aside: John's (the author) use of names

Excuse the digression into counting words and silly details

I find it fascinating, but feel free to miss this if you don't

I find it fascinating that John so seldom names any of the people in his record.
Here is a list:

• John (the Baptiser)  John's name is mentioned twice in the prologue, where the reference to a named individual grounds the otherwise cosmic outpouring of mystery.  His name then comes up in the introduction, repeatedly, which forms the link to the esoteric prologue.  John is again the named protagonist in a long discussion at the start of the second group of stories.  In all these events the issue is the identity of Jesus.  John is never named in this gospel again.  This is partly of course because he died fairly early during Jesus' ministry, but it is also because from now on it is Jesus himself who carries the question of his identity.  Twice after this John is mentioned by name: in the third section Jesus speaks of John's testimony to his identity, and in the sixth section the people in the crowd remember what he had said about Jesus. P + I + 2 + (3 + 6)
• Andrew                   Andrew is not really a key player in events, and yet John (our author) chooses to call him by name three times.  In every case he is associated with Philip.  The first time we encounter Andrew is in the introduction; the second time is in the fourth grouping of events, which is the centre of the first part of John's record; the third instance is in the incident which forms the hinge between the first and second halves of the text as a whole.  SO: structurally the occurrence of Andrew's name becomes a marker of how the story is unfolding.  I + 4 + H
• Simon (Peter)       Peter is the person mentioned most often by name in John's narrative, other than Jesus.  But nearly all the stories about him happen in the second part of the record, after the "hinge" stories, where he becomes the main carrier of the story.  However, we are introduced to him in the introduction (!) and see him again in one key sentence in the fourth collection of events.  I + 4 + 7 + inc + 7 + C + E
• Philip                    Philip is linked to Andrew in John's record, and their names are used together in the three places already mentioned.  Since in two of the events these two men are clearly close friends, and interact as part of what happens, this may have influenced John to use them both in the introductory narrative, where they are each an example of a person who introduces another to Jesus.  Philip, however, is mentioned a fourth time in the flow of the story ... this time during the long record of conversation between Jesus and his closest associates which forms a strange interlude in the narrative of Jesus' death (ie the seventh, and last, group of stories).  It would almost seem expected for another Philip story to appear in the conclusion, but John never does what we expect, and Philip disappears from view at this point.   I + 4 + H + inc
• Nathaniel             Nathaniel is the most enigmatic character in John.  No one else mentions him, and John only includes him twice.  Once, in a long incident in the introduction, he is a major character; the other time, among the concluding stories, Nathaniel is a name only.  Beginning and end, introduction and conclusion:  Nathaniel is like a bracket in John'e "life of Jesus"!  I + C

There are other people mentioned by name - and we will look at how they fit into the structure in a later post, but here is a list so long:  Nicodemus, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, Thomas, Judas, (Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate), Mary (wife of Clopas), Mary (Magdalene), Joseph.
Notice how few there are, and be alert as we read through John for how many individuals are key players in the flow of the narrative while remaining anonymous; even Jesus' mother is not named!  There are at least seven main characters without names, not counting the rest of the closer band of followers.  

As one can see, a disproportionate number of the people who are mentioned by name in the text as a whole, are introduced in this relatively short section.  This shows us that the lack of names in the rest of the narrative is not an accident, and not because John was too old to remember who did what.  He chooses to use names sparingly as part of the way he tells his story.

John wants us to see Jesus and only Jesus, and so he leaves out the one thing that might tempt us to glorify other people, to use other people perhaps as intermediaries between us and Jesus: names.
But John uses names where he needs to, and the first thing he needs names to tell us is that this is a true story of events that really took place ... real people, from real places at particular times were involved in the incidents he records for us.
As we can see from the detailed analysis (see above, it might help to compare this with the "page" on structure) he also uses named characters as pointers to how he has organised the events to convey meaning, because the reappearance or introduction of a person by name can form a connection, or mark a new turn of the plot.
John also uses people, especially John at the beginning and Peter towards the end, to carry the main question (who is Jesus) when the events don't allow John to show us Jesus through his own eyes.

... and start again

Oh dear.  I managed to do precisely 14 posts in a whole year!  At least I managed to finish the first section of the text.

