The ninth passage of the Sefer Yeshua is based on Thomas 74:1. The midrash about people claiming that Yeshua is the messiah, is loosely based on Mk 8:29, Mt 16:16, and Lk 9:20 (Mark is the primary source of the three).
9. 1People said to Yeshua`, ‘See how the people follow you and marvel, saying, “You are the messiah.” 2But Yeshua` raised his eyes to heaven in frustration and said, ‘O Heavenly Father, there are many who clamour around the drinking trough, but there’s no water in the cistern.’
Origin
This is one of the few sayings included in the Sefer Yeshua that is only found in the Gospel of Thomas (dated to around 140 CE, written in Egyptian Coptic). The NT scholars in the Jesus Seminar assigned it the colour black (meaning that they thought it was a saying that was only later attributed to Yeshua by his followers). Thomas is a Gnostic gospel, and so in the Gnostic tradition, the interpretation of this saying is given a completely esoteric meaning. In the Gospel of Thomas, it has no context whatsoever – the sayings in Thomas are not listed in any kind of thematic order, so the sayings before and after do not give us any clue as to its original application or life-setting.
The pagan writer Celsus, quoted the saying in about 175 CE (we don’t have his original work, but this work is itself quoted by Origen, who quotes the Thomas passage second-hand). Celsus was writing about the Ophite Gnostics, who used the saying to mean that there are many standing around the well of truth, but no one is stepping into it (similar to the idea that many come, but few are chosen).
However, the immediate, simplest and most obvious meaning is that it might have been the ancient Jewish Aramaic way of saying, ‘Everyone is barking up the wrong tree’, or, ‘They’re all on a wild goose chase’. The book which the Jesus Seminar published remarks that it has a distinctly proverbial feel to it. I would agree with this assessment – it very much sounds like an established proverb, rather than a mystical saying with an otherworldly meaning.
I decided to include this saying because of this very reason, and because there are several things that people got wrong or twisted about Yeshua, even during his own lifetime, and that these misconceptions would have frustrated or even hindered Yeshua during his ministry.
Cultural Background to Saying
Layton’s translation of the saying goes,
[Jesus] said, “O LORD, there are many around the drinking-trough, but nothing in the cistern!”
In ancient Israel, a cistern was an underground, water-tight, dug-out cave which was used to store run-off floodwater from storms. Rainfall is scarce, falling only in two seasons (the rainiest months are October and February). When the rains come, they often form sudden and very heavy flash-floods. In the desert, they even form sudden rivers out of nowhere which can be very destructive, bringing down bridges and buildings.
Because rain is so scarce, when it did come the ancients made sure that they captured it. They built large, underground cisterns to store as much water as possible (Joseph was lowered into a dry cistern by his brothers). The entrances to the cisterns were designed to naturally capture the rainwater floods.
In order to water their animals, buckets would have been lowered into a cistern on a rope, and the water pulled up and emptied into other buckets. These buckets were then taken to be emptied into the animals’ drinking troughs. Water meant for people was similarly pulled up by buckets and emptied into clay jars. Water for domestic use was usually drawn by women, who took the jars back home on their heads, and deposited them in a cool area of the house for drinking. The jars were always covered with a clay lid to ensure that nothing fell into the water that could contaminate it.
Cultural implications
In the saying, there are two and possibly three levels’ distance from the source of the water. You would expect people to gather round a clay jar of water in the house to obtain their drinking water, but instead they are gathered around an empty animal’s drinking trough (i.e. somewhere not designed for people to drink water from). Secondly, there’s no water in the cistern anyway (suggesting the trough itself is therefore empty), so no drinkable water is coming any time soon to be put into the trough.
No water is available, and they are standing around the wrong place waiting for that water. It’s almost like looking for the wrong tree to bark up, in a desert where there are no trees!
Who is the ‘Lord’ in the original saying?
It is also worth mentioning that Thomas attributes this saying to Yeshua, and yet Yeshua addresses the saying, not to his followers, but rather to ‘LORD’ (Coptic: ΠΔΟΕΙC Pdjoeis). In my humble opinion, I think that Yeshua was addressing God, and this further suggests to me that this saying was said out of frustration, rather than being an esoteric saying about the ‘well of truth’. I am therefore sticking with the simplest and most obvious meaning of the saying, rather than the mystical meaning imposed upon it by Gnostics.
In my re-Judaised reconstruction, I have replaced ‘LORD’ with ‘heavenly Father’, in order to avoid any ambiguity; I do not think that Yeshua would have addressed God as ‘LORD’ in his personal speech.
Application
As a unitarian Jewish follower of Yeshua, ask yourself: ‘Where Yeshua is concerned, what issue is the biggest thing that people are barking up the wrong tree about?’
That he was a god? If Yeshua genuinely said this saying, such a belief would not have been in play, since belief in his divinity only came later. In my humble opinion, I think the biggest thing during Yeshua’s own lifetime that people barked up the wrong tree about, was believing that he was a messiah. This is therefore the reconstructed context I have set the saying in – that believing that Yeshua is or will be the messiah, is like barking up the wrong tree in a desert with no trees.
If you yourself can think of another issue that people within Yeshua‘s own lifetime might have regularly got wrong about him, and which would have frustrated him, please let me know at the email address on the contact page above.
Massorite Talmidis and the Tennessee Ebionites are non-messianic. We neither believe that Yeshua was or ever will be the messiah, nor that any messiah is our saviour. YHVH alone is our Saviour:
“I – and I alone – am YHVH, and besides Me there is no other saviour.” (Isa 43:11). This verse not only means that Yeshua is not, nor ever will be our saviour, but also that no one is an earthly incarnation of YHVH (no one and nothing else was, is or ever can be YHVH; only YHVH is YHVH).
There are many passages that are misused by both Jews and Christians to construct their own views of what a messiah is all about, as if the pinnacle of God‘s Creation and all God‘s plans on earth, was the messiah. However, if you read the biblical passages that genuinely speak about a messiah (Isaiah 11-12, Jeremiah 23:5-6, 33:14-17, 30:7-10, Ezekiel 34:23-30, 37:24-28), you will learn that the true focus is always on YHVH – on what YHVH will achieve and accomplish, never on what any messiah will do. It is YHVH who will choose and send a messiah at the time that God alone has decided; the messiah is not his own agent. Focussing on the deeds of a messiah will always divert your attention away from YHVH, even if you don’t consciously think it will; it subconsciously diminishes and emasculates God, and turns God into the messiah’s distant, uninvolved sidekick.
Focussing instead on what our beloved YHVH will do – our True and only Saviour, who is our steadfast and eternal hope – will lift our eyes to see the greatest light, and achieve an understanding of the blessedness of who and what YHVH is. Focussing on YHVH’s Kingdom, instead of on a messianic kingdom, will help us in our divine purpose as followers of Yeshua, to work for the fulfilment of the Kingdom of God on earth.