Ep 112: Wash Your Own Feet!

00:00- I love the final moment of the book of John.

00:04We'll give him the full three years.

00:08- Yeah.

00:09- It's still a pretty big claim to say

00:11that if everything that Jesus did was written down,

00:14even the whole world would not have room

00:16for the books that would be written.

00:18- Yeah.

00:19- That feels a little strong.

00:20Coming on a little strong author of John.

00:23(upbeat music)

00:26- Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:30- And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:31- And you're listening to the Data Overdogma podcast

00:34where we increase public access to the academic study

00:36of the Bible and religion and combat the spread

00:40of misinformation about the same,

00:42how are things today Dan?

00:44- Rockin' a rollin', keepin' it juicy.

00:47- Keepin' it 100, huh?

00:48- Keepin' it 100, yes.

00:51A fun show comin' up today.

00:55- Awesome.

00:56- We get to talk about a book

00:58that is not one that I even ever encountered

01:03my entire growing up,

01:05because it is part of the Apocrypha.

01:08It is Second Applebee's.

01:10And we're gonna have some fun with that one.

01:14- Third Karabas after that.

01:16- Yeah, sure.

01:17- And then we're gonna go into a taking issue,

01:22and the issue we're gonna take is one that like,

01:25it is an obvious right off the jump,

01:28but we're gonna be talking about the washing of feet.

01:33It is a thing that happened quite a bit

01:35and what was an interesting ritual,

01:38and maybe was way more interesting than we knew it was.

01:43We'll see when we get to it.

01:46That'll be a fun discussion.

01:48- Yeah.

01:49- But to start us off, let's do a chapter and verse.

01:52- All right.

01:53(upbeat music)

01:55- All right, and this week's chapter and verse

01:59is in Second Maccabees,

02:01chapter seven, is that right?

02:04- Yeah, yeah.

02:06- Should we talk a little bit about Maccabees?

02:08- Yeah, we should just--

02:09- And remind ourselves why it's not in all of the Bibles

02:14and why the Catholics will remember it

02:17and the Protestants won't, et cetera.

02:19- Yeah, there are four well-known books of Maccabees.

02:24It's generally the first two that are included

02:28in apocryphal texts, if those texts are included.

02:33And the Maccabees deal with the history

02:36of the rise of the Hasmonean kingdom.

02:39So the fighting back against the Seleucid rulers

02:43in the middle of the second century BCE

02:47when Jewish folks actually managed to regain

02:51a degree of independence and started what has become known

02:55as the Hasmonean kingdom.

02:56So these are the events that result

02:59in the celebration of Hanukkah,

03:01which commemorates the rededication of the temple

03:06after the Maccabees and forces were able to take it back

03:10from the Seleucid forces.

03:12- The Seleucids were, is that related to Babylon?

03:16I don't know who the Seleucids were.

03:18- So this is one of the groups that arose

03:23after Alexander the Great's death

03:26and his kingdom was fractured

03:29and there were a bunch of different regions

03:32that were ruled over by regional powers.

03:34And so the Ptolemies, for instance, were in Egypt

03:38and the Seleucids were around Syria, Palestine area.

03:42And so these were Hellenistic rulers.

03:46And so second Maccabees talks about

03:50actually a few different rulers.

03:53Seleuc is the fourth Antiochus, the fourth Epiphanes

03:56Antiochus the fifth, Demetrius the first.

04:00So there are a few different Seleucid rulers

04:03that are discussed, but they're the ones

04:05who are trying to maintain their control

04:08over this territory while the Maccabees

04:10are fighting back and trying to gain independence.

04:14- Okay, and who are the Maccabees?

04:16- The Maccabees, this is a nickname

04:18that is given to a family that kind of becomes

04:23the head of this resistance movement.

04:29So Judas Maccabees, for instance,

04:31is how one of the generals is known.

04:34And we've talked in the past a little bit

04:36about how there might be a hint at some kind

04:40of notion of purgatory in second Maccabees 12

04:44where Judas Maccabees and his forces come upon

04:48some fallen comrades and they have contraband,

04:53they have idols on their persons.

04:56And so he passes the hat around to gather up a collection

05:00to send off to the Jerusalem temple

05:02so that sacrifices can be made in the names of the deceased

05:06so that maybe they can have a better resurrection.

05:11- I do remember talking about that.

05:13- Yeah, that's really interesting.

05:15And the chapter in second Maccabees

05:19that we are gonna talk about is actually also

05:22just jam-packed with theologically interesting

05:27little moments which you could totally miss

05:30if you're not looking for them.

