Still further evidence that I am indeed older than dirt–I can remember the old “Doublemint Gum” commercials (“Two! Two! Two mints in one!”), with Jayne and Joan Knoerzer, the original Doublemint Twins, singing “Double your pleasure, double your fun, with Doublemint, Doublemint, Doublemint Gum.”  That old earworm came back into my head this morning as I was reading Sunday’s Gospel, John 20:19-31, for my devotions.  When I got to the end of the chapter, where the purpose of John’s Gospel is revealed, I was surprised to read,

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name (John 20:30-31, NRSVue)

“So that you may continue to believe“?  I was pretty sure that wasn’t what I remembered.  Sure enough, when I consulted my old Bible, in the now-defunct NRSV, it read, “But these are written so that you may come to believe.”  Intrigued, I turned to the Greek, where I was puzzled to see this:

The Greek grammatical form pisteusete is the second person plural active aorist subjunctive: that is, as the old NRSV had it, “so that (all of) you  [addressing the whole community of  intended readers] may come to believe.”  But the sigma (the Greek letter “s”) is in brackets!  Without it, the verb form becomes pisteuete: the present tense, not the aorist–as the NRSVue now reads, “so that you may continue to believe.”  So, what gives?

In his Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York: United Bible Societies, 1971: p. 256), Bruce Metzger explained the decision to place the sigma in brackets.  Both readings, he notes, the aorist and the present tense forms,”have notable early support,” so the question was, who is the audience of the Gospel?

The aorist sense, strictly interpreted, suggests that the Fourth Gospel was addressed to non-Christians so that they might come to believe Jesus is the Messiah; the present tense suggests that the aim of the writer was to strengthen the faith of those who already believe.

Being unable to satisfactorily answer that question, “the Committee considered it preferable to represent both readings by enclosing σ in square brackets.”  Two! Two! Two verbs in one!

Of course, translators don’t have the freedom to leave that tension unresolved–they must choose one or the other!  In John 20:31, the NRSV followed the old King James, which has, “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.”  So do the ESV, and the NIV (although the NIV footnote on the verse reads, “Or may continue to believe“).  Similarly the CEB, which I have used as my base text in these blogs, has “so that you will believe.”

All of these, like the old NRSV (and for that matter, the RSV before it!), follow the KJV here and assume the aorist form–but then, that was how Erasmus’ Textus Receptus, which had a powerful influence on the King James translators, read.  In favor of that reading (quite apart from the unresolvable question of the Fourth Gospel’s “intent”) is the fact that texts using that form come from both notable Western and Eastern text traditions.  The present tense has more witnesses in its favor, but they come mainly from the same text family–making it a bit odd to me that the NRSVue chose to go with the present tense reading.

This is not the only place in the Fourth Gospel where the Greek editors have made that curious choice.  In John 19:35, the Evangelist claims to be an eyewitness to Jesus’ pierced side, and the flow of water and blood from that wound.  The NRSVue reads:

He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth, so that you also may continue to believe.

Here too, the Greek text reads pisteu[s]ete, which is printed as at once aorist and present tense!  Here, the present tense reading is the one found less often, but in texts from different families, while the aorist text is the majority reading.  But this time, the old NRSV simply skipped over the ambiguous word.

What I really wish is that we could somehow do what the editors of our Greek New Testament have done, and typographically represent both at once!  The good news of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, and future coming must of course be proclaimed to those who have never heard it–or whose previous hearing, for whatever reason, was kept from taking hold on their hearts.  But it also needs to be told again and again to  believers, whose faith may have become stale and rote.  Christ is risen, friends!  And whether we are hearing it for the first time or the fiftieth, “ain’ta that good news“?