Cast Out of the Covenant

Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John

Adele Reinhartz

The Gospel of John presents its readers, listeners, and interpreters with a serious problem: how can we reconcile the Gospel’s exalted spirituality and deep knowledge of Judaism with its portrayal of the Jews as the children of the devil (John 8:44) who persecuted Christ and his followers?

One widespread solution to this problem is the so-called “expulsion hypothesis.” According to this view, the Fourth Gospel was addressed to a Jewish group of believers in Christ that had been expelled from the synagogue due to their faith. The anti-Jewish elements express their natural resentment of how they had been treated; the Jewish elements of the Gospel, on the other hand, reflect the Jewishness of this group and also soften the force of the Gospel’s anti-Jewish comments.

In Cast out of the Covenant, this book, Adele Reinhartz presents a detailed critique of the expulsion hypothesis on literary and historical grounds. She argues that, far from softening the Gospel’s anti-Jewishness, the Gospel’s Jewish elements in fact contribute to it. Focusing on the Gospel’s persuasive language and intentions, Reinhartz shows that the Gospel’s anti-Jewishness is evident not only in the Gospel’s hostile comments about the Jews but also in its appropriation of Torah, Temple, and Covenant that were so central to first-century Jewish identity. Through its skillful use of rhetoric, the Gospel attempts to convince its audience that God’s favor had turned away from the Jews to the Gentiles; that there is a deep rift between the synagogue and those who confess Christ as Messiah; and that, in the Gospel’s view, this rift was initiated in Jesus’ own lifetime. The Fourth Gospel, Reinhartz argues, appropriates Jewishness at the same time as it repudiates Jews. In doing so, it also promotes a “parting of the ways” between those who believe that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God, and those who do not, that is, the Jews. This rhetorical program, she suggests, may have been used to promote outreach or even an organized mission to the Gentiles, following in the footsteps of Paul and his mid-first-century contemporaries.

Lexington Books / Fortress Academic

Pages: 248 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-9787-0117-5 • Hardback • July 2018 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-9787-0119-9 • Paperback • July 2020 • $47.99 • (£37.00)

978-1-9787-0118-2 • eBook • July 2020 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Religion / Biblical Studies / New Testament / General, Religion / Christianity / History, Religion / Christian Theology / General

Cast Out of the Covenant

Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

The Gospel of John presents its readers, listeners, and interpreters with a serious problem: how can we reconcile the Gospel’s exalted spirituality and deep knowledge of Judaism with its portrayal of the Jews as the children of the devil (John 8:44) who persecuted Christ and his followers?

One widespread solution to this problem is the so-called “expulsion hypothesis.” According to this view, the Fourth Gospel was addressed to a Jewish group of believers in Christ that had been expelled from the synagogue due to their faith. The anti-Jewish elements express their natural resentment of how they had been treated; the Jewish elements of the Gospel, on the other hand, reflect the Jewishness of this group and also soften the force of the Gospel’s anti-Jewish comments.

In Cast out of the Covenant, this book, Adele Reinhartz presents a detailed critique of the expulsion hypothesis on literary and historical grounds. She argues that, far from softening the Gospel’s anti-Jewishness, the Gospel’s Jewish elements in fact contribute to it. Focusing on the Gospel’s persuasive language and intentions, Reinhartz shows that the Gospel’s anti-Jewishness is evident not only in the Gospel’s hostile comments about the Jews but also in its appropriation of Torah, Temple, and Covenant that were so central to first-century Jewish identity. Through its skillful use of rhetoric, the Gospel attempts to convince its audience that God’s favor had turned away from the Jews to the Gentiles; that there is a deep rift between the synagogue and those who confess Christ as Messiah; and that, in the Gospel’s view, this rift was initiated in Jesus’ own lifetime. The Fourth Gospel, Reinhartz argues, appropriates Jewishness at the same time as it repudiates Jews. In doing so, it also promotes a “parting of the ways” between those who believe that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God, and those who do not, that is, the Jews. This rhetorical program, she suggests, may have been used to promote outreach or even an organized mission to the Gentiles, following in the footsteps of Paul and his mid-first-century contemporaries.

Details

Lexington Books / Fortress Academic

Pages: 248 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-9787-0117-5 • Hardback • July 2018 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-9787-0119-9 • Paperback • July 2020 • $47.99 • (£37.00)

978-1-9787-0118-2 • eBook • July 2020 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Religion / Biblical Studies / New Testament / General, Religion / Christianity / History, Religion / Christian Theology / General

Author

Adele Reinhartz is professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa.

