John 41 42 Among The Biblical Well Encounters Pentateuchal and Johannine Narrative Reconsidered Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 2 Reihe Eric John Wyckoff Full Chapter

John 4:1-42 Among the Biblical Well
Encounters: Pentateuchal and

Johannine Narrative Reconsidered
(Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen
Zum Neuen Testament 2.Reihe) Eric
John Wyckoff
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Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen
zum Neuen Testament · 2. Reihe
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542
Eric John Wyckoff
John 4:1 – 42 among the Biblical

Well Encounters
Pentateuchal and Johannine
Narrative Reconsidered
Mohr Siebeck
Eric John Wyckoff, born 1963; 1990 M. A. and 1992 M.Div. Pontifical College Josephinum;
2004 D.Min. Barry University; 2010 S. S. L. Pontifical Biblical Institute; 2020 S. S. D. Studium Bi-
blicum Franciscanum; 1999 – 2003 Lecturer and 2009 – 2012 Assistant Professor at the Instituto
Teológico Salesiano, Tlaquepaque, México; since 2012 Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies
at the Salesian Pontifical University, Jerusalem Campus.
orcid.org/0000-0003-3074-8119
ISBN 978-3-16-159614-8 / eISBN 978-3-16-159615-5

DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-159615-5
ISSN 0340-9570 / eISSN 2568-7484
(Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2. Reihe)
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie;
detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2020 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany. www.mohrsiebeck.com

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by
copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to repro-
ductions, translations and storage and processing in electronic systems.
The book was printed on non-aging paper by Laupp & Göbel in Gomaringen, and bound by
Buchbinderei Nädele in Nehren.
Printed in Germany.
For
Margaret J. Wyckoff
(1929–2005)
Preface
The following monograph presents my doctoral dissertation at the Studium

Biblicum Franciscanum (SBF) in Jerusalem, successfully defended on March
9, 2020. Apart from some minor alterations, the study appears here as it was
originally submitted. The responsibility for its shortcomings falls on me alone,
but those who contributed to its growth from an idea to a dissertation to a pub-
lished volume are many.
The administration and professors at the SBF were unfailing in their support
of my desire to explore this topic, wherever it might lead me. My advisor, Ales-
sandro Cavicchia, and my reader, Alessandro Coniglio, constantly challenged
me to let the course of my research be determined by the verifiable results at
each stage. If there is methodological rigor in my work, I attribute it to the high
standards set by these two specialists in inner-biblical exegesis.
The SBF also invited two eminent scholars to participate in my doctoral
process, whom I thank for graciously accepting. Francis J. Moloney contrib-
uted his wealth of experience in Johannine studies to the initial formulation and
approval of my research proposal, and he provided timely guidance throughout
the project. Edward L. Greenstein brought the perspective of a scholar in He-
brew Bible and ancient Near Eastern literature to my dissertation committee,
offering detailed feedback on successive drafts, including insights from his
own recent research on recurring narrative patterns.
I am also thankful to other exegetes cited in this study who kindly contrib-
uted to its development. Maurizio Marcheselli made a number of key sugges-
tions at the outset of the writing stage. Piet Van Veldhuizen donated a copy of
his superb monograph. Through the kindness of my colleague Marcie Lenk, I
was privileged to exchange ideas with the members of the 2017 Colloquium
Ioanneum in Jerusalem. Among them, I am especially grateful to R. Alan Cul-
pepper and Catrin Williams, who shared preliminary manuscripts of their es-
says, and to Jean Zumstein, who responded to my questions on method with
thorough precision.
The Tantur Notre Dame Residential Doctoral Fellowship offered the oppor-
tunity for a hiatus from teaching in order to bring my SBF dissertation to com-
pletion. Jerusalem’s Tantur Ecumenical Center, located on a verdant hill over-
looking Bethlehem, provided an ideal environment for scholarly research, dia-
logue, and writing. I sincerely thank Russell K. McDougall and his staff in
VIII Preface
Jerusalem, Chuck Lamphier and the Office of Mission Engagement and Church
Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, and all the 2018 and 2019 Fellows.
I thank Jörg Frey and the associate editors of WUNT II for accepting my
work into this prestigious series. I salute the entire team at Mohr Siebeck for
their expertise in transforming Doktorarbeiten like mine into proper mono-
graphs, especially Elena Müller, Tobias Stäbler, Matthias Spitzner, Ilse König,
and Kendra Mäschke. Working with such a friendly and competent group of
professionals has been a pleasure.
On a personal note, I am grateful to all those who made it possible for me to
pursue doctoral studies after many years of teaching. Those who have been
instrumental among the members of my Catholic religious congregation, the
Salesians of Don Bosco, are simply too many to name. Permissions and mate-
rial support were graciously provided by Ivo Coelho, Andrew Wong, Matteo
Balla, Timothy Zak, and Stanislaus Swamikannu. To my confreres and col-
leagues at the Jerusalem campus of the Salesian Pontifical University who took
on extra responsibilities or adjusted plans so that I might research and write,
may the Lord repay you for your kindness. Finally, none of this would have
come to pass without the constant encouragement, intrepid advocacy, and wise
mentorship of my professor in Miami and Rome, John Francis O’Grady.
Jerusalem, August 2020 Eric John Wyckoff, SDB

Table of Contents
Preface ....................................................................................................... VII

Abbreviations .......................................................................................... XVII
Introduction: Posing the Question ....................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Shaping an Approach ......................................................... 5
1.1 Selecting the Texts ................................................................................... 6

1.1.1 Rationale ........................................................................................ 8
1.1.1.1 Narrative structure .............................................................. 8
1.1.1.2 Literary and theological milieu ..........................................12
1.1.2 The selected passages and their delimitation ..................................15
1.1.2.1 Jesus and a woman of Samaria (John 4:1–42) ....................16
1.1.2.2 Abraham’s servant and Rebecca (Gen 24:1–67).................17
1.1.2.3 Jacob and Rachel (Gen 29:1–14) .......................................17
1.1.2.4 Moses and Zipporah and her sisters (Exod 2:15–22) ..........18
1.1.3 Textual witnesses ........................................................................... 19
1.1.4 Summary ....................................................................................... 21
1.2 Navigating a Sea of Scholarship ............................................................. 21

1.2.1 Pre-critical approaches ................................................................... 23
1.2.2 Primarily diachronic approaches .................................................... 24
1.2.2.1 Gnostic sources in a complex redaction process.................25
1.2.2.2 Basis in a historical event .................................................. 26
1.2.2.3 A Christian midrash on Genesis 24 ....................................27
1.2.2.4 Moses typology from Exodus 2 ......................................... 28
1.2.2.5 Jacob traditions from Genesis 29 and other sources ...........30
1.2.3 Primarily synchronic approaches ................................................... 32
1.2.3.1 An adaptation of the betrothal type scene ..........................33
1.2.3.2 A parody of the betrothal type scene ..................................35
1.2.3.3 An allegory on the betrothal type scene .............................38
1.2.3.4 An allusion to the betrothal type scene...............................42
X Table of Contents
1.2.3.5 Reassessing the betrothal type scene ..................................43

1.2.4 Approaches combining synchronic and diachronic processes.........45
1.2.4.1 Scripture as a hermeneutical screen ...................................45
1.2.4.2 Intertextual approaches ...................................................... 47
1.2.5 Conclusions ................................................................................... 50
1.2.5.1 Lasting contributions from previous scholarship ................50
1.2.5.2 Ongoing lacunae ................................................................ 51
1.3 Suiting the Method to the Task ................................................................ 53

1.3.1 Basic assertions ............................................................................. 53
1.3.2 A three-dimensional textual relationship ........................................55
1.3.2.1 Intertextuality .................................................................... 56
1.3.2.2 Hypertextuality .................................................................. 57
1.3.2.3 Architextuality ................................................................... 58
1.3.2.4 The three dimensions in interaction ...................................59
1.3.3 A three-dimensional approach .......................................................60
1.3.3.1 Intertextual theory ............................................................. 60
1.3.3.2 The relecture hermeneutical model ....................................62
1.3.3.3 The type scene as a narrative convention ...........................66
1.4 Summary................................................................................................. 69
Chapter 2: Identifying Literary Parallels ..........................................71
2.1 Parallel Elements Shared by All Four Texts ........................................... 72

2.1.1 Vocabulary .................................................................................... 73
2.1.1.1 Water and associated activities ..........................................73
2.1.1.2 Movement and travelling ................................................... 75
2.1.1.3 Family, livestock, announcement, and hospitality ..............76
2.1.1.4 Semantic fields attested in all but one episode ...................79
2.1.2 Setting ........................................................................................... 80
2.1.3 Plot ................................................................................................ 81
2.1.3.1 Similarities ........................................................................ 81
2.1.3.2 Contrasts............................................................................ 84
2.1.3.3 Johannine innovations ....................................................... 85
2.1.4 Characters ...................................................................................... 89
2.1.4.1 The man on a journey ........................................................ 89
2.1.4.2 Shepherds and subordinates ............................................... 90
2.1.4.3 The woman at the well ....................................................... 91
2.1.4.4 The woman’s kinfolk ......................................................... 92
Table of Contents XI
2.2 Specific Parallels with Genesis 24:1–67 ................................................. 92

2.2.1 Vocabulary .................................................................................... 92
2.2.2 Setting ........................................................................................... 95
2.2.3 Plot ................................................................................................ 95
2.2.4 Characters ...................................................................................... 97
2.3 Specific Parallels with Genesis 29:1–14 ............................................... 100

2.3.1 Vocabulary .................................................................................. 100
2.3.2 Setting ......................................................................................... 101
2.3.3 Plot .............................................................................................. 102
2.3.4 Characters .................................................................................... 102
2.4 Specific Parallels with Exodus 2:15–22 ................................................ 104

2.4.1 Narrative context ......................................................................... 104
2.4.2 Plot (and vocabulary) ................................................................... 104
2.4.3 A subtle play on words? ............................................................... 105
2.5 Observations ........................................................................................ 106

2.5.1 Quantitative observations............................................................. 107
2.5.2 Qualitative observations .............................................................. 109
Chapter 3: Looking behind the Text ................................................ 113
3.1 Johannine Postresurrection Reflection ................................................. 115

3.1.1 Characteristics ............................................................................. 115
3.1.1.1 Memory ........................................................................... 115
3.1.1.2 Postresurrection perspective ............................................ 117
3.1.1.3 The Paraclete as guide ..................................................... 118
3.1.1.4 Communal dynamic ......................................................... 119
3.1.2 Content ........................................................................................ 120
3.1.2.1 Testimony ........................................................................ 121
3.1.2.2 Scripture .......................................................................... 122
3.1.2.3 Testimony and Scripture in reciprocal interaction ............ 123
3.2 Testimony Remembered in John 4:1–42 ................................................ 124

3.2.1 Beyond the parallels .................................................................... 125
3.2.1.1 Baptizing and making disciples (vv. 1–2) ........................ 125
3.2.1.2 Living water (vv. 10–15) ................................................. 126
3.2.1.3 Worship in spirit and truth (vv. 20–24) ............................ 127
XII Table of Contents
3.2.1.4 Spiritual food (vv. 31–34) ................................................ 127

3.2.1.5 The harvest (vv. 35–38) ................................................... 128
3.2.2 Comparisons with the Synoptic tradition ..................................... 128
3.2.2.1 The mission as harvest ..................................................... 129
3.2.2.2 Jesus and a non-Jewish woman ........................................ 130
3.2.3 Summary ..................................................................................... 133
3.3 Scripture Remembered in John 4:1–42 ................................................. 134

3.3.1 Shared motifs ............................................................................... 135
3.3.2 Observations ................................................................................ 140
3.4 Plausible Motivations ........................................................................... 141

3.4.1 Plausible historical motivations ................................................... 142
3.4.1.1 Missionary concerns ........................................................ 142
3.4.1.2 Jews and Samaritans ........................................................ 144
3.4.1.3 Related texts from the Synoptic tradition ......................... 145
3.4.2 Plausible theological motivations................................................. 147
3.5 Conclusions .......................................................................................... 148

3.5.1 Envisioning the Process ............................................................... 148
3.5.2 Towards Interpretation ................................................................. 149
Chapter 4: Reading the Rereading .................................................... 151
4.1 The Motif of Journey............................................................................. 152

4.1.1 Literary context of the journey motif ........................................... 153
4.1.2 Textual shape of the journey motif............................................... 154
4.1.3 Making the associations recognizable .......................................... 155
4.1.3.1 Parallel structure of the journey motif .............................. 156
4.1.3.2 The protagonist avoids a threat ........................................ 156
4.1.3.3 The protagonist arrives at the well ................................... 158
4.1.4 Adding a connotation to the journey motif ................................... 159
4.1.4.1 Making and baptizing disciples ........................................ 159
4.1.4.2 A divine necessity ............................................................ 160
4.2 The Motif of Water................................................................................ 162

4.2.1 Literary context of the water motif .............................................. 162
4.2.2 Textual shape of the water motif .................................................. 163
4.2.3 Making the associations more recognizable ................................. 165
Table of Contents XIII
4.2.4 Developing the water motif metaphorically ................................. 167

4.2.4.1 The metaphor introduced ................................................. 167
4.2.4.2 The metaphor misunderstood ........................................... 169
4.2.4.3 The metaphor explained ................................................... 172
4.3 The Motif of Socioethnic Barriers ......................................................... 174

4.3.1 Literary context of the socioethnic barriers motif......................... 175
4.3.2 Textual shape of the socioethnic barriers motif ............................ 177
4.3.3 Intensifying the motif .................................................................. 179
4.3.4 Challenging factionalist attitudes ................................................. 183
4.3.5 Expanding the impact of the motif ............................................... 185
4.4 The Motif of Matrimony and Progeny ................................................... 186

4.4.1 Literary context of the matrimony and progeny motif .................. 187
4.4.2 Textual shape of the matrimony and progeny motif ..................... 188
4.4.3 Reinforcing the associations ........................................................ 191
4.4.4 Matrimony and progeny on the literal level.................................. 191
4.4.4.1 An unexpected twist in the plot ........................................ 192
4.4.4.2 Jesus’ extraordinary feat .................................................. 193
4.4.4.3 A need for God’s gift ....................................................... 194
4.4.5 Matrimony and progeny on the figurative level............................ 195
4.4.5.1 Nuptial connotations ........................................................ 195
4.4.5.2 The six men interpreted metaphorically ........................... 196
4.4.5.3 Implicit associations ........................................................ 199
4.5 The Motif of Recognition ...................................................................... 200

4.5.1 Literary context of the recognition motif ..................................... 201
4.5.2 Textual shape of the recognition motif ......................................... 202
4.5.3 Adding a connotation to the recognition motif ............................. 204
4.5.3.1 Initial perception challenged ............................................ 205
4.5.3.2 Scriptural comparison ...................................................... 206
4.5.3.3 Intermediate perception confirmed .................................. 206
4.5.3.4 Final perception ............................................................... 210
4.6 The Motif of Worship ............................................................................ 212

4.6.1 Literary context of the worship motif ........................................... 213
4.6.2 Textual shape of the worship motif .............................................. 213
4.6.3 Expanding the impact of the motif ............................................... 216
4.6.3.1 Cultic rivalry and socioethnic barriers ............................. 216
4.6.3.2 Culmination together with other motifs ........................... 218
4.6.4 Intensifying the motif .................................................................. 219
XIV Table of Contents
4.6.4.1 Right worship explained .................................................. 219

4.6.4.2 Worship and (not) knowing ............................................. 221
4.7 The Motif of Announcement .................................................................. 223

4.7.1 Literary context of the announcement motif................................. 223
4.7.2 Textual shape of the announcement motif .................................... 224
4.7.3 Reinforcing the associations ........................................................ 226
4.7.3.1 An initial report ............................................................... 226
4.7.3.2 A sudden change of topic................................................. 227
4.7.3.3 Haste and urgency ........................................................... 228
4.7.3.4 Announcing the words/things .......................................... 228
4.7.4 Adding a connotation to the announcement motif ........................ 230
4.7.4.1 The announcement itself .................................................. 231
4.7.4.2 Additional, extended application of the motif .................. 232
4.7.4.3 Culmination of the announcement motif .......................... 233
4.8 The Motif of Food ................................................................................. 235

4.8.1 Literary context and textual shape of the food motif .................... 235
4.8.2 Developing the food motif metaphorically ................................... 237
4.8.2.1 Literal versus metaphorical food ...................................... 237
4.8.2.2 The metaphor explained ................................................... 239
4.9 The Motif of Work ................................................................................. 241

