Anti-Semites were by no means anachronistic for the run-up period just prior to the horrendous Jewish Revolt of the late 60's CE (against Rome). I posted a couple of weblog entries to the effect that the author of the Gospel of John was one of them.
This article will show that "the Jews" is a Johannine phrase, and why John used it instead of the more typically evangelical "Pharisee".
One must remember first that the reason the Gospel of John is attributed to "John", is the presence of "Johannine" elements also found all over the three epistles of that name. The language of the Epistles and the Gospel correlates so closely, that it is most likely they derive from the same community. As a result, if the same phrase appears in the Gospel and in an Epistle, I consider it a term of the community: a "Johannine phrase" in shorthand. As shown here and here, a Johannine verse will distinguish light from darkness and this world from the next; will discuss walking "in" the light / Father / righteousness; will consider the community the True Vine whose members are called by name; will discuss the works of God and those of Satan; and will focus on the community's love (for itself) versus everyone else's hate (for the community).
John 5:39-47 and 9:28-29 comprise an example of a non-Johannine debate preserved in John. Helmut Koester (pp. 208-211) has adequately proven to me, at least, that the original form is found in the Egerton Papyrus. But from that debate, John replaced Egerton's "lawyers" with "Jews" in both John 5:18 and 9:18,22. The Jews of the latter are not the "Pharisees" of 9:16 and 9:40; they are "Jews" who call the blind man in 9:18 and 9:22, and hear his speech in 9:28-9.
Even given the fragmentary nature of Egerton, one should be able to see that John replaced the classic opponents of Jesus (priests, Pharisees) with "the Jews".
The question "what is a Jew" is an ancient one, and not likely to be solved in this essay. It will suffice however to ascertain John's definition.
John 9:22 (with 12:42 and 16:2) "predicts" that Jesus's followers will be kicked out of the synagogue. Whether these verses are Johannine or Egertonian in origin, the synagogues are not the Temple; John's Jews therefore attend synagogue.
Outside the known Egerton parallels, John 8:44 is a common proof text for anti-Semites, running down to the present day Assyrian Orthodox Church. By contrast with 5:39, 8:44 contains a number of Johannine elements: "truth in him" from 1 John 1:8,2:4; father the Devil; primaeval murder from 1 John 3:11-15. Amazingly it is aimed at Jewish followers of Jesus (John 8:31)! John 8 is a proclamation that to follow Torah, and even to follow Jesus, are less important than to believe in Jesus as someone who existed before Abraham (8:58). 8:44 is not an attack on sin or unbelief (pace Mark Shea), but on Jewish (and synoptic Gospel!) faith. So a Jew, for John, is also one who does not accept Jesus's near-divinity.
John's idea of a Jew - whom 8:44 calls a "son of the devil" - was the sort of Jew that went to synagogue and rejected Jesus's near-divinity. By Jews, then, John does not mean the sects of the Second Temple Age, but the Rabbinic ancestors of the Jews today.
It should be clear by now that John would have agreed with us moderns on what is a Jew, and that he had a problem with them. But why would he bother, given that he co-opted Egerton, manifestly a Jewish Gospel?
Johannine elements were generally borrowed from para-Qumran apocalyptic. In layman's terms, this lot were a gaggle of not-very-mainstream Jewish fundamentalist priests who started their career writing forged Biblical books like Enoch, and then, after their Teacher of Righteousness (sic) was caught at it and got laughed out of Jerusalem, slunk off to the Dead Sea to scribble out Dead Sea Scrolls. The Damascus Document 2.11, with John 10:3, went so far as to say God had called out His sheep by name. That is, one by one. It was not enough to be Jewish; you had to join this branch of Judaism, with all its suspect literary baggage, for salvation. The Johannines and their allies in Qumran had excommunicated themselves from mainstream Judaism.
In fact, the Gospel had gone as far as disavow the very status of "Jew" for its audience, preserving it for Jesus's enemies. Which is natural, for by this time the community had ceased to be recognisably Jewish, barring a vague affection for a Jewish-authored library that was always less important than the community's "love" for itself and alienation from everyone else. They "fear God and keep his commandments" (Eccl. 12:13); "we love God and do his commandments" (1 John 5:2).
This explains why John took Egerton and re-wrote it, rather than canonising it, or, as Matthew did with Mark, mildly altering it.
John's community began as heretic Jews, and eventually disowned and attacked the Jewish faith itself. Fortunately, we are no longer forced to agree with John when reconstructing a more Christian religion. There are other options, like the Synoptic Gospels, and now - if only in parts - the Gospel of Egerton. It is hoped that the remainder of Egerton will come to light, that a Newer Testament might arise and put paid to John's anti-Semitism and insularity.
Any thoughts? e-mail me :^) zimriel@sbcglobal.net
The first version of this project was written 6 May 2002.