In
Christian
A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...
scholarship, the Book of Signs is a name commonly given to the first main section of the
Gospel of John
The Gospel of John () is the fourth of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "Book of Signs, signs" culminating in the raising of Lazarus (foreshadowing the ...
, from 1:19 to the end of Chapter 12. It follows the
Hymn to the Word and precedes the Book of Glory. It is named for seven notable events, often called "signs" or "
miracles", that it records.
Location in text
There is a widespread scholarly view that the Gospel of John can be broken into four parts: a ''
prologue
A prologue or prolog (from Ancient Greek πρόλογος ''prólogos'', from πρό ''pró'', "before" and λόγος ''lógos'', "speech") is an opening to a story that establishes the context and gives background details, often some earlier st ...
'', (John 1:–1:18), the ''Book of Signs'' (1:19 to 12:50), the ''
Book of Glory'' (or ''Exaltation'') (13:1 to 20:31) and an ''
epilogue'' (chapter 21).
It is this indication by the author of the gospel that the signs are selected, which leads to the examination of them as a sequence of seven.
Seven Signs
The seven signs are:
#
Changing water into wine at
Cana in
John 2:1–11 – "the first of the signs"
#
Healing the royal official's son in
Capernaum in
John 4:46–54
#
Healing the paralytic at Bethesda in
John 5:1–15
#
Feeding the 5000 in
John 6:5–14
#
Jesus walking on water in
John 6:16–24
#
Healing the man blind from birth in
John 9:1–7
#The
raising of Lazarus in
John 11:1–45
The seven signs are seen by some scholars and theologians as evidence of
new creation theology in the Gospel of John, the
resurrection of Jesus
The resurrection of Jesus () is Christianity, Christian belief that God in Christianity, God Resurrection, raised Jesus in Christianity, Jesus from the dead on the third day after Crucifixion of Jesus, his crucifixion, starting—or Preexis ...
being the implied eighth sign, indicating a week of creation and then a new creation beginning with the resurrection.
Other lists of seven signs
Some disagree with this list of seven signs. John Marsh and
Stephen Smalley, amongst others, have suggested six initial signs (seeing the walking on the water as part of feeding the 5000, rather than a separate sign in itself), and that the seventh sign is the
crucifixion of Jesus
The crucifixion of Jesus was the death of Jesus by being crucifixion, nailed to a cross.The instrument of Jesus' crucifixion, instrument of crucifixion is taken to be an upright wooden beam to which was added a transverse wooden beam, thus f ...
and the resurrection appearance to Thomas (20:26–29).
Anthony T. Selvaggio replaces walking on water with the
cleansing of the Temple because John 2:18 includes the word "sign".
Eighth sign
Others, such as
John Hutchinson[John Hutchison, ''Our Lord's Signs in St. John's Gospel: Discussions Chiefly Exegetical and Doctrinal on the Eight Miracles in the Fourth Gospel'' (printed Edinburgh, 1892)] and
E. W. Bullinger, have emphasized a sequence of eight signs, concluding with the
miraculous catch of fish in
John 21:1–14.
[Bullinger Companion Bible ''Eight Signs in the Gospel of John''](_blank)
/ref>
References
{{Gospel of John
Gospel of John
Cana
Capernaum