THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, THE “SPIRITUAL GOSPEL,” CASTS A DARK SHADOW — especially in English. The Fourth Gospel is known and loved for the light it shines on spiritual reality and the mystic path. How, then, could it also have justified racist prejudice and deadly persecution for millennia?
The answer, in large part, lies in the ways we have understood and responded to the Greek word ioudaioi. The most literal English translation of the Greek gives us “Judeans,” but the translation used in most, if not all, English-language Bibles is “Jews.” Because the Gospel of John uses the word significantly more often than do the other gospels, and because the Fourth Gospel uses it in so many fraught contexts, too often its “good news” has proved to be very problematic.
The problem arising from John’s use of ioudaioi is antisemitism, and a possible solution to this problem comes from a “close reading” of the gospel. The Gospel of John, like so many other works of literature, cannot be read naïvely. If we want to find the “plain truth,” we have to read the words in the text carefully and critically, especially when we’re reading a translation.
The antisemitism “derived” from the Gospel of John (and the other gospels as well) comes mostly from the role given to the ioudaioi in the plot against and the execution of Jesus. This literary role quickly became an overly simplistic belief among Christians that the Jews killed Christ, which in turn fed generations of hate and persecution.
Should we see the actors in this “passion play” as the Jews or as the Judeans? Is the gospel referring to all the people or only the elites? Were either the Jews or the Judeans responsible for killing Jesus, or was it the Romans?
When we see the actors as Judeans, we take ourselves out of our modern perspective and come closer to the 2,000-year-old understanding of the biblical author and audience. The Judeans were the people of Judea, just as the Persians were the people of Persia and the Romans were the people of Rome. Each nation (ethnos in Greek) had its own national (that is, ethnic) religious traditions. Each had its own ruling elite and its own peasant population.
On the other hand, when we see the Judeans as Jews, we move away from the biblical perspective and open ourselves to the dark energies generated by millennia of racist prejudice. Judea recedes from view, and the people of that nation fade into modern notions of non-ethnic religion and non-religious ethnicity.
When the Judeans of the Greek text become the Jews of our modern English translations we also tend to lose sight of the differences between a nation’s dominant elites and its populace. “Judeans” can refer to either stratum of society, just as “Americans” can refer either to the government and corporate elites or to the “ordinary” citizens of the country. When the Gospel of John mentions Judeans, sometimes it has the local quisling rulers of Judea in view, and at other times it has crowds of ordinary people in view. Context matters. We need to read the text carefully to discern its references correctly.
Most of all, it’s important to read John (and the other gospels) critically in order to see the facts “hiding” behind its literary treatment of the death of Jesus. In the story, Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect in Judea, appears to be something of a pawn being manipulated by the angry Judeans. One stubborn fact, however, forces us to see through the literary veil: Jesus was crucified. In the Roman Empire, only the Romans used crucifixion, and only to execute those who threatened to disrupt the established social and political order, the Pax Romana.
So, the Judeans didn’t crucify Jesus, the Romans did.
Yes, the Judean elite, the local puppets of Roman imperial rule, saw Jesus and his movement as threats to the established order; and yes, they schemed to bring his subversive activities to the attention of their Roman overlords. We must remember, however, that the attitudes and interests of these Judean rulers were aligned more with the Romans than with the Judean people.
As it turns out, therefore, the good news in John really is good news. Not only does Jesus overcome death through his resurrection, but also the resurrected Christ proclaims the ultimate victory of his loving and caring community over the violent oppression of the ruling domination system. Because God is the true king, Caesar is not. The kingdom of God is at hand, and is now here. That good news calls us to walk the path of salvation, the path of transformation.
Soul Spirit Wisdom 