4.9.1 Literary context of the work motif ............................................... 241
4.9.2 Textual shape of the work motif .................................................. 242
4.9.3 Work in the literal sense .............................................................. 246
4.9.4 Developing the work motif metaphorically .................................. 248
4.9.4.1 Undeveloped metaphorical potential of the work motif.... 248
4.9.4.2 The mission as a harvest .................................................. 249
4.10 The Motif of Welcome ......................................................................... 253

4.10.1 Literary context and textual shape of the welcome motif ........... 253
4.10.2 Adding a connotation to the welcome motif ............................... 256
4.10.3 Bringing other motifs to resolution ............................................ 258
4.11 The Ten Motifs and Their Rereading .................................................. 259
Chapter 5: Conclusions ....................................................................... 261
5.1 Defining the Textual Relationship ......................................................... 261

Table of Contents XV
5.1.1 A web of parallels ........................................................................ 262

5.1.2 A mutual rereading ...................................................................... 262
5.2 Exegetical Conclusions for John 4:1–42 ............................................... 263

5.2.1 The role of the reader ................................................................... 263
5.2.2 Literary unity ............................................................................... 264
5.2.3 The motifs and their rereading ..................................................... 264
5.2.4 Theme .......................................................................................... 266
5.2.5 Open-endedness ........................................................................... 266
5.3 Underlying Interpretations of Scripture ................................................ 267

5.4 Directions for Future Research ............................................................ 268
Bibliography............................................................................................... 271
Index of Ancient Sources ........................................................................... 295

Index of Modern Authors ........................................................................... 319
Subject Index.............................................................................................. 325
Abbreviations
AB Anchor Bible
ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman. 6 vols. New
York, 1992
ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library
AGJU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums
AnBib Analecta Biblica
ASOR American Schools of Oriental Research
ATANT Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments
BA Bibical Archaeologist
BAR Biblical Archaeology Review
BBB Bonner biblische Beiträge
BDAG Danker, Frederick W., Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur
Gingrich. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early
Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000
BDB Brown, Francis, Samuel R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and
English Lexicon of the Old Testament
BDF Blass, Friedrich, Albert Debrunner, and Robert W. Funk. A Greek Grammar
of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1961
BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium
BHS Biblia Hebraica Suttgartensia
Bib Biblica
BibInt Biblical Interpretation
BIS Biblical Interpretation Series
BJS Brown Judaic Studies
BN Biblische Notizen
BNTC Black’s New Testament Commentaries
BSac Bibliotheca sacra
BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin
BZ Biblische Zeitschrift
BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
CBET Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly Manuscript Series
CHJ Cambridge History of Judaism. Edited by W. D. Davies and Louis Finkel-
stein. 4 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984–2006
CNT Commentaire du Nouveau Testament
ConBNT Coniectanea neotestamentica or Coniectanea biblica: New Testament Series
CurBS Currents in Research: Biblical Studies
XVIII Abbreviations
DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert

DRev Downside Review
EBib Études bibliques
ECC Eerdmans Critical Commentary
ECL Early Christianity and Its Literature
EstBib Estudios bíblicos
EvQ Evangelical Quarterly
EWE Erwägen Wissen Ethik
FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament
FB Forschung zur Bibel
FOTL Forms of the Old Testament Literature
GRBS Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
Greg Gregorianum
HALOT The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Köhler, Ludwig,
and Walter Baumgartner. Translated by Mervyn E. J. Richardson. 4 vols.
Leiden: Brill, 1994–1999
HBT Horizons in Biblical Theology
HeyJ Heythrop Journal
HNT Handbuch zum Neuen Testament
HTKNT Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament
IBC Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
ICC International Critical Commentary
IKaZ Internationale katholische Zeitschrift
Int Interpretation
ITC International Theological Commentary
ITQ Irish Theological Quarterly
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JBQ Jewish Bible Quarterly
JFSR Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series
JSPSup Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series
JSS Journal of Semitic Studies
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
KEK Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament
LASBF Liber Annuus Studii Biblici Franciscani
LCL Loeb Classical Library
LD Lectio Divina
LEH Lust, Johan, Erik Eynikel, and Katrin Hauspie, eds. Greek-English Lexicon
of the Septuagint. Rev. ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2003
LNTS The Library of New Testament Studies
LSJ Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones, and Roderick
McKenzie. A Greek-English Lexicon with a Revised Supplement. 9th ed. Ox-
ford: Clarendon, 1996
LXX Septuagint (Old Greek)
MdB Le Monde de la Bible
MT Masoretic Text
Abbreviations XIX
NA28 Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland, 28th ed.

Neot Neotestamentica
NHS Nag Hammadi Studies
NovT Novum Testamentum
NovTSup Novum Testamentum Supplements
NT New Testament
NTL New Testament Library
NTS New Testament Studies
NTTS New Testament Tools and Studies
OT Old Testament
OTL Old Testament Library
OtSt Oudtestamentische Studiën
PG Patrologia Graeca
PL Patrologia Latina
PRSt Perspectives in Religious Studies
QD Quaestiones disputatae
RB Revue Biblique
RBS Resources for Biblical Study
RevExp Review and Expositor
RevistB Revista bíblica
RHPR Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses
RNT Regensburger Neues Testament
SBB Stuttgarter biblische Beiträge
SBFA Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Analecta
SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series
SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series
SBLSCS Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies
SBT Studies in Biblical Theology
SemeiaSt Semeia Studies
SemeiaSup Semeia Supplements
SJ Studia Judaica
SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
SNTW Studies of the New Testament and Its World
SP Samaritan Pentateuch
SRB Studies in the Reception History of the Bible
StBibLit Studies in Biblical Literature
SubBi Subsidia Biblica
SymS Symposium Series
TANZ Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter
TBT The Bible Today
TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by Gerhard Kittel and
Gerhard Friedrich. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–1976
TGST Tesi Gregoriana, Serie Teologia
TP Theologie und Philosophie
VC Vigiliae christianae
VT Vetus Testamentum
VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
XX Abbreviations
WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

WUNT II Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe
ZKT Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie
ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren
Kirche
Introduction: Posing the Question
Readers of the Bible grow accustomed to repetitions. 1 In the Pentateuch, we

find two accounts of creation (Gen 1:1–2:4a; 2:4b–25), three of the patriarchs
feigning to be siblings rather than spouses (Gen 12:10–20; 20:1–18; 26:1–11),
two of Hagar discovering a miraculous well in the desert (Gen 16:7–14; 21:17–
21), and two of Moses drawing water from the rock at Meribah (Exod 17:1–7;
Num 20:1–13). 2 Events narrated in the books of Samuel and Kings are retold
from a different standpoint in 1–2 Chronicles. The canonical gospels tell the
story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus four separate times. Even in
the final book of the Christian canon, Revelation, the reader reencounters a
series of apocalyptic signs from the Book of Daniel reprised in light of new
historical and theological perspectives.
Upon reading the narrative of Jesus’ encounter with a woman of Samaria at
Jacob’s well (John 4:1–42), the reader experiences a similar déjà vu. The basic
story line conjures up other encounters at wells between Rebecca and Abra-
ham’s servant (Genesis 24), Rachel and Jacob (Genesis 29), and Zipporah and
her sisters with Moses (Exodus 2). The outcome of these episodes, however, is
not the same. The three Torah passages lead to a betrothal, but the Gospel pe-
ricope concludes with an acclamation of faith. What, then, is the relationship
between them? Does the latter presuppose the reader’s knowledge of the for-
mer? If so, then what sort of interpretation of the pentateuchal well encounters
is presupposed, and what significance does this have for the exegesis of the
Johannine Samaria narrative?
There is no shortage of scholarly studies addressing these or similar ques-
tions. Their positions run the gamut, with some treating the Gospel pericope as
essentially identical to its counterparts from the Pentateuch, and others seeing
no connection at all. The majority fall between those two extremes, but among
1
For more on doublets and recurring patterns in the Bible, see Joel Rosenberg, “Bible:
Biblical Narrative,” in Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts, ed. Barry W.
Holtz (New York: Summit, 1984), 31–81, here 41–44; and Jacob Licht, Storytelling in the
Bible (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1978), 51–95.
2
For more on these and other examples of doublets and reprises from the Pentateuch, see
Jean Louis Ska, Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch, trans. Pascal Dominique (Winona
Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 53–75.
2 Introduction: Posing the Question
them there is little consensus on how to define the textual relationship. Histor-
ical-critical approaches look to the world behind the text and/or its composition
history for answers, but opinions vary on which texts to include in the discus-
sion and how to conceive their role in the Johannine Samaria narrative’s for-
mulation. Literary studies rely heavily on proposals regarding recurring narra-
tive patterns in ancient literature, often focusing on the betrothal motif. They
envision the link between these passages in terms of literary tropes such as
allegory, parody, and allusion, yielding interesting but diverse conclusions.
Approaches which combine historical and literary (or more properly, dia-
chronic and synchronic) perspectives provide some of the most compelling in-
sights, but even they fall short of answering the fundamental questions posed
above. 3 The result is that interpreters might consider this a closed issue, having
embraced one of the various positions or resigned themselves to the present
stalemate in the discussion.
The present study, however, seeks to move this discussion past its present
impasse by proposing a new approach. The posture taken is deliberately induc-
tive, letting the verifiable evidence in the text be the starting point. Rather than
engaging a wide array of biblical and extrabiblical sources, the focus is limited
to just four texts (Gen 24:1–67; 29:1–14; Exod 2:15–22; John 4:1–42) linked
by narrative structure and by the Torah’s familiarity and normativity for NT
writers. The fundamental premise is that these four “well encounters” interre-
late in several distinct ways: a) all four represent variations on a narrative pat-
tern also found in Homer and Euripides; b) the Johannine pericope imitates but
also modifies the three pentateuchal episodes; and c) it contains literary ele-
ments from each of them. This “three-dimensional” relationship raises inter-
esting questions about what sort of literary correspondence can be verified and
how it might have historically come about. Since this type of enquiry includes
both synchronic and diachronic concerns, it can incorporate the disparate con-
tributions of previous scholarship, but it also calls attention to certain ongoing
lacunae to be addressed.
The first of these lacunae is the lack of a comprehensive critical assessment
of literary parallels between John 4:1–42 and its OT counterparts. 4 This reap-
praisal of the topic therefore includes a comparative analysis which uncovers
3
On diachronic methods of biblical exegesis, which focus on the text’s origin and devel-
opment, and synchronic methods, which consider the text in its final, canonical form, see
Michael J. Gorman, Elements of Biblical Exegesis: A Basic Guide for Students and
Ministers, Revised and expanded ed. (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2009), 13–17.
4
This study will use the term “Old Testament” when referring to Israel’s sacred writings
in Hebrew and Greek from the point of view of the present day, and “Scripture” when ad-
dressing the perspective of the period prior to the differentiation between old and new. See
Dennis L. Stamps, “The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament as a Rhetorical
Device: A Methodological Proposal,” in Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament,
ed. Stanley E. Porter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 9–37, here 10–11.
Introduction: Posing the Question 3
numerous parallels in vocabulary, setting, plot, and characters. Literary fea-

tures in John 4:1–42 seem to consciously interact with a pattern established by
the three Torah texts, in some cases suggesting similarity and in others surpris-
ing the reader with a striking opposite. In the Gospel pericope, one also finds
several elements which play a key role but are not from the OT scenes at all. A
familiar pattern has been adopted, but it has also been adapted, placing it in
dialogue with the Gospel’s overall literary and theological priorities. It has
been argued that one of the aims of the Johannine account of Jesus in Samaria
is to surprise the reader, overturning preconceptions about a number of matters
including race, culture, gender, worship, and mission. 5 It also seems to chal-
lenge the reader’s presumptions about what is supposed to happen when a man
and a woman meet at a well. 6
A second critical lacuna in previous scholarship is that discussions of the
Johannine Samaria narrative’s prehistory and formulation give little attention
to the role of postresurrection reflection by believers. The Fourth Gospel con-
tains several candid references to a process of remembering and reflecting
which took place subsequent to the events narrated (John 2:17, 22; 12:16).
These verses reveal that believers came to understand Jesus’ words and actions
in light of Scripture, implying the reverse to be the case as well. The present
approach takes these clues from the Gospel itself as a window into the milieu
and process out of which 4:1–42 emerged, suggesting that what its formulators
understood and believed about Jesus has become inseparably intertwined in the
pericope with the reflection that it stimulated on the well encounters in Genesis
24 and 29 and Exodus 2. 7 Seen in this way, the relationship between the Jo-
hannine pericope and its scriptural background is reciprocal, or to borrow a
phrase from John 4:37, “One sows, and another reaps.” 8
5
For more on this aspect of John 4:1–42 with bibliography, see Craig S. Keener, The
Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2 vols. (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003), 1:585, 591–601. For
additional perspectives, see Eric John Wyckoff, “Jesus in Samaria (John 4:4–42): A Model
for Cross-Cultural Ministry,” BTB 35 (2005); Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh,
Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 98–105;
Francis J. Moloney, Belief in the Word: Reading John 1–4 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993),
138–39; and Teresa Okure, The Johannine Approach to Mission: A Contextual Study of John
4:1–42, WUNT II 31 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988), 127–31.
6
On the correlation between the Fourth Gospel’s challenge of reader’s preconceptions
and its bending of literary conventions, see Jo-Ann A. Brant, “John Among the Ancient
Novels,” in The Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic, ed. Kasper Bro Larsen, Studia Aarhusiana
Neotestamentica 3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), 157–68, here 161.
7
Throughout this study, the term “formulators” and “writer” are used as a convenient
way of referring to the person or persons responsible for composing the Gospel of John in
its present form. This is neither a denial nor a defense of hypothetical distinctions between
a Beloved Disciple, an evangelist, previous sources, and subsequent redactors.
8
All English translations of the biblical text are the present author’s own. On the textual
witnesses being cited, see section 1.1.3 below.
4 Introduction: Posing the Question
The contours of this postresurrection reflection can be traced through a re-

curring series of ten literary motifs reprised in all four episodes. 9 In the penta-
teuchal well encounters, these motifs all carry a literal meaning, but the Gospel
pericope reconfigures each one of them in some way. Two are accentuated (so-
cioethnic barriers, worship); three emerge as metaphors (water, food, work);
four retain their literal meaning but take on additional connotations (journey,
recognition, announcement, welcome); and one is left ambiguous, entrusting
interpretation to the individual reader (matrimony and progeny). As the enquiry
to follow will illustrate, these motifs and their Johannine rereading can provide
a key for interpreting this complex textual relationship.
This study’s aim, therefore, is to propose an explanation for the relationship
between the Johannine Samaria narrative and the pentateuchal well encounters
which can offer conclusions for the exegesis of the Gospel pericope and clues
to the underlying interpretation of the OT passages. The first chapter, entitled
“Shaping an Approach,” outlines preliminary concerns: text selection, a review
of literature, and method. The second and third chapters provide this study’s
analytical component by addressing the lacunae identified above. “Identifying
Literary Parallels” analyzes the similarities and differences in vocabulary, set-
ting, plot, and characters among the four selected texts. “Looking behind the
Text” investigates clues in the Gospel of John and elsewhere in the NT about
the postresurrection reflection process behind John 4:1–42. The results of this
twofold synchronic/diachronic analysis are then synthesized in the fourth chap-
ter, “Reading the Rereading,” which interprets the four texts in relation to one
another according to the ten recurring literary motifs they share. A fifth and
final chapter, “Conclusions,” concretizes the judgments of a more global nature
which can be drawn from the study as a whole.
9
Literary terms such as “motif” and “theme” are routinely used in a variety of fashions.
The present study elects to follow the definitions given in M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt
Harpham, “Motif and theme,” A Glossary of Literary Terms, 10th ed. (Boston: Wadsworth,
2012), 229. “Motif” is used to refer to “a conspicuous element, such as a type of event,
device, reference, or formula, which occurs frequently in works of literature.” “Theme,”
instead, denotes “a general concept or doctrine, whether implicit or asserted, which an im-
aginative work is designed to involve and make persuasive to the reader.” According to these
definitions, the motifs present in John 4:1–42 would include conspicuous elements such as
water and food or events such as the journey or the offer of hospitality. On the other hand,
general concepts or doctrines such as missionary concerns or faith responses to Jesus could
be proposed as themes.
Chapter 1
Shaping an Approach
Examining one literary work’s possible use of another is never simple, even
when they share features such as language, genre, and origin. The task is further
complicated if the works are dissimilar. For instance, one must negotiate the
differences between a Shakespearean tragedy and a Broadway musical and be-
tween Elizabethan England, Renaissance Verona, and 1950s-era New York
City in order to compare West Side Story with the play that inspired it, Romeo
and Juliet. 1 Tracing the parallels between Homer’s Odyssey and its modern
adaptation in James Joyce’s Ulysses becomes even more challenging, because
it involves determining whether or not Joyce read Greek, and if not, which
translation he may have used. 2 Still greater effort is necessary to analyze Vir-
gil’s incorporation of the Odyssey and Iliad into the Aeneid, as it involves mul-
tiple ancient texts in different languages composed centuries apart, each of
which has been preserved with numerous textual variations. 3 The study of the
NT use of the OT approximates this last example, but with the added compli-
cation that the language and textual form of the Scripture used by NT writers
remain the subject of debate. 4
Hence, defining the relationship between the Johannine Samaria narrative
and the pentateuchal well encounters is a complex endeavor which demands a
complex approach. The following chapter therefore proposes a set of parame-
ters and procedures tailored to this task. The first step is selecting the texts to
be included in the discussion and explaining the criteria for selection. Next, the
1
For a brief but comprehensive comparison of the two works, see Norris Houghton, ed.,
Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story (New York: Random House, 1965), 7–14.
2
On this question, see Keri Elizabeth Ames, “Joyce’s Aesthetic of the Double Negative
and His Encounters with Homer’s Odyssey,” in Beckett, Joyce and the Art of the Negative,
ed. Colleen Jaurretche (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005), 15–48. Her conclusion is that Joyce read
the text in English, using several different translations.
3
The debate on how to define the literary relationship among the Odyssey, the Iliad, and
the Aeneid stretches back to antiquity; see Georg Nicolaus Knauer, “Vergil’s Aeneid and
Homer,” GRBS 5 (1964): 61–84.
4
For more on addressing the challenges of this type of research, see Erkki Koskenniemi
and Pekka Lindqvist, “Rewritten Bible, Rewritten Stories: Methodological Aspects,” in
Rewritten Bible Reconsidered: Proceedings of the Conference in Karkku, Finland, August
24–26, 2006, ed. Antti Laato and Jacques van Ruiten, SRB 1 (Turku/Winona Lake: Åbo
Akademi University/Eisenbrauns, 2008), 11–39, here 23–27.
6 Chapter 1: Shaping an Approach
panorama of previous solutions is surveyed by appraising different scholars’