05:32But they, I mean, as a guy who like is peripherally

05:37associated with biblical scholarship,

05:41they jumped out at me quite a few of them did.

05:43Maybe there's more, but this is a story.

05:47It is in the NRSVUE.

05:50It is titled "The Martyrdom of Seven Brothers."

05:54- Yes, and their mommy.

05:56- And their mother, yes.

05:58And the interesting thing about this

05:59is that there are actually multiple stories

06:02of a parent and seven children, seven sons,

06:06facing death for their refusal to violate God's laws.

06:11- Oh, so there's a text called "The Assumption of Moses"

06:15where we have a character named Tahoe,

06:19who is a father who takes his seven sons into a cave

06:24to protest Roman oppression in a later time period

06:31and presumably killing his sons and then himself

06:35along the way, and then we have a discussion in Josephus

06:39where Josephus tells the same story but expands on it

06:43and actually has the father killing the sons one by one

06:46rather than have them fall into Roman hands.

06:51And then we have some rabbinic literature as well

06:54that reflects this story.

06:57But we have a slightly different version

07:00in 2nd Maccabees chapter seven,

07:02which I argued in a paper from many, many moons ago.

07:072009, I think, is when I actually published it

07:09in a student journal where I suggested that

07:12because of the fact that it is chock full

07:14of theological significance and also if we look

07:17at the trajectory of the development of this story

07:20seems to come from a later time period,

07:23I argued, hey, maybe we ought to date chapter seven

07:25to later, maybe it is a later addition

07:28to the text of 2nd Maccabees,

07:30but that argument has not won over a ton of supporters.

07:34So I presented it in a couple of different

07:37academic conferences and it was received skeptically,

07:42let's say, but there are a bunch of interesting things

07:47that we see in here.

07:48For instance, we have this notion of,

07:52well, actually let's just talk a little bit

07:53about the narrative and then we go through

07:56some of these elements.

07:57- Before we dive into that, give me a sense of the dating,

08:01the traditional dating or approximate dating of this text.

08:06Like when does this go back to?

08:09- So scholars suggest it was probably written somewhere

08:11between like 161 BCE and about 63 BCE.

08:16- Okay.

08:18- So it was obviously written after the reign

08:23of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and it was almost certainly

08:30written before Pompeii's annexation of Judea

08:34because the Romans are not treated as villains in this

08:38and if it had come after that,

08:40then they probably would have been treated as villains.

08:44And it starts in chapter seven.

08:47It happened also that, and we're telling stories

08:50about ways that the salucids are trying to stamp out

08:54observation of Jewish conventions.

08:56- Right. - Such as circumcision,

09:00such as avoidance of pork and things like that.

09:05So it happened also that seven brothers and their mother

09:08were arrested and were being compelled by the king

09:11under torture with whips and straps to partake

09:14of unlawful pigs flesh.

09:17And one of them acting as their spokesman said,

09:20"What do you intend to ask and learn from us

09:23"for we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws?

09:26"Of our ancestors."

09:28And then this.

09:29- By the way, unlawful pigs flesh is a great name

09:32for a metal band.

09:33If anybody wants it, it's just hanging out there for you.

09:36- And then the king fell into a rage and gave orders

09:39to have pans and cauldrons heated.

09:42- Yeah, it gets real intense real fast.

09:45- Well, you gotta read fourth Maccabees

09:47because that is like a,

09:49this stretches it out, it expands the torture

09:55and it expands the vocabulary that is used

09:58to describe the torture devices

10:01and the ways that the kids are torture.

10:04But in short, one by one,

10:07the seven sons are going to be tortured and killed.

10:11- And the torture is spelled out.

10:14They scalpel them and it seems to indicate

10:18that they are all sort of dispatched in the same manner,

10:22which I'm gonna get to in a minute

10:24because I think there's a funny thing.

10:27But they're scalped and then their hands and feet

10:30are cut off while the rest of the brothers

10:34and the mother look on.

10:36And there is something about cutting out the tongue,

10:41isn't there?

10:43- Yes, that happens in verse 10.

10:48After him the third was the victim of their sport.

10:51When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue

10:54and courageously stretched forth his hands and said,

10:56"Nobly, I got these from heaven."

10:59And because of his laws, I disdain them.

11:01And from him, I hope to get them back again.

11:04- And that right there is actually the first

11:08of our big theological moments, right?

11:13Which is to say, at least from my perspective,

11:16it's the first mention that we get,

11:21at least in this chapter of I'm going to be made whole.

11:26I, my understanding, his understanding

11:29of what was going to happen is if he is righteous,

11:33God will give him back his hands and feet and tongue.

