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John

About this book
Chapter 17

1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward to heaven and said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you— 2 just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life—that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.⁠ 4 I glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me at your side with the glory I had with you before the world was created. 6 “I have revealed your name to the men you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they understand that everything you have given me comes from you, 8 because I have given them the words you have given me. They accepted them and really understand that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying on behalf of them. I am not praying on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those you have given me because they belong to you. 10 Everything I have belongs to you, and everything you have belongs to me, and I have been glorified by them. 11 I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them safe in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. 12 When I was with them I kept them safe and watched over them in your name that you have given me. Not one of them was lost except the one destined for destruction, so that the scripture could be fulfilled.⁠ 13 But now I am coming to you, and I am saying these things in the world, so they may experience my joy completed in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world,⁠ just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them safe from the evil one.⁠ 16 They do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth. 18 Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. 19 And I set myself apart on their behalf, so that they too may be truly set apart. 20 “I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, 21 that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. 22 The glory you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me. 24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they can see my glory that you gave me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25 Righteous Father, even if the world does not know you, I know you, and these men know that you sent me. 26 I made known your name to them, and I will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them, and I may be in them.”

Texts in conversation

Compare 4Q213a 1 17 and John 17:15

Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Retellings · New Testament

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Summary

In 4Q213a from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Levi asks God to keep him from the rule of any satan. John describes Jesus offering a similar prayer for his followers, asking for protection from the evil one.

Passages

4Q213a 1 17

Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Retellings · Aramaic Levi b
10 […] I said, “My Lord, you 11 [… you] alone know 12 […] the ways of truth. Put far 13 […] evil, and fornication drive away 14 […] wisdom and knowledge and strength 15 […] to find your mercy before you 16 […] what is beautiful and what is good before you. 17 [… and] do not let any satan rule over me 18 [… upon] me, my Lord, and bring me near to be yours.”
160–60 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 4Q213a

John 17:15

New Testament
14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them safe from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth.
90–110 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in John

References

“... In our review of Second Temple Jewish literature preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls, we have discovered several things that may have an impact on the way one reads Jesus’ petitions for his disciples and later followers in John 17. First, analo- gous to John 17, each of our Jewish traditions construes prayer for protection in relation to demonic power, something which marks a development beyond prayers conveyed through the Hebrew Bible. Second, the texts we have looked at are not merely literary; they reflect a piety which in at least some Jewish circles was expressed through the offering of prayers for divine protection from the personified forms of evil (cf. 11Q5 xix). Third, such petitions were adaptable. They could be narrativized into stories involving ideal figures from Israel’s ancient past (Aramaic Levi Document; Jubilees). Thus patriarchs would not only be presented as practi- tioners of the piety familiar to those who read about them, but also would be made to formulate petitions which sought God’s protection for their descendants. In such cases – we have found reason to observe this in Jubilees chapters 1, 10, 12, 15 and 19 – readers would have been able to recognize themselves as addressed in the unfolding storyline. [...] Third and finally, the petitions in search of protection are formulated in the recognition that in the meantime a community which considers itself especially elect needs divine help in order to ward off the unabating influences of evil power. Such prayers would have been known to the pious, whether they were those who recited the “Prayer of Deliverance” preserved in 11Q5 xix or members of the Mat- thean and similar communities who prayed to be delivered from “the evil one” in the Lord’s Prayer (Mt. 6:13; cf. 2 Thess. 3:3). If such a petition was known to implied readers of the Johannine community, then it is not without significance that in John’s Gospel the petition that God protect Jesus’ disciples “from the evil one” is placed on the lips of Jesus. In doing this, the writer of the prayer in John 17 would have been providing readers something that we have witnessed in some texts of the Gospel’s Jewish predecessors: a prayer which readers may already have been reciting for themselves has been strengthened by having it spoken by the very one in and through whom their religiosity is determined. Therefore, just as the patriarchs’ petitions against demonic evil are formulated as prayers for their descendants and spiritual heirs, so also Jesus’ petition is concerned with his “descendants.” And so, the disciples and “those who believe in me (sc. Jesus) through their word” in the Johannine community find themselves covered in the Johannine text by the force of Jesus’ petition. ...”
Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels: Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 211–212.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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4Q213a 1 17 and John 17:15

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