The Gospel of John

Overview

The Gospel of John in the UPDV preserves what appears to be the original text of the Fourth Gospel, while addressing several places where the text has been disturbed, expanded, or supplemented by later hands. These decisions range from a key translation choice at the opening verse to the exclusion of material at the end of the book that bears marks of secondary authorship.

John 1:1 — The Speech of God

The UPDV translates the opening of John's Gospel as "In the beginning was the Speech" rather than the traditional "In the beginning was the Word." This reflects the meaning of the Aramaic word מלתא (memra), which is broader than the Greek λόγος (logos) as traditionally rendered. Although מלתא can mean either "word" or "speech," the latter is more accurate in this context.

The case is strengthened by internal evidence within John's own Gospel. At John 4:42 and 8:43, the Syriac and Greek texts use the same term in contexts where "speech" is clearly the natural reading. The Pulpit Commentary on John 1:1 likewise explores the fuller semantic range of the term.¹

For a detailed discussion of the Aramaic background and Targum evidence for translating "Word" as "Speech," see The Speech of God: John 1:1 and the Aramaic Memra.

John 4:14 and 6:27 — Conjectural Reconstructions

Two verses in John have been conjecturally reconstructed where the UPDV identifies a likely disturbance in the transmission of an Aramaic original. In both cases, the current Greek text can be compared to the UPDV reading in the footnotes at each verse.

John 4:14 concerns the well of living water. The reconstruction is based on several converging lines of evidence:

The Liege Diatessaron preserves a reading of "living water" in this verse, though the rest of its text appears expanded. The immediate context — Jesus has been discussing "living water" since verse 10 — makes it the expected subject. However, the phrase "eternal life" occurs far more frequently in the New Testament, and it appears that at an early stage a copyist or translator took the word "living" with "eternal" to produce "eternal life" instead of "living water." The word for "springing up" was likely added afterward to smooth the translation once "eternal life" had been selected. The Old Syriac Curetonian omits it, while the Sinaiticus retains it, suggesting it was not original.

The structure of the verse also points to an original parallel:

(whoever drinks of the water...) will not thirst — forever (the water) will be in him a well of living water — forever

An original Aramaic text would have been easy to confuse along these lines.

John 6:27 is reconstructed on similar grounds. Again the Liege Diatessaron is relevant; the context discusses food, not eternal life; the natural contrast is between food that perishes and food that endures forever; and the Aramaic similarity provides a plausible mechanism for the error.

John 5:34 and 10:9 — Definitions

At John 5:34 and John 10:9, the UPDV applies its distinctive understanding of the word "life" as discussed in the Definitions Section of the Appendix. In these contexts, the term carries a meaning shaped by its broader biblical usage rather than the theological reading that later tradition has assigned to it.

John 7:53–8:11 — The Woman Caught in Adultery

This passage is not included in the UPDV. This is not a departure from the Critical Text — the UBS committee rates its exclusion at Level A (certain). The passage is absent from the earliest and most reliable Greek manuscripts and displays vocabulary and style inconsistent with the rest of John's Gospel. Its exclusion is one of the least controversial textual decisions in the New Testament.

John 7:37–39 — Exclusion

These three verses appear in known manuscripts but are not included in the main body of the UPDV text. They are placed in a footnote. The reasons for this determination involve multiple converging problems.

Pattern of Holy Spirit additions. In several places across the Gospels, phrases pertaining to the Holy Spirit appear to be additions by someone other than the original author. Luke is particularly affected — see The Gospel of Luke for the full list of suspected additions at Luke 1:15, 1:41, 1:67, 2:25, 2:26, 2:27, 4:1, 4:14, 10:21, and 11:13. John 20:22, which is part of the secondary ending (see below), was likewise probably added by a later hand. John 7:39's interpretive gloss about the Spirit fits this broader pattern.

The text is persistently problematic. John 7:37–38 has generated extensive scholarly literature precisely because it resists coherent interpretation. Commentators struggle to identify the Scripture Jesus refers to, to determine whether the living water flows from Jesus or the believer, and to resolve the punctuation. These difficulties may reflect a disturbance in the text rather than an obscurity in the original author's thought.

The passage interrupts its context. Before and after these verses, the subject is where Jesus came from and where he is going. Verses 37–39 interrupt this to discuss the future receiving of the Spirit by believers — a jarring shift. The crowd's reaction in the verses that follow also does not naturally arise from a promise about the Spirit.

Timeline inconsistency. The attendants dispatched in 7:32 appear to have been sent around the middle of the feast (see 7:14). Yet 7:37 places the scene on "the last day, the great day of the feast," while 7:45 has the attendants returning — an implausible delay.

Internal contradiction. The interpretation given in John 7:39 seems unrealistic and contradictory to the dialogue about living water in John 4:6–15, especially 4:14.

Given these factors, it is likely that these verses are out of place and have been tampered with. The UPDV places them in a footnote rather than the main text.

John 19:36–21:25 — The Extended Ending

Although known manuscripts contain John 19:36–21:25, the UPDV concludes that these passages are likely additions by someone other than the original author. The text is not included.

John 19:35 as the natural ending. The wording of John 19:35 — "And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he speaks the truth, so that you⁺ also may believe" — reads as a complete and deliberate conclusion. The similar endings at John 20:30–31 and 21:24–25 progressively imitate and expand this conclusion, suggesting two additional layers of expansion to the ending of the text.

Parallel in John's other writing. The ending at 3 John 1:12 is strikingly similar to John 19:35, reinforcing the sense that this is the author's characteristic way of closing.

Style and vocabulary shifts. Several elements of style and vocabulary in the extended ending are not consistent with the author's writing in other places, suggesting a different hand.

Conflict with other accounts. The content in this section conflicts with, or is not substantiated by, parallel accounts in the New Testament. Material that cannot be independently verified from other surviving texts is treated as suspect.

The UPDV presents the Gospel of John as ending at 19:35, with the excluded material available in footnotes for reference.

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Notes

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