Jacob's well
The Jacob's Well is a well in Samaria at the foot of Mount Gerizim near Shechem (today Nablus ). The local tradition goes back to information from the Bible ( Gen 33: 18-19 EU ).
Biblical tradition
Tanach (Old Testament)
The Israelite patriarch Jacob bought according Gen 33:19 EU land near Shechem at the foot of Gerizim . He gave this property to his favorite son Joseph and his descendants, namely Efraim ( Gen 48: 21-22 EU ). Josef later found his final resting place on the same property ( Jos 24.32 EU ).
Mount Garizim is also significant theologically because, according to Dtn 27 EU and Jos 8.33 EU, words of blessing were pronounced on the mountain of Garizim about the gathering of the tribes of Israel. Because of this, it is a Samaritan sanctuary . From the slope of the opposite Ebal, however, words of judgment were threatened.
New Testament
According to the Gospel of John ( John 4 : 5–6 EU ), Jacob is said to have dug a well on this property. This well is otherwise not mentioned in the Bible, only in Dtn 33.28 EU Israel is called "Jacob's source". There is no extra-biblical evidence of its existence either.
In Joh 4, 5-26 EU it is told how Jesus is on his way from Jerusalem to Galilee . He is resting at Jacob's well near Sychar . There you meet a Samaritan woman, which leads to a theological conversation, where the woman appears as a representative of her people, the Samaritan religious group . In addition to the importance of Jesus as the giver of “living water”, the relationship between Jews and Samaritans will also be discussed. The southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel , for which the name "Joseph" is synonymous, were enemies after the division of the people of Israel since the reign of Rehoboam , a son of Solomon . The Jews in New Testament times considered the Samaritans to be quasi-pagan because of their mixing with other religions (cf. also Lk 10.30–37 EU ). The relationship between the wife and five husbands ( Jn 4 : 16–19 EU ) that Jesus revealed to John is often interpreted as a symbolic expression of this religiously dissolute life. In this respect, symbolic quality can also be ascribed to the place of the event, since the Jacob's well in the ancestral father Jacob (= Israel) represents the common past of the whole people of Israel and Jesus reveals himself to the woman there as the Messiah of both the Jews and the Samaritans ( Jn 4, 23-26 EU ).
iconography
In biblical exegesis, the "water of life" has been related to baptism since early Christian times. Against this background, it found its way into the picture cycles of church wall paintings and miniatures of liturgical manuscripts, e.g. B. by evangelists , since it was read as the gospel on the Friday after the 3rd Sunday of Lent. Christ is usually given in a didactic gesture standing next to the well or sitting on its edge, the Samaritan woman is often characterized with a jug, and up to the end of the Middle Ages often with the disciples who have already entered. Since the Renaissance, artistic interest in painting has focused on the dialogical confrontation between the two main actors. It remains an important issue until the 17th century. In the 19th and 20th In the 19th century it becomes rarer and if so, it is visualized in the sense of medieval tradition.
Church tradition
In the tradition of the Orthodox Churches , the woman from Jacob's Well , who is named in the Bible, is known as Photina .
Since the 4th century AD, the fountain has been integrated - with interruptions - into five Christian church buildings. An early Byzantine church was probably destroyed in the Samaritan uprisings of the 5th century. In the 6th century under Justinian I a new church was built and probably stood until at least the 9th century, its exact fate is unknown. A third church in western style was built by the crusaders in 1175 and destroyed by the Islamic conquerors just twelve years later. In 1860 the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem bought the site and rebuilt a church, which fell victim to an earthquake in 1927. After a reconstruction project under the direction of the local priest Abuna Justinus, a fifth, again Greek Orthodox church stands on the site today. The fountain has sunk over the centuries and is located in the crypt of the church, a few meters below ground level.
literature
- Max Küchler : Art. Jakobsbrunnen, in: Neues Bibellexikon Volume 2; Zurich, Düsseldorf 1995; ISBN 3-545-23075-9 ; Sp. 274
- Birger Olsson: Structure and Meaning in the Fourth Gospel. A Text-Linguistic Analysis of 2:11 and 4: 1-42; CB NT 5; Lund 1974; ISBN 9-140-03344-9
- Denys Pringle, Peter E. Leach: Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, Volume 1; Cambridge 1993; ISBN 0-521-39036-2
- Hartwig Thyen : The Gospel of John; HNT 6; Tübingen 2005; ISBN 3-16-148485-1
- Friedhelm Wessel: The five men of the Samaritan woman. Jesus and the Torah according to Jn 4,16-19; in: Biblical Notes 68 (1993), pages 26-34 ISSN 0178-2967
Footnotes
- ^ Birger Olsson: Structure and Meaning in the Fourth Gospel ; Page 140
- ↑ See Hartwig Thyen, Das Johannesevangelium, pp. 254–255.
- ↑ Friedhelm Wessel, The five men of the Samaritan woman, page 26f. - Further, older interpretations of the "five men" are given by Theodor Zahn , Das Evangelium des Johannes. Commentary on the New Testament. Vol. 04 , Leipzig, pp. 243f. Note 19.
- ↑ Engelbert Kirschbaum: Lexicon of Christian Iconography , Volume 4, Freiburg 1972 (reprint 1994), pp. 26–30, keyword Samaritan woman at Jakobsbrunnen , there also numerous individual works mentioned.
- ↑ Denys Pringle; Peter E. Leach: Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, Volume 1; Cambridge 1993; Pp. 258-262
- ↑ An online version ( slightly revised and supplemented ) can be found at http://www.arjeh.de/bibel/NT/5mann.html , accessed on March 8, 2019.
Web links
Coordinates: 32 ° 12 ′ 43 ″ N , 35 ° 16 ′ 40 ″ E