THE WOMAN AT THE WELL

THE WOMAN AT THE WELL A Theological and Metaphorical Conversation John 4:7-42 has a meaning that goes far beyond its own words This essay deals with the pericope in John 4:7-42 (*) on the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman. Pericope is a set of lines that can be cut out from the Bible, remaining as one coherent unit of thought. In many comments and interpretations, John 4:7-42 is ordinarily seen as a unit in itself without any relationship with other books of the Bible. That is a synchronic interpretation. But in a diachronic way, i.e., related to other books of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, we get to a better and further reaching understanding of the text. (*) The references in the Bible are according to the NRSV Anglicized Edition This essay has 3 parts: Part I – Comments on the dialog between Jesus and the Samaritan woman; Part II – Some pieces of information about Photina – the Samaritan woman as considered by the eastern Catholic Churches; Part III – Comments on John’s Gospel sources. (This is a revision of my previous version of The Woman at the Well. In order to diminish eventual homonym cases, I sign now my full name Carlos dos Santos Almeida.) ABSTRACT This essay shows how convenient is to read John’s pericope 4:7-42 in relation to 2 Kings 17:1-41. In this way one can see that John’s pericope has a theological and metaphorical connotation. It has not to do with the moral behavior of the individual Samaritan woman (The Woman at the Well). On the contrary, it has to do with the reconciliation of God with the Samaritan people, through His Holy Son. One sees that the Samaritan Woman as a truly Jesus’ apostle, who begins her mission at the moment when she recognizes Jesus as the Missiah. According to the tradition she continues her mission in Rome, where she is martyrized together with Peter and Paul. That is why she is acknowledged by the several eastern Catholic Churches as Saint Photina, the Illuminated. “Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples the John’ – although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized – he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground the Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.” (Jn 4:1-6) Jacob’s well “A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink, (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria. (Jews do not share things in common with the Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it? Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life”. (Jn 4:7-15). “Jesus said to her, ‘Go call your husband, and come back’. The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband’. Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband; for you have five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him,’ Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem’. Jesus said to her, ‘woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain not in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you’. (Jn 4:16-26). “Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said. ‘What do you want?’ or, why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people. ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.” (Jn 4:27-30) ‘Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something’. But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ Then the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “For months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true. One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured , and you have entered into their labour.’” (Jn 4:31-38) “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, the asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.” (Jn 4:39-42) Part I Jesus’s route (4:1-4) Explaining the motive of Jesus’ hasting back from Jerusalem to Galilee, John laconically says that He had to go through Samaria. There were three routes between Jerusalem and Galilee: (1) along the coast, (2) along the Jordan valley, or (3) along the central ridge road that wound north through the passes in the mountains. The latter was the fastest and most direct, though it required travelling through Samaria. There was antagonism between the Jews and Samaritans. That is why the strictest Jews avoided this route in order to prevent contracting some kind of ceremonial uncleanness. “But Jesus had to go through Samaria”. Was it because it was faster or because he had a divine appointment with a woman at Jacob’s well? Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by His journey was sitting by the well (4:6) The Biblical Motif of an Encounter at a Well Various scholars have argued the John 4:7-42 draws on the recurrent biblical motif of an encounter at a well, and most specifically from Gen 24, which tells of the meeting of Abraham’s servant with Rebecca, when he was sent to look for a wife for Isaac. Other similar parallels are to be found in Gen 29:2-12, which relates Jacob’s encounter with Rachel at the well in Haran, and Ex 2:15-17, which narrates Moses’s meeting with the daughters of Jethro at a well in the land of Midian. It should be noted that throughout the Hebrew Bible, wells and springs belong to bridal imagery, since they are places where intimate relationships begin. Some have interpreted the marital imagery in John 4 as a figurative device; another scholar has claimed that John is an ironic betrothal scene in which infidelity is false worship and marriage true worship. For others, Jesus is depicted as entering into a spiritual marriage with the Samaritan woman which was a result to the conversion of the Samaritan people. A more practical explanation is that using this pattern John sought to defend the legitimacy of marital unions between Jews and Samaritans. There is however the opinion that John 4 need not to be understood as a betrothal scene but rather has to be read in light of the ancient custom of hospitality (Bourgel 2018). In Mark 2:18-22, in Luke 5:34, and in Mathew 9:14-15 Jesus refers to himself as the bridegroom and his own ministry as a wedding banquet. As we see his saying appears early in all three Synoptic Gospels and is consistent with the metaphor of God as the spouse of Israel (Long 2014). Josephus legitimized the passing through Samaria as a sacred custom of the Galileans, when they came to the