Note 127 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

But it will be said, the writer who attests it is the Apostle John. This, however, is too improbable, not only on account of the incredible nature of the contents of the narrative, which could thus hardly have proceeded from an eyewitness, but also from another reason. The narrator interprets the name of the pool, Siloam, by the Greek ἀπεσταλμένος (v. 7); a false explanation, for one who is sent is called ‏שָׁלוּחַ‎, whereas ‏שִּׁלחַ‎ according to the most probable interpretation signifies a waterfall.127 The Evangelist, however, chose the above interpretation, because he sought for some significant relation between the name of the pool, and the sending thither of the blind man, and thus seems to have imagined that the pool had by a special providence received the name of Sent, because at a future time the Messiah, as a manifestation of his glory, was to send thither a blind man.128 Now, we grant that an apostle might give a grammatically incorrect explanation, in so far as he is not held to be inspired, and that even a native of Palestine might mistake the etymology of Hebrew words, as the Old Testament itself shows; nevertheless, such a play upon words looks more like the laboured attempt of a writer remote from the event, than of an eye-witness. The eye-witness would have had enough of important matters in the miracle which he had beheld, and the conversation to which he had listened; only a remote narrator could fall into the triviality of trying to extort a significant meaning from the smallest accessory circumstance. Tholuck and Lücke are highly revolted by this allegory, which, as the latter expresses himself, approaches to absolute folly, hence they are unwilling to admit that it proceeded from John, and regard it as a gloss. As, however, all critical authorities, except one of minor importance, present this particular, such a position is sheer arbitrariness, and the only choice left us is either with Olshausen, to edify ourselves by this interpretation as an apostolic one,129 or, with the author of the Probabilia, to number it among the indications that the fourth gospel had not an apostolic origin.130