11:37- Yeah, so this witnesses to a view of resurrection,

11:42which is something that develops slowly within Judaism.

11:46And this is a very early, would be a very early attestation

11:51to a rather developed view of resurrection,

11:55if he's like, "Oh, I'm getting all this back."

11:57And we have a few different mentions of this.

12:02And I think they're going oldest to youngest with these.

12:07And after he too had died, they maltreated

12:10and tortured the fourth in the same way.

12:13And then he cries out, and each of the sons

12:15before they are killed says something mean to the king.

12:20- Which is funny because the tongue cutting out thing

12:24is actually the first thing that happens to the first one.

12:27And if this all goes in the same order,

12:29then they all had their tongues cut out.

12:31And then later they were like, "Haha, but for you,

12:34"there will be no resurrection."

12:36Which is pretty funny.

12:40But that is verse 14, I'll just read it

12:44and then you can talk about it

12:46'cause this is the fourth kid who's being killed.

12:51And when he dies, he says, or when he's near death.

12:54And by the way, they are frying these kids in a pan

12:58after they cut off all their hands and feet.

13:00So that's pretty horrific.

13:02But he says, "One cannot but choose to die

13:06"at the hands of mortals and to cherish the hope.

13:10"The hope God gives of being raised again by him.

13:14"But for you, there will be no resurrection to life."

13:19Which, theologically, I suppose, means no hell, right?

13:25That's oblivion.

13:26- Yeah, it does seem to suggest

13:30that he can't count on being raised again.

13:35In other words, the resurrection would only be

13:36for the righteous.

13:38Unless resurrection to life stands in contrast

13:42to resurrection to something else.

13:45But I think the idea that cherish the hope God gives

13:49of being raised again by him,

13:52if Antiochus does not have that hope,

13:55then maybe there is no resurrection

13:57of any kind that he can expect,

13:59and it's just annihilation.

14:02But yeah, it doesn't jive with a lot of what we see

14:08in later ideas where everybody is resurrected.

14:13But again, this is a slowly developing ideological framework.

14:20- Yeah.

14:22- Then they brought forth the fifth and maltreated him,

14:25but he looked at the king and said,

14:27"Because you have authority among mortals,

14:29"though you also are mortal, you do what you please,

14:32"but do not think that God has forsaken our people.

14:35"Keep on and see how his mighty power will torture you

14:38"and your descendants."

14:41Quite the threat there.

14:42And in the face of torture and murder.

14:47But we start to see the idea that the punishment

14:50that they are receiving is a just recompense

14:55for the sins of Israel.

14:58(upbeat music)

15:03- Yeah, that was a bit of a befudlement to me,

15:07because that theme is repeated multiple times.

15:11This idea that we are forsaken,

15:16and our sin, this is happening to us because of our sins,

15:22which I thought was an interesting thing.

15:25Can you talk a little bit about why what that's about?

15:31Because I don't know, I've read a lot of,

15:36you read the Psalms and they're sort of bemoaning our lot,

15:41and God, why have you done this to us?

15:42But this seems very clear that bad things

15:46that are happening to us are our fault in some way,

15:49and we're in somehow our atonement for our sins.

15:53- Yeah, you do have a sense that these punishments

15:59and as death functions as a kind of atonement,

16:02and that's if they suffer it well,

16:05then that will appease God's anger or something like that.

16:09The axilic literature, the earlier literature

16:13that's talking about Israel being sent into exile,

16:17pretty unilaterally suggests that the exile was punishment

16:22for Judah's sins.

16:24And so this later literature is probably just accepting

16:28that framing of persecution

16:31on the part of larger nations.

16:32Well, that must be because of the sins of the nation.

16:37But yeah, we do have a sense of kind of proxy

16:43atoning for others' sins here,

16:50which is kind of early, in my opinion,

16:55for this thing to be popping up in the literature,

16:58alongside a very early manifestation

17:02of belief in resurrection,

17:03a very early kind of ascetic approach to martyrdom.

17:07- Yeah.

17:08- Where he regarded his sufferings as nothing,

17:12which is not really a first century BCE Jewish ideal

17:16that strikes me as something that comes a little later.

17:22And then we get a little, after the six,

17:26we get a little about the mother.

17:28And verse 20, "The mother was especially admirable

17:31"and worthy of honorable memory.

17:33"Although she saw her seven sons perish

17:34"within a single day, she bore it with good courage

17:37"because of her hope in the Lord.

17:39"She encouraged each of them in the language

17:41"of their ancestors, filled with a noble spirit.

17:44"She reinforced her women's reasoning

17:48"with a man's courage and said to them,

17:52"'I do not know how you came into being in my womb.'"

