The Gospel of John presents its readers, listeners, and
interpreters with a serious problem: how can we reconcile the
Gospel's exalted spirituality and deep knowledge of Judaism with
its portrayal of the Jews as the children of the devil (John 8:44)
who persecuted Christ and his followers? One widespread solution to
this problem is the so-called "expulsion hypothesis." According to
this view, the Fourth Gospel was addressed to a Jewish group of
believers in Christ that had been expelled from the synagogue due
to their faith. The anti-Jewish elements express their natural
resentment of how they had been treated; the Jewish elements of the
Gospel, on the other hand, reflect the Jewishness of this group and
also soften the force of the Gospel's anti-Jewish comments. In Cast
out of the Covenant, this book, Adele Reinhartz presents a detailed
critique of the expulsion hypothesis on literary and historical
grounds. She argues that, far from softening the Gospel's
anti-Jewishness, the Gospel's Jewish elements in fact contribute to
it. Focusing on the Gospel's persuasive language and intentions,
Reinhartz shows that the Gospel's anti-Jewishness is evident not
only in the Gospel's hostile comments about the Jews but also in
its appropriation of Torah, Temple, and Covenant that were so
central to first-century Jewish identity. Through its skillful use
of rhetoric, the Gospel attempts to convince its audience that
God's favor had turned away from the Jews to the Gentiles; that
there is a deep rift between the synagogue and those who confess
Christ as Messiah; and that, in the Gospel's view, this rift was
initiated in Jesus' own lifetime. The Fourth Gospel, Reinhartz
argues, appropriates Jewishness at the same time as it repudiates
Jews. In doing so, it also promotes a "parting of the ways" between
those who believe that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God, and
those who do not, that is, the Jews. This rhetorical program, she
suggests, may have been used to promote outreach or even an
organized mission to the Gentiles, following in the footsteps of
Paul and his mid-first-century contemporaries.
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