"The Jews" in John's Gospel

The Bible Today July 1989: 203-209

 

The basic problem before us is that John's Gospel says nasty things about a group that it calls "the Jews." When twentieth-century people hear such negative talk about "the Jews," they may assume a direct relation between "the Jews" of the Fourth Gospel and their Jewish neighbors who attend the local synagogue. Thus the Fourth Gospel can become a vehicle for increasing anti-Semitism.

Before examining this problem in detail I would like to summarize a few points about John's Gospel that are consensus positions in modern critical scholarship. John's Gospel was put in final form in the late first century A.D. by a Jewish-Christian writer for a community in a city in Syria, Palestine, or perhaps Transjordan. This community had recently been forced out or had severed its ties with the local synagogue so that the expression "out of the synagogue" is used to describe its status in John 9:22; 12:42; and 16:2. There was a sectarian, "us against them," dimension to the Johannine community; there were also internal tensions that can be seen in the Johannine epistles. The Gospel is the product of a long and complicated process of tradition, beginning perhaps with John the son of Zebedee or the figure referred to as the "beloved disciple," and ending with the Gospel as we have it now.

The Problem

With these general observations in mind, we can return to our problem—the negative portrayal of the Jews in John's Gospel. The Greek term that is used can be translated "the Jews" or "the Judeans." Some texts in John refer to the Jews in positive ways. For example, John speaks positively of Jews who believed in Jesus (8:31-32; 12:11) or were sympathetic bystanders at the raising of Lazarus from the dead (11:31, 33,36, 45). Also positive is Jesus' declaration in the dialogue with the Samaritan woman that "salvation is from the Jews" (4:22). John speaks in a neutral way about the "Jewish rites of purification" (2:6) and the "land of Judea" (3:22).

For the most part, however, "the Jews" appears in negative contexts in John's Gospel. The most common negative context is debate with Jesus. Whereas in the synoptic tradition Jesus' debating partners are the Pharisees or the scribes or both, in John's Gospel they are simply called "the Jews." The Jews send priests and Levites to inquire about John the Baptist (1:19). Nicodemus, "a ruler of the Jews" (3:1), questions Jesus. The Jews (5:10) object to Jesus healing a lame man on the Sabbath—and so on. These debates are literary productions, not direct recordings. In them Jesus' interrogators—whether the Jews or his own disciples—are always misunderstanding him. Their misunderstandings, in turn, become the occasion for Jesus to go beyond their objections and to reveal more about himself and his mission of revealing the Father. But in the process the literary foils—in many cases the Jews—look foolish.

Besides looking like fools, the Jews in the Fourth Gospel are said to have persecuted Jesus because he healed on the Sabbath (5:16) and to have sought to kill Jesus (7:1). The disciples warn Jesus against going into Judean territory again since the Jews were seeking to kill him (11:8). The motif of "fear of the Jews" runs through Jesus' public ministry (9:22), his passion and death (19:38), and his resurrection appearances (20:19). Before his final journey to Jerusalem, Jesus no longer goes about openly among the Jews (11:54). The Jews are the chief opponents of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel.

It is not surprising that when John tells the story of Jesus' passion and death in chapters 18-19, the Jews play a major role. Whereas the synoptic Gospels refer to Jesus' Jewish opponents in the passion narrative as "the chief priests and elders," in John they are the Jews. The officers of the Jews (18:12) seize Jesus as part of the high priest Caiphas' ironic plan that one man should die for the people (11:50; 18:14). When the Jews protest to Pontius Pilate that it is not lawful for them to put Jesus to death (18:31), the Jews press Pilate to have Jesus executed "because he made himself the Son of God" (19:7). When Pilate seeks to release Jesus, the Jews cry out: "If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend" (19:12). They object to the title on Jesus' cross "the King of the Jews," preferring instead "This man said, 'I am the King of the Jews'" (19:19-22).

Without the pressure applied to Pilate by the Jews, Jesus would not have been crucified—that is the implication of John's narrative. In fact, John even gives the impression that the Jews actually executed Jesus:  "Then Pilate handed Jesus over to them (the Jews, the chief priests] to be crucified" (19:16). In John's Gospel, then, the Jews oppose Jesus in debate, seek to kill him by various means, and finally convince the Roman governor to execute Jesus.  Click here for page 2.