noah

I found an explanation for John 7:38 which I thought would be interesting for you all here. As you know John 7:38 refers to non-existent Old Testament scripture. This is one Christian source's take on it:

John 7:38 The words, "as the Scripture hath said," refer, of course, to the promise in the latter part of the verse-yet not so much to any particular passage as to the general strain of Messianic prophecy, as Isa 58:11; Joel 3:18; Zech 14:8; Ezek 47:1-12; in most of which passages the idea is that of waters issuing from beneath the Temple, to which our Lord compares Himself and those who believe in Him. The expression "out of his belly" means, out of his inner man, his soul, as in Prov 20:27. On the "rivers of living water," see the notes at John 4:13-14. There, however, the figure is "a fountain;" here it is "rivers." It refers primarily to the copiousness, but indirectly also to the diffusiveness, of this living water to the good of others.
(from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)

I would very much like to get your response to this.

Thanks

Toto

John 7:38
He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Rivers, fountains. Picky, picky.

noah

I'm new here so I do not know your stance on these things. To me it looks as though they are shooting the arrow at the tree and then drawing a target around the arrow.

Regards,

Toto

Yes, that is what they are doing.

Early Christians had a "special" way of reading the Hebrew Scriptures, so what they report and what you might read there are at times at odds. And we don't necessarily know the exact version of the text that they read.

But this is not the only reference in the New Testament to the Hebrew Bible that cannot be located. Where does it say that the Messaiah should be from Nazareth?

My conclusion is that the NT was not written as a precise, scientific manual, and was quite sloppy at times. Biblical literalists who want to find truth in every word are missing the point.

What would you conclude from this?

Anyhow, welcome to II. :wave:

Peter Kirby

Is there any way that the clause can refer to 'me', Jesus? That is, could the be a reference to the issuance of water from the side of Jesus on the cross?

Just floating a trial balloon, you know.

best,
Peter Kirby

Aeromaxis

why cant it be a reference to John 4:10?

- Aeromaxis

noah

I wrote you an email a couple months ago asking you about Melchizedek and his relation to the Canaanites and whether he was ever really a priest of Yahweh.
My understanding is that Melchizedek was a high priest of EL and had nothing to do with Yahweh. It seems to me the Old Testament merely apprpriates Melchizedek and makes him a Judeo-Christian figure when, in fact, he was Canaanite all the way. He never took delivery of,nor did he ever transmit Yahweh's laws to the Canaanites.

Regards,

noah

I don't think it can be a reference to John 4:10 because John and the rest of the NT was written after Jesus died.

Peter Kirby

Like most other things, this lies outside of my circle of knowledge.

best,
Peter Kirby

Peter Kirby

To answer my own question, I found the following in my software:

