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I have been working intensively on the Gospel of John since 2020. In this post, you will find a list of my posts on the question of whether the Fourth Gospel is profoundly anti-Jewish despite its Jewish character. I don’t think so: As a Jew, the evangelist John argues with Jews who think differently about whether Jesus is the Messiah who will bring about freedom, justice, and peace.
In my interpretation of the Gospel of John, I mainly follow a reading presented by Ton Veerkamp, a biblical theologian of the Amsterdam School, in 2006 and 2007, which I am allowed to publish on this website. The PDF version is available for download here:
You find the same text here in an online version (in a total of five posts which can be accessed via the table of contents at the beginning of the first post):
Ton Veerkamp: Solidarity against the World Order
What made me focus so intensively on John?
In August 2020, I came across a book written by the Jewish scholar Adele Reinhartz, who tried to make friends with John the Beloved Disciple but ultimately abandoned this attempt because, in her eyes, John’s rhetoric represents an anti-Jewish program according to which Jesus Christ disinherits the Jews who do not believe in him as the people of God. Adele Reinhartz is an expert on the history and literature of emerging Christianity and early Judaism in the Graeco-Roman period and understands the Gospel of John following the Gentile Christian interpretation that has become common since the 2nd century, with a clear frontline position of the Christians, to whom Jesus guarantees eternal life in heaven, against the Jews, who have the devil for their father (John 8:44).
In the following four articles, I will deal intensively with four books by this author:
Otherworldly Word or Overcoming the World Order?
About the book: Adele Reinhartz, The Word in the World. The Cosmological Tale in the Fourth Gospel, Atlanta/Georgia 1992.
The Beloved Disciple Befriending Adele Reinhartz
About the book: Adele Reinhartz, Befriending the Beloved Disciple. A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John, New York / London 2001.
Doing Justice to Caiaphas the High Priest
About the book: Adele Reinhartz, Caiaphas the High Priest, Columbia, South Carolina 2011.
Jesus the Messiah: Liberation for All Israel
About the book: Adele Reinhartz, Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John, Lanham 2018.
A book review of Lance Byron Richey, Roman Imperial Ideology and the Gospel of John, Washington 2007, is also available here:
Christ and Caesar. A Political Interpretation of the Gospel of John, Critically Recounted
I don’t expect anyone to read all of these articles from cover to cover.
However, the tables of contents make it possible to take a look at some topics that seem interesting to one or the other and to get an impression of how differently, for example, the wedding at Cana, Jesus‘ conversation with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well or the assessment of the Judeans as children of the diabolos can be interpreted.
I appreciate any feedback and questions, also of a critical nature, especially regarding overlooked errors in the text!
With best regards
Helmut Schütz