What Jesus знал in verse 28, he сказал in verse 30. In Greek it is the same word.
| Greek verb | John uses it of |
|---|---|
| teleō, to finish | everything, in verse 28 (“had now been accomplished”), and in Jesus’ own mouth in verse 30 (“It is finished”). Both are the one form, tetelestai. |
| teleioō, to bring to completion | the Scripture, in verse 28 (“to fulfill the Scripture”) |
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все же tetelestai mean “paid in full”? The receipts do not show it.
You may have heard that in Jesus’ day this word was written on receipts to mean “paid in full”. We read the receipts. Here is what they say, and how far the evidence goes.
Where the story comes from
In 1897 Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt published fourteen customs receipts from Roman Egypt. Most open with a shortened word, τετελ. On one receipt it was written out in full. They read that as tetelestai, and filled out the shortened ones to match.
A standard reference book passed the reading on, and from there it reached sermons and websites.
“Receipts are often introduced by the phrase τετέλεσται, usually written in an abbreviated manner.”
What the receipts say
That one full spelling was misread. The word on it is tetelōnētai (τετελώνηται), “the customs have been paid”. It belongs with telōnēs, the tax collector of the Gospels. Later editors corrected the reading, and the shortened word with it. The standard list of corrections to papyrus editions records the change.
Customs paid through the gate of Soknopaiou Nesos. Panouphis son of Panouphis, bringing in a white female camel branded with Arabic marks.A receipt of AD 142, P.Grenf. II 50a; our translation. It opens τετελ(ώνηται).
We searched all 67,981 documents in the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri. The customs word is in 312 of them, and in 16 it is written out in full. It is the clerks’ word for tolls and duties.
How far the evidence goes
Слово tetelestai itself is in ten of those 67,981 documents.
Five, written out in full, are about finished jobs
“The column is finished,” a man named Iesous writes from the granite quarries at Mons Claudianus. “I have my own jobs, and not one is finished yet,” says a letter of the third or fourth century. The others are an order of linens not yet done, a letter that says nothing has been done about some beans, and the small matter in the letter below.
O.Claud. IV 872; PSI VIII 971; SB XVI 12694; P.Wisc. II 73; P.Oxy. III 530. Our translations. Two writers spell it their own way: the linen letter has τετέλεστε, and the beans letter ετελεσθαι, which its editors read as this word.
One is about money, and “in full” is a separate phrase
In AD 325 a guardian at Oxyrhynchus lists money handed over to him, “the counting out of which has been completed to me in full”. The counting out (aparithmēsis) is the payment, “in full” is ek plērous, и tetelestai is “has been completed”. One letter of the word is restored.
P.Oxy. LIV 3756, line 17. Our translation.
Four are shortened, so the ending is the editors’ choice
The best for the claim is a list of payments from about 180 BC, headed “Year 2” and τετέλε(σται). A pass of AD 49 from the same customs gate has only τετ(έλεσται). The last two are a list of workers on embankments and a household census.
SB XVIII 13876; P.Rein. II 95; P.Oxy. II 290; SB X 10220.
Plainly, then
The verb can mean “pay”. Abbott-Smith gives that as its third sense, and the New Testament uses it so twice. A bookkeeper may have used this form for a payment.
We found no document where tetelestai is written on a bill to say a debt is paid in full. Our count covers only papyri that have been published and transcribed, and a badly damaged word can be missed. Abbott-Smith files John 19:28 and 19:30 under the sense “to execute, perform, complete, fulfil”.
A letter from the second century has both ideas in two sentences, and uses different words for them.
“The dyke tax and everything else I have paid in full. As for the small matter I wrote to Theon about, do not worry if it is not finished.”
What John’s own words point to
John has told us since chapter 4 that Jesus has work to finish. The verb there is , the same verb verse 28 uses of the Scripture.
Лука использует for Scripture being carried out. And the sour wine in verse 29 is the word in the Greek of Psalm 69:21.
Augustine, in the fifth century, put the question and answered it this way.
“What, but all that prophecy had foretold so long before?”
The debt is in the New Testament, at other verses
Paul writes of “the debt ascribed to us”, canceled and nailed to the cross, and Jesus teaches us to pray “forgive us our debts”. Christians who speak of the cross as a debt paid can point to those verses. tetelestai says that the work is finished.