When Jesus said he wouldn’t go… and did.

John 7.1-13.

When you read the synoptic gospels (meaning Mark, Matthew, and Luke, the three which sync up a lot), you might get the idea Jesus only went to Jerusalem once—to get arrested and crucified.

That’d be historically inaccurate. Jesus obeyed the Law, and the Law decreed every adult male should go to temple three times a year for the festivals. Dt 16.16 Hence Jesus went to Jerusalem a lot, and John—which largely takes place in Jerusalem, at those festivals—fills in the blanks of what happened during those many Jerusalem trips.

Including when Jesus cured that one blind guy. The context of that story was when he went to Jerusalem one year for Sukkót. That trip began a few chapters back; since I skipped that part I figure I’d better backtrack. Here y’go.

John 7.1-13 KWL

1After these things, Jesus is traveling the Galilee,

for he doesn’t want to travel in Judea,

because the Judeans are seeking to kill him.

2Tabernacles, the Judean festival, is approaching.

3So Jesus’sᴾ siblings are telling him,

“Leave here and go to Judea,

so your¹ students will also see the works which you¹ do,

4for nobody works in private

if he wants to get attention.

If you¹ do these things,

show yourself¹ to the world!”

5For not even Jesus’sᴾ siblings are believing in him,

6so Jesus tells them, “My time is not yet now.

Your² time is always here.

7The world can’t hate you.²

It hates me because I testify about it—

that its works are evil.

8You² go up to the festival.

I’m not going up to this festival,

for my time isn’t full yet.”

9This said, Jesusᴾ stays in the Galilee.

10Once Jesus’sᴾ siblings go up to the festival,

then he also goes up—

not publicly, but {like} in private.

11So the Judeans are seeking Jesusᴾ at the festival,

and are saying, “Where is that person?”

12Much grumbling about Jesusᴾ

is happening in the crowds.

On the one hand, some are saying he’s good;

others are saying, “No, but he misleads the crowd.”

13Nonetheless, no one is boldly speaking about Jesus,ᴾ

out of fear of the Judeans.

I’ll admit right now: This story has always kinda bothered me. ’Cause y’notice Jesus initially told his brothers, “You go to the festival; I’m not going.” Then, one verse later, he goes—“as it were in secret,” as the King James Version puts it. On face value, it totally looks like Jesus lied to his brothers and snuck to the festival.

I know, I know: Christ Jesus never sinned. He 4.15 I’m not claiming otherwise. I don’t think the passage is claiming otherwise either. Certainly no Christian is gonna interpret it that way. But anybody who honestly looks at this passage—including skeptics who have no qualms about accusing Jesus of all sorts of things—are gonna come right out and say, “Looks like Jesus deceived his siblings.” (That is, once pagans get over their initial surprise: “Wait, Jesus has siblings? Brothers and sisters? I thought he was an only child!”)

So instead of letting little doubts poke at the back of our minds for no good reason, let’s deal with this bible difficulty today.

Textual differences.

My translation comes from the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament, 6th edition. In it, Jesus states, “Ἐγὼ οὐκ ἀναβαίνω εἰς τὴν ἑορτὴν ταύτην”/“Eghó uk anavéno eis tin eortín táftin,” “I [am] not going up to this festival.” Jn 7.8 Ancient Greek manuscripts read likewise, and the UBS follows their lead.

Other Greek NTs read otherwise. The Textus Receptus, the Greek NT used to create the King James Version, has the word οὔπω/úpo, “not yet,” instead of οὐκ/uk, “not.” Hence the KJV reads,

John 7.8 KJV

Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come.

So in the KJV there is no bible difficulty. And a lot of bible translators would love there to be no bible difficulty, which is why in this one specific verse, a lot of ’em ditch whatever Greek NT they were using, and switch to the Textus just this once.

Why is there a different word in different Greek texts? ’Cause “Not yet going up” is way less problematic than “Not going up.” That’s why, sometime around the 200s, somebody who made copies of John decided to edit the difficulty right out of the bible. Our oldest case of úpo is found in Papyrus 66, a copy of John probably written in the 200s. Úpo also got into the Codex Vaticanus, a copy of most of the bible which was made around 300–325. And from there, úpo got into lots of other copies. The Textus included.

The other early copies of John have uk, of course; hence the UBS went with uk. Since previous editions of their New Testament are the basis of most present-day translations, that’s what today’s bibles have. Unless they chickened out and hid the bible difficulty. The usual trick is to translate the Textus for this verse, then hide the translation from the UBS in the footnotes. It’s not something a responsible scholar would do, but there are a lot of irresponsible scholars whose loyalty is to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, not the actual text of the bible.

The answer to our quandary isn’t gonna come out of the text itself. It’s gonna come from how we choose to interpret the text. My guess is, at the time Jesus told his sibs, “I’m not going up,” he fully intended at that time not to go.

Didn’t wanna go, wasn’t planning to go, possibly figured he didn’t need to go. At Tabernacles, also called Booths or Sukkót, the custom was to go to Jerusalem and bring your tent, ’cause you’re gonna live in it during the festival. No staying indoors; it’s a reminder your ancestors lived in tents as Moses and the LORD led ’em from Egypt to Canaan. Why must you celebrate in Jerusalem?—because there’s an obligatory grain offering you gotta make in temple.

But that’s if you grow grain. Jesus was a rabbi, not a farmer, and had no food offering to present; no tithe to eat. So he didn’t have to go to temple. Israelis who could skip the offering often skipped Jerusalem—why undergo the inconvenience of travel when you don’t have to?—and set up a tent in their hometown, and did Sukkót there. Besides, the Judeans wanted to do him harm, and it wasn’t time for that yet. So off his family went, and Jesus stayed in the relatively safe Galilee.