holy city at the festivals. In biblical theology, Jesus passing through Samaria is not only because of the shorter distance or merely for the festival tradition. The expression of necessity means that God’s will or plan is involved. The Lord is conscious of his mission in fulfilling the divine plan (see John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20; 12:23; 13:1; 14:31). Jesus had to meet these poor Samaritan sinners to reveal the truth to them. Long before the creation of the world it had been settled in the counsels of eternity that He was to meet a poor, sinful, Samaritan woman that day. He could not forego that appointment. We can see that in this journey the Lord’s loving kindness goes beyond the boundaries of ethnical animosity and religious rigorism. Some divine necessity lies behind the journey (Saclolo). John’s narrative can be compared to the story in Acts 8:5-24, about how the gospel reached the Samaritans, when Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them, and also when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, and sent Peter and John to Samaria in order to baptize the Samaritans. (A Trivial Devotion 2021). ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (4:9) Sitting at the well tired and thirsty, Jesus asked a Samaritan woman who came to draw water: “Give me a drink”. The woman was astonished. This was very strange. First, Jews did not share things in common with Samaritans. Second, according to social rules of that time, men did not usually initiate a conversation with women they did not know. For this reason, Jesus’s disciples were surprised to find Him talking with a woman (4:27). Although she did not refuse to obey him, she wondered aloud why he would go against the social norms. In the ensuing conversation, commentators offer different assessments of the woman’s character. Some regard her as a polite but ignorant because she still assumes that Jesus is speaking about physical water. Most, however, regard her as saucy and impertinent, even mocking and laughing at Jesus. Assuming that Christ is insulting her too, she defends the well’s quality and even its holiness because of its association with the patriarch Jacob. Again, Jesus does not directly respond to her appeal to Jacob, but he fittingly speaks to her of the thirst of the soul which is quenched when the Holy Spirit imparts faith. (Leszai). (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans) (4:9) A bit of history will help to clarify the situation. Samaria was part of the Northern Kingdom that rebelled against the Assyrians in 722 BCE. In order to quell rebellious provinces, it was their practice to exile the leaders to areas of Assyria and then, in their place, resettle people on their land from other areas of the realm. (2 Kings 17:6-7). The Assyrian King then resettled the region with five groups of people who each retained the worship of their own god (2 Kings 17:24,33). The area of Samaria retained its belief in YHWH and the Pentateuch, although rejecting the rest of the Old Testament. For this the Jews took the Samaritans religiously impure for distorting their worship of the God of Israel. Relations between Jews and Samaritans constitute a significant theme in the Gospels. The Gospels testify to a less friendly atmosphere of encounter between the two groups. Though, originally of the same provenance and of the same religion with the Jews. Samaritans in the course of time estranged from the Jews. At the time of Christ, both groups had ideologically interpreted their religion in a manner exclusive of the other. While Samaritans represented themselves as real Jews with the authentic worship of YHWH, the Jews insisted on the status of Samaritans as foreigners. It was a situation of conflict which as history reveal had degenerated to the point of each seeking to eliminate leaders in the opposing camps (Naseri 2014). Living Water (4:10-12) Now Jesus says something which leads to a religious conversation. Jesus answered that if she knew the gift of God and who it is that asks her for a drink, she would have asked Him and he would have given her living water. For Suraj Kasula some say that John equates the living water with the gift of God; some identify the gift of God with eternal life; and some suggest it to be either the Holy Spirit or eternal life or both. Nonetheless, in fact, John means that the gift of God is the one who is talking with the woman. Hence, God’s gift is Jesus himself together with the eternal life found in and through him (cf. 3:16; 2 Cor 9:5). Jesus is disclosed by John as the wellspring gift of God, and the dispenser of the life-flowing water. And more, John equates the identity of Jesus with the life-flowing water, and the end of time life-flowing temple of the prophets (Esek 47:1; Joel 3:18; Zeck 8:12; 14:8). John is revealing the fact that God’s gift is given in the form of the messianic temple because the life-flowing water of the Spirit streams from it (Kasula 2016). The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get the living water’(4:11) Jesus mentions “living water” in an ambiguous way (as is common in John’s Gospel), giving it a deeper meaning, water that imparts life, and, as we see in line 14, a gift that imparts eternal life. As the Samaritans only recognized the authority of the Pentateuch, not the Prophets, the woman does not perceive Jesus calling on a Biblical metaphor. Yahweh refers to Himself as the “fountain of living water” (Jeremiah 2:13; 17:13). The phrase “gift of the Holy Spirit” appears in Acts 2:38; 10:45. Heavenly gift” is found in Hebrews 6:4. The woman took the phrase “living water” literally, compared with the underground spring that fed the well deep below where they were, pointing out that He does not have any way to draw water from the well, and that somehow Jesus is exalting himself over the patriarch Jacob who dug the well (Wilson). And the woman said that He had nothing to draw with and the well as deep. So where could Him get this living water? Was He greater than their father Jacob, who gave them the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his flocks and herds? Jesus’s reply draws the woman attention to two things: (1) His gift, and (2) His person. (Wilson). Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob (4:12)? As already said, assuming that Christ is insulting her, the Samaritan woman defends the well’s quality and even its holiness because of its association with the patriarch Jacob. She asks if her interlocutor is greater than their ancestor Jacob. Jesus does not answer directly to her appeal to Jacob, instead he fittingly speaks of the thirst of the soul which is quenched when the Holy Spirit imparts faith. (Leszai). The well water (4:13-15) Jesus said that who drinks the well water will be thirsty again, adding that those who drink of the water which I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. At that point the Samaritan woman grasped the true meaning of the phrase, asked Jesus: ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirst or have to keep coming here to draw water’. When she asks Jesus for the living water, He requests “Go, call your husband, and come back”. The woman’s five husbands (4:16-19) At Jesus’s request, she tells him that she has no husband. Jesus agreed with her adding that in fact she actually has had five husbands, and the one she has now is not her husband. It is necessary to search for the best interpretation of this passage before going ahead. This has been a stumbling block for several commentators. Was the Samaritan a promiscuous woman? According to Wilson, Jesus was talking about water on the spiritual level, and then He engages her attention in a different way, on her civil status. Jesus’s guessing of her actual status led her to admit that He was a prophet. It seems odd that a complete stranger tells her this embarrassing truth about her history with men. There are many possibilities: She could have had five actual husbands who had either died or divorced her. She could have had five lovers among the men in town, who, like her current “man”, was not hers in the sense of being her husband. She was not a prostitute, apparently, who had sex for money. But she was the loose woman, town home-wrecker who went from man to man looking for something that did not belong to her. How did Jesus know about the woman or about Nathanael under the fig tree, for that matter? “Nathanael asked Him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you’. Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel’. Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these’.” (1:48-50). Gossip. That He was familiar with the village scuttle-but at Sychar, it is unlikely, because Jews did not mingle with Samaritans. And the woman attributed it to him as being a prophet. Divinity. He was God so He knew everything, but we have to bear in mind that, in some sense, Jesus “emptied himself” (Phil 2:7); divested himself not of his divinity, but to some of the attributes of His divinity – his manifest glory, for example. Luke says: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour (Lk 2:52)”. Holy Spirit. Though many would see Jesus’s divinity as the source of Jesus’s special knowledge on this occasion, Wilson believes that it came from the anointing of the Holy Spirit that He was given when does not act on his own volition: “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise” (5:19). There are some believers today to whom the Holy Spirit will give a prophetic “word” for a person, or will have special knowledge of a person’s condition to increase their faith so God might word in them (Wilson). Other commentator says that, although Jesus knows everything about this woman life, it is because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what is in everyone (2:25); there is no mention of sin or sinfulness in this text and no word of judgment or even encouragement to change her life. Any preoccupation with that is more a measure at the readers’ interests than those of the evangelist (John). What is life-changing for the woman is, according to her, that she has been entirely known by Him, and this known has enabled her to know him. The story is about her being able to begin to see who He is, being given the gift of that truth that leads to real worship and becoming a conduit for the living water. It is about her only insofar as it is about who He reveals Himself to be to her and, through their encounter, to her neighbors and then to us (Stamper 2021). Taking the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at face value leads to a dubious enterprise at best. In the first century Palestine, a woman could not initiate divorce except in extremely rare circumstances. Therefore, the Samaritan woman’s husbands must have either divorced her or died. This would have spelled disaster for her since women relied on the patriarchal household to survive. Whatever else she may have been, she was not a profligate divorcee (Schenk) Christine Schenk says that rather than highlight the Samaritan woman’s inspired missionary leadership, preachers too often rant that she was a five-time divorcee before Jesus saved her from a dissolute life of sin. On so many levels, this is wrong. Jews sometimes use spousal metaphors to describe God’s passionate, covenant love for the chosen people. Samaritans strayed from monotheism and episodically worshiped other gods. There is also a suggestion that Jesus was speaking metaphorically about Samaria’s infidelity – pointing out that Samaria’s current “husband” was not a sort of living water for the people. Schenk is on the right track. She does not follow clueless preaching and does not miss the point about the Samaritan woman’s five husbands. The Samaritan woman as a Samaritan lives the aftermath of the circumstances her people underwent in the eighth century BCE. Her five husbands represent the idolatrous convents that Samaritans as members of the Kingdom of Israel not willingly made with foreign gods – illustrated by the five groups of people who resettled Samaria. Some think Jesus wants to point out the woman’s dubious marital history, but this does not seem to fit the redemptive theme of the encounter. Notwithstanding the fact that Jesus considers her present relationship not to be a valid marriage – there is no teaching in the Jewish Scriptures that to have had five husbands is sinful. The religious context suggests that a wider issue is being addressed. The Samaritan people were, in effect, the remnants of the northern tribes of Israel that had been “divorced” by God – Samaria had been the home of Ephraim when the Assyrians invaded, some had stayed but others