Jacob Traditions and the Interpretation of John 4:10-26

JEROME H. NEYREY, S.J.

Weston School of Theology

 

THE WOMAN at the well asks Jesus "Are you greater than our father Jacob?"  Previous discussions of John 4 have not dealt specifically with this question and what such a comparison might mean for the interpretation of the passage. Important contributions, of course, have been made to the understanding of John 4 which have sometimes been allegorical in nature [1] or symbolic. [2] Recent debate on the historical background of John's gospel has led to discussion about Samaritan religion, a Samaritan mission in the early church, and other such issues. [3] 3 But the question in John 4:12 seems rarely to have been studied in terms of what specific Jacob materials are operative in the comparing of Jesus and Jacob. [4]

Since John's text is explicit about Jacob at this point (4:5,6) and pointedly asks if Jesus is "greater than Jacob" (4:12), a systematic inquiry into the Jewish materials concerning Jacob seems warranted. The very question of the woman presupposes that Jacob is a well-known person, such that the points of comparison between Jesus and Jacob would be evident to the audience, both from its knowledge of the biblical text and from interpretations of that text found in sources such as targum and midrash. It is pre-
cisely this material which I propose to investigate: what is presupposed by the author to make "greater than Jacob" an intelligible statement and what importance does this comparison have for the understanding of the passage?

Although many of the sources of information about Jacob come from writings transcribed considerably later than John's Gospel, it will be shown that many of the Jacob traditions in them are presupposed by the argument in John 4, which fact presents evidence that these traditions certainly existed prior to John. Even when specific   traditions, such as Jacob's visions of a future, restored temple, cannot be dated as early as John, nevertheless there seems to be evidence suggesting that Jacob texts were already loci for such expansion and that such lines of expansion were well under way in the first
century. John's text, therefore, may prove to be an important relay station in the development of certain Jacob traditions even as it witnesses to a frequency which will soon bear greater traffic of legendary expansion.

The question asked in John 4:12, "Are you greater than our father Jacob?" formally resembles the one put to Jesus in 8:53, "Are you greater than our father Abraham?" [5] Together the two questions belong to a theme in the Gospel which asserts Jesus' superiority to the founding fathers of traditional Jewish religion (see 1:17-18; 5:38; 6:32). [6] The thrust of the ques­tions, as we shall see, suggests that Jesus not only replaces Jacob, [7] Abraham, and Moses vis-à-vis God's revelation, but that an absolute claim is
made on his behalf: he is greater than these, he supplants them with new
revelation, a new cult and a new covenant.

The question in 4:12, moreover, should be seen in relation to other statements in the Gospel which proclaim the distinctiveness of Jesus vis-à-vis Israel's past experiences and personages. Jesus is the true vine, the true light (1:9; 6:32; 15:1); he is contrasted with the old or false. Even in the use of the "I am" formulae, Jesus is linked in an exclusive manner with certain events or elements. [8] Often in the Gospel the demonstrative haute or houtos is used apropros of Jesus to underscore his uniqueness or superiority. [9] The question in 4:12, then, belongs to a mode of discourse in the Gospel which both asserts the superiority of Jesus over Israel's patriarchs and makes an absolute claim on his behalf. [10]

Jacob's Well and Jacob the Supplanter (4:10-15)

Because it is the clearest point of comparison, let us begin with the question in 4:12, “Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well?” The Genesis accounts do not record that Jacob even dug a well, much less that he gave it to any of his sons; the text, however, does mention that Jacob bought and then gave Shechem to Joseph (Gen 33:19; 48:22), which is the locale of Jacob's well (see John 4:1). [11]

The trend of some traditions was not to associate Jacob with any particular well, but to link him with the traveling well tradition (see 1 Cor 10:4): "Jacob was seventy-seven years old when he went forth from his father's house, and the well went with him." [12] And this same source also tells us that at one point Jacob left this traveling well at Bethel: "there he left the well." [13] The legend of the traveling well should, of course, be linked primarily with Miriam's well in. Numbers 21. [14] But as the targums on Numbers 21 indicate, Miriam's well was itself simply the old patriarchal well which had been lost and was only then rediscovered:

And from thence was given them the living well, the well concerning which the Lord said to Moses, assemble the people and give them water. Then, behold, Israel sang the thanksgiving of this song, at the time that the well which had been hidden was restored to them through the spirit of Miriam: Spring up, 0 well, spring up, 0 well! sang they to it, and it sprang up: the well which the fathers of the world, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, digged; the princes who were of old digged it, the chiefs of the people, Moses and Aaron, the scribes of Israel, found it with their rods; and from the desert it was given to them for a gift. [15]

It is presumably this very well which was said to have been one of the ten things created before the world's founding. [16] Hence, while there is nothing in the legends to suggest why Jacob specifically should be associated with a given well at Bethel or Shechem, he is linked to the general well tradition. The well in John 4: 12 might be called Jacob's well simply because it lies in Jacob country, at Shechem.

A second item in the discourse seems to presuppose more specific knowledge of Jacob legends. Jesus remarked that the woman should ask him for water (4:10), to which she replied, "You don't have a bucket and the well is deep; how do you get this living water?" (v 11). In the legends about Jacob mention is made of a miracle whereby water would automatically surge to the top of Jacob's well and overflow, a phenomenon well-
attested in the targums of Genesis 28 and in other midrashic accounts: "Five miracles were wrought for our father Jacob at the time that he went forth from Beersheba ...The fourth sign: the well overflowed, and the water rose to the edge of it, and continued to overflow all the time he was in Haran." [17] The woman's remarks to Jesus that he has no bucket and that the well is deep set the stage to ask how Jesus expects to draw water from the well. Without a bucket, the only alternate way to get the water would be to perform a miracle like Jacob's. Jacob's miraculous drawing of water, therefore, seems to be presupposed in the dialogue in 4:11.

A third item in the discourse that might allude to Jacob material is the remark by Jesus in 4:10. If only the woman knew "the gift of God and who it is that speaks to you," then she would ask and he would "give you living water." Jacob is known as a crafty person who stealthily achieved his designs, but the pertinent allusion may lie in the interpretation of the well itself as "gift." [18]

The text of Num 21:16 indicates that when the Israelites arrived at Beer, God promised Moses, "I will give them water." After finding a well in this place, the Israelites traveled on to Mattanah, Nahaliel, Bamoth, and Moab (21: 18-20). The point is that the place name, Mattanah, is interpreted in targumic expansions according to its perceived root (ntn) as "gift." The interpretation, of course, would logically be understood in the light of Num 21:16c ("I will give them water"). Whereas the MT on Num 21:18c reads "And from the wilderness they went on to Mattanah," it was changed in the LXX to kai apo phreatos eis Manthanain; and finally in the targums to Num 21:18, "Mattanah" is read, not as a place name, but as "gift." [19]

Tg. Neof              And from the wilderness it was given to them as a gift
Tg. Yer. I             And from the desert it was given to them
Tg. Yer. II            And from the desert it was given to them as a gift

This reading is also found in a midrash on this passage as well: "And from the Wilderness at Mattanah. This implies that it was given (nittena) to them in the wilderness to serve their needs." [20]

The midrashic interpretation of the place name as "gift" is still more evident in the targumic reworkings of Num 21:19. Whereas the MT reads only place names (“from Mattanah to Nahaliel and from Nahaliel to Bamoth ...”), all of the targums expand on the gift quality of the well.

Tg. Neof              and after the well had been given to them as a gift. ..
Tg. Onq.              and from thence it was given to them. ..
Tg. Yer. I             and from thence it was given to them at Mattanah

Thus the miraculous well was interpreted as "gift of God."

Now when Jesus told the woman, "if only you knew the gift of God," on one level the "gift" might be the general recognition of the true well of Israel's history which God gave the people (see Num 21:16). But Jesus qualifies the statement so that the allusion is not simply to the well but to himself: "If only you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you 'Give me a drink.' " Thus the person of Jesus is equated with the true "gift of God," the true well of Israel. Jesus' giving of special waters is developed later in the gospel (see 7:37-39; 19:34).

Thus far the comparison of Jesus and Jacob seems to presuppose knowledge of two items: a miraculous welling up of water and designation of the well as a gift. The point of the comparison, of course, has been to show that Jesus is certainly "greater than our   father Jacob;" and Jesus' superiority is explained in response in 4:13-14, whereby an absolute claim is made on his behalf.

Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again,

but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst.

The form of the response is significant because it represents a pattern of antithetical statements that characterizes Jesus' mode of discourse in the Gospel and that claims superiority for him or asserts his absolute importance. [21] The assertion made here especially resembles the statement of manna and bread from heaven (see 6:49-51), especially in its claim to produce and eternal result (eis ton aiona).

The response of Jesus in 4: 13-14 claims that he is not just a latter-day Jacob or even that Jacob was a type of Christ. A more radical claim is made: Jesus supplants/replaces Jacob. The woman's question in 4:12 seems to contain a pun, implying that Jesus is supplanting Jacob, the Supplanter, thus doing to Jacob what he did to Esau.

According to Gen 25:26, Jacob's name means "to grab by the heel" or "to supplant"; Jacob is so proficient at being "jacob," that he supplants Esau in birth (25:26), birthright (25:34), and blessing (27:36). In one sense, he is just one more example of the traditional experience in Israel of the younger son supplanting the elder, a pattern found in the case of Isaac-Ishmael, Jacob-Esau, Joseph-his brethren, Ephraim-Menasseh, David-his brethren and Solomon-other siblings, and which is later applied by Paul to Gentile Christians vis-a-vis the Jews (Rom 11 :7-12). [22] But in a writer like Philo, Jacob's sobriquet is, as his name suggests, "the Supplanter" pternistes). [23] Hence in the first century, Jacob was still known as "jacob," the supplanter. [24]

If Jesus is supplanting Jacob, in what does the replacement consist? Since the thrust of the dialogue is to assert that absolute quality of Jesus and his gift, the comparison with Jacob is not simply to suggest that Jesus does greater miracles than Jacob, nor to have Jesus give a better well.

Jacob's Courtship at the Well (4:16-18)

Is there an allusion to Jacob in 4: 16-18? The OT background suggests a parallel between the courtship meetings at a well of Abraham's servant and Rebekah (Gen 24:1ff.), Jacob and Rachel (Gen 29:1-14), Moses and Sipporah (Ex 2:15-22) [25] and Jesus and the Samaritan woman. In Josephus' account of these well encounters, only the Jacob-Rachel story contains a story of a tender and elaborate courtship (Ant. 1.286-292). Justin was quick to see Jacob's marriages as types of what Christ was to accomplish: Leah was the synagogue who was replaced by Rachel, the Church (Dial. 134). Any matrimonial allusions in John 4: 16-18, therefore, would seem to cast Jesus in the role of groom and the woman (Samaritan church?) as the bride. [26]

Using allegorical methods of interpretation, critics have attempted to identify the five husbands (4: 18) with the five books of the Samaritan Pentateuch [27] or with the five gods (ba’al as husband/god) which the Samaritans were said to worship, [28] but such interpretations have fallen into disfavor. [29] The thrust of such investigations has been primarily in terms of Samaritan traditions, whereas our focus is the Jacob traditions.

If there is a Jacob allusion operating here, it would be primarily in terms of courtship at a well. Courtship would imply that Jesus replaces the former "husbands" of the woman with the true ba’al, viz., himself. Since the woman is portrayed as accepting Jesus as Messiah (4:39), he effectively becomes her ba’al; and he replaces Samaritan expectations when they too confess him as "Savior of the world" (4:42). The Jacob matrimonial allusions then seem to lie in Jesus' becoming the husband/lord of these new converts, even his replacement of their former allegiances.

Such implications are realistic options here. In the language of the Gospel, John the Baptizer has already acknowledged that Jesus, who has the bride, is the bridegroom (3:29). Jesus, moreover, has attended a marriage feast (2:1-11) where he replaced the waters of purification with his own superb wine. Thus in matrimonial imagery Jesus has been proclaimed as winning the allegiance of new followers and as supplanting previous persons and rituals in Jewish religion.

