“15 But Jesus, knowing that they wanted to come, accidentally take him and make him king, again withdrew to the mountain alone.
This is rathre interesting, if Jesus were a Mashiach, he would have grudgingly told the newcomers something like, “Well, finally, what took so long! Bring me the crown!” But he runs away.
16 When evening came, His disciples went down to the sea17 and, getting into a boat, went to the other side of the sea, to Capernaum "– here they are, they just left their Teacher alone in a deserted place and sailed away. And where did the boat come from? Or they just stole someone else’s boat and sailed away on it?
The whole story begins to look much more truthful if we assume that Jesus and his disciples sailed in a boat to Tiberias for the sake of preaching, then everything falls into place: the boat belongs to the disciples, they are former fishermen, the disciples brought Jesus from Capernaum or Bethsaida to Tiberias to preach to the peoples there. They went to the city and spread the news that Jesus was here, the people came to Him from the city a few kilometers away to the landing site – to the place where He climbed the mountain to pray, Jesus preached to them until evening, then took pity on the hungry and performed the miracle of the multiplication of loaves, to feed everyone before the way home – and then a conflict arises with the students, to whom he did not pay attention all day, and even forced them, the inner circle of disciples of the Great Teacher (in their view), to serve the commoners, to distribute bread to them. Moreover, when they informed him that they wanted him to be king in Tiberias – apparently, it was their idea – he brushed aside and went alone again to the mountain to pray. And here they were utterly offended, angry, and – they left him, deciding to take revenge on him a little: here we will sail away from You, and you get back on foot along the coast of the Sea of Galilee, the path is not so short. But, as is usually the case with those who play the offended, they did not sail far, everyone expected that He would see them sail away from the mountain, realize that he was left alone in the wilderness far from civilization, run ashore and start waving at them, asking to come back and take him with them. This suggestion stems from the ridiculous-looking remark in verse 17:
“17 And getting into the boat, they went to the other side of the sea, to Capernaum. It was getting dark, but Jesus did not come to them”– where did he not come, to the boat across the sea? They could not even imagine such a thing that He could do that. It was getting dark – that is, soon the boat would not be visible from the shore, and they would not be able to see Jesus on the shore.
“18 A strong wind was blowing, and the sea was turbulent” – and a fishing boat, a fragile boat, loaded with a dozen people, would sink into a storm like, no doubt – and they were frightened, no longer happy with their own display of grievances.
“19 Having sailed about twenty-five or thirty stages (roughly 1 stage = 200 meters, so 5—6 kilometers), they saw Jesus walking on the sea and approaching the boat, and they were afraid. 20 But He said to them: it’s me; do not be afraid. 21 They wanted to take Him into the boat; and immediately the boat landed on the shore where they were sailing”– he saw that they were in trouble and came to the rescue, they began to sink, and He hastened to help them, to save the foolish – and performed another unprecedented miracle.
In general, if you look closely, Jesus is very reluctant to use divinity, and to create miracles, granted to him by the Father, as a rule, he is forced by the disastrous circumstances of those who turn to him for help or simply the unfortunate people he met – but he always does this reluctantly, forcedly, and even with a reservation like when his mother asked him in Cana at a wedding or grumbling to a courtier with a sick son: “you will not believe if you do not see miracles”. His goal is not to surprise with fancy tricks, but to convince with his life and sermon to believe Him, the Son of God, that there is a True God, Heavenly Father, who is waiting for everyone to adopt them to Himself, as he adopted Jesus Himself.
“22 On the next day the people who were standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat, except the one in which His disciples had entered, and that Jesus did not enter the boat with His disciples, and only His disciples sailed away. 23 Meanwhile, other boats came from Tiberias close to the place where they ate bread, with the blessing of the Lord. 24 So, when the people saw that Jesus and his disciples were not there, they got into boats and sailed to Capernaum, looking for Jesus. 25 And, finding Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him: Rabbi! when did you come here?”
People who witnessed the miracle of bread went home and the news of the miracle spread throughout the city. And in the morning the crowds were already flooding, some sailed on boats, the rabble always wants bread and a show. Someone had seen that the disciples sailed away alone, and they hoped to find Jesus alone – not expecting that he went on foot around the sea. But He is not there. Then some people on boats went in search of him Capernaum, found him and were surprised that He was already there again with the people, preaching.
“26 Jesus answered and said to them, truly, truly, I say to you: you are looking for Me not because you have seen miracles, but because you ate bread and were satisfied” – and this is the end of the story, period. This is the end of the recording of the event, which was at the disposal of the compilers. Everything that is afterwards in this chapter – a lengthy monologue of Jesus with periods of repetitions – again, similarly to the two and a half chapters about miracle in Cana is bundled on top completely mechanically, using some sort of common theme that, as it seemed to the compilers, is logical: because the bread is mentioned in both places. From this ridiculous combination of scraps, the very method of composing the John gospel is clearly visible.
Apparently, those who set themselves the initial goal of compiling a single text from the scattered scraps of records in Aramaic that they had in their hands found a certain craftsman, a professional scribe who, not being a Christian himself and not understanding the prevailing Christian rituals, first arranged the available records in what it seemed to him to be a logical order in terms of content and meaning, and then, having translated it, collected it into a single text, which was difficult to change without damaging it – and that’s how it remained. Moreover, the customers, themselves not knowing Greek, could not really check what was written in it, took the word of the specialist they chose, that he translated and rewrote everything correctly, putting everything that was given to him together. Later, of course, this original text was changed many times, and by rewriting many times, it acquired many heterogeneous inclusions, but the vicious logic of the initial combination of passages, to a knowledgeable person clearly disparate, remains visible today. Further we will see that the link between the finished narration and the further continuation of the sixth chapter is the word “bread”, used according to the formal primitive logic: there is bread and here bread – so let them be together in one chapter. The compiler of the text is unaware that the used utterance of Jesus about Himself as the Bread of Heaven certainly refers to the Last Supper, at which Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Communion. And which is mysteriously absent from it in John’s gospel. In general, as we will see, there is no mention of the Communion of the disciples at the Last Supper, and this is strange – could it be that the evangelist suddenly forgot to mention such a great event, or maybe it did not exist at all? So, there is a simpler and more logical explanation for this: the entry related to the Last Supper has already been used and mechanically attached to the place where the mention of loaves was found!
This unambiguously indicates the fact that this gospel was mechanically composed by a person not familiar with Christianity, and is a hand-made event construct.
From verse 27 begins Jesus’ “sermon” about the Bread of Heaven, as I said above, clearly attuned to the incident in Tiberias by the keyword “bread”
“27 Seek not for corruptible food, but for food that abides in eternal life, which