Table of Contents

Part I: The Rhetoric of Affiliation
Chapter 1: Ask and you will receive: The Rhetoric of Desire and Fulfillment
Chapter 2: Love One Another: The Rhetoric of Transformation
Part II: The Rhetoric of Disaffiliation
Chapter 3: Casting off the Withered Branch: The Rhetoric of Expropriation
Chapter 4: The World has Hated you: The Rhetoric of Repudiation
Chapter 5: Rhetorical Ioudaioi and Real Jews
Part III: Imagining the Rhetorical Situation
Chapter 6: The Jews had already agreed: J.L. Martyn and the Expulsion Theory
Chapter 7: We Wish to See Jesus: John, Alexandra and the Propulsion Theory

Reviews

Reinhartz’s final foray into the rhetorical world of the Fourth Gospel is as incisive as ever . . . Her willingness to, at times, lay herself bare—emphasizing her identity and social location—make Reinhartz’s analysis crucial reading, and offers a helpful model for readers to follow.
— Reading Religion

In Cast out of the Covenant, Adele Reinhartz combines the insights of long engagement in the debate with a clear-sighted analysis of locating these various perspectives in presenting a sustained account of the problem and of what is at stake. . . . .This is a both scholarly and readable, engaging book on what remains an important topic for exegesis and for hermeneutics.
— The Catholic Biblical Quarterly

[W]hat the reader finds is a fresh argument based upon rhetorical analysis that builds upon Reinhartz’s previous work and is likely to persuade many to her position that anti-Judaism is part of the constitutive fabric of the Gospel. . . . I approached reading this work as both a compliant reader, insofar as I have great respect for Adele Reinhartz’s work, and a resistant reader, insofar as I was not ready to let go of the hope that John’s anti-Jewish tenor could be defused. I must, however, concede that Reinhartz’s analysis of Johannine rhetoric and her propulsion theory makes sense, not just of bits and pieces of the Gospel, but of the entire fabric of it. I can find no loose threads with which to unravel it. The task at hand now is to acknowledge this anti-Judaism forthrightly when I study, preach, and teach from this Gospel.

— Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology

Cast Out of the Covenant is a devastatingly compelling book. . . . meticulously argued, coherently structured, and written with clarity. Indeed, the overall presentation of this book is delightful. Even my students who are not familiar with the style of academic monographs found the book engaging. This book serves as a useful introduction to anti-Jewish rhetoric, several important Johannine themes and passages, and the complexities of translating Ioudaioi. It is a superb introduction to Christian supersessionism and the so-called “parting of the ways.” Importantly, it meets readers in the present as it continues an important thread in Jewish-Christian dialogue. . . . Cast Out of the Covenant showcases a rare honesty in both voice and approach. Reinhartz bridges (in a few crucial ways) the usual distance between scholar and scholarship. She invites the reader toward her research with determined vulnerability.

— JJMJS: Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting

The present book marks a concluding step on this brilliant Jewish scholar’s long journey of befriending the author of the Fourth Gospel. Reinhartz is not willing to follow the apologetic moves of many of her Christian fellow-exegetes to explain away John’s anti-Jewish polemics as a still inner-Jewish dispute or a merely marginal element of the gospel text. In her view, the anti-Jewish stance is at the core of its rhetorical construction, and thus more closely linked to the tragedies of later Christian anti-Judaism than most exegetes care to admit.
— Jörg Frey, University of Zurich

With historical-critical precision and literary-critical acuity, Reinhartz dismisses popular reconstructions of a pre-gospel Johannine community, demolishes standard apologetics for John’s vituperations, and convincingly indicts the Gospel for anti-Jewish rhetoric. The volume represents not only the culmination of decades of Johannine studies, it portends a paradigm shift in the field.
— Amy-Jill Levine, Vanderbilt University

Regular Reinhartz readers will not be surprised that she has published another book on John that challenges widely held views of its origin and purpose. She is no “compliant reader” of the Gospel, but she presents “Alexandra,” who is. This engaging exploration of John’s rhetoric and its effects almost assures that conversations about John will now be using new terms, such as “affiliation,” “disaffiliation,” “expropriation,” “propulsion theory,” and, yes, “Alexandra.”
— R. Alan Culpepper, Mercer University

In this book Adele Reinhartz presents a fresh synthesis of her many years of diligent scholarship on the way the gospel of John relates to Judaism. Guided by historical imagination, the six chapters of this book offer a comprehensive approach to the central question of Johannine exegesis: how do Jewishness and anti-Judaism relate to one another in the fourth gospel? Creative thinking outside the box has long been Reinhartz’s trademark, and this new book is no exception. Reinhartz is not afraid of challenging scholars who become too self-assured of their convenient convictions. She sketches the different dimensions of rhetoric which are at play in John’s narrative presentation of the Jews. Marked by a disarming honesty, this book confronts us with an ‘inconvenient truth’, or at least Reinhartz’s ‘inconvenient truth’ with regard to a research topic of greatest importance, both in historical and in contemporary perspective. A vintage Adele Reinhartz book which is a must for every student of the gospel of John, especially those of us who will not be inclined to agree with her central thesis.
— Reimund Bieringer, KU Leuven

Cast Out of the Covenant

Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John

Adele Reinhartz

Cast Out of the Covenant

Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John

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