John 1:25-26

1:25 So they asked John, ¹  “Why then are you baptizing if you are not the Christ, ²  nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

1:26 John answered them, ³  “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not recognize, ⁴ 

John 1:31

1:31 I did not recognize ⁵  him, but I came baptizing with water so that he could be revealed to Israel.” ⁶ 

John 3:22

Further Testimony About Jesus by John the Baptist

3:22 After this, ⁷  Jesus and his disciples came into Judean territory, and there he spent time with them and was baptizing.

John 4:1

Departure From Judea

4:1 Now when Jesus ⁸  knew that the Pharisees ⁹  had heard that he ¹⁰  was winning ¹¹  and baptizing more disciples than John

John 10:40

10:40 Jesus ¹²  went back across the Jordan River ¹³  again to the place where John ¹⁴  had been baptizing at an earlier time, ¹⁵  and he stayed there.

[1:25]  ¹ tn Grk “And they asked him, and said to him”; the referent (John) has been specified in the translation for clarity, and the phrase has been simplified in the translation to “So they asked John.”

[1:25]  ² tn Or “the Messiah” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed”).

[1:26]  ³ tn Grk “answered them, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[1:26]  ⁴ tn Or “know.”

[1:31]  ⁵ tn Or “know.”

[1:31]  ⁶ sn John the Baptist, who has been so reluctant to elaborate his own role, now more than willingly gives his testimony about Jesus. For the author, the emphasis is totally on John the Baptist as a witness to Jesus. No attention is given to the Baptist’s call to national repentance and very little to his baptizing. Everything is focused on what he has to say about Jesus: so that he could be revealed to Israel.

[3:22]  ⁷ tn This section is related loosely to the preceding by μετὰ ταῦτα (meta tauta). This constitutes an indefinite temporal reference; the intervening time is not specified.

[4:1]  ⁹ tc Several early and important witnesses, along with the majority of later ones (Ì^66c,75 A B C L W^s Ψ 083 ˹³ 33 Ï sa), have κύριος (kurio", “Lord”) here instead of ᾿Ιησοῦς (Ihsou", “Jesus”). As significant as this external support is, the internal evidence seems to be on the side of ᾿Ιησοῦς. “Jesus” is mentioned two more times in the first two verses of chapter four in a way that is stylistically awkward (so much so that the translation has substituted the pronoun for the first one; see tn note below). This seems to be sufficient reason to motivate scribes to change the wording to κύριος. Further, the reading ᾿Ιησοῦς is not without decent support, though admittedly not as strong as that for κύριος (Ì^66* א D Θ 086 ˹ 565 1241 al lat bo). On the other hand, this Gospel speaks of Jesus as Lord in the evangelist’s narrative descriptions elsewhere only in 11:2; 20:18, 20; 21:12; and probably 6:23, preferring ᾿Ιησοῦς most of the time. This fact could be used to argue that scribes, acquainted with John’s style, changed κύριος to ᾿Ιησοῦς. But the immediate context generally is weighed more heavily than an author’s style. It is possible that neither word was in the original text and scribes supplied what they thought most appropriate (see TCGNT 176). But without ms evidence to this effect coupled with the harder reading ᾿Ιησοῦς, this conjecture must remain doubtful. All in all, it is best to regard ᾿Ιησοῦς as the original reading here.

[4:1]  ¹⁰ sn See the note on Pharisees in 1:24.

[4:1]  ¹¹ tn Grk “Jesus”; the repetition of the proper name is somewhat redundant in English (see the beginning of the verse) and so the pronoun (“he”) has been substituted here.

[4:1]  ¹² tn Grk “was making.”

[10:40]  ¹¹ tn Grk “He”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:40]  ¹² tn The word “River” is not in the Greek text but is supplied for clarity.

[10:40]  ¹³ sn John refers to John the Baptist.

[10:40]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “formerly.”