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‘Day and Night’ and the Punctuation of John 9.3

John C. Poirier

New Testament Studies / Volume 42 / Issue 02 / April 1996, pp 288 - 294

DOI: 10.1017/S0028688500020750, Published online: 05 February 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0028688500020750

How to cite this article:

John C. Poirier (1996). ‘Day and Night’ and the Punctuation of John 9.3. New Testament
Studies, 42, pp 288-294 doi:10.1017/S0028688500020750

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New Test. Stud. vol. 42,1996, pp. 288-294

«DAY AND NIGHT AND THE PUNCTUATION OF JOHN 9.3

JOHN C. POIRIER
(3080 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, USA)

In its early history the text of the NT appeared only in scriptio continua,1 so
that punctuating the text was a matter of interpreting the meaning of an
unbroken stream of Greek letters. At times, the task of adding punctuation
must have required a certain amount of guesswork. According to the form-
critical way of counting, we might even think of punctuation as a sort of fourth
Sitz im Leben for a tradition.2 The Alands have observed how great a differ-
ence punctuation can make in the determination of meaning:
There is a German nursery saying which can be taken to assert (by misplaced punctuation),
'I have ten fingers on each hand, five and twenty on my hands and feet.' The correct
punctuation is obviously, 'I have ten fingers: on each hand five, and twenty on my hands
and feet.' Similar examples can be found in3 any language to show how radically the punctu-
ation of a sentence can affect its meaning.

No punctuation variants for John 9.3-4 are given in the Nestle-Aland 26

apparatus, but the possibility exists, as with many verses, that an alternate
division of phrases would make better sense of the text.4 The punctuation of
these verses is given in the NA26 Greek NT as follows:
3 dneKpi&n 'iTiaoui;, OOXE OUTO^ Tinapxev OUXE oi yoveiq av>xo\>, aXK' i v a (pavEpcoGfl x a epya xov GEOU
ev aiixqi. 4 Tina? 8ei ipyaC,EoQa\ x a Epya xou nEnyavxoi; \ie ECCX; TinEpa eaxiv • epxExai v u £ OXE OI>8EI<;
5\>vaxcu E p ^ G

This paper will suggest a new punctuation that yields a more cogent reading
of the narrative. I will argue that this new punctuation recovers the original
intent of the evangelist. The investigation can be understood as a fresh

1
On the morphology of the papyric text, see T. C. Skeat, 'Early Christian Book-Production:
Paypyri and Manuscripts', in The Cambridge History of the Bible (ed. G. W. H. Lampe;
Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1969) 2.57. On the history of word-division among several
ancient languages, cf. A. R. Millard, '"Scriptio Continua" in Early Hebrew: Ancient Practice or
Modern Surmise?', JSS 15 (1970) 2-15. Even from the earliest times of Greek writing, Millard
notes, word-division by points was sometimes used. Scriptio continua was the norm, although
local practices varied.
2
The first three being: (1) the setting of the historical aphorism, (2) that of its traductive
formulation, and (3) that of the evangelist. For examples of exegetically significant punctu-
ation variants, see 'punctuation' in the index to Kurt and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New
Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987). Cf. also Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New
Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (3rd ed.; New York: Oxford Univer-
sity, 1992) 26-7.
3
Aland and Aland, 282. The Alands give the following as examples of NT passages where
punctuation affects meaning (these having ms. variants): Matt 11.7-8; Matt 25.15; Mark
2.15-16; John 1.3-4.
4
From time to time, alternate punctuation has been suggested for NT verses. Cf. K.
Romaniuk, 'ExSgese du Nouveau Testament et Ponctuation', NovTest 23 (1981) 195-209; and
the several notes by different scholars in ExpT 55 (1944) 110-11.

Copyright © 1996 Cambridge University Press

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 THE PUNCTUATION OF JOHN 9.3 289
reading of the scriptio continua, or a second-guessing of the original pointer's
guesswork.

