Yohanes 3:9

3:9 Nicodemus replied, ¹  “How can these things be?” ² 

Yohanes 5:47

5:47 But if you do not believe what Moses ³  wrote, how will you believe my words?”

Yohanes 7:15

7:15 Then the Jewish leaders ⁴  were astonished ⁵  and said, “How does this man know so much when he has never had formal instruction?” ⁶ 

Yohanes 9:10

9:10 So they asked him, ⁷  “How then were you made to see?” ⁸ 

Yohanes 9:26

9:26 Then they said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he cause you to see?” ⁹ 

Yohanes 11:36

11:36 Thus the people who had come to mourn ¹⁰  said, “Look how much he loved him!”

Yohanes 3:12

3:12 If I have told you people ¹¹  about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹² 

Yohanes 14:5

14:5 Thomas said, ¹³  “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Yohanes 5:44

5:44 How can you believe, if you accept praise ¹⁴  from one another and don’t seek the praise ¹⁵  that comes from the only God? ¹⁶ 

Yohanes 6:52

6:52 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus ¹⁷  began to argue with one another, ¹⁸  “How can this man ¹⁹  give us his flesh to eat?”

Yohanes 8:33

8:33 “We are descendants ²⁰  of Abraham,” they replied, ²¹  “and have never been anyone’s slaves! How can you say, ²²  ‘You will become free’?”

Yohanes 9:19

9:19 They asked the parents, ²³  “Is this your son, whom you say ²⁴  was born blind? Then how does he now see?”

Yohanes 3:4

3:4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?” ²⁵ 

Yohanes 4:9

4:9 So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you – a Jew ²⁶  – ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water ²⁷  to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common ²⁸  with Samaritans.) ²⁹ 

Yohanes 6:42

6:42 and they said, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

Yohanes 9:15

9:15 So the Pharisees asked him again how he had gained his sight. ³⁰  He replied, ³¹  “He put mud ³²  on my eyes and I washed, and now ³³  I am able to see.”

Yohanes 9:21

9:21 But we do not know how he is now able to see, nor do we know who caused him to see. ³⁴  Ask him, he is a mature adult. ³⁵  He will speak for himself.”

Yohanes 14:9

14:9 Jesus replied, ³⁶  “Have I been with you for so long, and you have not known ³⁷  me, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Yohanes 9:16

9:16 Then some of the Pharisees began to say, ³⁸  “This man is not from God, because he does not observe ³⁹  the Sabbath.” ⁴⁰  But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform ⁴¹  such miraculous signs?” Thus there was a division ⁴²  among them.

Yohanes 12:34

12:34 Then the crowd responded, ⁴³  “We have heard from the law that the Christ ⁴⁴  will remain forever. ⁴⁵  How ⁴⁶  can you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”

[3:9]  ¹ tn Grk “Nicodemus answered and said to him.”

[3:9]  ² sn “How can these things be?” is Nicodemus’ answer. It is clear that at this time he has still not grasped what Jesus is saying. Note also that this is the last appearance of Nicodemus in the dialogue. Having served the purpose of the author, at this point he disappears from the scene. As a character in the narrative, he has served to illustrate the prevailing Jewish misunderstanding of Jesus’ teaching about the necessity of a new, spiritual birth from above. Whatever parting words Nicodemus might have had with Jesus, the author does not record them.

[5:47]  ³ tn Grk “that one” (“he”); the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:15]  ⁴ tn Or “the Jewish authorities”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the Jewish authorities or leaders who were Jesus’ primary opponents. See the note on the phrase “the Jewish leaders” in v. 1.

[7:15]  ⁵ tn Or “began to be astonished.” This imperfect verb could also be translated ingressively (“began to be astonished”), but for English stylistic reasons it is rendered as a simple past.

[7:15]  ⁶ tn Grk “How does this man know learning since he has not been taught?” The implication here is not that Jesus never went to school (in all probability he did attend a local synagogue school while a youth), but that he was not the disciple of a particular rabbi and had not had formal or advanced instruction under a recognized rabbi (compare Acts 4:13 where a similar charge is made against Peter and John; see also Paul’s comment in Acts 22:3).