contributions and the methods they employ. The final section delineates the
methodological stance called for by the present state of the question and by this
study’s objective.
1.1 Selecting the Texts
The study of the NT use of the OT has become a growth area in biblical re-
search, generating a large number of dissertations and monographs in recent
years. 5 Many of these have undertaken the task of examining a given text’s
points of contact with a wide variety of biblical and extrabiblical sources. Like
many NT passages, the Johannine Samaria narrative exhibits similarities in vo-
cabulary and subject matter with numerous previous, contemporaneous, and
subsequent writings. The following table lists the possible points of contact for
John 4:1–42 identified in readily accesible reference works: 6
5
At the time of writing (2020), recently published monographs addressing the NT use of
the OT include the following: Aaron W. White, The Prophets Agree: The Function of the
Book of the Twelve Prophets in Acts, BIS 184 (Leiden: Brill, 2020); Ianire Angulo Ordorika,
“¿No habéis leído esta Escritura?” (Mc 12,10): El trasfondo veterotestamentario como
clave hermenéutica de Mc 12,1–12, AnBib 226 (Rome: Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2019);
Davide Arcangeli, Tipologia e compimento delle Scritture nel Vangelo di Giovanni: Analisi
di alcuni racconti del Quarto Vangelo, Supplementi alla Rivista Biblica 66 (Bologna:
Dehoniane, 2019); Eduard Käfer, Die Rezeption der Sinaitradition im Evangelium nach Jo-
hannes, WUNT II 502 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019); Zsolt Barta, Symphony of Scrip-
tures: An Intertextual Study of Acts 10:1–15:35, Glossa House Dissertation Series 7 (Wil-
more: Glossa House, 2018); William G. Fowler and Michael Strickland, The Influence of
Ezekiel in the Fourth Gospel: Intertextuality and Interpretation, BIS 167 (Leiden: Brill,
2018); Katja Kujanpää, The Rhetorical Functions of Scriptural Quotations in Romans:
Paul’s Argumenta-tion by Quotations, BIS 172 (Leiden: Brill, 2018); and Gregory R. Lanier,
Old Testament Conceptual Metaphors and the Christology of Luke’s Gospel, LNTS 591
(London: T&T Clark, 2018).
6
In addition to the resources cited in the following table, see also Wilhelm Dittmar, Vetus
Testamentum in Novo: Die alttestamentlichen Parallelen des Neuen Testaments im Wortlaut
der Urtexte und der Septuaginta, 2 vols. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1899),
1:114–15; Kurt Aland, ed., Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum: Greek-English Edition, 12th
ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2001), 44–46. For talmudic and midrashic pas-
sages which treat related topics, see Str-B, 2:431–41.
1.1 Selecting the Texts 7
John 4 NA28 (2012) 7 Köstenberger (2007) 8 Evans (2005) 9

v. 2 1 Cor 1:17 Josephus, Ant. 20.118
Josephus, Vita 52.269
v. 3 Mark 1:14
v. 4 Luke 9:52
vv. 4–15 Macrobius, Saturnalia
1.12.28
v. 5 Gen 48:22 Gen 33:19; 48:22
Josh 24:32 Exod 13:9
Josh 24:32
v. 9 2 Kgs 17:24–41
Ezra 4:1–3
Sir 50:25ff
v. 10 Jer 2:13 Num 20:8–11; 21:16– Memar Marqah 2:1–2;
Zech 14:8 18 6:3
Rev 21:6
v. 12 Luke 11:31
vv. 12–13 Tg. Neof. Gen 28:10
Frg Tg. Gen 28:10
v. 14 Isa 58:11 Isa 12:3 1 Enoch 42:1–3
Jer 2:13 Memar Marqah 2:1–2;
6:3
1QS 4:7
CD 19:33–34
v. 19 Luke 7:39 SP Exod 20:21b
Memar Marqah 2:1–2;
6:3
v. 20 Deut 11:29; 12:5; Deut 11:29; 12:5–14;
27:12 27:12
Ps 122 Josh 8:33
Ps 122:1–5
v. 21 1 Kgs 8:27
Isa 66:1
v. 22 Isa 2:3 Isa 2:3
Acts 17:23
vv. 22–24 Corp. herm. 5.10
v. 23 Rom 12:1
2 Cor 6:2
Eph 2:18
7
The citations listed appear in the NA28 margin notes for John 4:1-42.
8
Andreas J. Köstenberger, “John,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old
Testament, ed. Gregory K. Beale and Donald A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic,
2007), 415–512, here 420.
9
Craig A. Evans, Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies: A Guide to the Background
Literature (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2005), 370.
John 4 NA28 (2012) Köstenberger (2007) Evans (2005)

v. 24 2 Cor 3:17 Epictetus, Diatr., 2.8.1
Stobaeus, Ecl., 1.29, 38
v. 25 SP Exod 20:21b
Memar Marqah 3:6;
4:12
v. 33 Mark 8:16
v. 34 Heb 10:9ff Corp. herm. 13.19
v. 35 Joel 4:13
Luke 10:2
Rev 14:15
v. 36 Isa 9:2 Amos 9:13 1QS 4:7
v. 37 Mic 6:15 Mic 6:15
Job 31:8
v. 42 Luke 2:11 Memar Marqah 4:12
1 John 4:14
These possible similarities identified by scholars are both numerous and di-
verse, obliging enquiries such as the present one to limit their scope. Rather
than selecting from among the diverse biblical and extrabiblical texts identified
above, however, the present study opts to compare John 4:1–42 exclusively
with the three texts notably absent from the table. These are the passages from
Genesis 24 and 29 and Exodus 2 that narrate similar encounters between a man
and a woman at a well.
1.1.1 Rationale
There are two specific reasons for this study’s choice to compare John 4:1–42
exclusively with the encounters at wells narrated in Genesis 24 and 29 and
Exodus 2, and not with other biblical or extrabiblical texts which exhibit some
type of similarity. The first is the narrative structure that these three OT pas-
sages share with the Johannine Samaritan narrative. The second reason is the
privileged place that these narratives held in the literary and theological milieu
out of which the Gospel emerged, by virtue of their belonging to the Torah.
1.1.1.1 Narrative structure

Genesis 24 and 29 and Exodus 2 contain episodes which, for the sake of con-
venience, can be referred to as “well encounters.” 10 These episodes recount a
journey by a male character to a land depicted as foreign, where he meets a
female character at a well, after which she reports this meeting to others who
The similar designation Begegnung am Brunnen or “encounter at the well” for the re-
10
curring narrative pattern discernible in these texts is proposed in Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher,

“Begegnungen am Brunnen,” BN 75 (1994): 48–66.
welcome him. Despite the variations between them and the details which are
unique to each, all three share this basic narrative structure. The very same
narrative structure is also evident in John 4:1–42, creating a demonstrable lit-
erary link uniting these four texts. 11
There are no other passages in the OT which reproduce the complete narra-
tive structure of a well encounter as described above. The book of Genesis
narrates Hagar’s encounters with an angel at a spring (16:7–14) and with the
Lord at a miraculous well (21:17–21), but neither of her counterparts are hu-
man, and there is no report or welcome afterwards. Ruth and Boaz discuss
drawing water and sharing the harvest in their first meeting (Ruth 2:7–9),
which Ruth then recounts to Naomi (vv. 18–22). However, it is the female
characters who journey, and there is no well or spring. In 1 Sam 9:11–13, Saul
and his servant arrive in Ramah in search of Samuel and are greeted by maidens
drawing water. In this passage, instead of reporting the encounter to anyone,
the maidens simply explain where Samuel can be found and send the future
king on his way. In 1 Kgs 17:10–24, Elijah encounters a widow at Zarephath
whom he asks for a drink before miraculously multiplying her food provisions
and resuscitating her son. This episode, however, includes no water source, and
there is no subsequent report of the protagonist’s arrival. Various OT texts de-
velop imagery also featured in John 4:1–42, such as “living water” (ʭʩʩʧʚʭʩʮ/
੢įȦȡ ȗ૵Ȟ, e.g., Gen 21:19; 26:19; Jer 2:13; 17:13; Zech 14:8; Song 4:15), or a
well (e.g., Num 21:16–18; Ps 35/36:10; Prov 10:11; 13:14; 14:27; 16:22; 18:4),
or flowing water (e.g., Isa 58:11; Ezek 47:1–12). 12 These passages, however,
20F
lack altogether the narrative structure of a well encounter.

The narrative structure shared by the pentateuchal well encounters and John
4:1–42 is a synchronic matter, but behind it lies a diachronic explanation. In
the ancient world, imitating previous works was an encouraged practice, re-
IHUUHGWRDVȝȓȝȘıȚȢLQ*UHHNDQGimitatio in Latin. 13 The first-century Roman
rhetorician Quintilian, for example, describes in Institutio Oratoria how stu-
dents of rhetoric and letters ought to begin from examples of good writing and
11
For a preliminary overview of the correspondence among these passages, see, inter
alia, Hartwig Thyen, Das Johannesevangelium, 2nd ed., HNT 6 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2015), 241–43; and Keener, The Gospel of John, 1:586.
12
For more on these and other texts which develop water imagery, see section 4.2.4.2
below.
13
Gian Biagio Conte and Glenn W. Most, “Imitatio,” in The Oxford Classical Dictionary,
ed. Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth, and Esther Eidinow (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 727–28.
imitate them, with Homer representing the finest model for imitation. 14 Liter-
ary conventions and recurring patterns in plot, characters, and setting, often
referred to as “topoi” (ĲંʌȠȚ), were simply part of the art of storytelling. 15
The Bible is no exception to this practice, as the narrative books of the OT
are full of recurring patterns. 16 One of the best-known discussions of this dy-
namic is by Robert Alter in The Art of Biblical Narrative, where he explicitly
addresses the narrative structure shared by Genesis 24 and 29 and Exodus 2. 17
Unsatisfied by historical-critical explanations based on reconstructions of mul-
tiple sources, Alter was nevertheless struck by a synoptic presentation of the
similarities among these three passages in Robert Culley’s Studies in the Struc-
ture of Hebrew Narrative. 18 Unlike Culley, however, Alter proposes that the
parallel in narrative structure is best explained as a literary convention or topos
consciously employed by the biblical writers. Borrowing a concept from mod-
ern studies of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, he refers to this convention as a
“type scene.” 19 In the Bible as in the Greek epics, type scenes occur at crucial
14
Quintilian, Inst. 10.1.1–10.2.28. For more on this literary practice, see Brad McAdon,
Rhetorical Mimesis and the Mitigation of Early Christian Conflicts: Examining the Influence
that Greco-Roman Mimesis May Have in the Composition of Matthew, Luke, and Acts
(Eugene: Pickwick, 2018), 17–35; Dennis R. MacDonald, The Gospels and Homer:
Imitations of Greek Epic in Mark and Luke-Acts (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 3–
5; and Nita Krevans and Alexander Sens, “Language and Literature,” in The Cambridge
Companion to the Hellenistic World, ed. Glenn R. Bugh, Cambridge Companions to the
Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 186–207, here 189–92.
15
In Classical, Hellenistic, and Medieval rhetoric, the term “topos” denotes a common-
place literary formulation, referring to recurring conventions or patterns; see Abrams and
Harpham, “Motif and theme,” Glossary, 229; and William Harmon, “Topos,” A Handbook
to Literature, 12th ed. (Boston: Longman, 2012), 478–79. For more on this phenomenon in
Classical Greek literature, see Richmond Lattimore, Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy
(London: Athlone, 1964), 18–55. On this phenomenon in the Bible, see Rosenberg, “Bible:
Biblical Narrative,” 31–81; and Licht, Storytelling in the Bible, 62–64.
16
See the Introduction above, and Martin C. Albl, “And Scripture Cannot Be Broken”:
The Form and Function of the Early Christian Testimonia Collections, NovTSup 96 (Leiden:
Brill, 1999), 82–83.
17
Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 47–62,
88–113; for another classic discussion of this dynamic, see Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of
Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1985), 365–440.
18
Robert C. Culley, Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Narrative, SemeiaSup 3
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 41–43; Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, 50. Culley’s his-
torical-critical proposal takes the parallels among these three episodes as evidence of an oral
tradition adapted to different contexts.
19
Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, 50–52; the author bases himself on Walter Arend,
Die typischen Scenen bei Homer (Berlin: Weidmann, 1933). Other recurring biblical type
scenes include the annunciation of a hero’s birth to a barren mother, the epiphany in a field,
the initiatory trial, the discovery of a well or other sustenance in the desert, and the testament
of a dying hero. For more on biblical type scenes, with bibliography, see Jean Louis Ska,
junctures in the protagonists’ lives. In each case, the plot unfolds under partic-
ular circumstances and according to a fixed order which the reader is aware of,
so that any variations (or the omission of the scene altogether) are important to
the meaning.
The use of this technique by Homer himself has been meticulously analyzed
by scholars. 20 In fact, the Odyssey contains no less than four episodes in which
male characters are met by women procuring water who guide them to the ones
they are seeking. 21 In the first, the shipwrecked Odysseus meets a maiden
washing clothes by a river, who turns out to be Princess Nausicaa, the daughter
of King Alcinous, and she directs him to her father’s palace. Shortly thereafter,
Odysseus is led to the palace by the goddess Athena, who appears as a maiden
carrying a pitcher. Later, Odysseus’ men come upon a girl drawing water; un-
beknownst to them, she is the daughter of King Antiphates, and she leads them
into a trap at her father’s palace. Finally, a marauding band of Phoenicians
come upon a servant girl from King Ktesios’ palace washing clothes on the
shore. They beguile her into revealing the location of the palace, which they
break into and loot, kidnapping the king’s son.
A similar narrative pattern also appears at key junctures in the Homeric
Hymn to Demeter and in Euripides’ drama Electra. 22 In the Hymn to Demeter,
the eponymous goddess of agriculture sits down by a well tired and dejected,
disguised as old woman. The daughters of King Keleos of Eleusis come to draw
water and then return home. Their mother sends them back to the well to offer
hospitality; Demeter accepts and eventually reveals herself. In Electra, the
characters Orestes and Pylades wait near a spring in order to ask someone’s
help in finding Orestes’ sister Electra, when Electra herself arrives carrying a
jar of water. She does not recognize her brother, who conceals his true identity
until later. Her husband arrives, and they generously offer the two men hospi-
tality in their humble home.
Thus, a narrative pattern similar to that of the three pentateuchal well en-
counters and John 4:1–42 is to be found in several well-known literary works
Our Fathers Have Told Us: Introduction to the Analysis of Hebrew Narratives, 2nd ed.,
SubBi 13 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2000), 36–38; Rosenberg, “Bible: Biblical
Narrative,” 49–51; and James G. Williams, “The Beautiful and the Barren: Conventions in
Biblical Type-Scenes,” JSOT 17 (1980): 107–19.
20
For a summary of scholarship on Homeric type scenes, see Mark W. Edwards, “Homer
and Oral Tradition: The Type-Scene,” Oral Tradition 7 (1992): 284–330, here 285–98.
21
Homer, Od. 6.110–331; 7.14–82; 10.103–132; 15:415–484. See Kasper Bro Larsen,
Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John, BIS 93 (Leiden: Brill,
2008), 127–28; and Steve Reece, The Stranger’s Welcome: Oral Theory and the Aesthetics
of the Homeric Hospitality Scene, Michigan Monographs in Classical Antiquity (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1993), 12–13.
22
Demeter 98–304; Euripides, El. 55–431. See also Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger,
128–29.
which predate the NT and a good part of the OT. 23 This pattern alone, however,
does not justify the selection of texts for the present study.
1.1.1.2 Literary and theological milieu