The Right Place to Worship and Visions of the Future (4:19-20)

The woman's response in 4:19-20 reflects a shift in the dialogue: "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." The operative images turn from well and water to the topic of worship, especially knowledge pertinent to worship. Jesus' remark to the woman about her many husbands indicates that he is indeed knowledgeable enough to warrant the title' 'Prophet," that is, one who perhaps has access to knowledge, especially about the right place of worship. [30] The knowledge of Jesus, therefore, seems to function as the mediating link between the two halves of the discourse. [31] It distinguishes him from the woman who does not know (4:10) and it looks forward to his identification as Messiah who knows all (4:25, 39). But does the second half of the dialogue (vv 19-26)
allude to or presuppose allusions to Jacob? If not to specific Jacob legends, then might Jesus continue to "supplant" older traditions, i.e., does he still function as "jacob"?

In acclaiming Jesus as "a prophet," the woman expects him to settle a theological issue: she poses the question of the right place of worship, an obvious difference between Samaritans and Jews. Northern and Samaritan traditions did not accept Jerusalem as "the place where I will put my name." [32] The most obvious evidence of this disagreement with Jerusalem was the erection of the golden calf at Bethel in the days of Jeroboam (1 Kgs 12:28-29). The deuteronomic redactor was likewise reluctant to localize God in anyone place, especially Jerusalem (see Deut 12:5,11,14,18,21,26), a polemic which is found also in the redaction of 1 Kgs 8:28ff.

Besides this general orientation of non-Judah tribes, [33] there are passages in the Jacob stories which could be read in support of an alternate site to Jerusalem as the legitimate place of worship. Jacob experienced a vision of a ladder stretching from heaven to earth; when he awoke he designated the spot of the vision as "the place": "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it ...how awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven" (Gen 28:16-18). Samaritan traditions which supported worship on Mt. Gerizim interpreted Jacob's vision as
occurring on that mountain. [34] Also supporting the Samaritan claim is Gen 33: 19-20, Jacob's building of an altar at Shechem. Thus Jacob is certainly a factor in a northern and Samaritan tradition which asserted that Mt. Gerizim is the legitimate place of worship.

Recent archaeological research on Mt. Gerizim has uncovered a massive building under a Roman temple to Zeus, a building which has subsequently been identified as the Samaritan temple. [35] Moreover, in an important article on Samaritan traditions of the temple's "hidden vessels," M. Collins has shown that in the first century there was strong expectation that an eschatological prophet would recover the hidden vessels on Mt. Gerizim and thus restore true worship there as the rightful place. [36] Collins' article has shown that Josephus' account of Samaritan attempts to meet on Mt. Gerizim in the first  century (see Ant. 18.85-87) reflects a live religious issue, an issue which focuses attention on the woman's question in John 4: 19-20, especially to her remarks about a prophet. [37]

Beyond general acceptance of Jacob as part of the legitimation of Samaritan traditions of Mt. Gerizim as the place of worship, Jacob's vision (Gen 28:16-18) was alternately used in Jewish sources as validation of their own claims for Mt. Zion. Gen. Rab. 69:7 notes that the spot of Jacob's ladder was the very site of the temple; Tg. Yer. I Gen 28:17 explicitly connects Jacob's site with Jerusalem: "This place is not profane but the holy house of the name of the Lord, the proper spot for prayer, set forth before
the gate of heaven, founded beneath the throne of Glory." [38] The essentials of this reading are found also in two variant readings of Tg. Neof. Gen 28:17. [39] Although such targumic expansion may be of later date, inasmuch as it reflects a period after the fall of the temple in 70 A.D. when sacrifice would be replaced by prayer, nevertheless, the use of Jacob's vision to validate a particular spot is clearly very old. Proof of this claim comes from a passage in Jubilees which, dealing with Jacob's vision of the ladder, emphatically restrains him from consecrating Bethel as the legitimate place of worship. The insistence that the dream sit e is "not the place"

Do not build this place.

Do not make it an eternal sanctuary;
Do not dwell here;

this is not the place (Jub 32:22)

presupposes that Gen 28:16-18 was used as early as Jubilees to legitimate the

sacred place of worship.

Thus Jacob traditions were generally operative in the scheme of locating the place of worship. But as "greater than Jacob," Jesus is hailed as a prophet with special knowledge, one aspect of which prophetic knowledge was to settle the disputed location of Jacob's vision vis-a-vis the legitimate place of worship. Hence Jesus' knowledge may be said to be greater at this point than Jacob's vision.

