ABuddhist wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:50 am
Ah, but Jesus's cold reaction to his mother is not unique to GJohn - it also appears in GMark (3:31-35). Personally, I have understood the scene in GJohn as a reflection of:
1. General misogyny; and
2. Jesus's status as a godman unbound by norms of filial piety.
I just throw out these ideas for your consideration.
Its certainly possible, but to me the whole setup looks strange. There is a random event, and it is mentioned that X person was there. The way it is told, it is a chance happenstance that Jesus and X are both at this wedding. It's like a chance meeting. There was a wedding, X was there. Then X happened to say to Jesus, "Blah, blah", to which Jesus said (in effect) "Who the heck are you?"
The whole things seems like a very odd narrative involving a mother. The two characters seem like they don't know each other.
We are later introduced to Mary in John 11:
Now a certain man was sick: Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 And it was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. 3 So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.
But this is also strange because Mary hasn't anointed Jesus yet, so its odd to identify her by something that the reader doesn't know about yet. But how does Jesus know these people? Why does he love Lazarus? How do Mary and Martha know that Jesus loves Lazarus? Why, at this point, would we care that this is the village of Mary, since we don't know anything about Mary yet?
So to me this seems like its part of some larger narrative, in which Mary had already been introduced, but those parts have been removed or changed, so here the final editor has to refer to Mary based on something that happens in the future.
So my speculation would be that Jesus was introduced to Mary at the wedding, then there was some story with more information about Jesus and Mary that also involved Lazarus, whom Jesus met and had some kind of relationship with to establish that he loved him. Lazarus was perhaps a disciple.
So I think that's why many things in John are confusing, because the final version we have includes parts of a narrative that have been heavily redacted, so key elements are missing such that it doesn't all make sense. Part of the story of Mary and Lazarus has been removed, with "the mother of Jesus" taking over some of the parts from Mary Magdalene.