'The Third Fifth Day?' John 2:I in Context

E.g., Benjamin W. Bacon , 'After Six Days', HTR 8 (1915), 94-120. J. Ramsey Michaels, John (NIBCNT; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1984), 45; Frederic Godet , Commentary on John's Gospel (New York: Funk & Wagnalls , 1886), 343; and Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer , The Gospel of John ( New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884 ), 101.

E.g., Rudolf Schnackenburg , Gospel According to St. John ( Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1968), I:325; D.A. Carson , The Gospel According to John (Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1991), 166-68; J.N. Sanders , A Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John (HNTC; New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 107-8; and R.V.G. Tasker , John (TNTC; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans , 1960 ), 54-55.

E.g., C.K. Barrett , The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd edn (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1978), 189-90; Ernst Haenchen , John, Hermeneia (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 172; Theodor Zahn , Das Evangelium des Johannes (Leipzig: Erlangen, 1921), 147-48; F.F. Bruce , The Gospel of John ( Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983 ), 68; Alfred Plummer, The Gospel According to St. John, CGTSC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , 1882), 89; and Merrill C. Tenney , 'The Gospel of John', John Acts, The Expositor's Bible Commentary 9 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan , 1981), 42.

Also see Matthew 26:2; Mark 8:3I; 9:2; I0:34; I4:I and Luke 2:46.

'Ev is typically used with indefinite temporal references as in eschatological contexts when the exact date of 'that day' 'last day' or 'great day' is uncertain (e.g., 6:44; 7:37; II:24; I2:48; I4:20; I6:23, 26; as variants, 6:39, 40) or in reference to the Sabbath as a religious institution (e.g., 5:I6; 7:22, 23; I9:3I).

E.g., Rudolf Bultmann , The Gospel of John (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1971), 114, n. 3 and Brooke Foss Westcott , The Gospel According to St. John (London: John Murray, 1908), I:80.

E.g., Schnackenburg , Gospel According to St. John, I: 325; George R. Beasley-Murray , John (WBC; Dallas, TX: Word, 1987), 32; Sanders , Gospel According to St. John, 108; and Marcus Dods , The Gospel of John, The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), 69.

Raymond E. Brown , The Gospel According to John, 2nd ed. (AB 29; New York: Doubleday, 1985), 97; John Marsh , Saint John (PNTC; Baltimore, MD: Penguin , 1968), 148; and Plummer , Gospel According to St. John, 89.

Of course, without the insertion of a day break at I:40, one has six days rather than seven. See Barrett , Gospel According to St. John, 189-90.

See Brown , Gospel According to John, 106.

E.g., C.H. Dodd , The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 299-300; Barnabas Lindars , The Gospel of John (NCB; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans , 1972), 128; and, with eucharistic overtones, R. Alan Culpepper , Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1983), 193.

In order to find an allusion to the resurrection in John's reference to the third day, one must either harmonize John with the synoptic tradition (e.g., Matt. I6:2I; I7:23; 20:I9 and Luke 9:22; I8:33; 24:7) or import data from the Pauline corpus (i.e., I Cor. I5:4). Both approaches are methodologically suspect.

Francis J. Moloney , The Gospel of John (SP 4; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1989), 66.

Bacon , 'After Six Days' , 94-120.

Dodd , Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 300.

See, T. Barrosee , 'The Seven Days of the New Creation in St. John's Gospel', CBQ 21 ( 1958): 507-16; Paul Trudinger , 'On the Third Day There Was a Wedding at Cana', Downside Review 104 (1986): 41-43; and Paul Sevier Minear , Christians and the New Creation: Genesis Motifs in the New Testament ( Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1994 ), 82-87.

Carson, The Gospel According to John, I68 also reads John I:I-2:I2 as paralleling the creation week in Genesis I. He then sets Jesus' first sign on the seventh day of creation by inserting a Sabbath at I:39-40, an insertion which I have rejected.