There are several other instances in the Hebrew Bible where adoption
is represented:
• Moses grows up in
Pharaoh’s household (Exod 2:1–10). The story of Moses also says that Pharaoh’s
daughter agreed to pay wet nurse fees (Exod 2:9). In ancient Near Eastern legal
codes, a person who pays the wet nurse fees to keep a child alive—particularly
a foundling, or child who has been abandoned shortly after birth—assumes the
child in his or her household (Malul, “Adoption of Foundlings,” 107–108).
• Ezekiel 16:1–7 uses
much of the same legal terminology for adoption as the Babylonian code in its
metaphor for God’s relationship to Israel (Malul, “Adoption of Foundlings,”
98–99). The metaphor suggests that God gradually becomes Israel’s father, not
through sexual procreation, but through adoption (Miles, “Israel as
Foundling”).
• Ruth’s formulaic
declaration to stay with her mother-in-law (Ruth 1:16–17) might represent a
rite of adoption. This is comparable to Jesus’ declaration from the cross, when
he places his mother into the family of the disciple he loved (John 19:26–27).
• Abraham “adopts” his
slave Eliezer of Damascus to be his heir before the birth of Ishmael and Isaac
(Selman, “The Social Environment,” 125–127).
• Josephus describes
Abraham as adopting Lot (Antiquities,
I.7.1), although he was writing in a Graeco-Roman context where legal adoption
was practiced.
. . .
A few New Testament instances allude to the Old Testament view of
adoption, perhaps even indicating the legal kind (e.g., John 19:26–27; Jas 1:27, which is about caring for
orphans). But adoption is most often used in a theological sense. (Michael
J. Morris, “Adoption,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry
et al. [Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2016], Logos Bible Software edition)
The words Jesus uses, here is
your son … Here is your mother, are reminiscent of legal adoption formulae,
but such formulae would have been cast in the second person (e.g. ‘You are my son’). If Jesus was the
breadwinner of the family before he embarked on his public ministry, and if
every mention of Mary during Jesus’ years of ministry involves Jesus in a quiet
self-distancing from the constraints of a merely human family, and this not
least for his mother’s good (cf.
notes on 2:2–4), it is wonderful to remember that even as he hung dying on a
Roman cross, suffering as the Lamb of God, he took thought of and made
provision for his mother. Some have found it surprising that Jesus’ brothers
did not take over this responsibility. But quite apart from the fact that they
were at this point quite unsympathetic to their older brother (7:5), they may
not even have been in Jerusalem: their home was in Capernaum (cf. notes on 2:12). Barrett (p. 552)
objects that their lack of faith (7:5) ‘could not annul their legal claim’.
True enough, but this is not a legal scene. Jesus displays his care for his
mother as both she and the beloved disciple are passing through their darkest
hour, on their way to full Christian faith. From
that time (hōra, ‘hour’) on, from the ‘hour’ of Jesus’
death/exaltation (cf. notes on 2:4;
12:23; 17:1), this disciple took her into
his home. (D. A. Carson, The
Gospel according to John [The Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991], 616-17)
Carson also
offers the following vis-à-vis the Catholic interpretation of the text:
The more difficult question is whether this relationship that the
dying Jesus establishes between his mother and the beloved disciple is
symbolic, and if so, of what. There have been any number of suggestions, most
of them anachronistically tied either to later developments in historical
theology, or to an unlikely interpretation of 2:1–11, or to both. Roman
Catholic exegesis has tended not so much to see Mary coming under the care of
the beloved disciple, as the reverse; and if the beloved disciple is also taken
as an idealization of all true disciples, the way is cleared to think of Mary
as the mother of the church. For some scholars, this theme is tied to ‘new Eve’
typology—Mary as the antitype of the first woman, who can say, ‘With the help
of the Lord I have brought forth a man’ (Gn. 4:1). Indeed, for Brown (2.
925–926), this is virtually the climax of Jesus’ mission, since the next verse
(v. 28) discloses that Jesus now knows that all things have been completed.
Apart from the question of the meaning of v. 28, however (for which
see below), the fact that the beloved disciple took Mary into his home, rather
than the reverse, rather favours the view that he was commissioned to look
after her. Thus, the theological
reading favoured by many Catholic exegetes tends to move in a direction
contrary to an historical reading of
the text. Certainly it is true that John uses history to teach theology, and
that both Jesus and John use historical events, institutions and utterances in
symbolic ways to teach deeper truths to those with eyes to see. But such
theological readings are in line with
the historical reading. In this instance, however, the Fourth Gospel focuses on
the exclusiveness of the Son, the finality of his cross-work, the promise of
the Paraclete as the definitive aid to the believers after Jesus has been
glorified, and correspondingly de-emphasizes Mary by giving her almost no part
to play in the narrative, and by reporting a rebuke, however gentle, that Jesus
administered to her (2:4). With such themes lying on the surface of the text,
it is most natural to see in vv. 26–27 an expression of Jesus’ love and care
for his mother, a thoughtful provision for her needs at the hour of supreme
devastation (cf. Dauer, pp. 322–326).
To argue, then, that this scene is symbolic of a continuing role for Mary as
the church comes under her care is without adequate contextual control. It is
so anachronistic an interpretation that is difficult to imagine how it could have
gained such sway apart from the developments of centuries of later traditions.
(D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John [The Pillar New
Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991], 617-18)