17:57I bet she does know.

17:59"It was not I who gave you life and breath,

18:02"nor I who set in order the elements within each of you,

18:05"therefore the creator of the world,

18:07"who shaped the beginning of humankind

18:09"and divine the origin of all things.

18:11"In his mercy gives life and breath back to you again.

18:15"Since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws."

18:20So again, we have this reference too.

18:22They are sacrificing themselves

18:25in order to remain faithful to the laws.

18:28And so God will give life and breath back.

18:30- Right.

18:31- And here Antiochus is outraged.

18:36And so we only have the youngest brother left.

18:40And so Antiochus not only appealed to him in words,

18:43but promised with oaths that he would make him rich

18:46and enviable if he would turn from the ways

18:48of his ancestors and that he would take him for his friend

18:51and entrust him with public affairs

18:54since the young man would not listen to him at all.

18:56The king called the mother to him

18:57and urged her to advise the youth to save himself.

19:01So it's representing Antiochus.

19:02It's just this out of control,

19:05just raging, barely human tyrant.

19:08- Well, actually, I would say that in this moment,

19:12it's representing him as being someone who's like,

19:15I'm kind of trapped into this whole thing.

19:17I really need you to,

19:19if I'm gonna, I don't want to kill another kid.

19:22If you, you know, I just, just eat the pork.

19:26It'll be fine.

19:28And when he doesn't do it, he's like,

19:29Mom, come here, talk to him.

19:30I don't want to kill him.

19:31Talk to him.

19:32I'll make him rich.

19:34I'll make him, you know what I mean?

19:36Like it just, it feels, it feels to me like he's,

19:40like he's really working to make this not happen.

19:43- He's, it also says in verse 24,

19:46he was suspicious of her reproachful tone.

19:49So I think he might be trying to be like you,

19:52smarmy little, trying to win him over

19:57to overcome their, their dogmatism.

20:02- Yeah.

20:03- And so he urges her and then she leans in close to him

20:07and she, in their native language.

20:10- He leans in close to her son.

20:11- Her son, yeah, derides the cruel tyrant

20:15and says, my son have pity on me.

20:16I carried you nine months in my womb

20:18and nursed you for three years and I've reared you

20:20and brought you up to this point in your life.

20:22And I've taken care of you.

20:24And this is verse 28.

20:25This is a very famous verse.

20:26And I'll explain why in a second.

20:28I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth

20:32and see everything that is in them

20:34and recognize that God did not make them

20:36out of things that existed.

20:39- Yeah.

20:40- And in the same way the human race came into being,

20:43do not fear this butcher,

20:45but prove worthy of your brothers, except death.

20:48So that in God's mercy, I may get you back again

20:51along with your brothers.

20:53And obviously this passage has appealed to

20:55by a bunch of folks as asserting creation ex nihilo.

21:00- Yeah.

21:01- Creation out of nothing.

21:03- It definitely, I mean, yeah, God did not make them

21:06out of the thing, out of things that existed.

21:08- Yes, that does seem, however, the very next sentence,

21:13I mean, the same way the human race came into being,

21:15rather complicates things.

21:20Because they didn't, the human race did not come

21:23into being from nothing.

21:24If you look at Genesis 2, the human race was molded

21:29from the dust.

21:32- Made of dirt.

21:33- Made of dirt.

21:34- Yeah.

21:36- I keep a little dirt under the pillow for the dirt man.

21:40- That's right.

21:41- But there, and there's a further problem.

21:46Most scholars these days acknowledge that this,

21:49things that existed and things that did not exist.

21:51This is a reference to a Greek philosophical notion

21:55of matter as existing in a realm of being

22:00or a realm of non-being.

22:02Where matter that existed in the realm of non-being

22:05was still matter and it existed,

22:06it was just part of this material substrate

22:09that lacked form and function.

22:10It was the raw materials.

22:12And so to give it form and function was to move it

22:16from the realm of non-being into the realm of being.

22:19And so there have been a handful of scholars

22:22since like the 70s and 80s, we've been pointing out,

22:25this is not creation ex-neal,

22:27this is not creation out of nothing.

22:29And the fact that this creation of the world

22:32of things that did not make the amount of things that existed,

22:37if that's the same way the human race came into being,

22:40then it's very clearly not creation ex-neal, yes.

22:43But the young man then turns and says,

22:49well, what are you waiting for?

22:51I will not obey the king's command,

22:53but I obey the command of the law that was given

22:55to our ancestors through Moses.

22:58And basically further mouths off to Antiochus,

23:03says, our brothers have fallen under God's covenant,

23:09but you, by the judgment of God,

23:10will receive just punishment for your arrogance.