The second reason for selecting the well encounters in Genesis 24 and 29 and
Exodus 2 is that they were part of the literary and theological milieu out of
which the Fourth Gospel emerged. This is not quite the same as claiming direct
literary dependence. Literary dependence can only be judged on the basis of a
comparative literary analysis of the texts in question. 24 For the present task of
text selection (as a first step toward eventual analysis), it is sufficient to deter-
mine the plausibility and likelihood of an influence, direct or indirect, on the
process by which the Samaritan pericope took shape. This basically depends
on how familiar these texts would have been to the Gospel’s formulators, and
what sort of status they held among literary works.
There is no reason to doubt that as part of the Torah, the well encounters in
Genesis and Exodus would have been familiar to the Fourth Gospel’s formula-
tors and its intended readership and held in high regard. Jews accorded the five
books of Moses a unique status among religious writings, revering them as
sacred and authoritative. 25 For Samaritans, of course, the Pentateuch was (and
23
Scholarly opinions generally date the Odyssey’s composition to the eighth or seventh
century BCE; see the discussion in Alfred Heubeck, Stephanie West, and John Bryan Hains-
worth, A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey, Vol. I: Introduction and Books I–VIII (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1990), 33–35. The Hymn to Demeter can be dated to approximately 650–550
BCE; see Helene Foley, ed., The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and
Interpretive Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 29–30, 79. Euripides’
Electra was likely composed in about 420 BCE; see David Grene et al., eds., Euripides II:
Andromache, Hecuba, The Suppliant Women, Electra (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2013), 189.
24
Various sets of criteria have been proposed by scholars expressly for the purpose of
determining literary dependence. See, inter alia, Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the
Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 25–33; Thomas L. Brodie, The
Birthing of the New Testament: The Intertextual Development of the New Testament Writings
(Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2004), 44–49; Michael B. Thompson, Clothed with Christ:
The Example and Teaching of Jesus in Romans 12.1–15.13 (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011),
30–34; and MacDonald, The Gospels and Homer, 5–7. On the strengths and weaknesses of
Hays’ criteria, see Gregory K. Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old
Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 31–35; and
Paul Foster, “Echoes without Resonance: Critiquing Certain Aspects of Recent Scholarly
Trends in the Study of the Jewish Scriptures in the New Testament,” JSNT 38 (2015): 96–
111, esp. 98–99. For a comparison and critique of MacDonald’s and Brodie’s methods, see
McAdon, Rhetorical Mimesis, 35–40.
25
Consensus among Jews on which books were sacred and to be included in the Tanak
did not come until after the period when the NT was written, but the Torah had already
attained its authoritative status prior to this. See Shaye J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to
the Mishnah, 2nd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 167–204, esp. 174–177;
still is) their only Scripture. 26 Accordingly, the Fourth Gospel is replete with
pentateuchal motifs, beginning with the allusion to Gen 1:1 in its opening
words, ਥȞ ਕȡȤૌ. 27 The Johannine Jesus knows the Torah, making reference to
texts such as Gen 28:12 (John 1:51) and Num 21:8–9 (John 3:14). Characters
in the Gospel ask him if he is greater than Abraham (8:53) and Jacob (4:12).
He is judged in comparison to Moses several times (e.g., 1:16–17, 45; 3:14;
5:45–46; 9:28–29), and Mosaic and/or Exodus typology has been identified
throughout the Gospel. 28 A noteworthy example is in John 6, where the events
of Exodus 16 (and their reprise in Num 11:7–9 and Ps 77/78:24) are used as a
point of contrast in Jesus’ discourse. 29 On two occasions, the Gospel goes so
far as to assert that Moses wrote about Jesus (John 1:45; 5:46). 30 The Gospel
of John’s use of the Pentateuch is habitual, recurring, and deliberate.
As for the three pentateuchal well encounters themselves, possible echoes
can also be identified elsewhere in the Gospel of John. For instance, Genesis
24 emphasizes how Abraham has entrusted everything to his servant (vv. 2, 10)
and to his son Isaac (v. 36; see also 25:5), and the Fourth Gospel occasionally
and Armin Lange, “The History of the Jewish Canon,” in The Hebrew Bible, ed. Armin
Lange and Emanuel Tov, Textual History of the Bible 1A (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 36–48, esp.
38–39, 41.
26
On the status of the Torah for ancient and modern Samaritans, see Reinhard Pummer,
The Samaritans: A Profile (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 195–96, 271–72.
27
On Gen 1:1 and John 1:1, see Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels
(Waco: Baylor University Press, 2016), 284. For an overview of Fourth Gospel passages
which evoke theological motifs and structural frameworks from the OT, particularly the Pen-
tateuch, see Rekha M. Chennattu, “Scripture,” in How John Works: Storytelling in the Fourth
Gospel, ed. Douglas Estes and Ruth Sheridan, RBS 86 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016), 171–86,
here 171–73. Direct citations of the Pentateuch, on the other hand, are probably only two:
John 8:17 (citing Deut 19:15 LXX), and John 19:36 (citing Ps 33/34:21 LXX in combination
with either Exod 12:10 or 12:46, or Num 9:12); see Maarten J. J. Menken, Old Testament
Quotations in the Fourth Gospel: Studies in Textual Form, CBET 15 (Kampen: Kok Pharos,
1996), 16, 147.
28
These include, inter alia, T. Francis Glasson, Moses in the Fourth Gospel, SBT 40
(London: SCM, 1963), esp. 20–105; Wayne A. Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions
and the Johannine Christology, NovTSup 14 (Leiden: Brill, 1967), esp. 286–319; Marie
Émile Boismard, Moses or Jesus: An Essay in Johannine Christology, trans. Benedict T.
Viviano, BETL 84A (Leuven: Peeters, 1993), esp. 1–68, 93–98; Stan Harstine, Moses as a
Character in the Fourth Gospel: A Study of Ancient Reading Techniques, JSNTSup 229
(London: Sheffield Academic, 2002), esp. 40–75; Andrew C. Brunson, Psalm 118 in the
Gospel of John: An Intertextual Study of the New Exodus Pattern in the Theology of John,
WUNT II 158 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), esp. 153–79; and Catrin H. Williams,
“Patriarchs and Prophets Remembered: Framing Israel’s Past in the Gospel of John,” in
Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed. Alicia D. Myers and Bruce
G. Schuchard, RBS 81 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015), 187–212, esp. 192–201.
29
See, inter alia, Paul N. Anderson, The Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Its Unity and
Disunity in the Light of John 6, WUNT II 78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 202–5.
30
John 1:45 also mentions “the prophets.”
describes Jesus’ relationship to the Father in terms of similar dynamics (e.g.,

John 13:3; 16:15; 17:7). In Gen 29:7, Jacob chides the shepherds that one must
work while there is daylight, a theme the Gospel takes up in three different
places (John 9:4; 11:9–10; 12:34–36). In Exodus 2:17, the antagonists are
wicked shepherds, a motif also found in other OT passages and developed at
length in John 10. 31 Though subtle, these similarities support the possibility
that these three episodes figured in the scriptural knowledge which the Gos-
pel’s formulators brought to the process which engendered John 4:1–42.
In short, the well encounters in Genesis 24 and 29 and Exodus 2 are well-
known to modern readers, and they would have been even more so for first-
century Jews and Samaritans as well as gentiles who had come to know Scrip-
ture through the preaching of Jesus’ followers. Regardless of whether these
three texts are better explained as independent traditions or as conscious reap-
propriations of one another, the Fourth Gospel’s formulators and its readership
still would have been well acquainted with all three. From their perspective,
these passages stood on the authority accorded to Scripture, and so did their
repeated use as a narrative pattern. Ancient writers and scribes often learned
textual sources by heart, and for these writers, Israel’s Scripture was their sa-
cred and normative collection of religious writings. 32 As such, it also naturally
became for them what Homer was for Greco-Roman rhetoricians: a constant
ideological touchstone, a literary model, and the source of their vocabulary of
words, images, and modes of expression. It is therefore entirely plausible that
the formulators of John 4:1–42 would reprise a narrative structure from the
Torah which had already been reprised within the Torah itself.
In contrast, writings such as the passages from classical literature cited
above may be similar in narrative structure to John 4:1–42, but they cannot be
considered part of the literary and theological milieu behind the Fourth Gospel
in the same sense as the well encounters from Genesis and Exodus. Compari-
sons between secular Greek writings and the Gospel of John go back to Ori-
gen’s Contra Celsum, with several modern studies addressing the Samaritan
pericope directly. 33 Nevertheless, the level of familiarity with the works of
31
Genesis 26:18–22 narrates a conflict between Isaac and shepherds of Gerar over wells
and water rights. Other OT texts which develop the motif of bad shepherds include Isa 56:11;
Jer 2:8; 10:21; 12:10–11; 22:22; 23:1–5; 25:34–36 (32:34–36 LXX); 50:6 (27:6 LXX); and
Ezek 34:1–10.
32
For more on this dynamic, see David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart:
Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 3–14.
33
Origen, Cels. 2.34 (PG 11:853–56); Celsus accuses the Fourth Gospel of mimicking
Euripides’ Bacchae. A recent study which proposes connections (albeit without the narrative
pattern) between the Samaritan pericope (minus vv. 30–39) and Bacch. 114–166 is Dennis
R. MacDonald, The Dionysian Gospel: The Fourth Gospel and Euripides (Mineapolis:
Fortress, 2017), xvii, 51–54; on points of contact with a wider variety of Greek literature,
see Jo-Ann A. Brant, Dialogue and Drama: Elements of Greek Tragedy in the Fourth Gospel
Homer and Euripides attributable to the Gospel’s formulators and readers can
only be the subject of speculation. The Fourth Gospel accords great importance
to Scripture (e.g., 10:35) and stresses its importance for understanding the
words and actions of Jesus, its main character (e.g., 1:45; 2:17, 22; 5:39, 46;
12:16, 41; 20:9), but it manifests no such relationship with the works of clas-
sical literature. 34 Within any given cultural milieu, literary conventions and
stereotypical features tend to proliferate because they are based on reality. 35
Similarities between John 4 and Homer are therefore better attributed to the
fact that people routinely met at wells than to literary dependence. Moreover,
the classical passages cited above share more literary parallels with Genesis 24
and 29 and Exodus 2 than they do with John 4:1–42. 36 For these reasons, the
four texts from Homer and Euripides are not included in the present study’s
comparative analysis, despite their similarities in narrative structure.
1.1.2 The selected passages and their delimitation

The present study therefore focuses its attention on the four well encounters
found in the Bible: all three OT instances (Genesis 24 and 29, Exodus 2) and
the sole NT example (John 4). In order to facilitate their comparison, all four
passages will be treated as complete narrative units. Keeping in mind that each
varies in how cleanly it can be separated from preceding and following units,
(Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004). Studies addressing narrative patterns similar to John 4:1–42
in the Odyssey, the Hymn to Demeter and Electra include John Taylor, “Recognition Scenes
in the Odyssey and the Gospels,” in The Bible and Hellenism: Greek Influence on Jewish
and Early Christian Culture, ed. Thomas L. Thompson and Philippe Wajdenbaum (London:
Routledge, 2014), 247–57; Andrew E. Arterbury, “Breaking the Betrothal Bonds:
Hospitality in John 4,” CBQ 72 (2010): 63–83; and Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger, 124–
41.
34
The Gospel of John includes explicit quotations of the books of the OT, but none from
classical literature are identified in the literature reviewed by the present study.
35
Thomas L. Thompson, “Narrative Reiteration and Comparative Literature: Problems
in Defining Dependency,” in The Bible and Hellenism: Greek Influence on Jewish and Early
Christian Culture, ed. Thomas L. Thompson and Philippe Wajdenbaum (London: Routledge,
2014), 102–13, esp. 103.
36
Regarding the episodes in Genesis 24 and 29, see Yaakov S. Kupitz, “Stranger and City
Girl: An Isomorphism between Genesis 24 and Homer’s Odyssey 6–13,” in The Bible and
Hellenism: Greek Influence on Jewish and Early Christian Culture, ed. Thomas L.
Thompson and Philippe Wajdenbaum (London: Routledge, 2014), 117–45; Bruce Louden,
Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 135–
53; and Thomas L. Brodie, Genesis as Dialogue: A Literary, Historical, and Theological
Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 464–65. Exodus 2:15–22, on the
other hand, parallels Demeter 98–304 in several distinctive features. A more detailed analy-
sis lies outside the purview of the present study and could be a topic for future research.
these texts are delimited according to narratological criteria, following the con-
tours marked by changes in time, location, characters and theme. 37
1.1.2.1 Jesus and a woman of Samaria (John 4:1–42)

In the Gospel of John, the passage which recounts Jesus’ dialogue with an un-
named woman of Samaria, his exchange with the disciples, and his reception
by the Samaritan populace is closely intertwined with its immediate context.
Applying the above indicators of closure unconditionally, it would begin at
John 4:4 because of the changes in location, characters and theme. However,
vv. 1–3 are included in the present discussion because they represent an exam-
ple of overlapping plots. 38 George Mlakuzhil uses the term “bridge verses” to
refer to this and other transitional elements in the Fourth Gospel which connect
two successive units by playing an active role in both. 39 In this case, 4:1–3
functions as the conclusion to John the Baptist’s dialogue with his disciples
(which begins at 3:22) by referring back to the activity of baptizing (vv. 22–
23, 26), but these verses also serve as the Samaria narrative’s introduction by
providing the reason for Jesus’ journey from Judea through Samaria to Galilee
(4:3–6, 43–45). 40 Among the OT passages selected, a similar overlapping of
two plots can be found in Exod 2:15.
The Gospel episode’s clear conclusion comes with the positive response of
the populace in John 4:39–42, before the location shifts to Galilee and the
theme changes to healing in v. 43. The OT passages close in a similar manner,
with positive reactions by Rebecca and Isaac (Gen 24:62–67), Laban (Gen
37
On narratological indications of closure, see Daniel Marguerat and Yvan Bourquin,
How to Read Bible Stories: An Introduction to Narrative Criticism, trans. John Bowden
(London: SCM, 1999), 32.
38
On overlapping plots, see Marguerat and Bourquin, How to Read Bible Stories, 52–53;
the authors propose 1 Kgs 19:1–2 as an example.
39
George Mlakuzhyil, Christocentric Literary-Dramatic Structure of John’s Gospel, 2nd
ed., AnBib 117 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2011), 303–5. Other examples of
“bridge verses” in John identified by the author include 1:42a; 2:23–25; 4:27–30; 5:14–18;
13:31–38; 15:9–11; 18:12–14; and 20:24–25. Some exegetes treat 4:1–3 as an entirely inde-
pendent transitional element; see, inter alia, Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to
John, 2 vols., AB 29, 29A (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966–1970), 164–65.
40
See Mlakuzhyil, Christocentric Literary-Dramatic Structure, 430–32; see also Jean
Zumstein, L’évangile selon saint Jean, 2 vols., CNT IVa, IVb (Geneva: Labor et Fides,
2007–2014), 1:137; and Johannes Beutler, Das Johannesevangelium: Kommentar (Freiburg:
Herder, 2013), 154. On how vv. 1–3 also create a bridge to the second Cana miracle (4:43–
54) by explaining the trip to Galilee, making the entire Samaritan episode a kind of interlude,
see Thyen, Das Johannesevangelium, 236–37; and Hendrikus Boers, Neither on This
Mountain Nor in Jerusalem: A Study of John 4, SBLMS 35 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988),
153–54.
29:13–14), and the Midianite priest and his household (Exod 2:20–22). Conse-
quently, the text under consideration will be John 4:1–42, treated as a complete
and coherent pericope. 41
1.1.2.2 Abraham’s servant and Rebecca (Gen 24:1–67)

