Why is verse 4 in John Chapter 5 a footnote?

Answer 1

AnswerJohn 5:4 is not a footnote in the King James Version, but it is in some other translations.

The verse is an aside, that explains why so many were waiting at the pool to be cured. Archaeologists have found the pool and established that it was an Asclepium - a temple to the Greek god of healing, Asclepius. When the god passed by he would disturb the water, and whoever entered the water first would be cured. However, in the biblical version, this is rendered as an angel of the Lord, to avoid giving the credit to a pagan god

Answer:

In John 5, verses 2 & 3, it tells of the pool, which is called Bethesda: "Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water." To assign this pool to a Greek Asclepieion, would require the Gospel of john to be written after 130 AD, Which would be after John's death, an untenable position to Bible believers.
The text in Question, v.4, is in all the Byzantine Manuscripts, as well as the Textus Receptus Manuscript, which was used to translate the Bishop's, the Geneva, and the Authorized King James Versions: "For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." The verse wasn't in question, until the textual critics in the later 19th Century began to used other manuscripts, claiming them to be more accurate. This has been a controversy during the 20th Century, which is still being waged today by opposite viewpoints.

Later in the passage in v.6, the lame man indicates that he waited for the waters to be troubled in answer to Jesus, which fits very well into v. 4: "When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me." The water obviously was stirred up by some way, and healing was accomplished by going down into the waters. It is consistent with Bilical truth for angels to serve God in ministering to man.

But Jesus healed the lame man without the Pool of Bethesda: "Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath." vv. 8 & 9.