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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.
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.
Part I: The Rhetoric of Affiliation
Chapter 1: Ask and you will receive: The Rhetoric of Desire and
Fulfillment
Chapter 2: Love One Another: The Rhetoric of Transformation
Part II: The Rhetoric of Disaffiliation
Chapter 3: Casting off the Withered Branch: The Rhetoric of
Expropriation
Chapter 4: The World has Hated you: The Rhetoric of Repudiation
Chapter 5: Rhetorical Ioudaioi and Real Jews
Part III: Imagining the Rhetorical Situation
Chapter 6: The Jews had already agreed: J.L. Martyn and the
Expulsion Theory
Chapter 7: We Wish to See Jesus: John, Alexandra and the Propulsion
Theory
Adele Reinhartz is professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa.
The present book marks a concluding step on this brilliant Jewish
scholar’s long journey of befriending the author of the Fourth
Gospel. Reinhartz is not willing to follow the apologetic moves of
many of her Christian fellow-exegetes to explain away John’s
anti-Jewish polemics as a still inner-Jewish dispute or a merely
marginal element of the gospel text. In her view, the anti-Jewish
stance is at the core of its rhetorical construction, and thus more
closely linked to the tragedies of later Christian anti-Judaism
than most exegetes care to admit.
*Jörg Frey, University of Zurich*
With historical-critical precision and literary-critical acuity,
Reinhartz dismisses popular reconstructions of a pre-gospel
Johannine community, demolishes standard apologetics for John’s
vituperations, and convincingly indicts the Gospel for anti-Jewish
rhetoric. The volume represents not only the culmination of decades
of Johannine studies, it portends a paradigm shift in the
field.
*Amy-Jill Levine, Vanderbilt University*
Regular Reinhartz readers will not be surprised that she has
published another book on John that challenges widely held views of
its origin and purpose. She is no “compliant reader” of the Gospel,
but she presents “Alexandra,” who is. This engaging exploration of
John’s rhetoric and its effects almost assures that conversations
about John will now be using new terms, such as “affiliation,”
“disaffiliation,” “expropriation,” “propulsion theory,” and, yes,
“Alexandra.”
*R. Alan Culpepper, Mercer University*
In this book Adele Reinhartz presents a fresh synthesis of her many
years of diligent scholarship on the way the gospel of John relates
to Judaism. Guided by historical imagination, the six chapters of
this book offer a comprehensive approach to the central question of
Johannine exegesis: how do Jewishness and anti-Judaism relate to
one another in the fourth gospel? Creative thinking outside the box
has long been Reinhartz’s trademark, and this new book is no
exception. Reinhartz is not afraid of challenging scholars who
become too self-assured of their convenient convictions. She
sketches the different dimensions of rhetoric which are at play in
John’s narrative presentation of the Jews. Marked by a disarming
honesty, this book confronts us with an ‘inconvenient truth’, or at
least Reinhartz’s ‘inconvenient truth’ with regard to a research
topic of greatest importance, both in historical and in
contemporary perspective. A vintage Adele Reinhartz book which is a
must for every student of the gospel of John, especially those of
us who will not be inclined to agree with her central thesis.
*Reimund Bieringer, Catholic University of Leuven*
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