Just as Jacob was linked to a specific place of worship in virtue of Gen 28:16-18, he is likewise treated as a visionary according to midrashic developments of several other Jacob texts in Genesis. The passage from Jubilees, which we just examined, expands the vision of Jacob's ladder in the direction of his receiving heavenly secrets about the future of Israel. Gen 28:12-15 tells only of a vision of a ladder and of the Lord promising to
establish a covenant on the land with Jacob and sons, but the retelling of this vision in Jub 32:21-24 supplements the divine oracle with a messenger angel bringing seven tablets of heavenly secrets for Jacob to read: "And he read them and knew that all that was written therein which would befall him and his sons throughout the ages" (v 21). And the text continues with the angel commanding Jacob to record his special revelations: "do thou write down everything as thou hast seen and read" (v 24). Thus in virtue of Gen 28:12-15, Jacob was considered privy to heavenly revelations and the purveyor of them as well (see Jub 32:26). [40]

Another Jacob text (Genesis 49) also became the occasion for claiming that Jacob possesses special heavenly knowledge. The MT of Gen 49:1 describes the dying Jacob gathering his sons together "that I may tell you what shall befall you in the days to come." The LXX puts a different nuance to the text by translating "following days" as ep eschaton ton hemeron. This verse became the locus of considerable expansion in targum and midrash [41] as Jacob was credited with visions of the eschatological future, typical of which expansion is Tg. Neof. Gen 49:1: “I will tell you the con­cealed secrets, the hidden ends, the giving of rewards of the just and the punishment of the wicked and what the happiness of Eden is.” [42]

J. M. Allegro published a text from Qumran (4QpGn 49) which contains Jacob's visionary blessing of Judah (Gen 49: 10) interpreted as a messianic prophecy. [43] In the passage, Jacob foresees the coming messiah ("a ruler from the tribe of Judah") who, it appears, will be associated with the "Interpreter of the Law" for the sectarian community. Allegro argued from 4Q Flor that this "Interpreter of the Law" in 4QpGn49 is himself a
messianic figure, citing the Flor, as evidence: "He is the Shoot of David, who will arise with the Interpreter of the Law." [44] Granting the Qumran doctrine of a royal as well as a priestly messiah, [45] we have clear pre-Christian evidence of Jacob's vision (Genesis 49) functioning as the locus of speculation concerning a royal messiah as well as an official interpreter of Jewish law and worship.

Other Jacob texts link him with special revelations, especially knowledge concerning the future place of worship. Attached to Isaac's blessing of Jacob (Gen 27:27) we find the following midrash:

This verse teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, showed him (Jacob)
the Temple built, destroyed, and rebuilt. Thus: See the smell of my son is
an allusion to the Temple built, as in the verse, "a sweet smell unto Me
shall ye observe" (Num 28:2). As the smell of the field suggests it when
destroyed, as in the verse, "Zion shall be ploughed as a field" (Mic 3:12);
which the Lord hath blessed- this hints at it being rebuilt and perfected
in the Messianic future, as it is said, "For there the Lord commanded the
blessing, even life for ever" (Ps 133:3). [46]

Although such traditions speak of a period after the fall of the temple in 70 A.D., nevertheless the ease with which they are attached to Jacob texts suggest a prior readiness to attribute such materials to the patriarch.

Other sources say that Jacob revealed the history of Judah until, but not including, the coming of the Messiah, who would then know and tell everything:

The tribe of Judah-the wise and great among them-possessed a tradition from our father Jacob as to all that would befall the whole tribe until the days of the Messiah. Everyone of the tribes similarly possessed such traditions from their father Jacob as to what would happen to them until the days of the Messiah. [47]

Thus Jacob, while credited with special revelations as well as visions, was expected to be supplanted in turn by the Messiah when he came, which tradition seems pertinent to understanding the woman's remark in 4:25: "I know that the Messiah, when he comes, will show us all things." There seems, therefore, to be a foundation for proclaiming that Jesus, as prophet and Messiah, would have greater knowledge than Jacob.