23:14I, like my brothers, give up body and life

23:16for the laws of our ancestors,

23:18appealing to God to show mercy, soon to our nation,

23:21and by trials and plagues to make you confess

23:23that he alone is God.

23:25And through me and my brothers to bring to an end

23:30the wrath of the almighty that has justly fallen

23:34on our whole nation.

23:36So again, this is an expiation for sin.

23:40This is proxy atonement for sin

23:44by them giving up their lives for their nation.

23:47- Yeah, yeah, I mean, you skipped it,

23:50but it does say in verse 32,

23:52for we are suffering because of our own sins.

23:56- Yes.

23:56- So yeah, that is fascinating.

23:59The idea of proxy atonement.

24:03Does that ever come up later in the Bible at all?

24:07It seems like maybe that comes up.

24:09- It's in the back somewhere, I think.

24:11And then it says, the king fell into a rage

24:16and handled him worse than the others

24:17being exasperated at his scorn.

24:20So he died in his integrity,

24:23putting his whole trust in the Lord,

24:24last of all, the mother died after her sons.

24:27And then verse 42, let this be enough then

24:30about the eating of sacrifices and the extreme torture.

24:33So the author has had enough.

24:35The author is done.

24:36- That's all I'm gonna say about that.

24:38- Yeah.

24:39- Is a weird way to end a biblical chapter.

24:41That just seems like a very odd thing to say, but yes.

24:47- Yeah, and but this is a part of the literature

24:50of this time period where they're like,

24:52and now I'm gonna go on to talk about this

24:54and let that be enough of that.

24:56- And that does end that lesson.

24:59- Yes, so yeah, go ahead.

25:03- Oh, I was just gonna say that's the story

25:05of the mother and her seven sons

25:08and represents Antiochus the fourth epiphanies

25:12in not a very favorable light

25:14as kind of not in control of his temper

25:18and yeah, destined for not a great afterlife

25:23if the seven sons were correct.

25:26- Or not an afterlife at all.

25:28- Or not an afterlife at all,

25:29depending on when we date this

25:32and what they're thinking about yawn afterlife.

25:36- Yeah.

25:37All right, fascinating, interesting.

25:40And again, one that many of us

25:42would never have encountered.

25:45I was far older than I should have been

25:47before I realized that that's actually still

25:50in a lot of people's Bibles.

25:52- All right.

25:53- Yeah, there are a number of other fascinating stories

25:56and second Maccabees and first Maccabees

25:58is considered slightly more historical,

26:01not incredibly historical,

26:03but slightly more historical as

26:04and is important for reconstructing

26:06the history of this time period.

26:07- Okay, well we may have to come back

26:10to Applebee's at some point.

26:11- Read your Maccabees, people.

26:14- Yeah, important stuff.

26:16All right, let's move on to taking issue.

26:20(upbeat music)

26:22All right, and the thing we're taking issue with today

26:25is feet.

26:26Yes, there are no fetishes going on here.

26:31- We are.

26:32- We do not, yeah, this is not a Tarantino film.

26:37We are not into it.

26:39No pictures will be taken, no pictures will be shared.

26:42- Although, if you check my only fans, you will get some.

26:46- Oh, okay, well, feet, things.

26:48- Anyway, I have one fan.

26:51- No.

26:52- On, so what I've got pulled up is John 13.

26:57- John chapter 13.

27:02- And that is where Jesus washes his disciples.

27:09- Mm-hmm.

27:10- They have a meal, and then after that he poured water

27:17into a basin and began to wash his disciples feet,

27:20drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

27:23- Yes.

27:24- And you wanted to talk about this.

27:28So I'm just gonna let you, what is interesting?

27:33I've always, you know, this is always, to me,

27:36been presented as a gesture of supplication

27:41or a gesture of service.

27:46So talk to me about what's interesting,

27:53what we're taking issue with.

27:55- Well, we're taking the issue with an interpretation of this

27:59that is pretty common in the world of social media

28:02in the public discourse.

28:04Not as much in the academic discourse,

28:06but to some degree in the academic discourse.

28:08There's the notion that that feet are euphemisms

28:12for genitals in the Bible.

28:14- Yeah, you've mentioned that a number of times

28:17as we've talked through things.

28:19- Yeah, and, you know, to uncover one's feet

28:22can be a euphemism for dropping trow.

28:26And to cover one's feet is a euphemism for defecation.

28:32'Cause you're squatting down and--

28:35- Oh, okay.

28:36- Gather around one's feet.