Still, I don't want to give up, so here I am again, ready for the next part of John's narrative!  We shall see whether  I can do "better" this year.  No promises, but I plan to try.

Actually, hardly anybody reads this anyway, so I guess that it is only for my own satisfaction that I shall work at improving my output.

aside: the X form

We all know that poetry is (sometimes) written with careful attention to form.  You probably remember from school, if you are not a literary sort, the idea of sonnets at least.  Most of us are aware of the structure in reports, because these days one is expected to make it obvious by using headings a numbering system.  But what we often don't notice is, creative prose can also have a structure.

In other words

• length of lines or sentences 
• types of words
• punctuation 
• repetition of words 
• kind of writing (metaphor/story/abstract ideas etc)
• juxtaposition of pieces of all the above

all matter, and affect the meaning.

One of the common devices used in the time of John, both in poetry and prose, was the X form.
This is called chiasm (or chi-form, which has nothing whaterver to do with Chinese exercises or words) with the 'ch' pronounced as if you are clearing your throat - like g in the Afrikaans word gogga.  This relates to the Greek letter called 'chi' which looks like an X.
The way it works is that different stanzas or paragraphs are arranged so the first and last have some key commonality, so do the second and second-last, and so on all the way to the middle one, which usually doesn't have a pair, or possibly come in two parts.  Like this:

A

    B

        C

            D

        C'

    B'

A'

Apart from making the whole thing simply more elegant and appealing, this form can help to highlight the middle section or it can demonstrate the flow of ideas without spelling it out in so many words.


There was an absense of any form of punctuation in ancient texts; this means the use of structural forms makes sense even more than in equivalent writing today because it helped mark paragraphs or sections.  Since there was no printing texts were hand copied; this meant that important things were often read aloud to a group of people, and they would all be trying to remember as much as possible of what they had heard; literary devices like the X form would have helped a lot.

You can see how this is working in this first bit of John.

... an aside on men, women and people

Greek was the language John wrote in, thought he was amost certainly bilingual in Greek and Aramaic, as well as able to read Hebrew.
These languages all have a useful word which English lacks: in Greek it is anthropos and it means a human, as in someone who may be male or female.  In the plural, it means humans, people, without reference to gender.  In English the word 'men' was formerly used in this generic sense and therefore anthropos was translated 'man' or 'men'.  The trouble is, even long ago, though 'men' could include women it didn't give the same gender-isn't-relevant feel as the Greek word, and even more so when speaking of an individual. 
Greek also has words that means specifically man/men and woman/women.

In the New Testament most of the time when our translations (certainly up to the beginning of this century, and even some post 2000) use the word man/men it is translating anthropos, in other words it means 'a person' or 'people'.  This can change the feel of a story, or even more of a symbolic or philosophic passage quite considerably.  This is especially true today, because English has changed (as all languages do) and most people will choose a word without gender-implication where they can.  
Thus, translations of the Bible which are up to date with current language use will try to use gender-non-specific words to translate the word anthropos.  

There are two difficulties. 
First, there are sentences which still don't quite flow well when trying to recreate the feel of "all anthropos", and translators constantly have to juggle with "humans, people, humankind, persons" and it can be tricky. 
Second, the singular is more difficult still, since 'person' and 'human' are sometimes not appropriate.  In this instance the translators very often simply use the words 'man' or 'woman', relying on the context to give them the gender of the person involved.  At times there is no way to convey the sense adequately.

The result of all this is that there are places where the English overemphasises the gender of people involved.  There are times when the flow of thought is undermined because the Greek repeats the word anthropos while the English needs to use more than one word.  There are also occasionally phrases where it is impossible with current English usage to get the inclusiveness or ambiguity inherent in the Greek.

This doesn't mean that we can't understand the Bible.  Most translations really are excellent.  However, if we are aware of this as an issue faced by translators, we are less likely to misinterpret gender as a issue when it isn't.  It also helps explain why your translations might say "men" when mine says "people"!
For a detailed treatment of this issue look at the NIV 2011 discussion of it.  This can be found on the "Biblica" site, which is the website of the former International Bible Society. http://www.biblica.com/niv/accuracy/