were deported to Assyria. Although many subsequently returned, in the process there had been intermarrying, and thus the Samaritans were now a mixture of Jewish and Gentile blood and no longer considered “Jewish” by their Jewish neighbors. What is more, they embraced a religion that was a mixture of Judaism and idolatry. They worshipped the true God, but they also had a history of involvement with the cults of five different nations – these were referred as the five false gods of Samaria, as demonstrated by Josephus in his writings. An account of these false gods is found in 2 Kings 17 (Hamer 2021). As a proof that the Samaritan woman was not a loose one is the way she was welcome back in her city to testimony her dialogue with Jesus, inviting the people to see him as the Messiah and the truly Savior of the world (4:28-30; 39-42). The five husbands namely (John 4:18; 2 kings 17:29) “The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the people of Israel; they took possession of Samaria and settled in its cities. When they first settled there, they did not worship the LORD; therefore, the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them” (2 Kings 17:24-25). “But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the people of Samaria had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived; the people of Babylon made Succot-benoth, the people of Cuth made Nergal, the people of Hamath made Ashima; the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvim. They also worshipped the LORD and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places. So, they worshipped the LORD, but they also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. To this day they continue to practice their former customs” (2 Kings 17:29-34). “They do not worship the LORD and they do not follow the statutes or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom He named Israel. The Lord had made a covenant with them and commended them, ‘You shall not worship other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, but you shall worship the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt…” (2 Kings 17:34-36). “So, these nations worshipped the LORD, but also served their carved images; to this day their children and their children’s children continue to do as their ancestor did” (2 Kings 17:41). Jesus’s reference that the Samaritan woman has had six men reflects the Jew’s negative attitude towards Samaritans who are thought to remarry more often than is normally allowed to a woman (two or three times). On this natural level the propose of the text is to show Jesus’ prophetic knowledge. But the distinction Jesus makes between the five husbands and the last one who is not her husband can also favor a symbolic interpretation of the text. The woman represents the Samaritan people, just as Nicodemus in chapter 3 represents the leaders of the Jews. According to Josephus (Ant. 9.288) the Samaritans were composed of five different nations, each one having its special god. The woman five husbands could symbolize these five gods whom the Samaritans had formerly worshipped, and the one who is not the husband could be YHWH whom the Samaritans are only partly linked to, because they worship Him at a different place from that of the Jews (see v. 22). A minor problem with this interpretation is that 2 Kings 17:24-34, on which Josephus story is built, tell us of five nations two of whom had two gods each (making seven altogether), vv. 19-20, the woman identifies Jesus with the coming prophet (Deut 15-18), who will vindicate the place of worship on Mt. Gerizim, the mount of blessings (Deut 11:29) where the Samaritans thought Jacob had his heavenly vision (Gen 28:11-17) (Barton & Muddiman (eds). As Picket clarifies, Although the biblical account lists seven gods, Josephus’s version of the story implies that there were only five (Ant. 9.14.3 §288). The sixth relationship has been compared to the syncretistic cults of Yahwism practiced alongside the pagan cults at Samaria (2 kgs 17-28; 32-34). The OT frequently compares religious apostasy to sexual unfaithfulness, and John 4:16-18 is read in this way it provides a natural transition to the subject of worship in 4:20 and to Jesus’s statement that the Samaritans worshiped what they did not know (Tippett). Colin Hamer, adopting a metaphor theory, aims to demonstrate that the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is a betrothal scene which points to Jesus’s self-perception of His own deity, adopting the role of a bridegroom to His people. The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. Most of the language used by the Bible to refer to God is metaphor, and that comprises all the language of theology (Hamer). In the Bible’s metaphoric marital imagery, we are asked to imagine that God is the husband of Israel, and that Jesus is the bridegroom of His church. There is a large corpus of material devoted to it in the Old Testament, but a serious concern about it in the New Testament is recent. GOD IS THE HUSBAND OF ISRAEL is the dominant relational conceptual metaphor of the Old Testament. In modern metaphor theory this would be called the root metaphor, on which a large scale of conceptual metaphor runs throughout the Old Testament (Hamer). It is at Sinai that a “marriage” between God and Israel was contracted – it is a Devine Marriage that has been developed from human marriage. In this marriage God will provide for Israel in the promised land and in turn Israel must be faithful to the covenant and have no other gods. Jeremiah portrays the Assyrian exile as a divorce (Jer 3:1-8), specifically cross-mapping the human divorce teaching of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 to the Divine Marriage of God and Israel. This divorce law in effect teaches that a wife, after a divorce, cannot remarry without a certificate from her husband. Once in possession of that, she can remarry – but never to her first husband. Jeremiah says Israel had received her certificate of divorce from God and thus cannot come back to him. He contrasts that with the exile of Judah to Babylon which he explains to Judah is a separation, not a divorce. Despite the marriage law of Deuteronomy 24 forbidding remarriage to a first husband, the prophetic corpus repeatedly promises such a remarriage. Somehow, the Pentateuchal marriage