28:37And so there are folks who suggest

28:42that this is a homoerotic story

28:45that there is something a little more than washing going on

28:49between Jesus and his disciples.

28:53And I think if there were just a passage that said

28:58and Jesus washed his disciples' feet

29:00or uncovered his disciples' feet or something like that,

29:04I mean, maybe there's a bit more of an argument

29:07to make there if it's something that's just in passing.

29:12But this is a part of a pretty symbolic set of events

29:15toward the end of John's gospel and the details in here.

29:19Just don't leave room in my opinion for interpreting this

29:24as reflecting these sexual undertones.

29:30Well, I'm just going to complicate the matter a little bit

29:34because the reading that I did started with verse five.

29:38But if I start before that, in verse four,

29:42Jesus got up from the meal,

29:46took off his outer clothing and wrapped a towel

29:50around his waist.

29:51- Yes.

29:52- Now, why did he strip?

29:57That seems odd.

30:00(upbeat music)

30:02- Yeah, I would suggest that what's going on here

30:09is that he is doffing his symbols of his equality

30:14with the disciples and donning the clothing

30:21of an enslaved person.

30:23Because in this time period,

30:25a washing feet was something that happened frequently

30:29and you might wash your own feet,

30:32but usually if you were well enough off,

30:34you would have enslaved folks who would do it

30:36for you and your guests.

30:39And so to wash someone else's feet was to take a subordinate,

30:43a position of subordinate social status

30:46and basically the position of an enslaved person.

30:50- Can you talk about the word that is translated here

30:54as towel?

30:55'Cause that might shed a little light.

31:00- Okay, yeah, let me just pull up

31:03what we're looking at here.

31:04I don't have my Greek up.

31:09Taking a towel, which is lenteon,

31:14so this could be cloth, this could be apron.

31:17Let me see what B-dags says, linen cloth or towel.

31:23And we have of a woman who is preparing

31:28to wash another person's feet.

31:29So according to Vitae Asopi,

31:33which evidently comes from the first century CE,

31:38I'm not familiar with this text,

31:40but the life of Asap,

31:41a woman would wrap themselves in a towel

31:47before washing another person's feet.

31:49So it sounds like this is imagery

31:51that is kind of part of the convention of foot washing.

31:56- Yes, okay.

31:58- And sounds like it.

31:59- But it also puts an interesting further complication

32:04into this, which is that now is Jesus taking on

32:09a woman's role and that actually becomes a very,

32:12that's a very interesting question to me.

32:15- Yeah, I would have to look at the literature

32:17to see if there's something significant

32:19about this being a woman or if this is just

32:21an enslaved person who happens to be a woman

32:23or maybe they're not an enslaved person at all.

32:26I don't know.

32:27I think there are multiple different conventions,

32:29but the conventional reading on the part of scholars

32:33is that Jesus is debasing himself.

32:36A humbling himself before his disciples

32:41in a symbolic gesture to show that what he's doing.

32:47And to do verse five, then he poured water into a basin

32:51and began to wash the disciples' feet

32:54and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.

32:57And so here's where like the details,

32:59the narrative details are a little too explicit

33:04for this to be a euphemistic reference

33:07to something else going on.

33:09- Yeah, it does sound very specific.

33:11- Yeah.

33:12And verse six, he came to Simon Peter

33:14who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

33:17And this is kind of the incredulous Peter saying,

33:21no way this is happening.

33:22Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing,

33:27but later you will understand."

33:29Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet."

33:32Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you,

33:34you have no share with me."

33:36Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only,

33:39but also my hands and my head."

33:42And Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed

33:44does not need to wash except for the feet,

33:47but is entirely clean and you are clean,

33:50though not all of you."

33:52- Scoot-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.

33:55And then, yeah, we cut to Jim's side-eye.

33:59- Right.

34:01- And so I think the idea here is that

34:04Peter misunderstands the symbol.

34:07Peter thinks that Jesus is like,

34:10it's time to get y'all squeaky clean.

34:12And Peter's like, "Well, my head's been,

34:14my scalp's been feeling a little dry."

34:16So he's like, "Ooh, get all the rest of me, too."

34:19And Jesus kind of says, "This is a symbol, Peter.

34:24This is not, I am not suggesting you all need a bath."

34:29- You're clean already.

34:30Just let me do the foot thing, gosh.

34:32- Yeah.

34:33'Cause you have a bath, you go walk around,

34:36you're feeder dirty.

34:37- Yeah.

34:38- Yeah, especially in sandals in the desert.

34:43- Yes.

34:44- That seems like that's just a recipe for dirty feet.

34:48- Yeah.

