2. The Samaritan woman at the well was
the first evangelist to the gentiles.
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him
because of the woman's testimony.
- John 4:39a (RSV)
Two very different early traditions
depicted her status in early art.
3. In the first tradition, she and Jesus stood as equals.
Sarcophagus, Gaul, 4th
century
8. Two Texts, Two Traditions
The text of John 4:27 in a 4th
-century manuscript written
in a dialect of Aramaic (old Syriac) says:
His disciples came and wondered that
he was standing and talking with a woman.
Later manuscripts (and our modern bibles) do not say
Jesus was standing with her. They only say:
His disciples came and wondered that
he was talking with a woman.
9. In the second tradition, she stood alone.
Jesus sat, as if her master.
Saint Apollinaire Nuovo, Ravenna, 6th
century
Musee de l’Arles antique. Arles, France.
Photo copyright: Kateusz
Photo from Wilpert, Le pitture delle catacombe romane (1903), vol. 2, plate 19.
Bardo Museum, Tunis. The museum plaque dates this 4th century, but this seems unlikely since Jesus here has a Trinitarian halo, something usually found 5th c. and later.
Photo copyright: Kateusz
From Adana near Tarsus. Provenance and dating from museum plaque. Istanbul Archeology Museum.
Photo copyright: Kateusz