But the dialogue in John 4:21-24 does not consider Jesus as a latter-day Jacob whose visions decide long-standing disputes as to the right place of worship. Jesus supplants that entire discussion by invalidating Jacob's visions of the ladder as the place (". ..neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. .."). [48] And Jesus supplants Jacob's revelations of the future of Israel and its worship by declaring a new time ("the hour is coming. ..and is now here") and a new cult ("true worshippers will worship in spirit and
truth").

Worship in Spirit and Truth (4:21-24)

Jesus' first response in the second half of the discourse (v 21) categorically rejects Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Zion as "the place where one must worship." His subsequent remarks may allude to other Jacob traditions. In Gen 28:16-18, when Jacob awoke from his dream-vision he exclaimed: "The Lord is in this spot and I did not know it." In 4:22 Jesus tells the woman, "You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know."

The question is: did Jacob know or did he not?

According to some Samaritan traditions, Mt. Gerizim was "the place"; and in certain strands of that literature it is positively asserted that "Jacob knew it," probably a corrective apology to rival Jewish readings of Gen 28:16, "I did not know it." [49] But in this context, in which John's community asserts both the superiority of Jewish to Samaritan traditions as well as Christian superiority to both, the remark "you do not know" undercuts all previous claims, Samaritan and Jewish, by reasserting Jacob's statement that "I did not know." And it affirms the replacement of Jacob's concern with the "place of God" with Christian claims concerning true worship, viz., "what we know." The thrust of the replacement, moreover, is again in the direction of an absolute claim on behalf of Jesus and his community's practice. [50]

Another item in Jesus' response presses forward the absolute claim made on behalf of the new community: "true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and truth" (v 23a). The dialectical language continues the contrasts of vv 21-22; when the woman asked about the correct "place," Jesus denied in principle that there is such a place; previous claims to know were invalidated by the charge that' 'you do not know," whereas' 'we know." Now former eras are negated in favor of a new time, "the hour is coming and is now here." False or incomplete cultic actions presently give way to "true worshippers" and the old mode of worship is supplanted by "worshipping in spirit and truth." Indeed nothing of the old tradition remains; it is totally supplanted. [51]

But is there a specific Jacob allusion in 4:23? Is the operative factor still the supplanting of Jacob by Jesus? Or is there a possible link between the two halves of the discourse, such that well/water (4:10-14) tend to be linked with spirit and revelation (4:21-24) in Jewish literature? In general it can be said that spirit was metaphorically linked with water in the OT, especially in phrases such as "pour out my spirit" (Isa 32:15; Joel 2:28). In Ezek 36:25-27, the water which purifies is associated with a new spirit of God: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe all my ordinances” [52] Spirit, water and purification are linked in lQS 4:21. Thus there was a solid basis in Jewish symbols for associating  well/water with spirit and purification, which is just the link that John seems to have made.

Although the dating of the tradition concerning Jacob's well in the following midrash on Gen 29: 1 may be problematic, it reflects the tradition we have seen which associates well/water with spirit and worship, in this case cultic festivals. Concerning the well of Jacob we read:

Another interpretation: And behold a well in the field symbolizes Zion,' And lo three flocks of sheep-the three Festivals (Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles); For out of that well they watered the flocks -from there they imbibed the divine spirit; And the stone. ..was great-this alludes to the rejoicing of the place of the water drawing. R. Hoshaya said: Why was it called the rejoicing of the place of drawing water? Because from there they imbibed the divine spirit. And thither were ail the flocks gathered-they all came, "from the entrance of Hamath unto the Brook of Egypt" (1 Kgs 8:66). And they rolled the stone from the well's mouth in its place: it was lying for the next Festival. [53]

As well and water are associated with spirit and worship, the same complex imagery is also linked with special knowledge and revelation. There are passages from Enoch which speak of "fountains of wisdom" (1 Enoch 48:1) or of "wisdom poured out like water" (1 Enoch 49:1). [54]