The first OT text to be held up against John 4:1–42 will be Genesis 24 in its
entirety. These sixty-seven verses comprise the longest of the pentateuchal well
encounters, spanning Abraham’s command to find a spouse for Isaac, the serv-
ant’s journey from Canaan to Mesopotamia, the encounter with Rebecca at the
well, the negotiations with her family, and the encounter between bride and
groom upon the caravan’s return. In spite of its length and complexity, this
chapter stands apart quite cleanly from the material which precedes and follows
it. 42 Verse 1 marks a change in time, characters and theme from the preceding
account of Sarah’s death and Abraham’s purchase of the burial plot in Macpe-
lah (23:1–20). The initial exchange between Abraham and his servant (24:1–
9) sets the plot in motion, while the action closes with the narrator’s report of
the final situation (v. 67). Chapter 25 begins by introducing new characters
(Keturah and Abraham’s sons with her) and a new theme (Abraham’s death
and his various descendants).
1.1.2.3 Jacob and Rachel (Gen 29:1–14)

The motivation for Jacob’s journey to the household of Laban his uncle is de-
veloped in Gen 27:41–28:5, but with a degree of detail and complexity which
exceeds that of John 4:1–3. Therefore, the text to be treated here is Gen 29:1–
14, in which Jacob arrives in Mesopotamia, speaks with shepherds and single-
handedly opens a well, where he meets Rachel and is welcomed by Laban. The
passage begins with Jacob’s arrival in Gen 29:1, which presents changes in
location, characters and theme from the story of his theophany at Bethel
(28:11–22) which precedes it. It concludes with Laban’s acclamation about Ja-
cob’s identity in 29:14 because the subsequent account of Laban’s deceit and
the marriages to Leah and Rachel (vv. 15–30) marks a shift in theme, intro-
duces Leah as a new character, and occurs after a month has passed (v. 14b). 43
41
“Pericope” is taken here to mean any self-contained unit of Scripture; see W. Randolph
Tate, “Pericope,” Handbook for Biblical Interpretation: An Essential Guide to Methods,
Terms, and Concepts, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 316; and Richard N.
Soulen and R. Kendall Soulen, “Pericope,” Handbook of Biblical Criticism, 3rd ed.
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 136.
42
See, inter alia, David W. Cotter, Genesis, Berit Olam 1 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press,
2003), 159; and Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis, 2 vols., WBC 1, 2 (Nashville: Nelson, 2000),
2:138–40.
43
The narrative unity of vv. 1–14 as a unit is widely upheld; see the summary in Stephen
K. Sherwood, Had God Not Been on My Side: An Examination of the Narrative Technique
It also reintroduces Rachel as if she had not already appeared, leading many
exegetes to hypothesize that vv. 1–14 and vv. 15–30 may have originated as
independent narratives, perhaps from different sources. 44
1.1.2.4 Moses and Zipporah and her sisters (Exod 2:15–22)

Only eight verses in length, this is the shortest of the three pentateuchal well
encounters, reading somewhat like an abridged, idealized version of the other
two. 45 In Exod 2:11–22, two sequential episodes depict Moses slaying an
Egyptian oppressor and finding safety from Pharaoh’s wrath in Midian. 46
These two units are not separated by a clean break, as changes in location,
characters, and theme are spread out over vv. 15–17. Verse 15 relates the con-
sequences of Moses’ actions in Egypt and brings him to a new setting at the
well; like John 4:1–3, it performs double duty as both the final situation of the
first episode (vv. 11–15) and the initial situation of the second (vv. 15–22).
Thus, the passage under consideration will be 2:15–22, in which Moses arrives
at the well and in short order defends seven maidens, is welcomed by their
father the priest, and becomes a husband to Zipporah and a father to Gershom.
The passage concludes with v. 22, before the subsequent verse’s indication that
much time had passed and the change of theme back to Israel’s oppression.
Moses observes in the final verse, “I am a stranger in a foreign land,” a condi-
tion shared by the male protagonists in all four passages and explicitly ad-
dressed in John 4:9 by both the Samaritan woman and the narrator.
of the Story of Jacob and Laban, Genesis 29:1–32:2, Europäische Hochschulschriften Reihe
XXIII Theologie 400 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1990), 24–25. Nevertheless, most commen-
tators acknowledge that the next unit (vv. 15–30) begins in media res; see Wenham (Genesis,
2:229), who writes, “Defining the units within this part of the Jacob cycle is problematic
because of their close interconnection; each unit leads naturally into the next.”
44
On the scholarly discussion concerning the compositional history of Genesis 29, see
Claus Westermann, Genesis, trans. John J. Scullion, 3 vols., CC (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1994–2002), 3:463–64. For a source-critical solution, see Hermann Gunkel, Genesis, trans.
Mark E. Biddle, 9th ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), 327.
45
Jeremy Thompson, “Well, Well, Well . . . What Is Jesus Doing at a Well? (John 4:4–
42),” TBT 50 (2012): 215–20, here 217.
46
Another rationale for placing the division between v. 14 and v. 15 is that v. 14b is best
identified as describing the final situation of the first unit while v. 15 provides the initial
situation of the second. Nonetheless, commentators often begin the well episode at v. 15b or
v. 16; see Thomas B. Dozeman, Exodus, Eerdmans Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2009), 89–91; and Brevard S. Childs, Exodus: A Commentary, OTL (London:
SCM, 1974), 30–33. Some also consider vv. 11–22 as a single unit; see George W. Coats,
Exodus 1–18, FOTL 2A (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 29–31.
1.1.3 Textual witnesses

With the texts selected, it is also necessary to determine which textual wit-
nesses to use as the basis for analysis. For John 4:1–42, the standard Greek text
will be followed. 47 Several variant readings are found within these verses, but
their impact on the present investigation is limited. 48 For the three OT passages,
however, the plurality of Hebrew and Greek texts in circulation during the first
century must be taken into consideration. 49 Critical studies by Bruce Schuchard
and Maarten Menken conclude that the Scripture accessed by the Gospel of
John is primarily in the LXX textual form, but not exclusively so, meaning that
it cannot be determined with complete certitude what text may have been used
in the formulation of John 4. 50 Therefore, it will be necessary to consult the
LXX, the MT, the SP, and three Qumran manuscripts which preserve a few
snippets: 1QGen (Gen 24:22–24), 4QExodb (Exod 2:15–18) and 4QpaleoGen-
Exod1 (two words from Exod 2:22). 51
47
The NT text followed is Barbara Aland et al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th
ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012), hereafter cited as NA28.
48
Variants with a reasonable degree of manuscript evidence include the substitution of ੒
ț઄ȡȚȠȢ for ੒ ੉ȘıȠ૨Ȣ (John 4:1a); the omission of ʌ੺ȜȚȞ (v. 3b), of Ƞ੝ Ȗ੹ȡ ıȣȖȤȡ૵ȞĲĮȚ ੉Ƞȣ-
įĮ૙ȠȚ ȈĮȝĮȡ઀ĲĮȚȢ (v. 9b), and of ਲ ȖȣȞ੾ (v. 11a); and the question of whether to take ਵįȘ as
the last word of v. 35 or the first of v. 36. The preponderance of external evidence favors the
originality of v. 9b, and the other variants are not significant for the present discussion. See
the critical apparatus of NA28; and Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek
New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), 176–78.
49
On the differences in Vorlage evident in NT quotations of the OT, see Max Wilcox,
“Text Form,” in It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture: Essays in Honour of Barnabas
Lindars, ed. Donald A. Carson and Hugh G. M. Williamson (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988), 193–204. On the textual plurality of the Pentateuch in Hebrew wit-
nesses during the first century, see Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd
ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 183–90, esp. 188–89. On the diversity among Greek wit-
nesses, see Emanuel Tov, “Septuagint,” in The Hebrew Bible, ed. Armin Lange and Emanuel
Tov, Textual History of the Bible 1A (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 191–211, here 191–92; and
Timothy Michael Law, When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the
Christian Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 86.
50
Bruce G. Schuchard, Scripture Within Scripture: The Interrelationship of Form and
Function in the Explicit Old Testament Citations in the Gospel of John, SBLDS 133 (Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1992), xiii–xviii; Menken, Old Testament Quotations, 205–12; and Marten
J. J. Menken, “Observations on the Significance of the Old Testament in the Fourth Gospel,”
Neotestamentica 33 (1999): 125–43, esp. 126–27.
51
The LXX is from John William Wevers, ed., Genesis, Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum
Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum (Göttingen: Vandenhock
& Ruprecht, 1974), 223–39, 275–78; and John William Wevers and Udo Quast, eds., Exodus,
Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis
editum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 75–78. The MT is taken from Karl
Elliger, Wilhelm Rudolph, and Adrian Schenker, eds., Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 5th
emended ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997), hereafter cited as BHS. For the
Most of the variants among these readings are not of consequence for the
present discussion, with several exceptions. 52 The first is regarding who gath-
ers at the well to roll the stone away in Gen 29:3, 8. The MT reads “all the
flocks” (ʭʩʸʣʲʤʚʬʫ) in both verses, while the SP more logically attests “all the
shepherds” (ʭʩʲʸʤ ʬʫ), with the LXX splitting the difference (ʌ੺ȞĲĮ Ĳ੹ ʌȠ઀ȝȞȚĮ,
v. 3; ʌ੺ȞĲĮȢ ĲȠઃȢ ʌȠȚȝ੼ȞĮȢ, v. 8). 53 Among the various LXX expansions, two
UHLQIRUFH UHIHUHQFHV WR SDVWXULQJ WKH IDWKHU¶V VKHHS Į੝Ĳ੽ Ȗ੹ȡ ਩ȕȠıțİȞ Ĳ੹
ʌȡંȕĮĲĮ ĲȠ૨ ʌĮĲȡઁȢ Į੝ĲોȢ *HQ E DQG ʌȠȚȝĮ઀ȞȠȣıĮȚ Ĳ੹ ʌȡંȕĮĲĮ ĲȠ૨
ʌĮĲȡઁȢ Į੝Ĳ૵Ȟ (Exod 2:16a). 54 The expansion țĮĲ੹ Ĳ੹ ૧੾ȝĮĲĮ ĲĮ૨ĲĮ in Gen
29:12b likely represents a harmonization with Gen 24:28 (LXX, MT, and SP),
suggesting that at least one ancient scribe noted parallels between Genesis 24
and 29. 55
63F
A number of previous studies of John 4:1–42 and its OT background also

engage literature contemporaneous or posterior to the Fourth Gospel such as
Philo, Josephus, the targumim, and rabbinic and early Christian writings. 56 The
reasoning is that these texts may represent earlier oral traditions which could
SP reading, see Abraham Tal and Moshe Florentin, eds., The Pentateuch: The Samaritan
Version and the Masoretic Version (Tel Aviv: Haim Rubin Tel Aviv University Press, 2010),
112–19, 130–33, 202–3. For 1QGen, see Dominique Barthélemy and Józef T. Milik, eds.,
Qumran Cave I, DJD I (Oxford: Clarendon, 1955), 49–50. For 4QExodb, see Eugene Ulrich
et al., eds., Qumran Cave 4 VII: Genesis to Numbers, DJD XII (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994),
87–90. For 4QpaleoGen-Exod1, see Patrick W. Skehan et al., eds., Qumran Cave 4 IV:
Paleo-Hebrew and Greek Biblical Manuscripts, DJD IX (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 21, 27.
To date, no intact text of Genesis 29 has been discovered at Qumran.
52
The LXX divergences from the MT are mostly explainable as accommodations to
Greek syntax, expansions which harmonize internal repetitions, some agreements with the
SP against the MT (Gen 24:15, 33, 62; 29:8; Exod 2:21), and several modernizations (e.g.,
a nose ring becomes earrings in Gen 24:22, 47, and a tent becomes a house in 24:67). The
Qumran readings have no variants from the MT in the unreconstructed text.
53
For the MT of Gen 29:3, 8, see BHS; for the SP, see Tal and Florentin, The Pentateuch,
131, 133; and for the LXX, see Wevers, Genesis, 275–76. On the inherent logic of “shep-
herds” versus “flocks,” see John William Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis,
SBLSCS 35 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), 460.
54
Genesis 29:9b MT reads simply, ʠʥʤʤʲʸʩʫ, while the LXX expansion in Exod 2:16a
has no MT equivalent. See BHS; and Wevers, Genesis, 276–77.
55
Wevers, Genesis, 277; Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis, 462. See also
Emanuel Tov, “Textual Harmonization in the Stories of the Patriarchs,” in Rewriting and
Interpreting the Hebrew Bible: The Biblical Patriarchs in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,
ed. Devorah Dimant and Reinhard G. Kratz, BZAW 439 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 19–50,
here 36.
56
For a list of possible parallels to John 4:1–42 in these writings, see the table in section
1.1 above. Studies which incorporate these writings include, inter alia, Piet Van Veldhuizen,
Geef mij te drinken: Johannes 4,4–42 als waterputverhaal (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum,
2004), 149–79; Frédéric Manns, L’Évangile de Jean et la sagesse, SBFA 62 (Jerusalem:
Franciscan Printing Press, 2003), 114–20; and Frédéric Manns, L’Évangile de Jean à la
lumière du Judaïsme, SBFA 33 (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1991), 121–40.
1.2 Navigating a Sea of Scholarship 21
have influenced the Samaritan pericope’s use of Scripture. In light of the lack
of scholarly consensus regarding the Gospel’s origins and these writings’ late
dates of composition, however, their role in the Gospel of John’s formulation
process remains hypothetical. 57 Therefore, they will not be included in the
comparative analysis of the four selected biblical texts. Rather, those that in
some way address the relationship between the selected passages will be
treated in the following review of literature. 58
1.1.4 Summary
The present study therefore selects the well encounters in Gen 24:1–67; 29:1–
14; Exod 2:15–22; and John 4:1–42 as the texts to be compared and analyzed.
The exclusion of other texts is not to be understood as either a denial or a tacit
affirmation of their relationship to the Johannine text. It simply maintains the
focus on the Samaria narrative and three Scripture passages with a similar nar-
rative structure and a plausible influence on its formulation. Limiting the scope
to pentateuchal texts is also entirely appropriate for an analysis involving a
Gospel text which engages the Samaritans and their beliefs. All four of these
passages will be considered in their entirety as delimited according to narrative
criteria, with no verses excluded. Treating them as complete units highlights
their similarities as well as their corresponding differences, both of which will
be further explored in subsequent chapters. In the past, disparate and often in-
complete assessments of these similarities and differences have impeded the
scholarly discussion on these texts’ relationship, as the following review of
literature will show.
1.2 Navigating a Sea of Scholarship
The relationship between John 4:1–42 and the well encounters in Genesis 24
and 29 and Exodus 2 has generated a considerable amount of research and dis-
cussion over the years. Although complete consensus has rarely ever been
reached on any long-standing debate in biblical criticism, at least majority and
minority positions can usually be identified. In this case, however, there is no
majority position. The critical discussion has settled into a stalemate, with dif-
fering opinions scattered across a wide horizon. The present study seeks to
move beyond this discord by building upon the contributions of previous ap-
proaches and addressing some ongoing lacunae.
57
On the scholarly discussion regarding the dates of composition of the works of Philo
and Josephus, the targumim, and the rabbinic and early Christian writings, respectively, see
Evans, Ancient Texts, 168, 174, 186, 217–18, and 269–75. On the scholarly discussion re-
garding the Gospel of John’s origins, see Keener, The Gospel of John, 1:140–49.
58
See section 1.2.1 below.
Any discussion of the OT background of John 4 touches upon several related

issues which have also generated a vast amount of scholarly discussion: the
exegesis of 4:1–42, the history of Samaria and the Samaritans during the Sec-
ond Temple period, and the manner in which the Fourth Gospel uses Scripture.
In each of these areas, several well-known summaries of the state of research
are available. 59 Therefore, the following survey focuses on scholarship which
specifically addresses the relationship between John 4:1–42 and the three se-
lected OT texts. After a brief word on interpretations from the pre-critical era,
the principal aim is to engage the judgments of modern, critical scholarship.
Representative exegetes who employ primarily diachronic approaches will be
examined first, followed by those whose method is chiefly synchronic, and fi-
nally by those who combine synchronic and diachronic processes. 60 Particular
59
For a review of literature on the overall interpretation of John 4:1–42, see the various
commentaries and the comprehensive review of literature in Andrea Link, “Was redest du
mit ihr?” Eine Studie zur Exegese-, Redaktions- und Theologiegeschichte von Joh 4,1–42,
Biblische Untersuchungen 24 (Regensburg: Pustet, 1992), 6–177. For a literature review on
the Samaritan woman as a character, see Janeth Norfleete Day, The Woman at the Well:
Interpretation of John 4:1–42 in Retrospect and Prospect, BIS 61 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 7–
41.
For an overview and literature survey on the Samaritans’ origins, history, beliefs, and
distinctive version of the Pentateuch, see Pummer, The Samaritans, 9–118, 128–31, 195–
218. For a briefer treatment, see John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical
Jesus, 5 vols., ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1991–2016), 3:532–49. On the Samaritans in
the NT, see Jörg Frey, “‘Gute’ Samaritaner? Das neutestamentliche Bild der Samaritaner
zwischen Juden, Christen und Paganen,” in Die Samaritaner und die Bibel: Historische und
literarische Wechselwirkungen zwischen biblischen und samaritanischen Traditionen, ed.
Jörg Frey, Ursula Schattner-Rieser, and Konrad Schmid, SJ 70 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012),
203–34. On the Samaritans in the Fourth Gospel specifically, see Jürgen Zangenberg, Frühes
Christentum in Samarien: Topographische und traditionsgeschichtliche Studien zu den
Samarientexten im Johannesevangelium, Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen
Zeitalter 27 (Tübingen: Francke, 1998), esp. 87–196.
For a review of literature on the overall use of the OT in John, see Alessandro Cavicchia,
“La Scrittura nel Quarto Vangelo: Una tappa della storia della ricerca (1860–2004),” LASBF
66 (2016): 135–93; Alicia D. Myers, “Abiding Words: An Introduction to Perspectives on
John’s Use of Scripture,” in Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed.
Alicia D. Myers and Bruce G. Schuchard, RBS 81 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015), 1–20; Ruth
Sheridan, Retelling Scripture: “The Jews” and the Scriptural Citations in John 1:19–12:15,
BIS 110 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 6–46; and Andreas Obermann, Die christologische Erfüllung
der Schrift im Johannesevangelium, WUNT II 83 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 3–36.
60
Naturally, scholarship on John 4:1–42 in the modern era also includes studies which
make no mention whatsoever of the pentateuchal well encounters. Notable among these are
Marie-Joseph Lagrange, Évangile selon Saint Jean, EBib (Paris: Gabalda, 1927); and three
works by C.H. Dodd: According to the Scriptures: The Sub-structure of New Testament
Theology, Stone Lectures (New York: Scribner’s, 1952); Historical Tradition in the Fourth
Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963); and The Interpretation of the
Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960).
1.2 Navigating a Sea of Scholarship 23
attention will be given to the methodological choices of each approach, the

insights it contributes to the present discussion, and the lacunae which remain.
1.2.1 Pre-critical approaches

