2 Grk “asked him, saying.”
3 Grk “this one.”
4 Grk “in order that he should be born blind.” The disciples assumed that sin (regardless of who committed it) was the cause of the man’s blindness. This was a common belief in Judaism; the rabbis used Ezek 18:20 to prove there was no death without sin, and Ps 89:33 to prove there was no punishment without guilt (the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 55a, although later than the NT, illustrates this). Thus in this case the sin must have been on the part of the man’s parents, or during his own prenatal existence. Song Rabbah 1:41 (another later rabbinic work) stated that when a pregnant woman worshiped in a heathen temple the unborn child also committed idolatry. This is only one example of how, in rabbinic Jewish thought, an unborn child was capable of sinning.

In other versions

And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”

And his disciples asked him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?”

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

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