law restrictions are going to be overcome. Hosea talks of a betrothal before the new nuptials (Hos 2:19-20) (Hamer). Marital imagery in the New Testament, just as in the Old Testament, is based on human marriage. But in the New Testament imagery, from the human source domain, there arises a new root metaphor: JESUS IS THE BRIDEGROOM OF THE CHURCH – it is a metaphoric seeking and wooing of the elect, the bride of Christ. This gives rise to a new set of analogies, whereby traditions from contemporary Jewish betrothal and wedding practices are exploited, primarily in the Gospels, to portray Jesus’s earthly ministry as the Jewish bridegroom’s wedding week when he anticipates his forthcoming marriage. Such a bridegroom would pay the bride-price to her father (known as mohar), this would be followed by a betrothal period when she remains as a virgin in her parents’ home (Hamer); Expectations were high in Second Temple Judaism. The promised restoration of divorced Israel and separated Judah, in a new marriage, is repeatedly reference in the Old Testament prophetic corpus, as in the promise to include the Gentiles – and that time was thought by many to be imminent (Mal 3:1; 4:5-6) (Hamer). There are some apparent connections in this story recorded in John 4:5-29 with previous meetings at a well that resulted in marriage (Isaac and Rebekah, Gen 24:14-16; Jacob and Rachel, Gen 29:1-20; Moses and Zipporah, Exodus 2:15-17, 21) (Hamer). It is important to notice that the metaphor of marriage and betrothal is also found in the three synoptic Gospels (Mark 2:18-22, Luke 5:34, and Matthew 9:14-15). Jesus refers to Himself as the bridegroom and his own ministry as a wedding banquet. In Mark 2:13-15 Levi responded to the call of Jesus hosting a joyous celebration and meal which includes Jesus, tax collectors, and sinners. When the Pharisees question Jesus’ behavior in eating with sinners and failing to fast as they do, Jesus simply points out he has not come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners (2:16-17) When Jesus is asked why he does not fast like the Pharisees or disciples of John the Baptist, he says it is not appropriate for the “sons of the bridegroom” to fast while the groom is still with them (2:18-20) The bridegroom saying is consistent with the metaphor of God as the spouse of Israel in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Period. Jesus’ words resonate with these traditions as he claims to be the bridegroom. (Long 2014). There are an impressive number of texts in the Hebrew Bible which describe the relationship between God and Israel in terms of a marriage. Beginning with Hosea, this marriage ended in separation or divorce because of the infidelity of the wife, Israel. However, the eschatological (*) age will be a time when the marriage covenant has been renewed. The marriage metaphor became “a way to shape, imagine, express and communicate” an understanding of the nature of God’s relationship with his people. If the coming age is comparable to a restoration of a marriage relationship, the it is natural to combine the imagery of a joyous celebration (an eschatological banquet) with the marriage metaphor (Long). (*) Eschatological is a doctrine concerning the last things, that is: everything taught about the lot of human beings after death. This definition is certainly basic, but, theological speaking, inadequate. Eschata means “last things, extremities”; everything that has to do with the ultimate, deepest but therefore meaning of human life is called “eschatological”; therefore, not just post-mundane, but also whatever concerns the definitive meaning of life as well the “last days”, the end of the age – and indeed as the time of salvation (leaving open the question of whether this is “the end of history” or is a historical indeterminate, extensive time of well-being). The context must each time provide the intended nuance, although the emphasis always lies on the aspect of “what is definitely decisive”, what will become publicly evident only “in the end” and after death, but is already at issue in the present and is being decided in it. (Schillebeeckx 1979). The woman said to Him, Sir, I see that you are a prophet (4:19) The gradual revelation of the identity of Jesus is further underscored by the “dialogue on husband” (vv. 16:19); the demonstration of perception and insight by Jesus leads to the Samaritan woman’s appreciation of Him as a prophet (v. 19), who sees and knows all things (see John 1:48-50; 2:24). Her recognition of Jesus as a prophet expressed with the emphatic ei su (you are) is a step towards a Christological confession (Naseri 2015). Dialogue on the Authentic Place of Worship (4:20-26) This section of the discourse is the crux interpret of the text and the basis for the role of the Samaritan woman in the enhancement of a dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritans. The woman introduces the very controversial theological subject which stands at the basis of the division between Samaritanism and Judaism about the mount of worship. The phrase “this mountain” refers to Mount Gerizim. It raises the question of the genuine place of worship: is it Mount Gerizim where the Samaritan shrine is located or Jerusalem where the temple is? The proposition recalls the squabbles about rebuilding the Jerusalem temple at the return of the people of Judah from the Babylonian exile, the destruction of the Samaritan temple in 128 BCE by John Hyrcanus the Jewish ruler and the desecration of the Jerusalem temple in AD 6 by the Samaritans. These were events which initiated and deepened the religious schism between the two groups. The Samaritan woman’s discourse on place of worship is consequent primarily on her perception of Jesus as a Jewish prophet (v. 19) who she presumes would be in a position to give an objective assessment of the problem and provide an authoritative and decisive response to it. The comment is intense; it reflects the state of the relation between the Samaritans and the Jews, and addressing the problem is of primary importance in any attempt at healing the divide between the two groups. By introducing it, the apparently insignificant issue, the Samaritan woman is not insensitive to the difficult relations, which were obvious to all Samaritans and Jews. It is a courageous and credible gesture on her part to