I've edited and combined two blog posts on the same topic:
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In the earlier Gospels, Jesus performs “miracles,” both because he feels compassion for those in need and in order to illustrate his teaching that the Kingdom of God was soon to appear. In John, however, he does “signs” to prove that he really is a divine being.
So, what evidence is there that John’s accounts of Jesus’ signs derive from a previously existing, but no longer surviving, written source?
The evidence does not make a slam-dunk case, and so the matter is debated among scholars. I’ve long thought, though, that there probably was some such source.
First, some basic factual information. These are the seven signs (note: seven! The perfect number, the number of God) that Jesus performs in the Gospel.
- Turning Water Into Wine (2:1-11)
- Healing the Capernaum Official’s Son (4:46-54)
- Healing the Paralytic by the Pool of Bethzatha (5:2-9)
- Feeding the 5000 (6:1-14)
- Walking on Water (6:16-21)
- Healing the Man Born Blind (9:1-12)
- Raising Lazarus from the Dead (11:1-44)ｮLM0ｯ
Jesus performs no other public miracles in John; but it is important to notice the statement near the end of the book: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the christ, the Son of God, and through believing you may have life in his name” (20:30-31).
To see the logic behind thinking that these stories come from a previously existing written source it is important to recall (from a post a very long time ago!) why scholars often think that John is not based only on oral tradiitons but on previously existing (non-Synoptic) written sources. One of these reasons is that there are certain “literary seams” in the Gospel – that is, internal discrepancies that are hard to explain if an author was simply writing up an account, but easy to explain if the author is splicing together stories from different sources and neglecting to smooth out the transitions so that contradictions result.
Here are three such literary seams in John:
- In John 2:23, Jesus is in Jerusalem, the capital of Judea. While there, he engages in a discussion with Nicodemus that lasts until 3:21. But then the text says, “After this Jesus and his disciples went into the land of Judea” (3:22). The land of Judea? They are already in the land of Judea, in fact, they are in its capital. Here is another literary seam. (Note: some modern translations have gotten around this problem by mistranslating v. 22 to say that they went into the “countryside of Judea.” But this, in fact, is not the meaning of the Greek word, “land.”)
- In John 5:1, Jesus goes to Jerusalem, where he spends the entire chapter healing and teaching. The author’s comment after his discourse, however, is somewhat puzzling: “After this, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee” (6:1). How could he go to the other side of the Sea if he is not already on one of its sides? In fact, he is nowhere near the Sea of Galilee — he is in Jerusalem of Judea.
And finally, one that is particularly intriguing in light of the possibility that Jesus’ signs came to the author from a previously existing source.
- In chapter two, Jesus performs his “first sign” (2:11) in Cana of Galilee, changing the water into wine. In chapter four, he does his “second sign” (4:54) after returning to Galilee from Judea, healing the Capernaum official’s son. In itself, this is no problem. The problem emerges when you read what happens between the first and second signs; for John 2:23 indicates that while Jesus was in Jerusalem many people believed in him “because they saw the signs that he was doing.” How can this be? How can he do the first sign, and then other signs, and then the second sign?
The Greek of 4:54 is a bit complicated and has led to some misunderstanding among some readers who do not see a discrepancy with 3:22. When the verse says that this healing was the second sign Jesus did, having come from Galilee from Judea, it does *not* appear to mean that it was the second sign that was done in Galilee (as opposed to Judea). It instead seems to mean that it was his second sign. And he did it when he had come into Galilee from Judea.
The reason that matter is this. If it meant the former (this was the second Galilean sign) then there would be no discrepancy with 3:22. In this reading, Jesus did his first Galilean sign when he turned the water into wine (2:1-11). He then did signs in Judea (3:22). And then he came back and did his second Galilean sign. No contradiction.
But that’s not how I read the verse. I think the Greek is saying that this healing was “Jesus’ second sign,” and he did this one after he had come from Judea into Galilee. If that’s what the Greek does mean, then there is a discrepancy, because of 3:22. Jesus did his first sign; then he did many signs; then he did his second sign.
How would we explain this discrepancy? The theory of a signs source is that the author took his accounts of Jesus’ supernatural deeds from a source that enumerated the signs: This was his first, this was his second, and this was his third, etc. When he took over this source, he inserted its narratives into his longer account, in which he said other things. And sometimes the things he said in the longer account stood in tension with what he found in the signs source. That’s what has created the discrepancy between 3:22 (the author’s own comment) and 4:54 (the comment he found in the signs source).
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Read this quote from the Gospel of John chapter 20:
30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing you may have life in his name.
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Take a look at the words "believe" and "believing."
There is a textual variant attested in the surviving manuscripts of 20:31. It is a difference that is very difficult to replicate in English, but it makes a difference in the Greek. When the verse says that the signs have been written “so that you might believe,” the verb “believe” is actually given in two different tenses in the various manuscripts. Some of them have it as a present tense and others as an aorist.
The present tense in Greek works pretty much like the present tense in English – it describes the ongoing action in the present. The aorist tense is sometimes, but not very accurately, thought of as comparable to the past tense in English, referring to something that happened before now. But, in fact, the aorist isn’t really just something that happened before; it is a tense that is used to describe an action that has come to completion.
In this verse, the difference between the present and aorist tense is this. The present tense would mean that the signs of Jesus have been written “so that you might go on believing.”
The aorist tense would mean something like “so that you might come to believe.”
In other words, the present-tense rendering would suggest that the signs are written for believers to keep the faith; the aorist tense rendering would suggest that the signs are written to convince non-believers to come to believe. Big difference.
Big difference.
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New Testament scholars believe there was originally a document used for proselytising unbelievers which contained 7 Signs proving Jesus was the son of God. The opinion is that John incorporated this document into his own Gospel account. He then changed the verb (which would apply to non-believers) to the more appropriate verb for those already believing.
This document was in circulation among the people in John’s community. It was used as a kind of missionary document, to convert people to believe in Jesus the messiah.
When the author of John took the document over and incorporated its stories into his own narrative, he was writing his Gospel, not for non-believers, but for believers, to urge them to keep the faith. He changed the key verb in the last line from an aorist tense to a present. Now the signs were meant to help the followers of Jesus to continue to believe in him.
One or more early scribes familiar with the original form of the verse changed it back to the aorist, and so there are now two forms of the text in our surviving manuscripts, one present tense and one aorist.
If all this is right, then the Signs Source consisted of the seven miraculous deeds of Jesus that were meant to inspire faith in unbelievers. The source no longer exists, of course, except insofar as it has been utilised by the author of the Fourth Gospel.
