While browsing in a bookstore a few weeks ago, I came across a Paul Elie's Reinventing Bach, which is not only a biography of the great composer Johann Sebastian Bach but also an account of some of the most celebrated interpreters of Bach. As I was glancing through the book, my eyes happened to fall on the author's discussion of Bach's St. John Passion, a choral work that retells the story of the last week of the Lord Jesus' life before His crucfixion, based primarily on the Gospel of John in the New Testament. In the course of his discussion, the author mentioned that there has been some controversy over the text Bach used, as some have viewed John's gospel as anti-Semitic.
This controversy over the alleged anti-Jewish character of the Gospel of John is related to a larger discussion over the origins of the anti-Semitic attitudes and actions of many self-professed Christians over the centuries. Sad to say, the reality of "Christian" anti-Semiticism cannot be denied---even as great a figure as the reformer Martin Luther was guilty of it. I still recall a Good Friday sermon I heard at an Episcopal church many years ago in which the minister mentioned that during the Middle Ages it was common for (putative) Christians to engage in violence against Jews on Good Friday on the grounds that the Jews were "Christ-killers." Although I remember thnking at the time that the minister was trying a little too hard to be provocative, I can't deny that he had a point. The history of Christians' treatment of the Jews is filled with many shameful episodes. (Moreover, ironically, one could argue that these attacks against Jews by medieval Christians help illustrate how deep human sinfulness is--the very reason for the Cross.)
It has often been alleged that the origin of this "Christian" anti-Semiticism was the text of the New Testament itself, as the New Testament contains a number of passages which are perceived as be derogatory toward the Jewish people, the Gospel of John being a prime example of this. In various places in John's gospel "the Jews" are portrayed in a negative light. Much could be said about this larger claim about the New Testament, but in this post I would like to focus on the question of whether John's gospel is in fact ant-Semitic.
Actually, I've always had a bit of a problem with the assertion that the Gospel of John is anti-Semitic, given the fact that its author was himself a Jew (I realize some might deny that the Apostle John was the author, but I don't find such a claim very compelling in light of the evidence). To be fair, there is the concept of the "self-hating Jew," but I have yet to see an argument that John was one. Indeed, from what we can read in the New Testament, it hardly seems that any of Jesus' original disciples, all of whom were Jews, were ashamed of and/or wished to reject their Jewish heritage. In addition, as Doug Ward points out at graceandknowledge.faithweb.com (see here), John himself indicates in his gospel that he intended to show that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and his gospel is full of references to the Jewish scriptures and Jewish festivals, strongly suggesting that his intended audience were Jews or Gentiles (non-Jews) who had converted to Judaism. He quotes D.A. Carlson as saying that John was "not motivated by a desire to destroy what he understands to be right and good in Judaism, but to controvert those who have so failed to appreciate their own
heritage that they have failed to see its fulfillment in Jesus Christ."
So, to whom was the Apostle John referring when wrote of "the Jews" (Ioudaioi in the original Greek)? A careful study of how John uses this term shows that he did not always employ it to express the same meaning. In some cases, the term is used to refer to the Jewish people in general. For example, in the fourth chapter of the gospel, the Lord Jesus tells a Samaritan woman that "salvation is of the Jews" (which is actually a quite positive statement about the Jews). However, in some cases, it is obvious that John is using this term to refer to a specific subset of the Jewish people. This particular group of Jews appears to consist of Jews living in Judea (the Roman province in which Jerusalem was located) and/or their leaders. For instance, in the eleventh chapter of John's gospel, when Jesus talks about going back to Judea, His disciples refer to the hostility of "the Jews" toward him. In some cases, it is clear that "the Jews" refers even more narrowly to the Jewish religious leaders, who were based in Jerusalem (the site of the Temple) , in Judea (see 1:19; 18:14, 36, 38; 19:7, 12, 14, 31).
In short, returning to the point discussed in my first paragraph, when J.S. Bach composed his St John Passion, he was not guilty of employing an anti-Semitic text. Rather, he chose a text that portrays some of the Jews, primarily their religious leaders, in a generally negative light. In a way, this use of a general term referring to a certain ethnicity to indicate a subset of individuals of that ethnicity is not that unusual in modern English. For example, news reports often refer to "the Chinese" or "the Russians" when, in fact, these phrases are being used as a sort of shorthand for "the leaders of China" or "Russian officials." Thus, the allegation that the Gospel of John is anti-Semitic appears to be based to a large extent on a misunderstanding of linguistic conventions.
Image of John the Apostle from hermitagemuseum.org