[7:15]  sn He has never had formal instruction. Ironically when the Jewish leaders came face to face with the Word become flesh – the preexistent Logos, creator of the universe and divine Wisdom personified – they treated him as an untaught, unlearned person, without the formal qualifications to be a teacher.

[9:10]  ⁷ tn Grk “So they were saying to him.”

[9:10]  ⁸ tn Grk “How then were your eyes opened” (an idiom referring to restoration of sight).

[9:26]  ⁹ tn Grk “open your eyes” (an idiom referring to restoration of sight).

[11:36]  ¹⁰ tn Or “the Judeans”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the friends, acquaintances, and relatives of Lazarus or his sisters who had come to mourn, since the Jewish religious authorities are specifically mentioned as a separate group in John 11:46-47. See also the notes on the phrase “the Jewish leaders” in v. 8 and “the Jewish people of the region” in v. 19, as well as the notes on the word “people” in vv. 31, 33.

[3:12]  ¹¹ tn The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied to indicate that the verb is second person plural (referring to more than Nicodemus alone).

[3:12]  ¹² sn Obviously earthly things and heavenly things are in contrast, but what is the contrast? What are earthly things which Jesus has just spoken to Nicodemus? And through him to others – this is not the first instance of the plural pronoun, see v. 7, you must all. Since Nicodemus began with a plural (we know, v. 2) Jesus continues it, and through Nicodemus addresses a broader audience. It makes most sense to take this as a reference to the things Jesus has just said (and the things he is about to say, vv. 13-15). If this is the case (and it seems the most natural explanation) then earthly things are not necessarily strictly physical things, but are so called because they take place on earth, in contrast to things like v. 16, which take place in heaven. Some have added the suggestion that the things are called earthly because physical analogies (birth, wind, water) are used to describe them. This is possible, but it seems more probable that Jesus calls these things earthly because they happen on earth (even though they are spiritual things). In the context, taking earthly things as referring to the words Jesus has just spoken fits with the fact that Nicodemus did not believe. And he would not after hearing heavenly things either, unless he first believed in the earthly things – which included the necessity of a regenerating work from above, by the Holy Spirit.

[14:5]  ¹³ tn Grk “said to him.”

[5:44]  ¹⁴ tn Or “honor” (Grk “glory,” in the sense of respect or honor accorded to a person because of their status).

[5:44]  ¹⁵ tn Or “honor” (Grk “glory,” in the sense of respect or honor accorded to a person because of their status).

[5:44]  ¹⁶ tc Several early and important witnesses (Ì^66,75 B W a b sa) lack θεοῦ (qeou, “God”) here, thus reading “the only one,” while most of the rest of the tradition, including some important mss, has the name ({א A D L Θ Ψ 33 Ï}). Internally, it could be argued that the name of God was not used here, in keeping with the NT practice of suppressing the name of God at times for rhetorical effect, drawing the reader inexorably to the conclusion that the one being spoken of is God himself. On the other hand, never is ὁ μόνος (Jo mono") used absolutely in the NT (i.e., without a noun or substantive with it), and always the subject of the adjunct is God (cf. Matt 24:36; John 17:3; 1 Tim 6:16). What then is to explain the shorter reading? In uncial script, with θεοῦ written as a nomen sacrum, envisioning accidental omission of the name by way of homoioteleuton requires little imagination, largely because of the succession of words ending in -ου: toumonouqMuou. It is thus preferable to retain the word in the text.

[6:52]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “Then the Jews began to argue.” Here the translation restricts the phrase to those Jews who were hostile to Jesus (cf. BDAG 479 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαῖος 2.e.β), since the “crowd” mentioned in 6:22-24 was almost all Jewish (as suggested by their addressing Jesus as “Rabbi” (6:25). See also the note on the phrase “the Jews who were hostile to Jesus” in v. 41.

[6:52]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “with one another, saying.”

