Here's a view of the Sea of Galilee from Mt. Arbel, looking NNE at the NW shore of the Sea of Galilee. In this one picture you can see where Jesus, according to the Gospels, spent most of his ministry. The Galilee, according to Claudia our guide, is "water rich," owing to the immense quantity of fresh water in the Sea of Galilee. This is in contrast to the parts of Israel that are "water poor" - practically everywhere else. Indeed, Israel pipes water from the Sea of Galilee even as far as the Negeb. Israel also has dammed the Jordan River at its outlet from the Sea of Galilee, first to secure more water for the rest of Israel through its pipe system but, second, to keep Jordan from benefiting from the water along the formally eastern shore of the Jordan down to the Dead Sea. Politics, again. But for my purposes, please note how easy it is to get a drink of water in the Galilee: go to the shore and dip some out (in modern times, treat before drink).Nonetheless, fortresses from biblical times needed secure sources of water apart from the Sea of Galilee. Though in peacetime (rare in the Middle East even then) one can easily get water from the Sea of Galilee, during siege that was impossible. Instead, walled cities - and the walls were there primarily for the government and military, the peasantry or commoners lived outside the city walls - needed dependable water sources within the city walls. Here's a picture from Hazor at the north end of the Sea of Galilee.
The view is from inside the water tunnel carved through the bedrock to a spring that was formerly outside the city walls. You can see what an undertaking this was for the people of Hazor (probably not the governors or soldiers, mind you). With the tunnel constructed and the exterior access to the spring walled up and hidden, the city could be assured of fresh water in the event of a siege. Please note, however, that to gain access to this life-preserving water during siege, one had to move within the city walls, through well-protected gates, presumably showing sufficient identification and allegiance. That means politics, a crossing behind walls that impels one to confirm her or his loyalty to and identification with a group.Tunneling to water happened at other fortified cities where the main spring was outside the city walls. Here's a picture of the descent into Megiddo's formidable water tunnel, itself 215 feet long, famously fictionalized in Michener's "The Source." Megiddo sits at one end of the Jezreel valley, the principal highway between the kingdoms of Egypt and Mesopotamia and the locus for many historic battles.
Like at Hazor, during siege the folks outside the walls had to move inside the walls; the tunnel assured all would have fresh, "living" water during the siege. Again, to benefit from this life-giving water, presumably one had to pass within the city walls, assuring the guards one was in fact in allegiance with the rulers within. Now, I don't mean to imply that there was anything despotic about this: I assume those moving within would have felt quite comforted by the strong walls and soldiers guarding the city during siege. But I would be mistaken not to recognize the politics involved.When we come to Jerusalem in Jesus' time, the picture is a bit more complex. At the very least, the guards for the city were Herodians - thralls to Roman power, seen by some as traitors to Israel. The primary sources of water within the city walls were the pools of Siloam and Bethesda, the latter reached underneath the city of Salem in David's time by Hezekiah's tunnel, itself a marvel of engineering. But unlike Hazor and Megiddo, one living outside the city walls in Jesus' time had to pass through a gate guarded by supposed enemies, to give at least tacit allegiance to a foreign ruling power. Jesus' words, then, should not be stripped of their political content when he cries in John 7, "If anyone is thirsty let him (or her) come to me and drink: the one who believes in me, just as the scriptures say, 'Out of his (or her) heart rivers of living water will flow.'" It seems to me Jesus is offering his believers not just the Spirit/spirit in dramatic quantity, but the freedom of individual spirituality unhampered by political or group loyalties.
And to further solidify the connection between Spirit/spirit and water, John goes on to add, "He said this about the Spirit/spirit which those who believed in him were going to receive, for there was not yet a Spirit/spirit because Jesus had not yet been glorified." Interesting to note that whereas the Bible often speaks of the Spirit/spirit being poured out on people, here Jesus is speaking of the Spirit/spirit being poured out from people. Yet even though one may read Jesus' claim as bypassing groupness or politics, the thirst-quenching Spirit/spirit is not just for the benefit of the individual; rather, the individual becomes the source of life for those around her. Again, Jesus' statement finds its full force in Jerusalem rather than Galilee, since in the Galilee many sources of living water were available outside any walls.
We in the United States live in a "water-rich" country (even though we shamefully waste good, clean and energy-expensive drinking water by flushing our toilets with it), so it's hard for us to catch the full import of either Jesus' words or of water behind walls. The closest we come is periods of water rationing, but usually we're asked to curtail our private use instead of reiterating our allegiance to our government in the process. So it's equally hard for us to get a grip on the trialectic between individual, group and God in the scriptures. I hope this brief post has made some of those latter issues clearer. Of course, it's a separate question whether our musings on the Spirit/spirit must be constrained by scripture. Yet I find scripture not only to be theologically revelatory, but (in a more secular understanding) an ancient text with as great wisdom about the human condition as any other ancient, revered text. And being Christian, scripture does form the bedrock of my own theological constructions, though the edifices I build on that bedrock perhaps would seem strange to its founders. Thank you for reading.
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