105 The True Meaning of Jn 9, 3-4 The punctuation does not need to be corrected as proposed5. We retain the comma (not colon) after αὐτοῦ, and the full point after αὐτῷ. 3. Reincarnation or Metasomatosis Traces exist of a belief amongst contemporaries of Jesus that persons could be reborn as other identifiable people (Mt 14,2; 16,14; Mk 6,14-16; 8,27; Lk 9,7-8.19). We need not attribute to Jews the doctrine that at death souls migrate to other bodies, though the replenishing and expending of the treasury of souls is a Jewish idea. However, Greeks were familiar with the idea since Pythagoras (it appears first in Sicily). It was and remains popular throughout the world6. Therefore, in such cultures to suffer a grave malady suggests sins in a previous life. One culture in which the belief in reincar-nation flourished and flourishes was the Buddhist which adopted and deve-loped early Indian notions of pūrva-janma (“previous birth”): in a previous life one has misconducted oneself, therefore one will be disadvantaged in this. A Buddhist would guess that our Man blinded others when he was in a previous body7. At Mishnāh, ᾿Avôt II.6(7) a skull is floating and a rabbi says he must have drowned others in his time - an analogous notion. Buddhists were clear that sinners after death were reborn not as gods, but as people, ghosts, animals, or hell-dwellers. Jesus in our passsage was not prepared to deny absolutely that sin figured in that scenario on the part of the parents or the man himself before his (present) birth: the accent must be placed on the miracle and its symbolic meaning. 4. The Lotus Sūtra, a Mahāyāna “Gospel” Our solution is recommended by ch.5 f the Lotus Sūtra (Saddharma- pundarīka)8. Part II of that chapter is devoted to the healing of a man ̣̣ J.C. Poirier, “ ‘Day and Night’ and the punctuation of John 9,3”, NTS 42/2 (1996) 5 260-81. G. Obeyesekere, Imagining Karma (Berkley 2002), reviewed by J.D.M. Derrett at 6 JRAS, 3rd. ser., 13/2 (2003) 276-7. Obeyesekere, Imagining Karma, 316. I draw attention to the Buddha’s identification of 7 a Blemmy discussed at J.D.M. Derrett, Numen 49 (2002) 460-74. The Sanskrit text is edited (provisionally) by H. Kern and B. Nanjio, Saddharma 8 puṇdͅarīka (St. Petersburg, 1908-1912). It is translated by H. Kern, Saddharma-Punṇdͅarīka or the Lotus of the True Law (Oxford 1884) (SBE 21). I use the reprint, New York, 1963. Kern is said to be “dated”: for our purposes he is quite adequate. On the Lotus Sūtra itself see H. Nakamura, Indian Buddhism. A Survey with Bibliographical Notes (Delhi, 1989) 183-88.