CONFLICT

Note that “the Jews” gather around Jesus (vs 24). Jesus tells them that they “do not believe” (vs 25, 26), and that they “do not belong to my sheep” (vs 26). The lines are drawn: “The Jews” don’t believe, and “the Jews” aren’t among the flock for whom Jesus is the Good Shepherd (in John chapter 10 Jesus uses various images of shepherd and sheep to describe his relationship with his people). This framing of the tension between “the Jews” and Jesus is found throughout the Gospel, and especially in Chapter 8 and again in the Passion narrative.

CONTEXT

The Gospel of John was probably written at the end of the first century, around the year 90. This would be approximately twenty years after the Roman occupation forces destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, and approximately 60 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. For more than a generation Jewish Christians lived and worship with their fellow Jews. They shared synagogue and temple life with the broader Jewish community, but the Jewish Christians also maintained distinct teachings and practices based on their faith that Jesus is the Messiah.

It is important to note that variation in religious practice and belief were not – and are not, to this day – uncommon. No religious group is a monolith. Diversity within a religious group sometimes spins off to create new a sect and tradition within, or apart from, the established religious group. The community of faith that sprung up around Jesus wasn’t necessarily unique in that regard.

Now, this was a time of great tension within occupied Israel. Pagan Roman forces occupied and controlled what Jews understood to be their Promised Land given to them by God. For several hundred years they had been controlled by outsiders – Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. Their temple had been destroyed, rebuilt, desecrated by the installation of pagan idols, and then destroyed again. Splintering religious movements, like that which formed around Jesus, risked spiritual and social upheaval that was unacceptable to the religious elite whose job it was to maintain the faith and keep nice with the Roman occupiers.

To be clear, the claim that Jesus is the Messiah is an earthshatteringly major claim to make within the context of Jewish faith and practice. The mainstream Jewish leadership did not accept this claim, finding this spurious teaching and movement dangerous to Jewish unity and Israel’s security. Yet John does not write that “the Jewish leadership,” or “the Sanhedrin” rejected Jesus. He writes of “the Jews” and their rejection of Jesus.

Why does John use this language? Writing in the late first century, John is part of a small Christian Jewish congregation that was likely expelled from synagogue life, cut off from families, and otherwise exiled from the broader Jewish community. As personae non gratae, they girded themselves with an “us-vs-them” rhetoric to make sense of their situation. Such boundary-creating rhetoric was actually a common genre or style in the first century Roman-influenced world. John labeled the mainstream Jewish leaders as “the Jews” who stood in opposition to Jesus and his followers. This “us-vs-them” language and tone come out in John’s telling of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thus, John’s Gospel is written within the context of intra-Jewish struggles for identity, authenticity, and legitimacy within the Jewish community during a time of traumatic Roman occupation and violence. We must understand this language as a function of that struggle for Jewish identity and not as something intentionally antisemitic. The first generations of Christ-followers were a small Jewish faction, and this was their language.

Accordingly, it [is a serious matter] to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:

First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire. …

Second, that all their books—their prayer books, their Talmudic writings, also the entire Bible —be taken from them, not leaving them one leaf, and that these be preserved for those who may be converted. …

Third, that they be forbidden on pain of death to praise God, to give thanks, to pray, and to teach publicly among us and in our country. They may do this in their own country or wherever they can without our being obliged to hear it or know it.

Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 47: The Christian in Society IV, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 47 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 285–286.