Mwandayi, Towards a new reading of the Bible in Africa – spy exegesisheard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, [...] He
left Judea, and departed again into Galilee” (John 4:1-3). Acknowledging
the tension that had arisen between Jesus and his opponents the Synop-
tics say that he left because Herod Antipas had arrested John the Baptist
(cf. Mat 4:12; Mark 1:14; Luke 3:20). Introducing the passion narrative
we again hear John say: “Now before the feast of the Passover, when
Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this
world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he
loved them unto the end [...] (John 13:1f). In all the given examples, no
one is really able to tell the source of Jesus’ awareness of what his oppo-
nents were planning, the evangelists do not elaborate on that. Fired by
the desire to show that Jesus was the son of God the evangelists could
have intentionally wanted to create a picture whereby Jesus is seen to
know everything, even that which lay inside a person’s heart as well as
forthcoming events. However, it cannot be totally dismissed that he had
some informers who were relaying to him intelligence concerning the
activities of his rivals. Jesus surely had a lot of sympathizers even outside
the circle of his close followers and some of these sympathizers could
actually have been related to his opponents. An attested case of such
bonds of relationships with some Jewish authorities, for example, is that
of a disciple who was known to the high priest (John 18:15-16). Barrett
argues that the term gnwstovV (known to) is used in the LXX to refer to a
close friend.^29 It is such people who possibly spied on Jesus’ behalf out
of their love for him. They gathered intelligence not only from the ordi-
nary talk with the high officials but could possibly have had access also
to minutes of the Senatorial Meetings of the Sanhedrin in the homes of
these officials.
Apart from the ‘Jesus knew’ passages we also find incidences where
unnamed informers brought word to him. In Luke, for example, we
hear, “Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about
the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices” (Lk
13:1). We are not told whether those who came bearing this account
were Galileans themselves or not and why exactly Pilate had killed them.
It could have been that Pilate felt that they were a threat to his internal
security requirements. Pilate, as argued by Rose Mary Sheldon, probably
served as his own intelligence chief and had informers who helped him
(^29) Barrett cited in W. Hall Harris III, Exegetical Commentary on John 18, http://bible.org/
seriespage/exegetical-commentary-john-18 (accessed 25/07/ 11).