[6:52]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “this one,” “this person.”

[8:33]  ²⁰ tn Grk “We are the seed” (an idiom).

[8:33]  ²¹ tn Grk “They answered to him.”

[8:33]  ²² tn Or “How is it that you say.”

[9:19]  ²³ tn Grk “and they asked them, saying”; the referent (the parents) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:19]  ²⁴ tn The Greek pronoun and verb are both plural (both parents are addressed).

[3:4]  ²⁵ tn The grammatical structure of the question in Greek presupposes a negative reply.

[4:9]  ²⁶ tn Or “a Judean.” Here BDAG 478 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαίος 2.a states, “Judean (with respect to birth, nationality, or cult).” The same term occurs in the plural later in this verse. In one sense “Judean” would work very well in the translation here, since the contrast is between residents of the two geographical regions. However, since in the context of this chapter the discussion soon becomes a religious rather than a territorial one (cf. vv. 19-26), the translation “Jew” has been retained here and in v. 22.

[4:9]  ²⁷ tn “Water” is supplied as the understood direct object of the infinitive πεῖν (pein).

[4:9]  ²⁸ tn D. Daube (“Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: the Meaning of συγχράομαι [Jn 4:7ff],” JBL 69 [1950]: 137-47) suggests this meaning.

[4:9]  sn The background to the statement use nothing in common is the general assumption among Jews that the Samaritans were ritually impure or unclean. Thus a Jew who used a drinking vessel after a Samaritan had touched it would become ceremonially unclean.

[4:9]  ²⁹ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

[9:15]  ³⁰ tn Or “how he had become able to see.”

[9:15]  sn So the Pharisees asked him. Note the subtlety here: On the surface, the man is being judged. But through him, Jesus is being judged. Yet in reality (as the discerning reader will realize) it is ironically the Pharisees themselves who are being judged by their response to Jesus who is the light of the world (cf. 3:17-21).

[9:15]  ³¹ tn Grk “And he said to them.”

[9:15]  ³² tn Or “clay” (moistened earth of a clay-like consistency).

[9:15]  ³³ tn The word “now” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied to indicate the contrast between the man’s former state (blind) and his present state (able to see).

[9:21]  ³⁴ tn Grk “who opened his eyes” (an idiom referring to restoration of sight).

[9:21]  ³⁵ tn Or “he is of age.”

[14:9]  ³⁶ tn Grk “Jesus said to him.”

[14:9]  ³⁷ tn Or “recognized.”

[9:16]  ³⁸ tn As a response to the answers of the man who used to be blind, the use of the imperfect tense in the reply of the Pharisees is best translated as an ingressive imperfect (“began to say” or “started saying”).

[9:16]  ³⁹ tn Grk “he does not keep.”

[9:16]  ⁴⁰ sn The Jewish religious leaders considered the work involved in making the mud to be a violation of the Sabbath.

[9:16]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “do.”

[9:16]  ⁴² tn Or “So there was discord.”

[12:34]  ⁴³ tn Grk “Then the crowd answered him.”

[12:34]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “the Messiah” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed”).

[12:34]  sn See the note on Christ in 1:20.

[12:34]  ⁴⁵ tn Probably an allusion to Ps 89:35-37. It is difficult to pinpoint the passage in the Mosaic law to which the crowd refers. The ones most often suggested are Ps 89:36-37, Ps 110:4, Isa 9:7, Ezek 37:25, and Dan 7:14. None of these passages are in the Pentateuch per se, but “law” could in common usage refer to the entire OT (compare Jesus’ use in John 10:34). Of the passages mentioned, Ps 89:36-37 is the most likely candidate. This verse speaks of David’s “seed” remaining forever. Later in the same psalm, v. 51 speaks of the “anointed” (Messiah), and the psalm was interpreted messianically in both the NT (Acts 13:22, Rev 1:5, 3:14) and in the rabbinic literature (Genesis Rabbah 97).

[12:34]  ⁴⁶ tn Grk “And how”; the conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has been left untranslated here for improved English style.