As I read the Bible I often come across bits that puzzle me. One of those bits is a totally amazing thing that always gets overlooked. Every time I read the story of the healing of the man at the Pool of Bethesda, it pops into my head and then lost as I carry on reading the story.
Here we are told an angel cam down and stirred the waters and the first person in after that was healed!! Why? How did it get started? How was it announced?Why did God decide to do this? Had no leper been healed in the pool?
It also gives credence to things like the Roman Catholic ideas of healing pools.
Also, who was the angel? In the old testament, the term "The Angel of the Lord" can often be seen as pre-Jesus appearances of God the Son.
It can often be that theologians are quiet when it comes to some things like this. Here we have one mention of something that is authenticated by the writers of Scripture. We are not told they believed they would be healed, but that they were healed. Why only one pool? Why here? God isn't usually random in His dealings. His dealings fit what He says in His word, but there is no precedent for this. There is nothing else I can think of that comes close, to God playing a game of healing roulette.
It seems the best definition of the name is "House of grace / mercy" or even that it can be both grace and disgrace. The disgrace being the infirm and the grace being the healing. It is confusing but there seems to be something about washing the sheep here on the way to the temple!! Fancy having to go in after the sheep have just gone through!! That takes a lot of faith!
I have done some searching and can't find answers!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I don't know either.
I doubt that everyone who got in the pool first was healed because if that was so, the place would be too crowded for the purpose of washing sheep. I'm thinking of the multitudes that followed Jesus wanting to be healed and the man who had to be lowered from the roof. When something really works, word gets around and the people get really really interested. I'm only guessing, but it sounds like this place had been here a while and sometimes people were healed and sometimes not. Probably mostly not. But let me know what you find out because I'm only guessing.
I also need to go back and read the passage.
Here's what my study bible says, "verse 4 was doubtless inserted by a later copyist to explain why people waited by the pool in large numbers."
So maybe an angel of the Lord didn't stir the waters, but that was only a superstition of the people at the time. I guess they have looked at earlier manuscripts and not found verse 4 in them.
Hi Alice,
I have been pretty lazy with this one, but then I usually do what I call put a flag up! That simply means I have flagged it to myself and God to say "I don't get that!!" Then wait for God to give the revelation. Sometimes I do some study. James did say "if anyone lacks wisdom let him ask God!" not the elder, or the concordance!! So, that is my usual approach. I wanted to flag this up because it is something I keep coming across a lot.
It did occur to me that the two verses about the angel are in italics in the NASB, that usually means a word being added by the translator. But I assumed the translator didn't take the liberty to add 2 whole verses. My footnote says the usual, "These don't appear in early manuscripts"
The idea that these were added as some kind of fable 200 years later is scary to me. It shakes the whole foundation. Paul said "all scripture is inspired by God" God isn't a liar, therefore His word is true. We accept the whole of John's Gospel as scripture, well at least the church does!
My general attitude is that if we go through picking out the bits we don't like then we are the author/ editor of scripture, we decide what stays and what goes.
I remember reading a bit by one of the so called Church Fathers, he went on about how the pheonix is the sign of the ressurection. every five hundred years it is born again from the fire. He wasn't talking figuratively, he was talking as if the pheonix was real. But why wouldn't he believe that?
So, that made me even more impressed that the bible is so good at not having things in it like that. Common misconseptions of the time recorded as fact.
If we say that this didn't happen and was added after then we are saying that the bible is as prone to fables as that early church father. That pleases some people like the liberal Christians, they tend to like to say that it was all fable and we know better! God gave us brains to work it out and we have worked it out that we evolved and so on.
So, although I see that it was not part of "eariler texts," it is hard to not accept it as scripture.
I have a bit of a fundamentalist background I suppose, and take the bible as truth.
Yeah, I hear you. But what I thought it means when someone says "not found in earliest manuscript" is that the oldest copies of scripture that have been found do not have that text. Which to me means that it wasn't written by the author. So John didn't write those words. In pointing out to us things that have been added later, we are able to keep things like myths and such out. If King James' men had used the earliest manuscript (which hadn't been found at the time) we would never have those added words in our Bible. I can in good conscience throw it out because it's not what God had John write. I want to know what John was inspired to say not what a copiest put in later.
I'm being emphatic, not angry. We agree in that we want scripture to be completely accepted - all of it - as God's inspired word. I'm saying that the added bits are added bits and not God's inspired word. I don't think we can pick and choose what those things are - I'm relying on those who study the manuscripts to determine if there have been things added.
I'm a purist. I want to know what God said. Not what someone later decided to add. I'm repeating myself! Sorry.
Well, maybe we do disagree. I'm not sure.
I was thinking, it could be that we're talking about something different.
I'm assuming that the things that have been added were added after the book was deemed scripture and not before.
Thought I should clarify.
This is a bit of a problem area because the scriptures were decided around 360AD. I am pressuming that it was these texts that were handed down as scripture and later translated by the King Jame's writers. Since then "earlier texts" have been found. This is where I have the problem, which is scripture? Which is the authentic original text? I have heard it said that just because a text is dated earlier that doesn't actually make it more authentic. It wasn't necessarily that things were added as time went on, it could just as easily be that the earlier preserved texts had things missing!
It is too much for my brain to deal with really. I am not wanting to say that the church has had the wrong scripture for 2000 years!!
It could well be that we have jumped to conclussions about what is scripture. After all, just because it says "all scripture"" he doesn't actually give us a fool proof way of deciding scripture!!
I used to type machine code into an early computer. If you enter one number wrong the computer would crash, they used to give a little program that would add all the numbers and tell you what it should add up to. If it all added up right then you probably typed it in right! If only Paul gave us that when he said, "all scripture!!"
I have other issues within scripture that aren't to do with text versions.
My over riding paradigm is "It is one consistent work, if you see a contradiction, you are probably not looking at it from the right point of view!!" I have wrestled with many apparent problems, and managed to find something satisfactory.
I know how you feel about wanting an uncontaminated scripture. Who were these people who declared what is scripture anyway!!? They were a group brought together by Constantine, the guy who started the Catholic Church!! It was held by the church fathers, the people who misdirrected most of what was taught in scripture because they each had different books as reference. That's why they wanted a concrete scripture, however, once they had one they didn't put anything back to how it was before!!
Anyway, I have no more thoughts on it tonight!!, I shall go to bed now! Goodnight!
I see what you're saying.
Post a Comment