114 John C. Poirier Derrett’s article is also more than a response, as it also puts forward a novel thesis regarding the meaning of “the works of God” in Jn 9,3. According to Derrett, “works” refers not to Jesus’ healing of the man but rather to the man’s blindness as a divine work of retribution. He cites three supports for his new understanding of “the works of God”: “points of Greek syntax, (...) a superstition which John knew, and (...) an early Buddhist adaptation of the Johannine passage”3. He attempts to read the disciples’ question and Jesus’ response in a new way, apparently taking the Pharisees’ declaration that the man was “born altogether in sin” (9,34) as a dependable datum rather than a mistaken inference from the man’s condition. Working from this datum — that the man truly was a sinner — he reasons that Jesus’ reference to the “works of God” being “made manifest” in the man is an affirmation of God’s afflicting him with blindness. This way of understanding Jesus’ response turns the usual reading of this passage on its head: instead of taking Jesus to be denying a theory of retribution, Derrett understands him to be affirming such a scheme. He appeals to a supposed Buddhist recycling of this passage for support, claiming that the concept that he finds there is a “superstition” known to the author of the Fourth Gospel. Derrett’s revisionist understanding of how the man’s blindness might relate to the “works of God” stands as a challenge my proposed repunc- tuation because it insists on associating Jesus’ reference to “the works of God” with what precedes rather than what follows. Derrett kindly says that my proposal is “interesting”, but his own theory of what Jesus means by “the works of God” does not allow him to accept it. Unfortunately, Derrett does not recount any of my actual arguments for repunctuating Jn 9,3-54. In defense of my own proposal, I will rehearse my three ar- guments briefly for the reader’s sake: (1) the theodicy rendered by the traditional punctuation (according to which God impairs health from the time of birth just so he can receive glory for healing that impairment at a much later date) is extremely troubling, even by Johannine standards5, Derrett, “The True Meaning of Jn 9,3-4”, 103. 3 This oversight on his part is surely innocent, as his article’s first order of business is 4 questioning whether the passage is about cross-generational retribution for sins. His article is only secondarily about challenging my proposed repunctuation. T. Nicklas lists a number of objections to my proposed punctuation of Jn 9,3-5 5 (Ablösung und Verstrickung: “Juden” und Jüngergestalten als Charaketere der erzählten Welt des Johannesevangeliums und ihre Wirkung auf den impliziten Leser [Regensburger Studien zur Theologie 60; Frankfurt am Main 2001] 313-14): (1) he wonders whether my objection to the implied theodicy judges a text by modern lights, (2) he adduces Jn 11,4 as a conceptual parallel to the offending theodicy, (3) he expects, on the terms of my punctuation, a διὰ τοῦτο at the beginning of v. 4, and (4) he finds no point in referring to τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πέμψαντός με (rather than simply τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ) in v. 4 if the works