bacht

John echos the gnostic idea that the Jews didn't know Christ or his Father (another god above Yahweh). It's similar to the 'messianic secret' in Mark but more widely applied: only the enlightened really see or know Christ.

The wine story may be John's way of diminishing the importance of the communion sacrament (he leaves it out of the Last Supper scene)

The temple story was apparently used to justify the arrest and execution, possibly in a pre-existing Passion account adopted by the synoptics. It's a plot device, not necessarily historically coherent, and John freely moves it to another stage of Jesus' career (longer in this gospel). In John the arrest seems to be triggered by the resuscitation of Lazarus.

John's revisions serve to elevate the Christology higher than the synoptics. He wasn't writing to satisfy the needs of post-Enlightenment historians.

Julio

But now, consider this other inference in the story.
When Jesus said to his mother “Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come”, it was a lie, for in fact, in the subsequent narration, was exactly at that time that his hour had arrived to show the miracle stunts.
Clearly, Jesus started his public ministry with a lie to his mother, followed with a miracle to help heavy drinkers satiate their peculiar thirst!
No, it doesn’t tie up with the divine attributes of a Saviour arrived to save the world from drunkards and other sinners.
It is this John or another one who would state that drunkards would not enter into heaven.
Well, Jesus did a miracle to help them drink more!
How come later they were not allowed in heaven?!
Weird, if you ask me.
Of course drunkenness is evil for all the suffering it causes to the victim and family, plus society at large, but Jesus did INDEED promote drunkenness at a wedding, party to initiate his public ministry as the Great Teacher and Saviour.
Come on!
Of course the fundamentalists will not see it like that, and will stretch their commentaries to elongated exaggerations to excuse the textual contradictions and elaborate on their private prejudices.
I believe, from my side, that “that Jesus” was never around anywhere in Palestine, but was a figment of the superstitious imagination of the second century, 100 years after Pentecost.
No such “Jesus” ever lived on earth, nor did he ever change water into wine.
The entire scenario is provocatively dishonouring to the original plan to save the world from vice and alcoholism.
This is a “miracle” that leaves a dreadful impression in the reader about not only the Son of God but also his mother and his disciples; a bunch of victims of a certain impersonator by the name of “John”, whoever he was.
Now, honestly, if I don’t have the right to interpret the Bible my own way, and try to make sense of it all and particularly this weirdest miracle, why do other students?
Why must a fundamentalist come all aggravated to tell me that I must accept only his private interpretation of the biblical text?
It is unfair if not deceitful.

bacht

I don't know if we can rely on the canonical version of John for the original sequence of the story, there is an argument that the material in its present form is disorganized.

Jesus in all the gospels is presented as occupying a middle ground between libertines and ascetics like John the Baptist. Wine was common all over the Mediterranean, maybe because clean drinking water wasn't always readily available. Drinking at weddings is hardly the same as alcoholism and its associated problems.

I have no interest in a fundamentalist or literalist reading of scripture, I prefer to try to understand what the author and his contemporaries were thinking. Easier said than done of course, but projecting anachronistic ideas onto ancient writers just muddies the waters imo.

aa5874

Why would the author of gJohn make HIS JESUS turn water into alcohol as his first miracle?

One would expect there may be one or two DRUNKARDS at gJohn's wedding.

Examine 1 Cor.5.11

1Co 5:11 - And look at 1 Cor. 6.9-10

Being a drunkard in antiquity was a major SIN in antiquity yet Jesus, instead of using the excess water to BAPTISE some converts, turned to water into wine.

Julio

Good points, aa5874!
Of course anyone has the right/freedom to "interpret" the scene his own way.
I don't believe the "miracle" happened; like others - Jesus walking on water at midnight, etc.
But I offer my interpretation from a literal point of view, to demonstrate that the aggressive literalists [fundamentalists] are too stupid to understand the implications.

Chili

Yes but they were drunk on the living water after being "born again" was celebrated and walking on water was easy even in the dark. This was the seventh day after which every day was seventh day werein darkness shall never be again etc etc. Cana is loaded with abundance to show that heaven and earth are one and the same. The feeding of five thousand is like 'awakening beyond belief' from the well that never runs dry etc. etc.

aa5874

John's Jesus should have turned wine into water.

