John 4:1-30, the woman at the well, with Philo and bar Cochba

John 4:1-30 is an intertexual conversation that,  like the conversation with Nicodemus, does not end the way it might be expected to end.

The parshah is:

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 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 worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people 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 (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the town and were coming to him.

The parshah opens by telling us that Jesus came to a town that was near the field that Jacob gave to Joseph.  That is very heavy-handed intertextual conversation.   And of course, we have the reference to Jacob, which brings us back to the reference in Numbers 24:17 that “a star will come from Jacob,” which brings us to bar Cochba.  

We are told that Jacob’s well was there, that Jesus was weary, that a woman came to the well, and he told her he wanted a drink.

This is an intertextual conversation of an interesting kind.  The Patriarchs met the Matriarchs at the well, and hit on them by demanding refreshment.  There has been speculation if Jesus was celibate/married/gay.  In this parshah, he is hitting on the Samaritan woman, just as the Patriarchs hit on the Matriarchs.

The woman understands that he is hitting on her, and asks him why he, a Judean, would hit on her, a Samaritan.

Jesus then goes into an eschatological discourse whose basis is in Philo, in an allegory similar to that of the wisdom/women discourse in “On Mating.”

He tells her to call her husband.  She tells him she has no husband.  He tells her he knows she has been in a levirate marriage. She tells him that he has told her Jerusalem is the place where one should worship (a rather odd thing to say given that he had said no such thing).  He replies “the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.”  This has been understood to refer to the First Jewish War and the destruction of the Temple, however when Titus destroyed the Temple, he did not destroy Jerusalem.   We should therefore understand it as a reference to the bar Cochba revolt.  Jesus’ reference to “the Father” is from Philo.  

Jesus adds “for salvation is from the Jews.”  This statement is not consistent with claims made by Justin Martyr who wrote his First Apology after the bar Cochba revolt, and addressed it to Hadrian’s successor.  This suggests that this part of the text has its origins from the Judean community at the time of the bar Cochba revolt.

The woman tells him that she knows the Mochiach is coming and parenthetically says he is called “the Christ.”  This insertion attaches the bar Cochba/intertextual conversation to the proto-Christian community.

Then the disciples arrive and spoil the moment.