raise the controversial subject; it represents her appreciation of Jesus’ desire to cross the boundary which she had earlier cautioned in v. 9 and her new disposition to equally align with Jesus and break that human-made wall. Her observation is equally a taking of the position as she indicates by her estimation that the Jews are wrong to insist on Jerusalem as the authentic worship site against mount Gerizim. (Naseri 2015). The response of Jesus is totally unexpected: “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will worship the Father” (v. 21). He speaks of the future as the prophet who the woman thinks He is. Jesus means that an end shall be put to the choice of location when the Messianic age will occur (5:25-28). There is no sense therefore to quarrel over where worship should take place because it is not essential to the content of worship which is the Father. The Father is more important, and attention should be paid on Him rather than on the site. Jesus considers both the Jewish and the Samaritan categories irrelevant and thus makes little sense of the disagreement and renders it inexistent and unnecessary (Naseri 2015). “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews” (v. 22) For the first time in the dialogue Jesus employs the category of distinction between the two groups which the Samaritan had utilized earlier in vv. 9 and 20 and depicts himself emphatically as representing the Jews. The second person plural “you” (v. 22a) addresses the Samaritans represented by the woman, while the first person plural “we” (v. 22a) depicts the Jews represented by Jesus. While in v.21 Jesus first of all acknowledges the inadequacies of the positions of both institutions; Jews and Samaritans, in v. 22a he points out on the one hand the insufficiency of the content of the Samaritan worship and on the other the veracity/integral dimension of the Jewish worship. Just as in her observation the woman indicated what she thought was an error of the Jews (v. 9), Jesus now criticizes the positions of the Samaritans. The inadequacy of the Samaritan worship is consequent on the limitation of its Scripture to only the Pentateuch, while the veracity of the Jewish worship is identified with the wholeness of its Scripture within which information on the expected salvation is traced from the Law to the Prophets where it is vigorously anticipated and laid out. Salvation thus comes from the Jews (v. 22b) because the Messiah which is going to be accepted by the Samaritans is traced to Judah (Israel) and thus God’s chosen people. Rejecting alignment with the Jews would therefore amount to “rejecting God’s offer of salvation” in the Messiah (Naseri). This situation of conflict between Jews and Samaritan is best captured by the Johannine expression: “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans”. It was a racial conflict which became religious and political and led up to the tendencies of class distinctions and inequality at the level of social interactions (Naseri). Samaritans: Jews or Non-Jews? The Samaritans are the people said to have inhabited Samaria in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Samaria was located in the New Testament between Galilee in the north and Judea in the south. Though the name as indicated is a designation for the inhabitants of Samaria those identified as Samaritans associated their names over and against the geographical labelling with the term Samerim “keeper [of the law”]. They sustained that they were descendants of the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh who survived the Assyrian destruction of Samaria and the deportation in 722 BCE. The information contained in 2 Kings 17 which represents the Jewish version of the Samaritan origin sustains that the Samaritans were the descendants of the people brought from various Mesopotamian communities: Babylon, Cutah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim by the Assyrian king Sahlmaneser to settle in the region of Samaria after having deported its Israelite inhabitants to Assyria. These foreigners were predominantly deportees from territories conquered by Assyria. They are said to have been introduced to and assisted in the practice of the Jewish religion by an Israelite Priest sent back to Samaria by the Assyrian king. The attempt led to a Samaritan deceptive Judaism in which the people worshiped YHWH and also served their national gods (2 Kings 17:27-34). This Jewish version is supported by the Jewish historian Josephus who reports that the Samaritans were descendants of the deportees from foreign lands brought into Samaria by the Assyrian king. Josephus points out to this history as the basis for the Jewish identification of the Samaritans in Hebrew as Cutheans. Cutheans was the name of the foreign nationals who inhabited Samaria. According to Josephus, the label Samaritan is Greek (Naseri). These views from both Jews and Samaritans regarding the origin and status of the Samaritans are therefore opposed to each other; there is, however, a basis for convergence. There is a support for the view regarding the remnants sustained by the Samaritans from the inscriptions of Sargon II. According to the annals only a relatively small proportion of northern Israelites were deported; about 27,290 (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 9: 277-191). This independent record supports the hypothesis of the remnants and thus makes more room for the supposition that a considerable proportion of northern Israelites remained in Samaria. Those who made up that population in no doubt identified themselves as Jews. It is thus certain that people of the Northern Kingdom were deported and that foreigners were brought in to settle in their land Samaria. It is equally likely that some Israelites survived the deportation and were therefore not taken away to foreign territories. There were therefore intermarriages between the remnant Israelites of the Northern Kingdom and the foreigners; the Samaritans would therefore be the products of these intermarriages and are consequently, the descendants of this assorted population in Samaria. They were a mixed blood of remnant Jews and foreigner deportees/settlers in Samaria and had as much pure Jewish blood as the Jews who later returned from the Babylonian captivity. The foreign worship said to have been