34:49And so the idea here is that Jesus is humbling himself

34:54before his disciples as a sign of what's coming

35:00and this is a symbolic way to kind of bring them

35:05into what's gonna happen.

35:08And there are a variety of ways to explain what's going on,

35:12verse, or explain the symbolism.

35:14But verse 11 says, "For he knew who was to betray him,

35:18for this reason he said, 'Not all of you are clean.'"

35:22Don't, don't, don't.

35:25Yeah, let me get Jim's side eye.

35:26"After he had washed their feet,

35:30had put on his robe and had reclined again,

35:33he said to them, 'Do you know what I have done to you?'"

35:38Yeah, which would be a weird thing

35:39if this were sexual in some way.

35:42You call me teacher and Lord and you are right

35:47for that is what I am.

35:48So if I, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet,

35:51you also ought to wash one another's feet.

35:53For I have set you an example

35:56that you also should do as I have done to you.

35:58Very truly I tell you slaves are not greater

36:01than their master, nor are messengers greater

36:04than the one who sent them.

36:05If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

36:09And then, yeah, we get back to talking about how

36:13Judas is not a boy.

36:17Yeah.

36:18So it's a message of equality and sort of...

36:23Well, mutual submission and subordination,

36:28kind of a servant leadership.

36:32You're not greater than me, but I humbled myself before you.

36:37And so obviously you guys got to humble yourselves

36:39before each other and before others.

36:42And so it's putting that burden on them

36:47to then live that example that Jesus has set,

36:52which they are going to do later on.

36:55Once Jesus is resurrected and they all come to their senses

36:58because they're kind of blinded by

37:02their expectations of what the Messiah is going to be.

37:06And yeah, I guess I actually misread

37:09when you just read the part about

37:11no servant is greater than his master.

37:13I actually, in my mind, I had that flipped

37:15that so it's not about equality.

37:18I was thinking it was a message of equality,

37:20but no, it's a message of you're not better than me.

37:24So you guys better act right.

37:29Yeah, yeah, you're not better than me,

37:30but I still did this.

37:32And so, yeah, it is kind of,

37:37he's like, I am humbling myself before you,

37:40even though I am greater than all of you put together.

37:44Yeah, I'm still way better than you,

37:47but if I'm so much better than you

37:49and I dained to do this, you better be daining.

37:53You guys better dain.

37:55Yeah.

37:56And I'm trying to find out where he says this,

38:01'cause this is toward the end of John.

38:07I wanna bring up something else interesting.

38:10There are a lot of peculiarities about John's telling

38:14of the final week of Jesus's life,

38:17but for instance, this meal that they sit down and have,

38:20then immediately precedes some discourses

38:25and then his arrest is not represented

38:27as the Passover meal in John.

38:29Oh, right.

38:30It's the Passover meal in the synoptics,

38:32but here it doesn't seem to be a Passover meal,

38:36but we have some more sermonizing

38:38and then at the end of chapter 14,

38:40Jesus says, "What I do is the Father has commanded me

38:43"so that the world may know that I love the Father.

38:46"Rise, let us be on our way."

38:49I am the true vine and Jesus is like,

38:53"All right, everybody, let's get out of here."

38:56And then chapter 15 begins with more sermonizing.

38:59Chapter 16 has more sermonizing.

39:03And then we get to chapter 18,

39:08after Jesus had spoken these words,

39:10he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley

39:13to the Garden of Gethsemane.

39:14So a lot of scholars have pointed out,

39:16we've got Jesus saying, you could skip right from the end

39:20of chapter 14 to the beginning of chapter 18

39:23and miss nothing.

39:24Like, narratively, it just flows just fine.

39:29But it seems like an editor was like,

39:32"I got three chapters worth of sermonizing,

39:34"I gotta put somewhere."

39:36And so we have our true vine speech

39:41and we have the world hatred speech

39:44and then we have the intercessory prayer

39:48and all of this gets shoved right in between Jesus

39:51saying, "Let's get out of here."

39:52And then the verse, it says, "So they got out of there."

39:55- Right, yeah, yeah.

39:56- One of a handful of different cues,

40:00little indications that there's been a heavy editorial hand

40:05in the Gospel of John.

40:06- And perhaps additions placed in there.

40:10- Yes, yes, absolutely.

40:11Perhaps some things were cooked up

40:15to expand on the significance.

40:18- I feel like the book's not long enough.

40:20Can we add, is there anything we can put in there?

40:23- Well, and we know this happens in the Gospel of John

40:27because the story of the woman taken in adultery.

40:30- Oh, right.