THE MEANING OF JOHN 9.1-5

Arguments for revision usually begin by pointing to the inadequacy of a

traditional understanding. What can be said to be wrong with the traditional
punctuation of John 9.3—4? As I will argue, the scribe or lector who originally
divided the continuous script into its punctuated form had an insufficient
appreciation of both the narrative structure of the entire chapter and the
integrity of Jesus' terminological field, 'light/darkness'. The betterment of this
appreciation we owe to the rise of literary-critical studies.
The plausibility and force of the new proposed punctuation can more clearly
be seen if our English translation maintains the integrity of the NA 26
phrasing. For the sake of clarity throughout this article, I offer an English
rendering of w . 1-5 which duplicates the received Greek punctuation:
1 And passing by he saw a man blind from birth.
2 And his disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was
born blind?'
3 Jesus answered, 'It was not that this man or his parents sinned, but in order that the
works of God might be made manifest in him.
4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is yet day; night comes in which no
one can work.
5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.'

THE DISCIPLES' QUESTION IN THE STRUCTURE OF JOHN 9

According to the reading handed down from of old, the disciples ask Jesus
whether a man's congenital blindness were caused by his own prenatal sin or
by a sin of his parents. Jesus responds that neither the man nor his parents
had sinned, but that his blindness was ordained for a higher purpose.5 He had
been blind from birth only so that Jesus could, at this moment, heal him. By
any standards, this is a shocking explanation. Does God exploit innocent
people in this way? As David Rensberger writes,
Despite a hopeful beginning, as theodicy this is really worse yet. It seems to say that God
did not even blind the man for his entire lifetime in order to punish some wrongdoing; he
did it merely to show off his own power by finally sending Jesus around to heal him.6

The theology implicit in the traditional rendering is bizarre, even by the

Fourth Gospel's standards. Who could have believed that God would blind a
man from birth so that at some remote time in his life he might occasion glory
to God through his healing (and yet not to Jesus' credit, since he intends to

5
Ethelbert Stauffer calls the disciples' question 'aetiological' and Jesus' response 'teleologi-
cal'. He thinks that the 'wot in v. 3 corresponds to the ivct in v. 2 Civet', TDNT3 [1965] 327).
6
David Rensberger, Johannine Faith and Liberating Community (Philadelphia: Westmin-
ster, 1988) 43-4.

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290 JOHN C. POIRIER
remain unknown throughout the chapter)? Commentators often point out the
similarity of this story to the Lazarus story (cf. esp. 11.4), but the similarity
is only formal - the scales of the two scandals are very different. Whether
the evangelist intended an 'historicized' account is beside the point. The tra-
ditional reading of Jesus' response brings out a troubling theodicy. Moreover,
C. H. Dodd points to a difficulty in pondering theodicy at all: 'In no other
healing pericope, either in the Synoptics or in the Fourth Gospel, is a question
of speculative theology raised. Indeed the Fourth Evangelist nowhere else
shows any interest in the problem of theodicy."7
The possibility exists, however, that we should punctuate the text differ-
ently, so that the discussion of a 'peculiarly baffling instance' of theodicy really
ends with 9.3a.8 If we adopt such a division of the phrases, placing a period
after yoveiq amo\>, Jesus in fact begins a new mini-discourse at the point of the
aXk' in verse 3:
9.3 Jesus answered, 'It was not that this man or his parents sinned[.]
[New subject:]
[B]ut (6XX') in order that the works of God might be made manifest in him[,]
4 [w]e must work the works of him who sent me while it is yet day; night comes in which
no one can work.'

This disjunctive reading of the text turns Jesus' response to the disciples into
a bare apodictum. This is usually not preferred, since Jesus is constantly
spinning object lessons, but in this case the apodictic form may be acceptable
yet. Bultmann found warrant for an unqualified response in suggesting that
the disciples' question was a bald caricature of then current rabbinic hamar-
tiology.9 If Bultmann is correct about the reason behind the particular
formulation of the question, then we might have expected the question to have
been shot down somewhat more violently than in NA 26 , and my apodictic
punctuation would accomplish exactly that. However, the notion that Jesus
did not accept the rabbis' retribution theory comes to wreck upon John 5.14:

