Jews and Christians â Parting Ways in the First Two Centuries CE? by Jens Schröter Benjamin A. Edsall Joseph Verheyden
Author:Jens Schröter, Benjamin A. Edsall, Joseph Verheyden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: De Gruyter
Published: 2021-08-23T10:34:20.588000+00:00
e)âThe Gospelâs Rhetoric
In her inspiring book Cast Out of the Covenant,58 Adele Reinhartz focuses on the rhetoric and the rhetorical effect of the Gospel. Her question is to what affiliation the Gospelâs rhetoric inspires or encourages its readers and, on the contrary, what disaffiliation it suggests.
Reinhartzâs contribution is most remarkable as she herself draws on a life-long career of âbefriending the beloved discipleâ59 and incorporating that Christian text into the literary heritage of her Jewish tradition, while always struggling with how to cope with Johnâs anti-Jewish rhetoric. In her recent book, she now draws the consequences from her earlier criticism of Martynâs community hypothesis,60 abandoning the attempts of characterizing the community behind the Gospel but merely focusing on the text and its rhetoric. From here, she concludes that the Gospel is in effect anti-Jewish, rather than a part of an inner-Jewish dialogue/fight. It is not a reaction to expulsion, but instead promotes a âparting of the ways.â61 Her stimulating book has caused me to rethink and sharpen my own approach towards these issues, beyond the mere explanation of the development of Johnâs Christology from Jewish sources.
Reinhartz asks if the identity and affiliation of a model reader could be drawn from reading or hearing the Gospel.62 An important part of Johnâs rhetoric are the stories of character transformation in which a figure comes to be healed, gains insight, or believes and is therefore attached to a new community, the community of the disciples of Jesus in which a new identity as âchildren of Godâ who have new and eternal life is shaped. This ârhetoric of affiliationâ63 is matched by a ârhetoric of disaffiliationâ64 with regard to the á¼¸Î¿Ï Î´Î±á¿Î¿Î¹ or to aspects of Jewish life. Not only is the Gospel silent on Jewish practices such as circumcision, dietary laws, or Sabbath observance, it also dissociates its readers from the main elements of Jewish tradition, Torah and Temple, claiming that they are all fulfilled in Jesus. Finally, it presents the á¼¸Î¿Ï Î´Î±á¿Î¿Î¹ as a group hostile to Jesus and his followers, so that readers are also distanced from them and might even start to fear them. Thus, regardless of the historical relation between those á¼¸Î¿Ï Î´Î±á¿Î¿Î¹ and âreal Jewsâ in the world of the readers, the Gospelâs narrative rhetoric leads its readers to disassociate themselves from the á¼¸Î¿Ï Î´Î±á¿Î¿Î¹ or âdisciples of Mosesâ in their world and to associate themselves with Jesus and his disciples. Finally, as Reinhartz lucidly observes, âthe Gospelâs Jewishness was itself mobilized to support the anti-Jewishness that is so deeply embedded in the Gospelâs rhetorical project.â65
We may question whether we should call the Gospel anti-Jewish or whether we should call it âanti-Ioudaioi,â66 thus avoiding anachronistic images of âJudaism.â But such an artificial use of language is unlikely to be helpful in the discussion, and leaving a term untranslated may keep an awareness of the problems, but does not solve them. It might also be an overinterpretation when Reinhartz argues that the Jews are âcast out of the covenantâ in John, as this
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