And then the Holy Spirit jogged his memory: “Waitaminnit, the Law says I have to go.” Dt 16.16 Doesn’t matter if you have nothing to bring to temple. So off Jesus went, obediently—but he kept it quiet, ’cause the Judeans.

I realize this explanation is gonna bug certain Chrsitians. Because we tend to presume Jesus is omniscient—he knows all, ’cause he’s God, and doesn’t God know all? And if Jesus forgot stuff, it means he’d make mistakes, and God never makes mistakes, right? So it can’t have slipped Jesus’s mind he had to go to Sukkót.

But I will point out Jesus gave up his divine powers when he became human. He obviously stopped being omnipresent; being human limited him to one point in spacetime, not every point. He also stopped being omniscient—can’t pack infinite knowledge into a 2.5 petabyte human brain. So there’s stuff Jesus actually didn’t know—like his second coming would happen. Mk 13.32

Just like every other human, Jesus had to depend on the Holy Spirit to clue him in whenever necessary. And if Jesus mixed up minor details—as everyone does—the Spirit set him straight before he ever stumbled into sin. So this is why it doesn’t faze me when Jesus made mistakes. Mistakes aren’t sins. Jesus didn’t mean to lead anyone astray; he’s never duplicitous.

There are some commentators whose explanations certainly do sound duplicitous. I’m mainly thinking of David H. Stern in the Jewish New Testament Commentary. He argues Jesus’s present-tense verb ἀναβαίνω/anavéno, “I go up,” means Jesus wasn’t going up at present; he gave himself some wiggle room to decide he’d go up to Jerusalem later. Thing is, the text really makes it look like Jesus was trying to make his siblings believe he wasn’t going at all. Playing with your verb tenses in order to give people the wrong idea is, bluntly, lying. And I’m never accusing Jesus of that.

Infallibility versus accidents.

My explanation butts heads with Christians who believe if Jesus is truly infallible, he never ever misspoke. Never made mistakes. Never would, never could; that’s what infallibility means.

Well, what it means to them. Me, I point out as described in the scriptures, Jesus is infallible in that

1. He never misrepresents God.
2. Never sinned, and therefore made a perfect sacrifice for our sins.
3. Never fails us now.

But insist Jesus is infallible in every other way we can imagine, and we’re stretching infallibility too far, and it starts to get ridiculous.

Baby Jesus never soiled a diaper? Boy Jesus never got a math problem wrong? Never missed a goal in soccer? Never accidentally touched a dead lizard and thus made himself ritually unclean for synagogue? Never misplaced his pens, never spilled wine on his good tunic, never split infinitives (okay, that’s an English thing; can’t actually do it in Syriac or Greek) not spoke in sentence fragments, never caught a cold? And some Christians insist no, he never did: He was absolutely perfect in every way we imagine perfection.

But we don’t get to define perfection. That’s for God to decide. And his standard for perfection is considerably more gracious than our own.

Accidents aren’t sins. Any accident-free human experience isn’t an authentic human experience. And either Jesus is authentically human… or he was faking humanity, and there’s no point in trying to be like him, for we can’t. Jesus is perfect in his character, in obeying his Father, in loving everyone, in being our example. Stretching “perfection” to unnecessary extremes, creates way more problems than it solves.

Lastly, my interpretation is gonna bug Christians who claim Jesus never changes his mind. They believe God never changes his mind—and Jesus is God, so there we are. So Jesus can’t have stated “I’m not going up” and ever, ever thought better of it: He was right the first time, ’cause he’s always right the first time, ’cause he’s following his cosmic plan.

I’ve written before about how such Christians imagine this plan works: There’s the plan we see, which is revealed in the scriptures. Then there’s the secret plan, which includes a lot of things God discloses to no one… which has an awful lot of evil incorporated into it. If they’re right about the secret plan (and lemme just remind you they’re not) here’s a really good example of the evil baked into it: Jesus didn’t change his mind, but fully intended to mislead his brothers. Probably so the Judeans who sought to kill him, would get the idea from his brothers he stayed home, and wouldn’t expect him.

I’m not a fan of the idea Jesus liked to trick or deceive his opponents. Mostly because it gives people the idea it’s okay to trick and deceive anyone we consider opponents. Or, really, anyone: Jesus’s sinlings weren’t his opponents! They may not have understood him or believed in him yet, and sometimes thought he was nuts, but their advice—“If you’re really doing all this miraculous stuff, y’oughta show the world!” Jn 7.4 —indicates they did think their brother was doing something, at least. And if you’re a prophet, go to Jerusalem and do prophet stuff! Don’t just stay in the Galilee.

Jesus didn’t deceive them. Or anyone. At the time he told his siblingd he wasn’t going, he honestly wasn’t. But then he changed his mind, ’cause he can do that. It doesn’t make him fallible, nor lessen his character. On the contrary: It shows he can learn and grow—as we know he did, ’cause the gospels say he did. Lk 2.40 It shows he’s humble. Unlike those folks who project their own ideas on Jesus in order to justify our own lack of humility.

At the time he spoke with his siblings, Jesus figured it wasn’t yet the right time. He was waiting on his Father’s timing. He wasn’t gonna force the Father’s hand. He wasn’t in charge of bringing about his kingdom; the Father is. Yet Albert Schweitzer famously speculated that’s precisely what Jesus did: He tried to start the kingdom ahead of his Father’s timing, and got crucified for his hubris. But Jesus has no hubris: He waited on God. His statements reflect someone who’s waiting for God’s go-ahead: The world hates him because he challenged it. His family members presented no such challenge, so they wouldn’t get any pushback, same as complacent Christians nowadays. They could go on ahead.

And soon thereafter, Jesus did get the go-ahead, so off he went.

As for the Judeans’ expectations and speculations, I’ll deal with them later.