37–38 The actual rendering of the saying in vv 37–38 and its construction have been disputed throughout Christian history.
The punctuation of the text in the UBS Greek NT represents the understanding of most of the Eastern Fathers, including Origen: “If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drinkâ€?; there follows an assurance, in accordance with the scripture, that the believer whose thirst is slaked will become a source of living water to others. That rendering of the text is followed in the majority of Bible translations and by a number of modern exegetes (e.g., Rengstorf, Barrett, Lightfoot, Lindars, Haenchen). Blenkinsopp supported this view, but regarded the phrase “he who believes in meâ€? as an editorial explanatory expansion. The saying of Jesus, in his view, is limited to the words, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink,â€? and an interpretation is added, “(This is) as the scripture text says: Rivers of living water shall flow from his sideâ€? (“John VII:37–39, â€? 95–96). If the living waters symbolize the revelation of God through Jesus, this would not be an impossible interpretation; it would then signify that one who received the revelation from Jesus would then become a source of it to others. There is little doubt, however, in view of the Evangelist’s interpretative comment in v 39, relating the living water to the Spirit bestowed by the Lord on the thirsty, that he himself did not so understand the saying. The difficulty is diminished if a full point is placed after the first clause and ÏŒ πιστεÏ?ων εἰς á¼?μÎ* is viewed as a nominative absolute, beginning a fresh sentence, thus: “As for the one who believes in me, as the scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his (viz., the Lord’s) heart.â€? This was Bauer’s solution (108), and is accepted by Schnackenburg (2:154). Kilpatrick achieves the same end by viewing á½? πιστεÏ?ων εἰς á¼?μÎ* as forming, with á¼?άν τις διΨᾷ, the subject of the verbs á¼?Ï?χÎ*σθω Ï€Ï?ός με καὶ πινÎ*τω: “If anyone is thirsty, let him who believes in me come to me and drinkâ€? (“The Punctuation of John VII 37–38, â€? 341). While this is grammatically possible, it hardly appears to be a natural reading of the text.
The mode of understanding the text that commends itself to the majority of recent exegetes follows on the recognition by many western Fathers that the source of the living waters is Christ alone, and that the key utterance should be read as a couplet:
á¼?άν τις διΨᾷ á¼?Ï?χÎ*σθω Ï€Ï?ός με,
καὶ πινÎ*τω á½? πιστεÏ?ων εἰς á¼?μÎ*,
If anyone is thirsty let him come to me,
and let him drink who believes in me.
The OT citation that follows provides an encouragement to the thirsty believer to come and drink, on the ground that the OT type and promise of the gift of living water has now been realized and is available to all mankind through the Redeemer. Admittedly the chiasmus is unusual for the Evangelist, since it sets in parallelism “let him come� and “let him drink,� as also “he who thirsts� and “he who believes�; in the closely related John 6:35 “he who comes� and “he who believes� are placed in parallelism, and “will not hunger� and “will not thirst.� While the parallelism is different in the two sayings, the thought and language are strikingly similar. In John 7:37–38 the thirsty one is a believer convinced that Jesus can satisfy his thirst, and so he comes and drinks. In John 6:35 we have the double picture of hunger assuaged and thirst slaked. It is assumed that one comes to Jesus because he is hungry, and one who believes in him is thirsty; hence the hungry one comes and eats and the thirsty one believes and drinks. The fundamental concept is precisely the same in the two passages, apart from the doubling of the picture in John 6:35, and its emphasizing the availability of bread for the hungry, whereas John 7 has in view water for the thirsty. But the same salvation of God in the past and the same eschatological gift in the future and the same offer of grace in the present are the substance of both utterances.
Beasley-Murray, G. R. 2002. Vol. 36: Word Biblical Commentary : John. Word Biblical Commentary . Word, Incorporated: Dallas

Also this:

The words from within him are lit. ‘from within his belly’, and the question arises whether this is a reference to either Christ or the believer. Since the living water is identified with the Spirit, in what sense can it be said that a believer communicates the Spirit? This can hardly be the meaning, and it is best to understand it to mean that Christ communicates the Spirit, a thought underlined by the latter part of v 39. A parallel to the idea of water flowing from a person may be found in the metaphorical rock (i.e. Christ) in 1 Cor. 10:4. V 39 links the coming of the Spirit to the period subsequent to the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus (described by John as a glorification). Whatever the water sacrifice would have conveyed to the discerning mind, there was no way the hearers could know the significance of Jesus’ words until the Spirit brought his own enlightenment.
Carson, D. A. 1994. New Bible commentary : 21st century edition. Rev. ed. of: The new Bible commentary. 3rd ed. / edited by D. Guthrie, J.A. Motyer. 1970. (4th ed.) . Inter-Varsity Press: Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., USA

This persuades me that it is a reference to water flowing from Christ, not the believer. The lines would thus be structured as follows:

Ἐάν τις διψᾷ á¼?Ï?χÎ*σθω Ï€Ï?ός με.
καὶ πινÎ*τω á½? πιστεÏ?ων εἰς á¼?μÎ*,
καθὼς εἶπεν ἡ γÏ?αφή,
ποταμοὶ á¼?κ τῆς κοιλίας αá½?τοῦ ῥεÏ?σουσιν ὕδατος ζῶντος.

If anyone is thirsty let him come to me,
and let him drink who believes in me,
just as the Scripture has said,
‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’

What is the scripture that might be in mind here, if any? Who knows? Isaiah 12:3 has bee suggested, "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." That could have struck the author when writing John 4:10 and remained in memory.

best,
Peter Kirby