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A Study of Healing in the Gospel According to John1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Extract

Healing is a neglected aspect of Christian Theology, but it has an important and essential place in the gospels. The four gospels, however, differ in the proportion of space they allow to the record of healing, and in the number of healing acts they record. The difference is most marked in the case of the Gospel according to John as can be seen from the following figures.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1967

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References

page 443 note 1 Neill, Stephen, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1961 (Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 320.Google Scholar

page 445 note 1 John's relative lack of interest in the crowds which thronged Jesus is shown in the following table which compares the frequency of usage of the common words for the crowd in the four gospels.

page 446 note 1 Edersheim, A., Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Longmans, London, 1906), Vol. 1, p. 425.Google Scholar

page 447 note 1 ‘This poor man in his youth had shattered his nervous system by a life of sensual indulgence.’ Dummelow, J. R. (editor), Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, London, 1913), p. 783.Google Scholar

page 447 note 2 Weatherhead, L. D., Psychology, Religion and Healing (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1952), pp. 55, 56.Google Scholar

page 447 note 3 This stone is now in the Carlsberg Museum of Sculpture in Copenhagen. It was originally described by Hamburger, O. in 1911 in the Bulletin of the French Medical History Society (Vol. xi, pp. 407412)Google Scholar.

page 447 note 4 Creighton, C., Encyclopaedia Biblica (Black, London, 1914), col. 1456.Google Scholar

page 448 note 1 Plummer, A., St. John (Cambridge Bible for Schools, 1906), p. 240.Google Scholar

page 448 note 2 Bernard, J. H., International Critical Commentary on St. John (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1928), Vol. 1, p. clxxx.Google Scholar

page 450 note 1 A well-known example is the story of how the Emperor Vespasian cured a man of eye disease at Alexandria with his sputum (Tacitus, Historiae, iv, 81).

page 452 note 1 One occurrence of iaomai in both these gospels is in a quotation from Isa. 6.10 (see Matt. 13.15 and John 12.40).

page 453 note 1 All the standard English versions, with the exception of the NEB, translate this phrase in a misleading way. They emphasise the comparative adjective rather than the aorist verb. This gives rise to an exegesis which finds the father's faith defective since he is alleged to believe that his son's recovery would be gradual and not immediate (see e.g. A. Plummer, St. John (Cambridge Bible for Schools, 1906), p. 11g, the note on John 4.52). In contrast to this the correct translation should emphasise that the boy's recovery was immediate and complete, that he got better immediately rather than that he began to amend (as AV, RV and RSV). See further Hoskyns, E. C. and Davey, F. N., The Fourth Gospel (Faber and Faber, London, 1947), 2nd edn., p. 262.Google Scholar

page 453 note 2 Macgregor, G. H. C., John, Moffat New Testament Commentary (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1928), p. 122.Google Scholar

page 458 note 1 Barrett, C. K., The Gospel according to St. John (S.P.C.K., London, 1962), p. 63.Google Scholar