teachings even after they became disciples of Jesus, because Jesus saw no conflict or contradiction between John's movement and his own. Once he realized that he might be stealing John's thunder, he decided to do his preaching elsewhere.

[4] And he must needs go through Samaria.

Samaria was not a political division in the time of Christ, but constituted the northern part of the Roman province of Judaea. It corresponded roughly to the ancient territories of Ephraim and Manasseh west of the Jordan (the modern West Bank). Judaea proper was to the south, corresponding to ancient Judah and Benjamin; while Galilee consisted roughly of the lands formerly belonging to the northern tribes of Naphtali, Issachar, and Zebulun. Thus the need to pass through Samaria to get from the one place to the other.

[5] Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

Joseph was the father of Manasseh and Ephraim, whose ancestral lands later became Samaria. Most Samaritans were, or believed themselves to be, members of the (otherwise "lost") Tribe of Manasseh.

Sychar has not been conclusively identified, and the language ("a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar") suggests that it was not an important or well-known place.

[6] Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.

The Old Testament account of Jacob does not connect him with any particular well. This was an oral tradition.

Though he apparently had paranormal powers, Jesus was not Superman. After walking a long distance, he was tired and had to sit down and rest. He didn't just stop to let the disciples rest; he himself was tired, too. Whatever we mean when we say he was "God," we don't mean that he was superhuman in any absolute sense. His powers had limits. He may have been able to walk on water on occasion, but even his ability to walk in the ordinary way only went so far.

Hours were counted from dawn, so the sixth hour was around midday.

[7] There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. [8] (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) 

[9] Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

Samaritans were (and are; there are still a few hundred around) Israelite schismatics with a smaller Bible (Torah only) and a different holy site (Mt. Gerizim, not Jerusalem). They and the Jews went their separate ways either (according to the Jews) during the reign of Artaxerxes I or (according to the Samaritans themselves) centuries earlier, in the time of the biblical judge Eli. Samaritans were not considered Jews, and Matthew 10:5-6 implicitly excludes them even from "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" even though they certainly were Israelites. Elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel, "Samaritan" seems to be used as a general-purpose insult: "Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?" (John 8:48). All in all, I think we would not be far wrong to say that the Jews of Jesus' time viewed Samaritans in much the same way that Christians have often viewed Jews.

I suppose that "for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans" is a parenthetical explanation by the author, not something the woman herself said. Such an explanation (like the author's explanations of the terms "rabbi" and "Messiah" elsewhere in the Gospel) would not have been necessary for Jews, which suggests that the author had gentile readers in mind. This in turn suggests that the Gospel was written at a time when gentiles had begun to convert to Christianity in large numbers -- and thus not shortly after Christ's ascension. (Alternatively, of course, the parenthetical explanations for non-Jews could have been added by later editors.)

[10] Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. 

[11] The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? [12] Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

The woman's response (much like Nicodemus's "Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb?") makes her seem stupidly literal-minded. It's irrelevant that Jesus has nothing to draw with and that the well is deep because, whatever he might mean by "living water," he obviously can't be offering to give her water from the same well he just asked her to give him water from! The fact that Nicodemus, a highly educated man, makes the same sort of seemingly-stupid response suggests that this was simply an accepted way of speaking at that time and place, and that it means, in essence, "Well, you obviously can't mean what you seem to be saying, so what do you mean?"

Notice that the woman does not say, "Living water? How can water be alive?" She seems to take the concept for granted. I strongly suspect (although no translation I've seen seems to back me up on this) that "living water" was a common way of referring to running water, as opposed to the still water of a well or cistern. (It is in the same spirit that mercury is called "quick," or living, silver.) That's why she asks if he thinks he's greater than Jacob. Just digging another well, as Jacob had done before him, would not require him to be greater. But Jesus is apparently offering to produce a river, or at least a fountain. The implied subtext of her question is, "Who do you think you are -- Moses?"

[13] Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: [14] But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

[15] The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

This brief exchange is all that is said about the living water. After v. 15, the subject is dropped and never returned to. Understanding what Jesus is talking about here is, then, a matter of guesswork or direct inspiration, as not much can be extracted from the text itself. He seems to be talking about resurrected life -- "a well of water springing up into everlasting life" -- and yet he has told the woman (in v. 10) that if she had asked, he would have given her this water, and resurrection is not very well something he could give to someone who is still alive.

The woman's response again seems stupidly literal-minded. Obviously Jesus can't be talking about literal water and literal thirst. He himself is thirsty and has asked the woman for water, so he clearly doesn't have the power to make drinking water forever unnecessary. I think we must again think of this as simply an accepted way of speaking, perhaps tinged with gentle sarcasm.

[16] Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.

[17] The woman answered and said, I have no husband.

Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: [18] For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.

The interpretation of this little exchange hinges on whether we think Jesus already knew the woman's rather irregular marital situation when he said, "Go, call thy husband" -- which, in turn, depends on whether and in what sense we think Jesus, as fully divine, "knew everything."

If Jesus already knew the woman had no husband, his question must have been, I don't know, a test of her honesty or something. She apparently was in a relationship with some man she was not married to ("he whom thou now hast is not thy husband"), so she could have produced this man and presented him to Jesus as her husband had she been so inclined.

I tend to think, though, that Jesus did not "know everything" during his mortal life, at least not in any straightforward sense. After all, this chapter begins with "When therefore the Lord knew . . ." -- implying that he found out something he had not known before. I tend to think that Jesus simply assumed the woman had a husband and made his request in good faith, and that only when she had said "I have no husband" did he see everything. This strange mixture of normal ignorance and supernormal insight is in fact typical of "psychics," as anyone with any experience in that field will know. My impression is that Jesus knew everything only potentially. If he looked, he could see, but he had to look.