Ancient Jewish sources obviously do not engage the Gospel of John, but they
do provide a first-century perspective on the pentateuchal well encounters.
Philo offers an allegorical interpretation of the exchanges in Genesis 24 in De
posteritate Caini, briefly drawing a comparison with Genesis 29. 61 In De vita
Mosis, he likens the virtues of the characters in Exodus 2 to those extolled by
Greek philosophy. 62 Josephus reprises all three encounters in Antiquitates Ju-
daicae, but he draws no explicit connection among them. 63 Interestingly, he
describes Moses as arriving and sitting upon the well at midday (ȝİıȘȝȕȡ઀ĮȢ
Ƞ੡ıȘȢ), a detail coinciding with Gen 29:7 and John 4:6 but unattested in any
textual witness of the book of Exodus. 64 It has been noted that Philo’s and Jo-
sephus’ interpretations may have been influenced by the similar scenes in
Homer and Euripides mentioned above. 65 The significant data for the present
discussion is that symbolic and allegorical interpretations of the OT passages,
oral or written traditions surrounding them, and comparisons with secular Hel-
lenistic literature were all in circulation during the period when John 4:1–42
was composed.
From the Christian patristic era, the only author to explicitly connect John
4:1–42 with the three OT passages is Origen. 66 When he treats John 4 in his
Commentarii in evangelium Joannis, he invokes the meeting between Rebecca
and Abraham’s servant (Gen 24:12–19) as a point of comparison. 67 He calls
attention to how Rebecca kept her water jar, while the Samaritan woman aban-
doned hers because she had made a far better discovery. When commenting on
John 4:32, he contrasts the fodder given to feed the servant’s animals (Gen
24:25, 32) with the spiritual food of which Jesus speaks. 68 In Homiliae in
Genesim et Exodum, he juxtaposes Jesus’ words on living water (John 4:14)
61
Philo, Post. 1.132–154.
62
Philo, Mos. 1.47–59.
63
Josephus treats Genesis 24 in Ant. 1.242–255, Genesis 29 in 1.285–296, and Exodus 2
in 2.254–263.
64
Josephus, Ant. 2.257; see the critical apparatus of BHS. This detail may represent a
harmonization with Gen 29:7 and/or a contemporary tradition.
65
See section 1.1.1.1 above.
66
On Origen’s overall interpretation of John 4:1–42, see Link, Was redest du mit ihr, 11–
16. The OT comparisons are all from Origen himself and not from the gnostic commentary
by Heracleon with which he interacts; see Jean-Michel Poffet, La méthode exégétique
d’Héracléon et d’Origène, commentateurs de Jn 4: Jésus, la Samaritaine et les Samaritains,
Paradosis 28 (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1985), 215–16.
67
Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.29 (PG 14:449–50).
68
Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.33 (PG 14:457–58).
with a wide variety of pentateuchal themes. 69 In his homily on Genesis 24,

however, he explicitly brings Genesis 29, Exodus 2 and John 4 into the discus-
sion. For Origen, Abraham’s servant symbolizes the prophetic word. 70 The
servant asks Rebecca for a drink much as Jesus makes a similar request to the
Samaritan woman, representing how the attention of the zealous quenches the
thirst of the prophetic word. Drawing water daily in the Christian assembly,
the soul can become united in spiritual marriage with God. Abraham’s servant,
Rebecca, Jacob, Rachel, Moses, and Zipporah all found what they were looking
for at the well. 71 Even Moses and Jesus found rest there, because the well is
taken to represent sacred Scripture, an analogy which Origen also develops in
his commentary on the Fourth Gospel.
Aside from a passing comparison made by Ambrose of Milan in De Abra-
ham, no other patristic or medieval author makes associations of this nature. 72
Chrysostom preaches on Genesis 24 and 29 and on John 4, but he makes no
comparisons between these passages or with Exodus 2. 73 Neither does his con-
temporary Augustine when he treats John 4. 74 Aquinas interprets the well in
Samaria as representing Scripture (like Origen) and incorporates numerous ref-
erences to the OT, but none from the pentateuchal well encounters. 75
Nevertheless, the patristic and medieval exegesis of John 4:1–42 still pro-
vides valuable information. For Origen, a scholar skilled in comparing scrip-
tural texts, the passages from Genesis and Exodus were essential to the Gospel
pericope’s interpretation. Other authors did not address any comparison, prob-
ably because they understood Genesis 24 and 29, Exodus 2, and John 4 as
straightforward accounts of historical events. In this way, despite differences
in context, mind-set, and methodology, the work of pre-critical authors dealt
with many of the same issues as modern biblical criticism, to which we now
turn our attention.
1.2.2 Primarily diachronic approaches

For most of the twentieth century, the predominant voice of critical scholarship
on the Gospel of John was provided by exegetes who employed the historical-
Origen, Hom. Gen. 1.2; 7.5; 11.3; 12.5 (PG 12:148, 202, 224, 229).
69
Origen, Hom. Gen. 10.3 (PG 12:217–18).

70
71
Origen, Hom. Gen. 10.5 (PG 12:219–20); Origen, Comm. Jo., 13.5–6 (PG 14:405–408).
72
Ambrose, Abr. 1.9.88 (PG 14:452–53). Ambrose draws a contrast between Rebecca,
who goes down to the spring to draw water, and the Samaritan woman, who neither draws
nor drinks from the fount of eternal life.
73
Saint John Chrysostom, Hom. Gen. 48, 55 (PG 54:434–43, 479–86); Saint John Chrys-
ostom, Hom. Jo. 31–35 (PG 59:175–204); see also Link, Was redest du mit ihr, 16–21.
74
Saint Augustine, Tract. Ev. Jo. 15 (PL 35:1510–22); see also Was redest du mit ihr,
21–23.
75
Saint Thomas Aquinas, Commentarium super Ioannem, ed. Stanislas Edouard Fretté,
Doctoris angelici Thomae Aquinatis Opera Omnia 19 (Paris: Louis Vives, 1876), 800–825.
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39. The work referred to is embodied in Vol. II (pp. 521 et seq.,
562 et seq., 631 et seq.).
40. The philosophy of this book I owe to the philosophy of Goethe,
which is practically unknown to-day, and also (but in a far less
degree) to that of Nietzsche. The position of Goethe in West-
European metaphysics is still not understood in the least; when
philosophy is being discussed he is not even named. For
unfortunately he did not set down his doctrines in a rigid system, and
so the systematic philosophy has overlooked him. Nevertheless he
was a philosopher. His place vis-à-vis Kant is the same as that of
Plato—who similarly eludes the would-be-systematizer—vis-à-vis
Aristotle. Plato and Goethe stand for the philosophy of Becoming,
Aristotle and Kant the philosophy of Being. Here we have intuition
opposed to analysis. Something that it is practically impossible to
convey by the methods of reason is found in individual sayings and
poems of Goethe, e.g., in the Orphische Urworte, and stanzas like
“Wenn im Unendlichen” and “Sagt es Niemand,” which must be
regarded as the expression of a perfectly definite metaphysical
doctrine. I would not have one single word changed in this: "The
Godhead is effective in the living and not in the dead, in the
becoming and the changing, not in the become and the set-fast; and
therefore, similarly, the reason (Vernunft) is concerned only to strive
towards the divine through the becoming and the living, and the
understanding (Verstand) only to make use of the become and the
set-fast" (to Eckermann). This sentence comprises my entire
philosophy.
41. At the end of the volume.
42. Weltanschauung im wörtlichen Sinne; Anschauung der Welt.
43. The case of mankind in the historyless state is discussed in
Vol. II, pp. 58 et seq.
44. With, moreover, a “biological horizon.” See Vol. II, p. 34.
45. See Vol. II, pp. 327 et seq.
46. Also “thinking in money.” See Vol. II, pp. 603 et seq.
47. Dynasties I-VIII, or, effectively, I-VI. The Pyramid period
coincides with Dynasties IV-VI. Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus
belong to the IV dynasty, under which also great water-control works
were carried out between Abydos and the Fayum.—Tr.
48. As also those of law and of money. See Vol. II, pp. 68 et seq.,
pp. 616 et seq.
49. Poincaré in his Science et Méthode (Ch. III), searchingly
analyses the “becoming” of one of his own mathematical discoveries.
Each decisive stage in it bears “les mêmes caractères de brièveté,
de soudaineté et de certitude absolue” and in most cases this
“certitude” was such that he merely registered the discovery and put
off its working-out to any convenient season.—Tr.
50. One may be permitted to add that according to legend, both
Hippasus who took to himself public credit for the discovery of a
sphere of twelve pentagons, viz., the regular dodecahedron
(regarded by the Pythagoreans as the quintessence—or æther—of a
world of real tetrahedrons, octahedrons, icosahedrons and cubes),
and Archytas the eighth successor of the Founder are reputed to
have been drowned at sea. The pentagon from which this
dodecahedron is derived, itself involves incommensurable numbers.
The “pentagram” was the recognition badge of Pythagoreans and
the ἄλογον (incommensurable) their special secret. It would be
noted, too, that Pythagoreanism was popular till its initiates were
found to be dealing in these alarming and subversive doctrines, and
then they were suppressed and lynched—a persecution which
suggests more than one deep analogy with certain heresy-
suppressions of Western history. The English student may be
referred to G. J. Allman, Greek Geometry from Thales to Euclid
(Cambridge, 1889), and to his articles “Pythagoras,” “Philolaus” and
“Archytas” in the Ency. Brit., XI Edition.—Tr.
51. Horace’s words (Odes I xi): “Tu ne quæsieris, scire nefas,
quem mihi quem tibi finem di dederint, Leuconoë, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros ... carpe diem, quam minimum credula
postero.”—Tr.
53. In the only writing of his that survives, indeed, Aristarchus
maintains the geocentric view; it may be presumed therefore that it
was only temporarily that he let himself be captivated by a
hypothesis of the Chaldaean learning.
54. Giordano Bruno (born 1548, burned for heresy 1600). His
whole life might be expressed as a crusade on behalf of God and the
Copernican universe against a degenerated orthodoxy and an
Aristotelian world-idea long coagulated in death.—Tr.
55. F. Strunz, Gesch. d. Naturwiss. im Mittelalter (1910), p. 90.
56. In the “Psammites,” or “Arenarius,” Archimedes framed a
numerical notation which was to be capable of expressing the
number of grains of sand in a sphere of the size of our universe.—Tr.
57. This, for which the ground had been prepared by Eudoxus,
was employed for calculating the volume of pyramids and cones:
“the means whereby the Greeks were able to evade the forbidden
notion of infinity” (Heiberg, Naturwiss. u. Math. i. Klass. Alter. [1912],
p. 27).
58. Dr. Anster’s translation.—Tr.
59. See Vol. II, Chapter III.
60. Oresme was, equally, prelate, church reformer, scholar,
scientist and economist—the very type of the philosopher-leader.—
Tr.
61. Oresme in his Latitudines Formarum used ordinate and
abscissa, not indeed to specify numerically, but certainly to describe,
change, i.e., fundamentally, to express functions.—Tr.
62. Alexandria ceased to be a world-city in the second century A.D.
and became a collection of houses left over from the Classical
civilization which harboured a primitive population of quite different
spiritual constitution. See Vol. II, pp. 122 et seq.
63. Born 1601, died 1665. See Ency. Brit., XI Ed., article Fermat,
and references therein.—Tr.
64. Similarly, coinage and double-entry book-keeping play
analogous parts in the money-thinking of the Classical and the
Western Cultures respectively. See Vol. II, pp. 610 et seq.
65. The same may be said in the matter of Roman Law (see Vol.
II, pp. 96 et seq.) and of coinage (see Vol. II, pp. 616 et seq.).
66. That is, “it is impossible to part a cube into two cubes, a
biquadrate into two biquadrates, and generally any power above the
square into two powers having the same exponent.” Fermat claimed
to possess a proof of the proposition, but this has not been
preserved, and no general proof has hitherto been obtained.—Tr.
67. Thus Bishop Berkeley’s Discourse addressed to an infidel
mathematician (1735) shrewdly asked whether the mathematician
were in a position to criticize the divine for proceeding on the basis of
faith.—Tr.
68. From the savage conjuror with his naming-magic to the
modern scientist who subjects things by attaching technical labels to
them, the form has in no wise changed. See Vol. II, pp. 116 et seq.,
322 et seq.
70. A beginning is now being made with the application of non-
Euclidean geometries to astronomy. The hypothesis of curved space,
closed but without limits, filled by the system of fixed stars on a
radius of about 470,000,000 earth-distances, would lead to the
hypothesis of a counter-image of the sun which to us appears as a
star of medium brilliancy. (See translator’s footnote, p. 332.)
71. That only one parallel to a given straight line is possible
through a given point—a proposition that is incapable of proof.
72. It is impossible to say, with certainty, how much of the Indian
mathematics that we possess is old, i.e., before Buddha.
73. The technical difference (in German usage) between Grenz
and Grenzwert is in most cases ignored in this translation as it is
only the underlying conception of “number” common to both that
concerns us. Grenz is the “limit” strictly speaking, i.e., the number a
to which the terms a1₁, a2₂, a₃ ... of a particular series approximate
more and more closely, till nearer to a than any assignable number
whatever. The Grenzwert of a function, on the other hand, is the
“limit” of the value which the function takes for a given value a of the
variable x. These methods of reasoning and their derivatives enable
solutions to be obtained for series such as (1⁄m¹,) (1⁄m²,)
(1⁄m³,) ... (1⁄mx) or functions such as
x(2x - 1)
y = —————
(x + 2)(x - 3)
where x is infinite or indefinite.—Tr.
74. “Function, rightly understood, is existence considered as an
activity” (Goethe). Cf. Vol. II, p. 618, for functional money.
75. Built for August II, in 1711, as barbican or fore-building for a
projected palace.—Tr.
76. From the standpoint of the theory of “aggregates” (or “sets of
points”), a well-ordered set of points, irrespective of the dimension
figure, is called a corpus; and thus an aggregate of n - 1 dimensions
is considered, relatively to one of n dimensions, as a surface. Thus
the limit (wall, edge) of an “aggregate” represents an aggregate of
lower “potentiality.”
77. See p. 55, also Vol. II, pp. 25 et seq.
78. “Anti-historical,” the expression which we apply to a decidedly
systematic valuation, is to be carefully distinguished from
“ahistorical.” The beginning of the IV Book (53) of Schopenhauer’s
Welt als Wille und Vorstellung affords a good illustration of the man
who thinks anti-historically, that is, deliberately for theoretical
reasons suppresses and rejects the historical in himself—something
that is actually there. The ahistoric Greek nature, on the contrary,
neither possesses nor understands it.
79. “There are prime phenomena which in their godlike simplicity
we must not disturb or infringe.”
80. The date of Napoleon’s defeat, and the liberation of Germany,
on the field of Leipzig.—Tr.
81. See Vol. II, pp. 25 et seq., 327 et seq.
82.
“All we see before us passing