7
C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University,
1963) 187. Dodd finds a parallel in Luke 13.1-5, but these verses disqualify the notion of a
one-for-one retribution for sin without offering an alternative theodicy. Thus (read on), they
are really closer parallels for the new reading suggested here. Thomas L. Brodie writes,
'Around [the blind man] hover two possible worlds - a vindictive world of sin and punishment
and a world in which one may reveal the works of God' (The Gospel according to John: A
Literary and Theological Commentary [Oxford: Oxford University, 1993] 345). Deleting the
determinism implicit in the traditional reading allows the 'hovering' of the two worlds to
remain in Brodie's sentence.
8
Dodd, 186. I was 'scooped' on this suggestion of a misplaced period fifty years ago in a
short note (nine lines) by W. Herbert Spencer, 'John ix.3', ExpT 55 (1944) 110. Spencer,
however, offers as his only support that 'some part at least of the difficulty of the passage is
removed. Jesus then declines to discuss the suggested origin of the man's misfortune, and
pointing out the opportunity which it presents, proceeds at once to its cure.'
9
Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971)
331. On the development of rabbinic hamartiology, cf. Yaakov Elman, The Suffering of the
Righteous in Palestinian and Babylonian Sources', JQR 80 (1990) 315-39; idem, 'Righteous-
ness as Its Own Reward: An Inquiry into the Theologies of the Stam', PAAJR 57 (1991) 35-67;
and esp. the chapter on Mishnah and Avot in David Kraemer, Responses to Suffering in
Classical Rabbinic Literature (Oxford: Oxford University, 1995) 51-65. On blindness as
punishment for sin, see Wolfgang Schrage, ''nxfXoc, ie&.\ TDNT 8 (1972) 283.

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 THE PUNCTUATION OF JOHN 9.3 291
'Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you.' Thus, while the traditional
reading of John 9 holds up this case of blindness as a singularity, so does the
theory of sin in John 5.
Nevertheless, since the publication of Bultmann's commentary, events have
taken place in Johannine studies that provide a more ready basis for under-
standing Jesus' response as an apodictum and not as a discursive lead. The
new reading of John 9 established over the past twenty years or so, through
the impetus of J. Louis Martyn, strongly suggests that the opening question
and response in John 9 serve a narrative function that lies beyond any sort of
qualification that Jesus might have tacked on to his reply. The need for such
a qualification is removed upon an examination of the chapter's narrative
structure.
Martyn's composition-critical theory of the gospel made a lot of John's
struggle against Judaism. According to Martyn, the first person plural in John
9.4, 'We must work the works of him who sent me', represents the voice of the
Johannine Church, which in turn means that the coming night is still in the
writer's future.10 The Jewish leaders in the story play the part of Jewish
leaders fifty or sixty years after Jesus' ministry, at the time of the Fourth
Gospel's writing. These contemporaries of the Johannine community are the
true villains in the gospel. They had 'already agreed' that anyone confessing
Jesus as the Christ would be excommunicated from the synagogue. According
to Martyn, this represents a tactic of the 'Synagogue' (Council of Jamnia) to
combat Christianity, which had begun to define itself as a separate religion.11
The apodicity of Jesus' response plays an important role within the wider
literary-structural perspective suggested by Martyn. According to Martyn's
literary-critical reading, Jesus' response does not need the commentary pro-
vided by the traditional punctuation since it will later serve to negate the
judgment and stilted reasoning of the Pharisees: 'You were born in utter sin,
and would you teach us?' (9.34). Jesus' response sets up the Pharisees for a
fall, which they take before the end of the chapter. This is properly brought
out in Jeffrey A. Trumbower's perceptive reading of John 9.2-3 as a set-up
for w . 25, 34, and 41, wherein the sin-ridden and sighted Pharisees function
as exact opposites to the sinless and (formerly) blind man whom they
interrogate.12

10
J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (2nd ed.; Nashville: Abing-
don, 1979) 28. The question of the 'night's' specificum will not detain us, but the problems
with associating 'night' with the Passion should be noted. If'night' refers to the Passion, as is
often suggested, then references to the disciples' future works do not make sense in the light
of 9.4, unless one supposes that, in the Johannine scheme, another 'day' dawns after the
'night'.
11
Jesus claims discontinuity with the Jewish expectations, but in the sense of bursting
sadly inadequate categories. 'At the critical moment more is said than can be said in
categories of sending' (Marinus de Jonge, Christology in Context: The Earliest Christian
Response to Jesus [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988] 146).
12
Jeffrey A. Trumbower, Born from Above: The Anthropology of the Gospel of John (HUT
29; Tubingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1992) 97-8. Cf. also Grob, who observes a chiastic structure in
John 9, linking vv. 1-5 with w. 39-41 (Francis Grob, Faire I'oeuvre de Dieu [Etudes d'histoire
et de Philosophie Religieuses 68; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1986] 30-45).