Why, then, did he respond to the woman's request for living water by asking her to bring her husband? Apparently the living water, whatever it was, was something that could only be given to a married couple, not to an individual.

[19] The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.

This is a much stronger statement coming from a Samaritan than from a Jew, as the Samaritans acknowledged only one prophet, Moses -- with a second one (or perhaps a return of the first) to come in the future. This was the Taheb, the prophet like unto Moses whose coming is prophesied in Deuteronomy 18, and belief in whom was a pillar of the Samaritan religion. (The Taheb was supposed to be a descendant of Joseph. Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, but perhaps the fact that his father's name was Joseph made him a possible claimant.) I would thus suggest the reading, "I perceive that thou art the prophet" -- which, while not a literal translation, perhaps does better justice to what this sentence would imply coming from the lips of a Samaritan, whose creed was "One God, one prophet, one holy book, one holy site."

Already the Samaritan woman has recognized in Jesus' offer of "living water" a pretension to Moses-like status. Now, with this statement, we see the next step in her dawning realization that the man with whom she has been conversing may be the Taheb himself.

[20] Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. 

[21] Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

[22] Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

[23] But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. [24] God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Realizing that this man -- a Jew, not a Samaritan -- may be the promised Taheb, the woman very naturally asks him about one of the points of disagreement between those two creeds. And Jesus, as we would expect, takes a stance that transcends the parochial: True worship takes place neither on Mt. Gerizim nor in the Jerusalem Temple, but in the heart of the individual believer.

In this context, v. 22, where Jesus takes sides and says Judaism is better than Samaritanism, feels like an interpolation. If it is in fact an authentic saying of Jesus, it is not clear what he meant by it. After all, the Samaritans worshiped Yahweh as revealed by Moses in the Torah, just as the Jews did. Perhaps he felt that later prophets (not accepted by the Samaritans) had revealed God's character more fully than Moses had done.

By the way, v. 24 is a common anti-Mormon proof text, familiar to me from my missionary days, because it seems to contradict the Mormon doctrine that God has a body of flesh and bone. The standard (and, I think, rather clever) response is that God is indeed a spirit -- housed in a body -- and that the verse goes on to say "they that worship him must worship him in spirit," obviously not meaning that our spirits must leave our bodies in order to worship God. What this really shows is that the Bible won't read itself, and that even as straightforward as statement as "God is a Spirit" is subject to interpretation based on metaphysical assumptions.

[25] The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

This can only mean the Taheb, since the Samaritans did not believe in a "Messiah" as such. Remember that their Bible was limited to the five books of Moses and did not include the prophetic books and psalms from which the idea of the Messiah arose. The basic idea of the Messiah was that he would be a second King David, and the titles Messiah and Christ both refer to the anointing that was part of a Hebrew king's coronation ceremony. (Robert Graves was not wrong to translate "Jesus Christ" as "King Jesus.") The Samaritans, who (according to their own history) separated from the Jews in the days of the judges, before David or any of the other kings, had never been David's people and were not anticipating the coming of a second David.

While Christians believe that the Messiah and the prophet like unto Moses are one and the same, the Jews of Jesus' time did not. In John 1:25, for example, they say that John is "not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet" -- clearly understanding these to be three different figures. The Samaritans anticipated the coming of the Taheb, the prophet like unto Moses. The Jews did, too, and they also anticipated the coming of two other figures: Elijah and the Messiah. So while we today might naturally describe the Taheb as "the Samaritan Messiah," it seems unlikely that a first-century Samaritan would have drawn that equivalence. She would have known that "Messiah" was not just the Jewish way of referring to the Taheb but referred to (what the Jews believed to be) a separate figure.

Or perhaps she wouldn't. If Jews and Samaritans really had no dealings with each other, their mutual understanding of one another's beliefs would naturally be quite limited. Perhaps she thought that Jews and Samaritans were awaiting the coming of the same person but that the Jews used a different name, Messiah, for him. Her use of the Jewish lingo, then, would have been a conscious attempt to transcend cultural and religious differences and address her interlocutor on his own terms -- a bit like if a Christian were to use the word "Allah" instead of "God" when explaining his own beliefs to a Muslim.

Another possibility is that the woman actually said "Taheb," and that this was amended by the author or by a later editor on the grounds that it would be easier for most readers to understand, and that the two are (for Christians) the same figure anyway. Against this interpretation, we have the references to "that prophet" (i.e., the prophet like unto Moses, or the Taheb) in John 1, which were not edited out.

Yet another possibility is that the Samaritans really did use "Messiah" as a title of their Taheb. I know that the Jews were later to call him "Messiah ben Joseph" (as contrasted with the "Messiah ben David," or the Messiah properly so called). I consider Samaritan use of this designation to be unlikely, because Messiah properly means "king" -- David's title, not Moses's -- but who knows.

UPDATE: For further information on this question, see my post "The Samaritan understanding of the Messiah."

[26] Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

But the woman already knows this by this point in their conversation, which is why she brought up the "Messiah" in the first place. Jesus is just confirming what she has already deduced.

This is this Gospel's first record of Jesus' making a direct claim to be the Messiah, and it is interesting that this momentous declaration was made in an isolated place, with no witnesses, to a Samaritan who may have had a very different understanding of what "Messiah" meant. In context, Jesus is not here claiming to be the Messiah of the Psalms and prophetic writings but rather the prophet like unto Moses. He would later repeat this claim publicly, in the Jerusalem Temple: "For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me" (John 5:46).