brought by the foreign deportees appears not to have lasted for long; it gave way with time to an uncompromising monotheism based strictly on the worship of YHWH alone in line with the Torah. It explains why amidst the tension and hostilities between the Samaritans and the Jews, there are no indications of the Samaritans being accused of worshiping foreign gods by the Jews (Naseri). Part II – Saint Photina Saint Photina/Photine/Photini is known simply as the Samaritan Woman by the western Christians. Her name comes from the Greek word phos, photos (light). Photina, the luminous saint, enlightened, in her apostolic mission, brought Christianity to the pagans. The Greek Photina corresponds to the Cyrillic name Svetlana, deriving from the East and South Slavic root svet, “pure”, “blessed”, or “holy”. It is used in Ukraine, Belarus, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, Slavonia, Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, or with variants according to each country. Photina has also nicknames, such as, Sveta, Lana, Ceca, Svetla, Svetka, Svetochka, Svetlanka, Svetluya, Svetik, Svet. (Wikipedia, accessed in 2024). By dint of following the Samaritan woman’s steps, Orthodox Apostolic Catholics have obtained plenty of information about her. After her encounter with Jesus, she, with her whole family, was baptized by the apostles and came out to be an ancient evangelist of the Church. According to the narrative of the Russian Orthodox Church, she went to Carthago accompanied by her children, Victor and Joshia, and her five sisters, Anatolia, Phota, Photida, Paraskeva an Kyriake. From there, she and her family were kidnapped and taken to Rome. In Rome, thanks to God’s providence, she received the visit of Domnina, Nero’s daughter, whom she converted to Christianity. Taken to the presence of Nero himself she was demanded to deny her faith. Although tortured she refused to do so, and was thrown into a well where she died. Like Pete and Paul, she was martyred by Nero in 66 CE. Her continuing witness is said to have brought so many to the Christian faith that she is described as “equal to the apostles”. (Wikipedia). Part III – John’s Gospel and its sources This essay aims at two purposes: 1) To show that he referred pericope in John’s Gospel should be considered in relation to other biblical pericopes in special 2 Kings 17:1-41, at least, in order to avoid misunderstanding. 2) to show that the encounter between Jesus and Samaritan woman involves a theological and metaphorical conversation; the dialogues have nothing to do with the Samaritan woman’s sexual and moral behavior; for John, this meeting assumes wide theological dimensions; while sticking to the Samaritan context as well as he could, John endeavored to show that Jesus’ kingdom is open to anyone, as we see in 12:26. (Wijngaards 1987). Why then to include in it researches of John’s Gospel? In John’s Gospel there are other encounters, and that one with the Samaritan woman attracts a great deal of interest. One can be interested in, for example, who has written the Gospel with so much information and details. John’s Gospel Chapter 4 is out of doubt a beautiful narrative which gives rise to Christology. According to Wijngaards, Jesus’ discussion with the Samaritan woman and his stay in Sychar are probably historical facts. It is a tradition John knew and treasured, although we would be wrong in thinking that when he presented it anew, he restricted himself to a literal and factual report. The main matter at issue is the knowledge and worship of the true God. John’s book itself claims that the author is the disciple “whom Jesus loved” (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:24). Early writers or written documents either cited or named John: Clement of Rome (c. 95-97), Polycarp (c.110-150), Papias (c. 130-202), Irenaeus (c. 130-202), Justin Martyr (c. 150-155), Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215), Tertulian (c. 150-220), The Muratorian Fragment (c. 170-200), The Latin Marcionite Prologue (c. 200), Origen (c. 186-254), Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-386), Eusebius (c. 325-340), Jerome (c. 340-420), Augustine (c. 400). (Cf. Malik, Tippett, Lendman, London, Anderson, Hausaye, and Sanders). As we see the majority of the works consulted accept the traditional view of the fathers of the early Church. The son of Zebedee is the most likely the author behind the Fourth Gospel. There is no reason to consider any other author. It is obvious that the author is a Palestinian Jew due to its extensive knowledge of the Old Testament and his precision with geographical details. Further, the author was an eye witness due to the specifics he uses to describe persons, places and times. John, the son of Zebedee was among the first of the apostles chosen by Jesus (Matt 4:18-22). John was so close to Jesus in that he accompanied him to the Mount of Transfiguration. John leaned on Jesus’ breast at the supper (13:25), took Mary into his home at the cross (19:26), ran to the tomb after the resurrection (20:8), and saw the resurrected Lord (21:20) (Tippett). James C. Ungureanu, however, points to challenges to that traditional view. There go some examples: Johannine authorship is rejected based on claims that it records ideas and events that supposedly could not have happened in the first century; Many believe that the education level of the apostles precludes the possibility of their writing the gospels that bear their names; Some claim that the Gospel was written by so-called Johannine names Community. (Ungureanu). Questions concerning the origins of John’s Gospel intrigue scholars. So, there is a multiplicity of opinions. There have been numerous surveys of Johannine scholarship to date, and they have dealt with various topics ranging from wider fields of research, such as authorship and dating, audience identity and the Johannine community, sources and traditions, to narrower and more specific ones withing those broader categories. (Porter & Ong). Some scholars imagine the existence of a Johannine community or school, or even communities forming a network of churches in order to explain the similarities of John 1, 2 and 3 John as well the epistles. In concealing their true identities, the authors in the community or communities could be identified as a succession of