HOW CAN WE EXPLAIN NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES TO
THE JEWS AND THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS
IS THE GOSPEL
OF JOHN
ANTISEMITIC?
Charges of the New Testament and, particularly, the Gospel of
John being antisemitic are nothing new. Many Jewish people grow
up in neighborhoods suffering antisemitic attitudes from Gentile
neighbors. It is assumed that they were Christian simply because
they were not Jewish and went to church. We might reason that
since the New Testament is their holy book, surely it teaches them
to hate Jewish people. Some of the statements in the Gospel of
John have been used to support that assumption, and those
statements have even been misused by some Gentiles to support
antisemitic views.
The charge of antisemitism in the Gospel of John usually
involves negative statements about “the Jews.” The assumption is
that those statements are intended by the author to induce dislike
and hatred of “the Jews,” both as a people and as individuals. In
John 5:16, 18 and 7:1, it says that “the Jews” sought to kill Jesus.
There are also other examples of “the Jews” showing opposition
and even hostility toward Jesus. But is that what John meant when
he used the term “the Jews?” John, being Jewish himself, was not
talking about all Jewish people at all times. He was referring to a
specific subgroup of Jewish people in a specific time that were in
opposition to Jesus.
The term Jews (, Ioudaioi, in Greek) is used about
seventy times in the Gospel of John and not all references have a
negative connotation. In John 2:6, the word is used to explain a
Jewish custom. In John 4:22, John reports that “salvation is from
the Jews.” In John 4:9, Jesus is identified as a Jew. In John 11:45
and 12:11, John reports that many Jewish people believed in Jesus.
In John 7:1, the term is used for the Jewish leadership in Judea.
The most common use of the term Ioudaioi refers to the Jewish
leadership, especially for those in Judea and Jerusalem (e.g.,
John 1:19). In many of those instances, Jesus is in opposition to
that leadership. This opposition was a “within the family” dispute
because those on both sides of the issues were Jewish, including
Jesus and His disciples.
Not all Jewish leaders are presented negatively. For example,
Nicodemus (John 3:1-21; 7:50) and Joseph of Arimathea
(John 19:38-42) are presented in a positive way. The diversity of the
use of the language as well as the context in which the term Ioudaioi
was used in John’s Gospel demonstrate that Jesus was referring to
the Judean leadership of His day who, for the most part, missed the
mark and stood in opposition to the Jewish Messiah and those
Jewish people who put their faith and trust in Jesus.
One could argue that any criticism of Jewish leadership or even
of Jewish people is antisemitic. If one makes that argument then
386
John Chrysostom preaches
against the Jewish people
325
The Council of Nicaea calls
Jews “our adversaries”
SPECIAL EDITION | THE CHOSEN PEOPLE | 4
624
Mohammed watches as 600
Jews are decapitated
943–944
Byzantine Jews from all over the
Empire flee from persecution
167
Earliest known accusation of Jewish
deicide made in the tract “Peri Pascha”