The Gospel of John and the Future of Israel
type: CreativeWork
description: The canonical gospels are each concerned to present the significance of Jesus vis-à-vis the Jewish tradition. Yet the Gospel of John exhibits a particularly strained relationship with Judaism, especially through its frequent description of Jesus’s opponents as “the Jews,” its presentation of numerous hostile exchanges between Jesus and characters described as “Jews,” and its application of significant Jewish imagery (e.g., “the temple of his body,” “I am the true vine”) to the person of Jesus rather than to traditional Jewish institutions or figures. This dissertation argues that the Gospel of John presents Jesus as the one through whom the Jewish tradition realizes its eschatological hopes in continuity with the stories and symbols of its past. As the Fourth Gospel presents its theological vision for the significance of Jesus, it also criticizes the theological vision of a rival group—that is, “the Jews.” In the Fourth Gospel, “the Jews” represents an alternative—and for John, a rival—theological vision for how the Jewish tradition might live into its future in continuity with its past. Therefore, John’s affirmations of many aspects of the Jewish tradition are bound up with its negation of how another segment of the tradition would construe those same features of the tradition. Methodologically, this study attends to how the narrative of John characterizes Jesus as the fulfillment of particular Jewish hopes and expectations, and also as the narrative of John states (or implies) the shortcomings of Jesus’s opponents insofar as they fail to bring the Jewish tradition into more thorough continuity with its storied past and prophesied future. Attention to John’s narrative does not override the importance of its historical location, however. Questions that were directly relevant to Second Temple and late first-century Judaism about how the tradition might live faithfully are pertinent to the structure of the Fourth Gospel and its presentation of Jesus and “the Jews.” Jo…
abstract: The canonical gospels are each concerned to present the significance of Jesus vis-à-vis the Jewish tradition. Yet the Gospel of John exhibits a particularly strained relationship with Judaism, especially through its frequent description of Jesus’s opponents as “the Jews,” its presentation of numerous hostile exchanges between Jesus and characters described as “Jews,” and its application of significant Jewish imagery (e.g., “the temple of his body,” “I am the true vine”) to the person of Jesus rather than to traditional Jewish institutions or figures. This dissertation argues that the Gospel of John presents Jesus as the one through whom the Jewish tradition realizes its eschatological hopes in continuity with the stories and symbols of its past. As the Fourth Gospel presents its theological vision for the significance of Jesus, it also criticizes the theological vision of a rival group—that is, “the Jews.” In the Fourth Gospel, “the Jews” represents an alternative—and for John, a rival—theological vision for how the Jewish tradition might live into its future in continuity with its past. Therefore, John’s affirmations of many aspects of the Jewish tradition are bound up with its negation of how another segment of the tradition would construe those same features of the tradition. Methodologically, this study attends to how the narrative of John characterizes Jesus as the fulfillment of particular Jewish hopes and expectations, and also as the narrative of John states (or implies) the shortcomings of Jesus’s opponents insofar as they fail to bring the Jewish tradition into more thorough continuity with its storied past and prophesied future. Attention to John’s narrative does not override the importance of its historical location, however. Questions that were directly relevant to Second Temple and late first-century Judaism about how the tradition might live faithfully are pertinent to the structure of the Fourth Gospel and its presentation of Jesus and “the Jews.” Jo…
author: Blumhofer, Chris
keywords: Biblical studies, Judaic studies, Christology, Gospel of John, Israel, Judaism, Old Testament in the New Testament
date published: 2017
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:06:59Z
provider: Duke University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Duke University

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16345