pseudepigraphers – a chain – developing the same historizing fiction. That fiction would depict a shadowy disciple of Jesus writing within a no less shadowy network of churches. (McNamara, and Ong). There is also the hypothesis of no community or school linked to John the beloved disciple, but the idea of authors who probably never met, or never met as such. The differences between their works also suggest their different extractions admitting that John has circulated across many reading communities. In this case each of them connected its ideas into distinct synthesis. From their similarities the community hypothesis gives the impression of a common setting. But there are differences that may indicate the opposite. These differences, however, give rise to the conclusion that these writers were a succession of pseudepigraphers developing the same historicity fiction. In its ultimate form, the narratives would depict a shadowy disciple of Jesus writing within a no less shadowy network of churches (Méndez). This last Part is not to rise debates, but only to show that the reading of a biblical narrative demands caution. Some excerpts of biblical narratives may have a historical context, levels of interpretation and hypotheses of sources, such as that of John’s Gospel. Conclusion John’s pericope represents a theological and metaphorical conversation going far beyond its own words. The encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman has a historical background. The pericope in John 4:7-42 is related closely to 2 Kings 17:1-41. If the interpreter does not relate the two pericopes, he is doomed to mislead the role of the Samaritan woman. As a matter of proof that the Samaritan woman was not a loose person is the fact of how she was welcome in the city to testimony that she had had a dialogue with the Messiah the truly Savior of the world. Known simply as the Samaritan woman in the western Christianity, she is acknowledged as a true apostle and the first Jesus’ missionary, being worshiped in the eastern Catholic Church as a saint with the name of St. Photina, the Illuminated. After capturing Samaria in the North Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, the Assyrian king carried the Israelites away to Assyria. Then the Kingdom of Israel turned out of be a province of Assyria. In order to quell rebellious provinces, it was the Assyria’s practice to exile the leaders to areas of Assyria and then, in their place, resettle on their land from other areas of the realm. Then the Northern Kingdom was resettled with five groups of people, each retaining the worship of their own god. Although maintaining the Torah faith the Samaritans intermingled it with the faith of the other neighboring people. That is why the Jews took the Samaritans religiously impure. At the time of Jesus, both groups had ideologically interpreted their religion in a manner exclusive of the other. The encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman was on purple designed by the divine will. After 722 BCE there was a divorce between God and the Samaritans. Jesus, as a bridegroom, came to a reconciliation. The Samaritan people, represented by the Samaritan woman, had no legal husband at that moment. They have had five husbands, meaning, they have worshiped five other gods, thinking that now they were worshiping the same God of the Jews. But, as a matter of fact, they were neither married nor single. They were divorced from God (John 4:16-18; 2 Kings 17). Jesus came as a bridegroom for a celebration of a new matrimony, making the Samaritans know that they would be married again, and reconciled. From now on the worship of the Father would be neither on Mount Gerizim nor in Jerusalem for the temple is Jesus himself (4:19-22). John’s pericope can also be related to Luke’s pericope in The Acts which says that the Samaritans accepted the word of God and were baptized (Acts 8). As for the search for John’s Gospel sources, in special The Woman at the Well, so dear to the believers and scholars, the narrative at issue is a so beautiful and enticing narrative either written by Jesus’ beloved disciple or someone of John’s school. REFERENCES Most of the articles referred to here can be accessed at https:www.academia.edu unless otherwise cited. THE BIBLE - NRSV Anglicized Edition. ANDERSON, Paul. The Sun of Zebedee and the Fourth Gospel: Some clues to John Authorship and the Stele of Johannine Question. A TRIVIAL DEVOTION (blog), accessed at Internet, Aug 8 2021. BARTON, John & MUDDIMAN, John (eds.). The Oxford Commentary, New York: 2000, pp. 168/9). BOURGEL, Jonathan. John 4-42: Defining a Modus Vivendi between Jews and the Samaritans, Wittenberg: Luther University, The Journal of Theological Studies. HAMER, Colin. The Samaritan Woman Meets the Bridegroom Messiah: An Implied Christology, Wales: 2017. HAUSAVE, John. A Pardes Reading of John’s Gospel. HOGSON, Ong. The Gospel from a Specific Community but for All Christians: Understanding the Johannine as a “Community of Practice”. LENMAN, Daniel. Authorship of the Fourth Gospel. KASULA, Suraj. A Shadow Replaced by Realities: The Theme of Temple in Relations to Christology, Pneumology and Ecclesiology on John’s Gospel. Glasgow: Edinburg Theological Seminary, 2016. LENDMAN, Daniel. Authorship of the Fourth Gospel. LESZAI, Lehel. Encounter at the Well between Judaism and Samaritanism: A Life Changing Experience in Meeting God and the Other. Alina Patru (ed.). LONDON, Daniel. Authorship of the Fourth Gospel. LONG, Phillip. Jesus, the Bridegroom. Mark 2:18-22. Journal of Grace College Theology, 2014, 37-51. MALIK, David. An Introduction to the Gospel of John. MCNAMARA, Paul. The Gospel of John: A Brief Academic Synopsis. MENDEZ, Hugo. Did the Johannine Community Exist? Journal for the Study of the New Testament. Vol. 42(3). 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The Much-Loved Story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well is the 2nd of 4 Encounters with Jesus in John this Lent (Workingpreacher.org., accessed on March 29 2021). TIPPETT. Johannine Authorship. UNGUREANU, James. The Gospel of John at a Glance. WILSON, Ralph. John’s Gospel: A Discipleship Journey with Jesus (www.jesuswalk.com). WIINGAARDS, John. Chap. 8: The Father’s Many Children, in The Gospel of John & His Letters. 1987. WIKIPEDIA, accessed on Feb 7 2024.