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292 JOHN C. POIRIER

•DANEPQ9H AND THE LIGHT/DARKNESS COMPLEX

There is another support - powerful I think - for my disjunctive reading of
9.3. OavepcoBfj ('appear'), in v. 3b, is part of the Fourth Gospel's technical
vocabulary and as such belongs to the discursive symbolics of vv. 4-5. As
shown in John 3.19-21, (pccvep<»0fi belongs to a constellation of terms in the
semantic field of light:13
19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his
deeds should be exposed (wot |iri eke.yx&ft T « epya av>xo\>).
21 But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his
deeds (wot qxxvepa)9f\ auxou xa e'pya; cf. 9.3b: iva (pavepcoBfi xa epya xo\> Beov) have been wrought
in God.

On this comparison, the akk' (read: "AM,")14 in 9.3 marks what is essentially a
resumption of the 'light/darkness, visible/darkling' complex from 3.19-21,
introducing a new contrast to this complex in the categories of day and
night.16 R. Alan Culpepper rightly remarks that these new categories of day
and night are 'subordinate symbols which evoke the core symbols, light and
darkness (cf. 9.4-5; 11.9-10)'.16 <J>avepo)0fi is likewise a 'subordinate symbol',
but it has a central role within both of the principal manifestations of the light
complex (in chs. 3 and 9).17 Otto Schwankl connects cpavepco&fi with light/dark-
ness, and with other terms in John, not explicitly present in 9.1-5: oriixeia and
86&x.
Bereits die Gattung der Wundergeschichten als solche hat, besonders in ihrem joh
[Verstfindnis] als oTijieia, eine Affinitat zum visuell orientierten Konzept von Licht und
Finsternis. Die Semeia 'lassen (etwas) sehen', bringen etwas ans Licht; und was durch sie
offenbar wird (q>a-vep6a>), ist wiederum eine lichthafte Qualitat oder Dimension Jesu; seine
'Doxa' (vgl. 2,11; 9,3; 11,4).18
13
On 'light' in the Fourth Gospel, cf. esp. Norman R. Petersen, The Gospel of John and the
Sociology of Light: Language and Characterization in the Fourth Gospel (Valley Forge:
Trinity, 1993) 72-9; Peder Borgen, 'Logos Was the True Light: Contributions to the Interpret-
ation of the Prologue of John', NovT 14 (1972) 115-30; Otto Schwankl, 'Die Metaphorik von
Licht und Finsternis im johanneischen Schrifttum', in Metaphorik und Mythos im Neuen
Testament (ed. Karl Kertelge; Quaestiones Disputatae 126; Freiburg: Herder, 1990) 135-65;
John Painter, 'John 9 and the Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel', JSNT 28 (1986) 53-5..
14
Sentences begin with aXK' frequently in the NT. Cf. Matt 11.8, 9; Mark 16.7; Luke 12.7;
22.36 (beginning of direct quotation); 23.15; 24.22; John 4.23; 6.36, 64; 7.49; Acts 19.2
(beginning of direct quotation); 26.16; Rom 5.15; 8.37; 10.18; 1 Cor 3.2; 6.6; 9.12; 10.20; 15.35;
2 Cor 8.7; Gal 2.3; Phil 1.18; 3.8; Heb 3.16; Jas 2.18. BAGD notes, The use of AM' in the
Johannine lit. is noteworthy, in that the parts contrasted are not always of equal standing
grammatically', and lists John 9.3 (understood as a single sentence) as an example (along with
1.8,31; 3.28) (BAGD, s.v. dUd, lb).
15
Cf. Hugo Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel (Amsterdam: B. R. Gruner, 1968) 1.312. Re
resumption of earlier passages, it should be pointed out that 8.12 is also echoed in 9.5:'. . . I
am the light of the world.'
16
R. Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Phila-
delphia: Fortress, 1983) 192.
17
Cf. Paul D. Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985) 118-19. The
word appears several times with no explicit mention of light: 1.31; 2.11; 7.4 (by Jesus'
brothers); 17.6; and 21.14.
18
Schwankl, 153.

