Note 225 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

These decided predictions are indeed the main hindrance to the natural interpretation of this chapter; hence it has been sought to neutralize them, still from the rationalistic position, by the supposition that they did not proceed from Jesus, but may have been added ex eventu by the narrator. Paulus himself found the words ἐξυπνίσω αὐτὸν (v. 11) quite too decided, and therefore ventured the conjecture that the narrator, writing with the result in his mind, had omitted a qualifying perhaps, which Jesus had inserted.225 This expedient has been more extensively adopted by Gabler. Not only does he partake the opinion of Paulus as to the above expression, but already in v. 4, he is inclined to lay the words ὑπὲρ τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ for the glory of God, to the account of the Evangelist: again v. 15, he conjectures that in the words χαίρω δι’ ὑμᾶς, ἵνα πιστεύσητε, ὅτι οὐκ ἤμην ἐκεῖ, I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe, there is a slight exaggeration resulting from John’s knowledge of the issue; lastly, even in relation to the words of Martha v. 22, ἀλλὰ καὶ νῦν οἶδα κ.τ.λ. he admits the idea of an addition from the pen of the writer.226 By the adoption of this expedient, the natural interpretation avows its inability by itself to cope with the difficulties in John’s narrative. For if, in order to render its application possible, it is necessary to expunge the most significant passages, it is plain that the narrative in its actual state does not admit of a natural explanation. It is true that the passages, the incompatibility of which with the rationalistic mode of explanation is confessed by their excision, are very sparingly chosen; but from the above observations it is clear, that if all the features in this narrative which are really opposed to the natural view of the entire event were ascribed to the Evangelist, it would in the end be little short of the whole that must be regarded as his invention. Thus, what we have done with the two first narratives of resuscitations, is with the last and most remarkable history of this kind, effected by the various successive attempts at explanation themselves, namely, to reduce the subject to the alternative: that we either receive the event as supernatural, according to the representation of the evangelical narrative; or, if we find it incredible as such, deny that the narrative has an historical character.