Befriending The Beloved Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John

207 Pages·2002·11.544 MB·English

by  Adele Reinhartz

BEFRIENDING THE BELOVED DISCIPLE
This page intentionally left blank
Befriending the Beloved Disciple
A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John
Adele Reinhartz
Continuum
New York London
2OOJ
The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
15 East 2.6 Street, New York, NY 10010
The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
Copyright © 2001 by Adele Reinhartz
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reinhartz, Adele, 1953-
Befriending the beloved disciple : a Jewish reading of the Gospel of John /
Adele Reinhartz.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8264-1446-X
1. Bible. N.T. John-Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Bible. N.T. John-Theology. I.
Title.
BS2615.2 R382 2001
226.5'06-dc21
00-065762
Grateful acknowledgment is offered to the following publishers for permission to use por-
tions or versions of previously published material:
In chapter 3: "The Johannine Community and its Jewish Neighbors: A Reappraisal." In
What is John? Vol. 2 Literary and Social Readings of the Fourth Gospel, edited by Fernando F.
Segovia, 111-38. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998.
In chapter 5: "John 8:31-59 from a Jewish Perspective." In Remembering for the Future 2000:
The Holocaust in an Age of Genocides. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd. New York: Grove
Dictionaries Inc., 2001.
In chapter 5: "The Colonized as Colonizer: Intertextual Dialogue between the Gospel of
John and Canadian Identity." In Postcolonialism and John, edited by Jeffrey Staley and R. S.
Sugirtharajah. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.
In chapter 5: "John 8:31-59 from a Jewish Perspective." In Anti-Judaism and the Fourth
Gospel: Papers from the Leuven Colloquium, January 2000, edited by Reimund Bieringer,
Didier Pollefyt and Frederique Vandercasteele-Vanneuville. Used by permission of West-
minster John Knox Press (Louisville, Ky., 2001) and, in Europe, by permission of Van Gor-
cum Press (Assen), 2001.
In chapter 6: "To Love the Lord: An Intertextual Reading of John 20." In The Labour of Read-
ing: Essays in Honour of Robert C. Culley, edited by Fiona Black, Roland Boer, Christian Kelm,
and Erin Runions, 56-69. Semeia Studies. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999.
For my children
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
(Psalm 122:6)
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 9
CHAPTER
1. Prologue 11
2. Reading as Relationship 17
3. The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple 32
4. The Beloved Disciple as Mentor:
A Compliant Reading of the Fourth Gospel 54
5. The Beloved Disciple as Opponent:
A Resistant Reading of the Fourth Gospel 81
6. The Beloved Disciple as Colleague:
A Sympathetic Reading of the Fourth Gospel 99
7. The Beloved Disciple as Other:
An Engaged Reading of the Fourth Gospel 131
8. Conclusion: Befriending the Beloved Disciple 160
NOTES 168
BIBLIOGRAPHY 187
INDEX OF ANCIENT LITERATURE 199
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 203
INDEX OF NAMES 205
7
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments
MY PROFOUND THANKS FIRST TO FRANK OVEIS, SENIOR EDITOR
at The Continuum International Publishing Group, for suggesting
this project and for prodding me gently and firmly until I agreed to do it.
The ideas in this book developed over a period of several years and in inter-
action with a good many friends, students, and colleagues at McMaster
University, in the Johannine Literature Section of the Society of Biblical
Literature, and at Leuven. Jan Willem van Henten, James Kee, Travis
Kroeker, Robert Kysar, Gary Phillips, and Sharon Ringe read and com-
mented on various drafts, challenged me at many points, and helped me to
think through some of the most difficult issues. Any errors of fact or of
judgment remain my own. Thank you to Ken Penner and David Miller for
providing excellent research assistance and proofreading, and to Jennifer
Nettleton for all manner of assistance during my sabbatical year. Research
for this book was aided by McMaster University and the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada. The book was completed during
my stay as a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew Univer-
sity, a haven from the tumult of life in Jerusalem in these unsettled days,
and at all times a warm and inviting research environment. As always, I
owe a large debt to my spouse, Barry Walfish, whose eagle eye saved me
from many typographical errors, compositional infelicities, and substan-
tive oversights. I dedicate this book to our children, Miriam-Simma,
Mordechai, Shoshana, and Simcha, for the joy they bring to my life every
day, and in the hope that they will soon see peace reign in this region.
Jerusalem
Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) 5761/2000
9