Sign and symbol is alone.”
From the final stanza of Faust II (Anster’s translation).—Tr.
83. This phrase, derived by analogy from the centre of gravity of
mechanics, is offered as a translation of “mithin in einim Zeitpunkte
ger nicht zusammengefasst werden können.”—Tr.
84. Cf. Vol. II, p. 33 et seq.
85. Not the dissecting morphology of the Darwinian’s pragmatic
zoology with its hunt for causal connexions, but the seeing and
overseeing morphology of Goethe.
88. See Vol. II, pp. 116 et seq. What constitutes the downfall is
not, e.g., the catastrophe of the Great Migrations, which like the
annihilation of the Maya Culture by the Spaniards (see Vol. II, p. 51
et seq.) was a coincidence without any deep necessity, but the
inward undoing that began from the time of Hadrian, as in China
from the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220).
89. St. Bernward was Bishop of Hildesheim from 993 to 1022, and
himself architect and metal-worker. Three other churches besides
the cathedral survive in the city from his time or that of his immediate
successors, and Hildesheim of all North German cities is richest in
monuments of the Romanesque.—Tr.
90. By “Saxony,” a German historian means not the present-day
state of Saxony (which was a small and comparatively late
accretion), but the whole region of the Weser and the lower Elbe,
with Westphalia and Holstein.—Tr.
91. Vases from the cemetery adjoining the Dipylon Gate of Athens,
the most representative relics that we possess of the Doric or
primitive age of the Hellenic Culture (about 900 to 600 B.C.).—Tr.
93. In English the word “cast” will evidently satisfy the sense better
on occasion. The word “stil” will therefore not necessarily be always
rendered “style.”—Tr.
96. I will only mention here the distances apart of the three Punic
Wars, and the series—likewise comprehensible only as rhythmic—
Spanish Succession War, Silesian wars, Napoleonic Wars,
Bismarck’s wars, and the World War (cf. Vol. II, p. 488). Connected
with this is the spiritual relation of grandfather and grandson, a
relation which produces in the mind of primitive peoples the
conviction that the soul of the grandfather returns in the grandson,
and has originated the widespread custom of giving the grandson
the grandfather’s name, which by its mystic spell binds his soul
afresh to the corporeal world.
97. The word is used in the sense in which biology employs it, viz.,
to describe the process by which the embryo traverses all the
phases which its species has undergone.—Tr.
98. The first draft of Faust I, discovered only comparatively
recently.—Tr.
99. See Ency. Brit., XIth Ed., articles Owen, Sir Richard;
Morphology and Zoology (p. 1029).—Tr.
100. It is not superfluous to add that there is nothing of the causal
kind in these pure phenomena of “Living Nature.” Materialism, in
order to get a system for the pedestrian reasoner, has had to
adulterate the picture of them with fitness-causes. But Goethe—who
anticipated just about as much of Darwinism as there will be left of it
in fifty years from Darwin—absolutely excluded the causality-
principle. And the very fact that the Darwinians quite failed to notice
its absence is a clear indication that Goethe’s “Living Nature”
belongs to actual life, "cause"-less and "aim"-less; for the idea of the
prime-phenomenon does not involve causal assumptions of any sort
unless it has been misunderstood in advance in a mechanistic
sense.
101. Reigned 246-210 B.C. He styled himself “first universal
emperor” and intended a position for himself and his successors akin
to that of “Divus” in Rome. For a brief account of his energetic and
comprehensive work see Ency. Brit., XI Ed., article China, p. 194.—
Tr.
102. The sensuous life and the intellectual life too are Time; it is
only sensuous experience and intellectual experience, the “world,”
that is spatial nature. (As to the nearer affinity of the Feminine to
Time, see Vol. II, pp. 403 et seq.)
103. The expression “space of time” (Zeitraum) which is common
to many languages, is evidence of our inability to represent direction
otherwise than by extension.
104. I.e., the translated Bible.—Tr.
106. See p. 80 of this volume, and Vol. II, pp. 166, 328.
107. See Vol. II, p. 137.
108. The nearest English equivalent is perhaps the word “fear.”
“Fearful” would correspond exactly but for the fact that in the second
sense the word is objective instead of subjective. The word “shy”
itself bears the second meaning in such trivial words as gun-shy,
work-shy.—Tr.
109. The Relativity theory, a working hypothesis which is on the
way to overthrowing Newton’s mechanics—which means at bottom
his view of the problem of motion—admits cases in which the words
“earlier” and “later” may be inverted. The mathematical foundation of
this theory by Minkowski uses imaginary time units for measurement.
110. The dimensions are x, y, z (in respect of space) and t (in
respect of time), and all four appear to be regarded as perfectly
equivalent in transformations. [The English reader may be referred to
A. Einstein, “Theory of Relativity,” Ch. XI and appendices I, II.—Tr.]
111. Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicari velim,
nescio. (Conf. XI, 14.)
112. Save in elementary mathematics. (It may be remarked that
most philosophers since Schopenhauer have approached these
questions with the prepossessions of elementary mathematics.)
113. The “inverse circular functions” of English text-books.—Tr.
114. The Newtonian form of the differential calculus was distinct
from the Leibnizian, which is now in general use. Without going into
unnecessary detail, the characteristic of Newton’s method was that it
was meant not for the calculation of quadratures and tangents
(which had occupied his predecessors), nor as an organ of functional
theory as such (as the differential calculus became much later), but
quite definitely as a method of dealing with rate of change in pure
mechanics, with the “flowing” or “fluxion” of a dependent variable
under the influence of a variable which for Newton was the “fluent,”
and which we call the argument of a function.—Tr.
115. See Vol. II, pp. 13, 19.
116. See Vol. II, p. 16.
117. The original reads: “(So ist jede Art von Verstehen ... nur
dadurch möglich ...) dass ein Begriffspaar von innerem Gegensatz
gewissermassen durch Auseinandertreten erst Wirklichkeit erhält.”—
Tr.
118. At this point the German text repeats the paragraph which in
this edition begins at “But inquiry” (p. 121) and ends at the close of
section I (p. 121).—Tr.
119. See Vol. II, pp. 137, 159.
120. Here the author presumably means history in the ordinary
acceptation of the word.—Tr.
121. Œd. Rex., 642. κακῶς εἴληφα τοὐμὸν σῶμα σὺν τέχνῃ κακῇ.
(Cf. Rudolf Hirsch, Die Person (1914), p. 9.)
122. Œd. Col., 355. μαντεῖα ... ἃ τοῦδ’ ἐχρήσθη σώματος.
123. Choëphoræ, 710. ἐπὶ ναυάρχῳ σώματι ... τῷ βασιλείῳ.
124. Phidias, and through him his patron Pericles, were attacked
for alleged introduction of portraits upon the shield of Athene
Parthenos. In Western religious art, on the contrary, portraiture was,
as everyone knows, a habitual practice. Every Madonna, for
instance, is more or less of a portrait.
With this may be compared again the growing resistance of
Byzantine art, as it matured, to portraiture in sacred surroundings,
evidenced for instance in the history of the nimbus or halo—which
was removed from the insignia of the Prince to become the badge of
the Saint—in the legend of the miraculous effacement of Justinian’s
pompous inscription on Hagia Sophia, and in the banishment of the
human patron from the celestial part of the church to the earthly.—Tr.
125. Who was criticized as “no god-maker but a man-maker” and
as one who spoilt the beauty of his work by aiming at likeness.
Cresilas, the sculptor from whom the only existing portrait of
Pericles is derived, was a little earlier; in him, however, the “ideal”
was still the supreme aim.—Tr.
126. The writers immediately succeeding Aristophanes.—Tr.
128. Diels, Antike Technik (1920), p. 159.
129. About 400 B.C. savants began to construct crude sun-dials in
Africa and Ionia, and from Plato’s time still more primitive clepsydræ
came into use; but in both forms, the Greek clock was a mere
imitation of the far superior models of the older East, and it had not
the slightest connexion with the Greek life-feeling. See Diels, op. cit.,
pp. 160 et seq.
130. Horace’s monumentum ære perennius (Odes III, 30) may
seem to conflict with this: but let the reader reconsider the whole of
that ode in the light of the present argument, and turn also to
Leuconoe and her “Babylonian” impieties (Odes I, 11) inter alia, and
he will probably agree that so far as Horace is concerned, the
argument is supported rather than impugned.—Tr.
131. Ordered, for us, by the Christian chronology and the ancient-
mediæval-modern scheme. It was on those foundations that, from
early Gothic times, the images of religion and of art have been built
up in which a large part of Western humanity continues to live. To
predicate the same of Plato or Phidias is quite impossible, whereas
the Renaissance artists could and did project a classical past, which
indeed they permitted to dominate their judgments completely.
132. See pp. 9. et seq.
133. The Indian history of our books is a Western reconstruction
from texts and monuments. See the chapter on epigraphy in the
“Indian Gazetteer,” Vol. II.—Tr.
134. See Vol. II, pp. 482, 521 et seq.
135. There is one famous episode in Greek history that may be
thought to contradict this—the race against time of the galley sent to
Mitylene to countermand the order of massacre (Thucydides, III, 49).
But we observe that Thucydides gives twenty times the space to the
debates at Athens that he gives to the drama of the galley-rowers
pulling night and day to save life. And we are told that it was the
Mitylenean ambassadors who spared no expense to make it worth
the rowers’ while to win, whereupon “there arose such a zeal of
rowing that....” The final comment is, strictly construing Thucydides’s
own words: “Such was the magnitude of the danger that Mitylene
passed by” (παρὰ τοσοῦτον μὲν ἡ Μυτιλήνη ἦλθε κινδύνου), a
phrase which recalls forcibly what has just been said regarding the
“situation-drama.”—Tr.
136. Besides the clock, the bell itself is a Western “symbol.” The
passing-bell tolled for St. Hilda of Whitby in 680, and a century
before that time bells had come into general use in Gaul both for
monasteries and for parish churches. On the contrary, it was not till
865 that Constantinople possessed bells, and these were presented
in that year by Venice. The presence of a belfry in a Byzantine
church is accounted a proof of “Western influence”: the East used
and still largely uses mere gongs and rattles for religious purposes.
(British Museum “Handbook of Early Christian Antiquities)”.—Tr.
137. May we be permitted to guess that the Babylonian sun-dial
and the Egyptian water-clock came into being “simultaneously,” that
is, on the threshold of the third millennium before Christ? The history
of clocks is inwardly inseparable from that of the calendar; it is
therefore to be assumed that the Chinese and the Mexican Cultures
also, with their deep sense of history, very early devised and used
methods of time-measurement.
(The Mexican Culture developed the most intricate of all known
systems of indicating year and day. See British Museum “Handbook
of May on Antiquities.”—Tr.)
138. Let the reader try to imagine what a Greek would feel when
suddenly made acquainted with this custom of ours.
139. The Chinese ancestor-worship honoured genealogical order
with strict ceremonies. And whereas here ancestor-worship by
degrees came to be the centre of all piety, in the Classical world it
was driven entirely into the background by the cults of present gods;
in Roman times it hardly existed at all.
(Note the elaborate precautions taken in the Athenian
“Anthesteria” to keep the anonymous mass of ghosts at bay. This
feast was anything but an All Souls’ Day of re-communion with the
departed spirits.—Tr.)
140. With obvious reference to the resurrection of the flesh (ἐκ
νεκρῶν). But the meaning of the term “resurrection” has undergone,
from about 1000 A.D., a profound—though hardly noticed—change.
More and more it has tended to become identified with “immortality.”
But in the resurrection from the dead, the implication is that time
begins again to repeat in space, whereas in “immortality” it is time
that overcomes space.
141. For English readers, the most conspicuous case of historic
doubt is the Shakespeare-Bacon matter. But even here, it is only the
work of Shakespeare that is in question, not his existence and
personality, for which we have perfectly definite evidence.—Tr.
142. Originally a philosophical and scientific lecture-temple
founded in honour of Aristotle, and later the great University of
Alexandria, bore the title Μουσεῖον. Both Aristotle and the University
amassed collections but they were collections of (a) books, (b)
natural history specimens, living or taken from life. In the West, the
collection of memorials of the past as such dates from the earliest
days of the Renaissance.—Tr.
143. The connotation of “care” is almost the same as that of
“Sorge,” but the German word includes also a certain specific, ad
hoc apprehension, that in English is expressed by “concern” or
“fear.”—Tr.
144. The Lingayats are one of the chief sects of the Saivas (that
is, of the branch of Hinduism which devotes itself to Shiva) and
Paewati worshippers belong to another branch, having the generic
name of Saktas, who worship the “active female principle” in the
persons of Shiva’s consorts, of whom Paewati is one. Vaishnavism—
the Vishnu branch of Indian religion—also contains an erotic element
in that form which conceives Vishnu as Krishna. But in Krishna
worship the erotic is rather less precise and more amorous in
character.
See “Imperial Gazetteer of India,” Vol. I, pp. 421 et seq., and Ency.
Brit., XI Edition, article Hinduism.—Tr.
145. British Museum.—Tr.
146. Dresden.—Tr.
147. See Vol. II, p. 316.
148. In connexion with this very important link in the Author’s
argument, attention may be drawn to a famous wall-painting of very
early date in the Catacomb of St. Priscilla. In this, Mary is definitely
and unmistakably the Stillende Mutter. But she is, equally
unmistakably, different in soul and style from her “Early-Christian-
Byzantine” successor the Theotokos. Now, it is well known that the
art of the catacombs, at any rate in its beginnings, is simply the art of
contemporary Rome, and that this “Roman” art had its home in
Alexandria. See Woermann’s Geschichte der Kunst, III, 14-15, and
British Museum “Guide to Early Christian Art,” 72-74, 86. Woermann
speaks of this Madonna as the prototype of our grave, tenderly-
solicitous Mother-Madonnas. Dr. Spengler would probably prefer to
regard her as the last Isis. In any case it is significant that the symbol
disappears: in the very same catacomb is a Theotokos of perhaps a
century later date.—Tr.
149. Vol. II, pp. 403 et seq.
150. See, further, the last two sections of Vol. II (Der Staat and
Wirtschaftsleben).—Tr.
151. Sesenheim is the home of Friederike, and a student’s holiday
took him thither: Weimar, of course, is the centre from which all the
activity of his long life was to radiate.—Tr.
152. Vermeintlich. The allusion is presumably to the fact that
Copernicus, adhering to the hypothesis of circular orbits, was obliged
to retain some elements of Ptolemy’s geocentric machinery of
epicycles, so that Copernicus’s sun was not placed at the true centre
of any planetary orbit.—Tr.
153. Sprüche in Reimen.
155. The path from Calvin to Darwin is easily seen in English
philosophy.
156. This is one of the eternal points of dispute in Western art-
theory. The Classical, ahistorical, Euclidean soul has no “evolution”;
the Western, on the contrary, extends itself in evolving like the
convergent function that it is. The one is, the other becomes. And
thus all Classical tragedy assumes the constancy of the personality,
and all Western its variability, which essentially constitutes a
“character” in our sense, viz., a picture of being that consists in
continuous qualitative movement and an endless wealth of
relationships. In Sophocles the grand gesture ennobles the suffering,
in Shakespeare the grand idea (Gesinnung) ennobles the doing. As
our æsthetic took its examples from both Cultures, it was bound to
go wrong in the very enunciation of its problem.
157. “The older one becomes, the more one is persuaded that His
Sacred Majesty Chance does three-quarters of the work of this
miserable Universe.” (Frederick the Great to Voltaire.) So,
necessarily, must the genuine rationalist conceive it.
159. The incident which is said to have precipitated the French
war on Algiers (1827).—Tr.
160. Act. II, Scene VII.—Tr.
161. In the general upheaval of 1848 a German national
parliament was assembled at Frankfurt, of a strongly democratic
colour, and it chose Frederick William IV of Prussia as hereditary
emperor. Frederick William, however, refused to “pick up a crown out
of the gutter.” For the history of this momentous episode, the English
reader may be referred to the Cambridge Modern History or to the
article Germany (History) in the Ency. Brit., XI Edition.—Tr.
162. It is the fact that a whole group of these Cultures is available
for our study that makes possible the “comparative” method used in
the present work. See Vol. II, pp. 42 et seq.
163. Derived from μείρομαι, to receive as one’s portion, to have
allotted to one, or, colloquially, to “come in for” or “step into.”—Tr.
164. The expedition of the Ten Thousand into Persia is no
exception. The Ten Thousand indeed formed an ambulatory Polis,
and its adventures are truly Classical. It was confronted with a series
of “situations.”—Tr.
165. Helios is only a poetical figure; he had neither temples nor
cult. Even less was Selene a moon-goddess.
166. The original is somewhat obscure. It reads: "Welche Form die
Wahrscheinlichkeit für sich hat, ist bereits eine Frage des
historischen—und also des tragischen—Stils."—Tr.
167. The words of Canning at the beginning of the XIXth century
may be recalled. “South America free! and if possible English!” The
expansion idea has never been expressed in greater purity than this.
168. The Western Culture of maturity was through-and-through a
French outgrowth of the Spanish, beginning with Louis XIV. But even
by Louis XVI’s time the English park had defeated the French,
sensibility had ousted wit, London costume and manners had
overcome Versailles, and Hogarth, Chippendale and Wedgwood had
prevailed over Watteau, Boulle and Sèvres.
169. The allusion is to the voyage of Linois’s small squadron to
Pondichéry in 1803, its confrontation by another small British
squadron there, and the counter-order which led Linois to retire to
Mauritius.—Tr.
170. Hardenberg’s reorganization of Prussia was thoroughly
English in spirit, and as such incurred the severe censure of the old
Prussian Von der Marwitz. Scharnhorst’s army reforms too, as a
breakaway from the professional army system of the eighteenth-
century cabinet-wars, are a sort of “return to nature” in the
Rousseau-Revolutionary sense.
171. Where in 295 B.C. the Romans decisively defeated the last
great Samnite effort to resist their hegemony over Italy.—Tr.
172. Which, inasmuch as it has been detached from time, is able
to employ mathematical symbols. These rigid figures signify for us a
destiny of yore. But their meaning is other than mathematical. Past is
not a cause, nor Fate a formula, and to anyone who handles them,
as the historical materialist handles them, mathematically, the past
event as such, as an actuality that has lived once and only once, is
invisible.
173. That is, not merely conclusions of peaces or deathdays of
persons, but the Renaissance style, the Polis, the Mexican Culture
and so forth—are dates or data, facts that have been, even when we
possess no representation of them.
175. The formation of hypotheses in Chemistry is much more
thoughtless, owing to the less close relation of that science to
mathematics. A house of cards such as is presented to us in the
researches of the moment on atom-structure (see, for example, M.
Born, Der Aufbau der Materie, 1920) would be impossible in the near
neighbourhood of the electro-magnetic theory of light, whose authors
never for a moment lost sight of the frontier between mathematical
vision and its representation by a picture, or of the fact that this was
only a picture.
176. There is no difference essentially between these
representations and the switchboard wiring-diagram.
177. Goethe’s theory of colour openly controverted Newton’s
theory of light. A long account of the controversy will be found in
Chapter IX of G. H. Lewes’s Life of Goethe—a work that, taken all in
all, is one of the wisest biographies ever written. In reading his
critique of Goethe’s theory, of course, it has to be borne in mind that
he wrote before the modern development of the electro-magnetic
theory, which has substituted a merely mathematical existence for
the Newtonian physical existence of colour-rays as such in white
light. Now, this physical existence was just what, in substance,
Goethe denied. What he affirmed, in the simpler language of his day,
was that white light was something simple and colourless that
becomes coloured through diminutions or modifications imposed
upon it by “darkness.” The modern physicist, using a subtler
hypothesis than Newton’s and a more refined “balance” than that
which Lewes reproaches Goethe for “flinging away,” has found in
white light, not the Newtonian mixture of colour-rays, but a surge of
irregular wave-trains which are only regularized into colour-vibrations
through being acted upon by analysers of one sort and another, from
prisms to particulate matter. This necessity of a counter-agent for the
production of colour seems—to a critical outsider at any rate—very
like the necessity of an efficient negative principle or “opaque” that
Goethe’s intuitive interpretation of his experiments led him to
postulate. It is this that is the heart of the theory, and not the
“simplicity” of light per se.
So much it seems desirable to add to the text and the reference, in
order to expand the author’s statement that “both were right.” For
Lewes, with all his sympathetic penetration of the man and real
appreciation of his scientific achievement, feels obliged to regard his
methods and his theory as such as “erroneous.” And it is perhaps
not out of place in this book to adduce an instance of the peculiar
nature and power of intuitive vision (which entirely escapes direct
description) in which Vision frankly challenges Reason on its own
ground, meets with refutation (or contempt) from the Reason of its
day, and yet may come to be upheld in its specific rightness (its
rightness as vision, that is, apart from its technical enunciation by the
seer) by the Reason of a later day.—Tr.
178. See p. 123.
179. See page 123.
180. The word dimension ought only to be used in the singular. It
means extension but not extensions. The idea of the three directions
is an out-and-out abstraction and is not contained in the immediate
extension-feeling of the body (the “soul”). Direction as such, the
direction-essence, gives rise to the mysterious animal sense of right
and left and also the vegetable characteristic of below-to-above,
earth to heaven. The latter is a fact felt dream-wise, the former a
truth of waking existence to be learned and therefore capable of
being transmuted. Both find expression in architecture, to wit, in the
symmetry of the plan and the energy of the elevation, and it is only
because of this that we specially distinguish in the “architecture” of
the space around us the angle of 90° in preference, for example, to
that of 60°. Had not this been so, the conventional number of our
“dimensions” would have been quite different.
181. The want of perspective in children’s drawings is emphatically
not perceptible to the children themselves.
182. His idea that the a priori-ness of space was proved by and
through the unconditional validity of simple geometrical facts rests,
as we have already remarked, on the all-too-popular notion that
mathematics are either geometry or arithmetic. Now, even in Kant’s
time the mathematic of the West had got far beyond this naïve
scheme, which was a mere imitation of the Classical. Modern
geometry bases itself not on space but on multiply-infinite number-
manifolds—amongst which the three-dimensional is simply the
undistinguished special case—and within these groups investigates
functional formations with reference to their structure; that is, there is
no longer any contact or even possibility of contact between any
possible kind of sense-perception and mathematical facts in the
domain of such extensions as these, and yet the demonstrability of
the latter is in no wise impaired thereby. Mathematics, then, are
independent of the perceived, and the question now is, how much of
this famous demonstrability of the forms of perception is left when
the artificiality of juxtaposing both in a supposedly single process of
experience has been recognized.
183. It is true that a geometrical theorem may be proved, or rather
demonstrated, by means of a drawing. But the theorem is differently
constituted in every kind of geometry, and that being so, the drawing
ceases to be a proof of anything whatever.
184. So much so that Gauss said nothing about his discovery until
almost the end of his life for tear of “the clamour of the Bœotians.”
185. The distinction of right and left (see p. 169) is only
conceivable as the outcome of this directedness in the dispositions
of the body. “In front” has no meaning whatever for the body of a
plant.
186. It may not be out of place here to refer to the enormous
importance attached in savage society to initiation-rites at
adolescence.—Tr.
187. Either in Greek or in Latin, τόπος (= locus) means spot,
locality, and also social position; χώρα (= spatium) means space-
between, distance, rank, and also ground and soil (e.g., τὰ ἐκ τῆς
χώρας, produce); τὸ κένον (vacuum) means quite unequivocally a
hollow body, and the stress is emphatically on the envelope. The
literature of the Roman Imperial Age, which attempted to render the
Magian world-feeling through Classical words, was reduced to such
clumsy versions as ὁρατὸς τόπος (sensible world) or spatium inane
(“endless space,” but also “wide surface”—the root of the word
“spatium” means to swell or grow fat). In the true Classical literature,
the idea not being there, there was no necessity for a word to
describe it.
188. It has not hitherto been seen that this fact is implicit in
Euclid’s famous parallel axiom (“through a point only one parallel to
a straight line is possible”).
This was the only one of the Classical theorems which remained
unproved, and as we know now, it is incapable of proof. But it was
just that which made it into a dogma (as opposed to any experience)
and therefore the metaphysical centre and main girder of that
geometrical system. Everything else, axiom or postulate, is merely
introductory or corollary to this. This one proposition is necessary
and universally-valid for the Classical intellect, and yet not deducible.
What does this signify?
It signifies that the statement is a symbol of the first rank. It
contains the structure of Classical corporeality. It is just this
proposition, theoretically the weakest link in the Classical geometry
(objections began to be raised to it as early as Hellenistic times), that
reveals its soul, and it was just this proposition, self-evident within
the limits of routine experience, that the Faustian number-thinking,
derived from incorporeal spatial distances, fastened upon as the
centre of doubt. It is one of the deepest symbols of our being that we
have opposed to the Euclidean geometry not one but several other
geometries all of which for us are equally true and self-consistent.
The specific tendency of the anti-Euclidean group of geometries—in
which there may be no parallel or two parallels or several parallels to
a line through a point—lies in the fact that by their very plurality the
corporeal sense of extension, which Euclid canonized by his
principle, is entirely got rid of; for what they reject is that which all
corporeal postulates but all spatial denies. The question of which of
the three Non-Euclidean geometries is the “correct” one (i.e., that
which underlies actuality)—although Gauss himself gave it earnest
consideration—is in respect of world-feeling entirely Classical and
therefore it should not have been asked by a thinker of our sphere.
Indeed it prevents us from seeing the true and deep meaning implicit
in the plurality of these geometries. The specifically Western symbol
resides not in the reality of one or of another, but in the true plurality
of equally possible geometries. It is the group of space-structures—
in the abundance of which the classical system is a mere particular
case—that has dissolved the last residuum of the corporeal into the
pure space-feeling.
189. This zero, which probably contains a suggestion of the Indian
idea of extension—of that spatiality of the world that is treated in the
Upanishads and is entirely alien to our space-consciousness—was
of course wholly absent in the Classical. By way of the Arabian
mathematics (which completely transformed its meaning) it reached
the West, where it was only introduced in 1554 by Stipel, with its
sense, moreover, again fundamentally changed, for it became the
mean of +1 and -1 as a cut in a linear continuum, i.e., it was
assimilated to the Western number-world in a wholly un-Indian sense
of relation.
190. The word Höhlengefühl is Leo Frobenius’s (Paideuma, p. 92).
(The Early-Christian Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem [A.D. 327] is
built over a natural cave.—Tr.)
191. Strzygowski’s Ursprung der Christlichen Kirchenkunst (1920),
p. 80.
192. See Vol. II, p. 101 et seq.
194. Müller-Decker, Die Etrusker (1877), II, pp. 128 et seq.
Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer (1912), p. 527. The oldest
plan of Roma Quadrata was a “templum” whose limits had nothing to
do with the building-up of the city but were connected with sacral
rules, as the significance of this precinct (the “Pomœrium”) in later
times shows. A “templum,” too, was the Roman camp whose
rectangular outline is visible to-day in many a Roman-founded town;
it was the consecrated area within which the army felt itself under the
protection of its gods, and originally had nothing whatever to do with
fortification, which is a product of Hellenistic times. (It may be added
that Roman camps retained their rigidity of outline even where
obvious “military considerations” of ground, etc., must have
suggested its modification.—Tr.) Most Roman stone-temples
("ædes") were not “templa” at all. On the other hand, the early Greek
τέμενος of Homeric times must have had a similar significance.
195. The student may consult the articles “Church History,”
“Monasticism,” “Eucharist” and other articles therein referred to in the
Encyclopædia Britannica, XI Edition.—Tr.
196. English readers may remember that Cobbett (“Rural Rides,”
passim) was so impressed with the spaciousness of English country
churches as to formulate a theory that mediæval England must have
been more populous than modern England is.—Tr.
197. Cf. my introduction to Ernst Droem’s Gesänge, p. ix.
198. The oldest and most mystical of the poems of the “Elder
Edda.”—Tr.
199. See Vol. II, p. 358 et seq.
201. See Vol. II, p. 354.
202. This refers to the diaphonic chant of Church music in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. The form of this chant is supposed to
have been an accompaniment of the “plain chant” by voices moving
parallel to it at a fourth, fifth, or octave.—Tr.
203. Hölscher, Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren; Borchardt,
Grabdenkmal des Sahurê; Curtius, Die Antike Kunst, p. 45.
204. See Vol. II, p. 342; Borchardt, Re-Heiligtum des Newoserri;
Ed. Mayer, Geschichte des Altertums, I, 251.
205. “Relief en creux”; compare H. Schäfer, Von ägyptischer Kunst
(1919), I, p. 41.
207. O. Fischer, Chinesische Landmalerei (1921), p. 24. What
makes Chinese—as also Indian—art so difficult a study for us is the
fact that all works of the early periods (namely, those of the
Hwangho region from 1300 to 800 B.C. and of pre-Buddhist India)
have vanished without a trace. But that which we now call “Chinese
art” corresponds, say, to the art of Egypt from the Twentieth Dynasty
onward, and the great schools of painting find their parallel in the
sculpture schools of the Saïte and Ptolemaic periods, in which an
antiquarian preciosity takes the place of the living inward

