John's signs Flashcards
What does John call miracles?
Semeion (signs)
How many signs does John have?
7 - which is considerably less than the amount of miracles described in the synoptics
How do John’s signs differ from the miracles in the synoptics?
There are no noisy exorcisms with demons being cast out of people. Instead, John’s signs are even more outrageously impossible. This makes them more difficult to explain away through hypnotism or the placebo effect
What does Raymond Brown think about the signs?
That John’s gospel deliberately makes it hard to take these signs literally. John does not want his readers to treat them as literal events, as for John’s gospel the spiritual meaning is much more important
Does John’s emphasis on spiritual meaning suggest that he does not think Jesus has supernatural qualities?
John sees Jesus as the word made flesh, so obviously he thinks him as having supernatural powers. He was trying to get his readers to look past this supernatural element in the miracles and focus on their meaning
How do John’s signs link to the idea that Jesus is an illusionist?
Many of the signs are clearly staged as a public theatre - like when Jesus rubbed mud in the eyes of the blind man, or decided to deliberately let Lazarus die so that he could raise him from the dead
Why do Christians often prefer naturalistic explanations for miracles to supernatural ones?
Because they don’t believe that God would break the laws of nature that he created
Explain the supernatural interpretation of the signs
They are supernatural miracles with an inner meaning
Explain the naturalistic interpretation of the signs
The signs are non-supernatural spiritual theatre prepared by Jesus to convey spiritual truths
Explain the mythological interpretation of the signs
The signs are fictional and aren’t supposed to be treated as historical events; it’s only the meaning that matters
