The now familiar form of the Johannine discourse meets us again at the Feast of Tabernacles. Questions that essentially misunderstand who Jesus is provoke him to respond. Irony is John’s literary device throughout. Here two Jewish objections to Jesus are central to the debate: the authority of Jesus’s teaching and the nature of his origin.

Educational standards for rabbis were well established in the first century. Advanced study under a rabbinic scholar (e.g., Paul under Gamaliel) in a school was common. Jesus possessed no such credentials. In effect, the Jews wish to see these, and Jesus com…