40:31- Was not original to the Gospel of John,

40:33was not in the earliest manuscripts,

40:34but that is John chapter seven,

40:38verse 53 is where it starts

40:40and it runs all the way through chapter eight, verse 11.

40:45And so we know about that one

40:48because we have manuscripts that don't have it.

40:51And that is not the case for chapters 15, 16, and 17,

40:56but certainly there is opportunity

41:00for editorializing going on.

41:03And I think one of the clearest indicators of that

41:05is at the very end.

41:09The first time I read this, I was like, "What, what?"

41:15So this is John chapter 21, verse 24.

41:19This is the disciple who is testifying to these things

41:23and has written them.

41:24And we know that his testimony is true.

41:29And I was like, "Wait a minute, who's we?"

41:33And where does it was dictated?

41:38Where does we stop and the beloved disciples start?

41:45And so that is always,

41:48I've always found that a funny little,

41:52somebody was like, "Let's just mention ourselves."

41:56Anyway, either.

41:57Chuck ourselves into this.

41:58Yeah, the narrator or whoever is co-lating the text

42:03just couldn't help but squeeze themselves

42:08in there a little bit.

42:09And then they go, "But there are also many other things

42:12"that Jesus did if every one of them

42:14"were written down.

42:16"I suppose that the world itself

42:18"could not contain the books that would be written."

42:21Which is a peculiar little epilogue

42:24that goes back to first person singular.

42:27Yeah.

42:28But I love that we've got this little "we" tossed in there.

42:33And so I think that demonstrates,

42:35even if you think the gospel of John

42:38was written firsthand by an eyewitness,

42:42there's at least that one passage

42:44that very clearly was added later.

42:47And there've gotta be others.

42:49We know the woman taken in adultery is another example.

42:53And so I think it's just,

42:56the compositional history of the gospel of John

42:58is a fascinating area of research

43:01that I would love to know more about.

43:02I haven't seen it.

43:03Remind me a little bit.

43:05When do we think John was written

43:08in the order of the gospels?

43:11A lot of people, Mark was first, right?

43:13Mark was first.

43:14A lot of people think John was last,

43:16probably in the 90s CE.

43:18But if Luke is the early second century CE,

43:21then Luke probably came after John.

43:24Okay.

43:25But yeah, that's something that's still being debated.

43:28And we've got a book.

43:31There it is, "Writing and Rewriting the Gospels."

43:34John and the Synoptics by James W. Barker,

43:38where he makes the case that basically every gospel author

43:42used everything that came before.

43:44So Matthew used Mark,

43:47Luke used Matthew and Mark,

43:48and then John used all of the Synoptics.

43:51Okay.

43:52So yeah, there are a handful of different theories

43:54about how everything came together.

43:55But usually John's dated to the 90s CE.

43:59I love the, as you point out,

44:02the final moment of the book of John,

44:07where, because the ministry of Jesus was what?

44:10A year or something?

44:12Well, in John, it's three years.

44:14Another big difference between the Synoptics and John.

44:16Okay, we'll give him the full three years.

44:20Yeah.

44:21It's still a pretty big claim to say

44:23that if everything that Jesus did was written down,

44:26it would, even the whole world would not have room

44:29for the books that would be written.

44:30Yeah.

44:31That feels a little strong.

44:33Coming on a little strong author of John.

44:36Yeah, maybe he had extra hours.

44:39Maybe he had more than 24 hours in each day

44:41that he was going about doing stuff

44:44as an itinerant preacher who probably spent a lot of time

44:47just hanging out.

44:49So yeah.

44:50Yeah, that is some hyperbole there.

44:52The book of Jesus chilling would be,

44:56that would be a lot of fun.

44:58Yeah.

44:58Well, all right.

45:00That's what I'm fascinated.

45:03John is a very interesting book.

45:05I really, we should probably do more John stuff.

45:08Yeah.

45:09Maybe we'll get your friend on.

45:11We've got to.

45:13Yeah, we've got a handful of folks

45:15who are waiting to get scheduled.

45:17Yeah, it might be a minute where our schedules are crazy.

45:22I don't know if our listeners know this,

45:24but you just had a book come out.

45:25I did just have a book come out.

45:27The Bible says so what we get right and wrong

45:29about scripture's most controversial issues.

45:31And I feel bad that I have to say this up title every time

45:34because as I've pointed out, I am not responsible

45:37for this.

45:38Well, you don't, I don't know why you feel bad

45:40that you have to because you don't have to.

45:42You can just save the Bible.

45:44Look for a blue and yellow cover.

45:47Wherever you get your fine books,

45:49whatever local bookshop you go to

45:52for your favorite nonfiction books.

45:56Anyway, that's it for the show today.

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