Genesis 28:12

Hebrew Bible

10 Meanwhile Jacob left Beer Sheba and set out for Haran. 11 He reached a certain place where he decided to camp because the sun had gone down. He took one of the stones and placed it near his head. Then he fell asleep in that place 12 and had a dream. He saw a stairway erected on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. The angels of God were going up and coming down it 13 and the Lord stood at its top. He said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of your father Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the ground you are lying on. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. And so all the families of the earth may receive blessings through you and through your descendants.

John 1:51

New Testament

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and exclaimed, “Look, a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?” Jesus replied, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel!” 50 Jesus said to him, “Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 He continued, “I tell all of you the solemn truth—you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

 Notes and References

"... scholars evaluating textual manifestations of ‘voices from the past’ have outlined an extraordinary ‘spectrum of possible scenarios’ in the way texts and oral influences may have contributed to the composition, performance, and reception of the enduring textualized product.156 This spectrum of scenarios will be no less diverse when it comes to the question of associations and how an author might have come to include them in his work. This can make it very difficult to assess, with any certainty, how certain associations came to be, whether by textual, traditional, or (likely in many instances) a combination of textual-and-traditional processes. It is painfully difficult to tell, for example, whether John 1:51 is specifically dependent upon, and thus specifically referring to, the text of Genesis 28:12, or whether it more flexibly intersects with popularized Jacob traditions (that themselves may or may not also be cognizant of one or several possible texts).157 The phrase ‘ascending and descending’ in context unambiguously and exclusively signals neither a text nor a traditional repertoire nor any combination thereof. That it refers to the Jacob-at-Bethel story is fairly clear ..."

Gerber, Edward H. The Scriptural Tale in the Fourth Gospel: With Particular Reference to the Prologue and a Syncretic (Oral and Written) Poetics (p. 109, 166) Brill, 2017

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