The Damascus Document is another important key, for it links well and instruction. In their context, well and teaching are perceived as an exclusive interpretation of Jewish practice which the community to which the Damascus Document belonged would see as supplanting the corrupt practices of Jerusalem. According to the document, holiness and purity are found only in the sect; of old, God "revealed hidden things" to the holy remnant about "holy Sabbaths, glorious feasts, testimony of righteousness and ways of truth" (3: 14-15), which revelation is expressed in the metaphor of a well: "He opened (this) before them and they dug a well of abundant waters and whoever despises these waters shall not live" (3:16-17). The sect recognized that one aspect of their exclusive claim to holiness was the accurate knowledge of who the true priests were (4: 1-6), and who had defiled the sanctuary (4: 18; 5:6-7). The authentic tradition of Torah was attributed to the teachers of the sect, who dug a well from which they drew their teaching of truth:

And God remembered the covenant of the Patriarchs

and raised out of Aaron men of understanding

and out of Israel sages,

and He caused them to hear (His voice) and they dug the well:

The well which the princes dug,

Which the nobles of the people delved with a rod.

The well is the Law,

and those who dug it are the converts of Israel

who went out from the land of Judah

and were exiled in the land of Damascus (6:2-5).

The general symbolic linkage between well/water and special knowledge is found in Philo, who explicitly ties these associations to Jacob's well (Gen 29:1). The spring is divine wisdom (Fug. 195-196; Post. 138) or God himself, as in Jer 2:13 (Pug. 197), from whence come ever-flowing waters (Fug. 197; Post. 136; Som. I.11) so that whoever drinks the waters of the divine spring gains ultimate knowledge and understanding (Fug. 195-196; Post. 136, 138). God's waters, moreover, are waters of life, even of immortality (Fug. 198-199). The "wise ones," Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, dug the wells of divine wisdom (Fug. 200); Moses likewise witnesses to the "wisdom of the well" in Num 21 (Ebr. 112); but it is Rebecca, the figure of Sophia, who gives the waters of the wisdom of God to those who would learn from her (Post. 136; Q.G. IV. 98-108). For Philo, a well is often a "symbol of education and knowledge" (Q.G. IV. 191; Som. I.6; II.271).

Before explaining Jacob's dream of the ladder in Gen 28:12,15, Philo insisted on investigating three items: 1. the well of the oath, 2. Haran, and 3. "the place" (Som. I.5). The well symbolized knowledge (Som. I.6,11); Haran, according to the epistemological allegory, represents the' 'mother city of the senses," which even the wise man depends upon. The reprehensible thing is to live always on the sense level, like Laban; Jacob, like
Abraham, only spends a brief time on the sense level before fleeing it for realms of true knowledge (Som. I.41-47). The "place" mentioned in Gen 28:11 cannot mean the "place of God," for God who contains all things cannot be contained in "a place"; according to Philo, "place," when it appears in statements like Gen 22:3 and 28:11, must refer to the logos (Som. I.61-64). When Jacob encountered "the place," he was in contact with ". ..the Word of God, showing, as it does, the way to the things that are best, teaching, as it does, such lessons as the varying occasions require" (Som. I.68). In Philo, then, we find the same general identification of well and water with divine teaching as was observed in the OT and targumic material, and even a specific linkage of such material with our father Jacob.

We have shown that the images of well/water were not taken at their face value but frequently associated with spirit, worship, and knowledge. Moreover, we have pointed to complex evidence which suggests that there was a trajectory which associated the Jacob texts from Genesis with spirit, cult, and knowledge. The dating of many of these midrashic texts remains problematic for firmly establishing the background of John's discourse about Jacob. The ease, however, with which such ideas as worship and knowledge are attached to Jacob texts suggests an existing foundation for a developing tradition whereby Jacob, the premier patriarch associated with worship, was linked with special knowledge, cult and spirit, especially through his association with the well (Gen 29:1). If Jacob's well is itself the cipher for knowledge, cult and spirit, then we think that John's dialogue in chap. 4 intends the reader to link the well part of the discourse with the
subsequent material on worship. Jesus, who supplants Jacob's well and water, replaces the reality for which well/water are symbols. As "greater than Jacob" he supplants the old traditions of spirit, cult and knowledge which were associated with Jacob's well.