Julio

How much wine was it?
The three containers would hold SIX HUNDRED LITRES of the happy stuff but the story is so badly presented that we find nowhere described that water had been turned into wine.
However, if the containers were holding that extraordinary amount, surely there would be enough reason to exalt the Saviour for all his benevolence.
Imagine the euphoria and jubilation of that intoxicated crowd after drinking another six hundred litres of the brightening up liquid!
There are two proverbs (31:6,7) teaching the reader to drink the stuff to heal a heavy heart and the miseries of life:
“Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more”.
We assume that Jesus never read or wanted to observe that instruction.
Nobody was going to die or was sad at the wedding to take the extra toast; therefore, the rule was reversed.
For the fundamentalists, the Bible is the absolute word of God, all come from real divine inspiration, but in those words we see God unable to help the needy with a genuine gesture of grace.
The same God that inspired the Bible is there instructing the use and abuse of alcohol to overcome the terrible injustices of life.
It is a God who could not solve the problem at its origin, when it would be quite easy, but later suggesting the drinking option.
Jesus would later say to his audience that he liked to drink wine:
“The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”, Luke 7:34 (ISV).
Funny it was that it had to be the religious elite to accuse Jesus of drinking with his friends, the same elite Jesus accused of being the greatest hypocrites in the forum.
What was wrong with a drink or two?
In other words, the Bible is NOT the model for total abstinence, period.
Baptists who forbid any use of wine drinking are an authority unto themselves; not biblical, and not in the fashion of Jesus, who liked to drink whenever the opportunity arose.
He felt no conscience whatsoever by drinking with his friends; it was normal to use wine and strong drink in those days like always.
In fact, this particular “Jesus” enjoyed good wine, could make it out of water, of the best quality, and started his public ministry to become the Saviour of drunkards involved with a crowd of wine drinkers to whom he supplied more of it.
Who knows, if he would not at other occasions make the bright liquid and enjoy it with his disciples.
If he did, John left it out of his gospel, although he would say at the end of the script that Jesus did many other miracles and wonders that would fill the pages of many books; logically an absurd exaggeration, but it illustrates the point that perhaps miracles were often repeated.
Why, in other words, make the best wine only for other people, when what he needed was only a few litres of natural water to present his friends with an opportunity to celebrate whatever they wanted.
Let us be honest: wouldn’t you do that miracle often if you had the genuine talent to do it?
Why not even be popular for that particular miracle?
Why not even do BUSINESS with it?
Is it too strange, do you think?
Didn’t anybody ever do BUSINESS with MIRACLES?!
Have we never encountered RELIGIOUS CHARLATANS industrious enough to take advantage of our superstitious credulities?
Have you heard of “apparitions” and their subsequent perpetual parades to profit?
Jesus was too immature to see the disastrous implications of that “miracle” at the wedding.

Toto

Julio - you are missing the entire point.

There was a famous "miracle" at the time performed by the priests of Dionysus. They would fill three barrels with water (or sometimes the barrels would be empty), and overnight, they would be turned into wine. Jesus' miracle at Cana just outdid Dionysus - he turned six containers of water into wine - immediately, without waiting.

This is just a story to show that Jesus was better than Dionysus, or, in some interpretations, that Jesus was the real god behind the Dionysian miracle.

In traditional cultures, weddings were not small parties that lasted an afternoon. They were community celebrations that could last for three to five days, involving everyone from the area, Wine was a stable part of the culture and most people drank in moderation.

Julio

Thanks, Toto.
I know about that.
I know weddings were long.
Wine was there in great quantities if the bridegroom was rich.
But I am here looking at a strictly literal interpretation, where I take the text as it reads.
I do this to explain to literalists & fundamentalists that their "literal interpretation" of those miracles is a coarse exercise.
When I present to them the "imponderables" they tell me my "interpretation" is not acceptable - only theirs is correct!
Likewise for Jesus walking on water at midnight, the Temptation in the desert, eating food after the resurrection, and so on.