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 THE PUNCTUATION OF JOHN 9.3 293
In our passage, at any rate, cpavepcoGfi functions at the leading level of Jesus'
discursive symbols.
Norman R. Petersen has argued that Jesus' language in John can be
characterized as a 'special language' to which the reader holds all the clues. It
is a fluid mix of semantic fields 'whose most fundamental characteristic is its
radical blurring of referents'. 19 Still, the theme of work in 9.3—4 practically
begs for a place within the special language of light. This theme of working or
accomplishing a work has a separate career in John - not materially bound to
the theme of light - unlike the duality 'night/day'. 20 Thus, the uninitiated but
attentive reader may find the subsumption of the work theme under the light
complex in John 9.3-4 to be somewhat strained, passably enduring only
because 'work' language is appropriate to a miracle setting. That is, the work
theme is naturalized to its setting in the light complex more by the story
context than by Jesus' use of this special language. 21 But relief for the narra-
tive strain has been standing by all along, in v. 3b, in the form of the word
cpavepcoGfi. Etymologically operative within the light complex, the word is
nevertheless handily functional within the theme of work.
Thus, <pavEp©0fi not only arguably belongs to the light complex on its own
merit, but it also provides the sort of semantic bridge required to bring 'work'
into harmony with 'light/darkness'. Of course, I do not mean to imply that
John consciously planned a 'semantic bridge'. Although he was very conscious
of his own language, he did not reduce meanings to individual terms. Rather,
the meaning John wished to convey is bound up with the whole phrase
Vva cpavepoGfj TCC epya zox> 0eoO. It is v. 3b in its entirety - governed by the
marked-out term (pavepcoGfi - which brings together the themes of 'work' and
'day/night' in w . 4-5. The traditional punctuation of v. 3b does not allow it to
do this.

THE NEW PUNCTUATION

My proposed new punctuation is as follows:

1 And passing by h e saw a m a n blind from birth.
2 And his disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this m a n or his p a r e n t s , t h a t h e was
born blind?'
3 J e s u s answered, 'It was not t h a t this m a n or his parents sinned.

19
Petersen, 42.
20 Wayne A. Meeks writes, 'The "accomplishment of t h e work" is a t h e m e t h a t recurs
throughout the gospel (4.34; 5.36; 9.3f.; 10.25, 3 2 - 8 ; 14.10,12; 15.24), culminating in the cry
from the cross, T£TE\€OTOU! (19.30). The crucifixion is the completion of the work; the summary
in chapter 17 of course presupposes the crucifixion as accomplished.' (The Prophet-King:
Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology [Leiden: E. J . Brill, 1967] 304 n. 2.) Cf.
Grob's interesting parallel reading of John 9.1-6 and the Genesis creation story (Grob, 43-5).
21
Bultmann, who also t h i n k s the themes of work and light do not go together naturally,
regards the work theme as the more original to this setting in John's source (Bultmann, 332
n. 1). Bultmann assumes a more redactorial view of the evangelist t h a n I do. Scholars differ
on whether the opening unit of John 9 is a miracle story or pronouncement story. E.g., Painter
accepts t h e former while Staley accepts the latter (despite the miracle setting) (Painter, 3 3 - 4 ;
Jeffrey L. Staley, 'Stumbling in the Dark, Reaching for the Light: Reading Character in John
5 a n d 9', Semeia 53 [1991] 64-5).

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 294 JOHN C. POIRIER
[3b-4] But in order that the works of God might be made manifest in him, we must work
the works of him who sent me while it is yet day; night comes in which no one can work.
5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.'

The new sense created by this proposed punctuation can best be conveyed by a
paraphrase:
[9.1-5] Jesus and his disciples saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi,
who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus replied, 'It was not that
this man or his parents sinned.' Jesus continued, 'We must work that visible work of God
while there is still daylight in order for the world to see the work of God in this man - that
is, if this work is going to 'appear' visibly to the world around, it must be done before
nightfall. When the night comes (that is, when I - the light of the world - leave), no one will
be able to see that work.'

I have argued that this new division of the phrases is suggested by three
things: (1) it relieves the text of a bizarre theodicy, (2) it lets Jesus' apodictic
response be a negation, in advance, of the theology of the Pharisees who
question the man whom Jesus healed, and (3) the phrase ivoc <pccvepco9fj xa epya
zox> Geou shows that the second half of 9.3 belongs with 9.4—5, not only because
(pavepwGrj is an attested element in the light complex in John but also because
it brings more congruity to Jesus' symbolic language by bringing the theme of
work into greater coherence with the theme of light.

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