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John 4:1-42 Among the Biblical Well

Encounters: Pentateuchal and

John 4:1 – 42 among the Biblical

ISBN 978-3-16-159614-8 / eISBN 978-3-16-159615-5

© 2020 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany. www.mohrsiebeck.com

The following monograph presents my doctoral dissertation at the Studium

Jerusalem, August 2020 Eric John Wyckoff, SDB

Preface ....................................................................................................... VII

Introduction: Posing the Question ....................................................... 1

Chapter 1: Shaping an Approach ......................................................... 5

1.1 Selecting the Texts ................................................................................... 6

1.2 Navigating a Sea of Scholarship ............................................................. 21

1.2.3.5 Reassessing the betrothal type scene ..................................43

1.3 Suiting the Method to the Task ................................................................ 53

Chapter 2: Identifying Literary Parallels ..........................................71

2.1 Parallel Elements Shared by All Four Texts ........................................... 72

2.2 Specific Parallels with Genesis 24:1–67 ................................................. 92

2.3 Specific Parallels with Genesis 29:1–14 ............................................... 100

2.4 Specific Parallels with Exodus 2:15–22 ................................................ 104

2.5 Observations ........................................................................................ 106

Chapter 3: Looking behind the Text ................................................ 113

3.1 Johannine Postresurrection Reflection ................................................. 115

3.2 Testimony Remembered in John 4:1–42 ................................................ 124

3.2.1.4 Spiritual food (vv. 31–34) ................................................ 127

3.3 Scripture Remembered in John 4:1–42 ................................................. 134

3.4 Plausible Motivations ........................................................................... 141

3.5 Conclusions .......................................................................................... 148

Chapter 4: Reading the Rereading .................................................... 151

4.1 The Motif of Journey............................................................................. 152

4.2 The Motif of Water................................................................................ 162

4.2.4 Developing the water motif metaphorically ................................. 167

4.3 The Motif of Socioethnic Barriers ......................................................... 174

4.4 The Motif of Matrimony and Progeny ................................................... 186

4.5 The Motif of Recognition ...................................................................... 200

4.6 The Motif of Worship ............................................................................ 212

4.6.4.1 Right worship explained .................................................. 219

4.7 The Motif of Announcement .................................................................. 223

4.8 The Motif of Food ................................................................................. 235

4.9 The Motif of Work ................................................................................. 241

4.10 The Motif of Welcome ......................................................................... 253

4.11 The Ten Motifs and Their Rereading .................................................. 259

Chapter 5: Conclusions ....................................................................... 261

5.1 Defining the Textual Relationship ......................................................... 261

5.1.1 A web of parallels ........................................................................ 262

5.2 Exegetical Conclusions for John 4:1–42 ............................................... 263

5.3 Underlying Interpretations of Scripture ................................................ 267

Index of Ancient Sources ........................................................................... 295

DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert

NA28 Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland, 28th ed.

WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

Readers of the Bible grow accustomed to repetitions. 1 In the Pentateuch, we

numerous parallels in vocabulary, setting, plot, and characters. Literary fea-

The contours of this postresurrection reflection can be traced through a re-

panorama of previous solutions is surveyed by appraising different scholars’

1.1 Selecting the Texts

John 4 NA28 (2012) 7 Köstenberger (2007) 8 Evans (2005) 9

John 4 NA28 (2012) Köstenberger (2007) Evans (2005)

1.1.1.1 Narrative structure

curring narrative pattern discernible in these texts is proposed in Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher,

lack altogether the narrative structure of a well encounter.

1.1.1.2 Literary and theological milieu

describes Jesus’ relationship to the Father in terms of similar dynamics (e.g.,

1.1.2 The selected passages and their delimitation