THE SYSTEMATIC examination of Jacob traditions has thrown light on several statements in John 4: 10-26. (1) The text was shown to presuppose allusions to Jacob's miracle of automatically rising well water and to the identification of the well as God's “gift.” The primary Jacob allusion, however, seems to be the etymological appreciation of Jacob as "supplanter." Hence, the fundamental point of 4: 12 is to assert that Jesus supplants Jacob and all the traditions associated with Jacob, in particular Jacob's legitimation of a correct place of worship and eschatological knowledge. Being "greater" means in fact that Jesus supplants Jacob in an absolute way. He gives water such that the one who drinks it will never thirst (4:14), for the new water will well up to "eternal life." (2) In 4:16-18 it seems that the revelation of the woman's confusing matrimonial situation is calculated to evoke echoes of courtship meetings at wells in Genesis, especially Jacob's meeting with Rachel. The point of this allusion seems to be tied to an aspect of marriage as covenant/worship. Jesus' knowledge of her confused matrimonial state leads to questions of worship and finally to the resolution of marital allegiance in 4:42 when Jesus is acknowledged as "Savior of the world" by the Samaritans. (3) The background of 4:19-20 would seem to include allusions to Jacob both in terms of his vision (Genesis 28), and possibly in terms of his knowledge (Genesis 49). Jacob's vision, which was part of the legitimating process for both Mts. Gerizim and Zion, is supplanted by the revelations from the eschatological prophet, Jesus. (4) In 4:21-24 there seems to be an allusion to Jacob's remark in Gen 28: 16 ("I did not know"), whereby Jesus supplants Jacob's vision and knowledge by "what we do know." The discussion of 4:23-24 showed that  well and water are frequent ciphers for Torah, spirit and knowledge of worship and that these symbols are indeed tied to Jacob's well, as the midrash on Gen 29:1 indicated. Thus the two halves of the discourse are consistent in their presentation of Jesus' new water which is deciphered as the new teaching on "worshipping in spirit and truth." Even in the second half of the discourse at the well (4:19-26), the fundamental allusion to Jacob is still that of supplanter. The sectarian Johannine community is not simply claiming that Jesus is supplanting Jacob's well; rather Jesus as the supplanter is invalidating all previous cui tic places and rites and is replacing them with a worship centered in Jesus' own person (4:42). Thus it is not a question of comparision between Jesus' and Jacob's waters which is at issue (4: 12-15); absolute claims are made by the Johannine community on behalf of Jesus, claims which deal with no less than "true worship" of God. (5) Why Jacob? Of all the OT patriarchs, Jacob is most closely associated with cult, either the place of worship or knowledge about worship (Gen 28: 11-17). This association is utilized by John as he systematically asserts the superiority of Jesus to Moses, Abraham and other founding fathers of Jewish religion. In the apology for the correctness and even the superiority of Christian worship, Jacob was an apt foil to Jesus for legitimizing Christian practices in John's community. (6) Finally, since the primary thrust of the question in 4: 12 was to present Jesus as supplanting Jacob and traditions associated with him, a summary of the worship replacement motif in the Gospel might be in order. The Jewish waters of purification are supplanted by Christian purificatory rites, only one of which seems to be
baptism (see 13:5-10). Moreover, what constitutes impurity seems to be redefined in John's community; Jesus was in no way contaminated by the Samaritan woman [55] but rather became the source of purification for her and her and her fellow Samaritans, thus suggesting a supplanting of Jewish notions of what is unclean. The old well of Torah is supplanted by a new font of revelation, Jesus himself. The superiority of the new rites and the new Torah lies in their effecting satisfaction "forever" (cf. 4: 13-14). The old places of worship are invalidated and replaced with a new time, a new place, and a new mode of worship. Although Jesus is greater than Jacob, he does not replace God in the community's worship. But confession of him as prophet, Messiah, and Savior of the world and even as equal to God becomes part of the true worship of God who stands behind Jesus ("the Father seeks such to worship him" Jn 4:24). To this summary one might add the replacement of manna with the bread of life, the supplanting of Jewish feasts with Christian feasts which celebrate Jesus as the new lamb, the light, the water, etc. [56] Understanding how the Jacob allusions function invites us further to reinvestigate the worship of the Johannine community, especially in its dialectical conflict with supplanted Jewish rites.