1. Introduction
The use of narrative criticism in the study of the Gospel of John has been popular for over thirty years. One of the attractions of the method is that it provides a means that is methodologically grounded for approaching the Gospel of John in its present form – without the need to try to explain all of the peculiar features of the Gospel. I do not say that this was the rationale of the earliest proponents of the method. But any method that frees the critic from the complexities and perplexities of the Gospel as it stands does have an obvious appeal to it. This certainly has not hurt the possibilities of its more general acceptance.
As time has gone on, the method itself has undergone a variety of modifications ranging from studies that adopt various strict theoretical models to studies that can be described simply as ‘a close reading’.Footnote 1 But all such studies are based on the conviction that the Gospel of John is a narrative. That is, it contains the three elements constitutive of narrative: a discernible plot, a series of characters within that plot, and all of this taking place within a consistent setting.
However, it appears that there are aspects of the plot, the character portrayal and the setting of the Gospel of John that have escaped full attention. These elements suggest that the methods as employed in the analysis of ordinary narrative may require some modification in order to respond adequately to a document such as the Gospel of John. This study is intended to call attention to one aspect of the study of the Gospel that seems to call for such attention: the study of character, exemplified in the study of the group character of ‘the religious authorities’ in the Gospel.
2. The Religious Authorities as Group Character in the Gospel
I choose to study the character of the religious authorities in the Gospel for two reasons. First, they are arguably the most frequently appearing group character in the Gospel, except perhaps for that of the disciples. Second, I believe that there is a presumption active in much study of the group character of the religious authorities that is erroneous and, when corrected, yields a new and more satisfying understanding of the terms for religious authorities.
In his definition of character in narrative, J. Resseguie describes how characters are defined and revealed:
Characters reveal themselves in their speech (what they say and how they say it), in their actions (what they do), by their clothing (what they wear), in their gestures and posture (how they present themselves). Characters are known by what others say about them. What do the disciples or authorities say about Jesus, for instance? Or what does the narrator say about him?Footnote 2
Today scholars using the narrative critical method tend to conclude that both the terms ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’ (Φαρισαῖοι, ἀρχιερεῖς, ἄρχοντες), on the one hand, and the term ‘Jews’ (Ἰουδαῖοι) on the other, are synonymous and refer to religious authorities in the Gospel.Footnote 3 As a result, they are to be treated as a single group character within the narrative of the Gospel. Alternatively the one group is seen as a sub-set of the other.Footnote 4
2.1 Recent Narrative Study of the Term Ἰουδαῖοι in the Gospel
It has long been noted that the Greek term Ἰουδαῖοι appears more than seventy times in the Gospel. But there has been debate whether all of these instances should be thought of as having the same meaning or as having a variety of meanings.Footnote 5 For example, A. Culpepper argued that ‘the limitation of the current analyses [i.e. those which see a variety of meanings] is that they lead to the conclusion that the reader of the gospel must always be asking whether the Jews in a given passage are the Jewish people in general, Judeans, or authorities hostile toward Jesus’.Footnote 6 As a result, Culpepper in his study of the character of the ‘Jews’ does not distinguish the various uses but treats them as one group.Footnote 7
A number of scholars, particularly narrative critics, have taken the same approach. Among such treatments, the most recent and most thorough are those of C. Bennema, R. Zimmermann and U. Poplutz.
C. Bennema has made two contributions to the study of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in the Gospel. In 2009, he published an article in which he studied the use of the term in Josephus in order to determine historically the meaning of the term in first-century Israel.Footnote 8 In that article, Bennema concluded that the term Ἰουδαῖοι was first used with a religious meaning sometime in the second century bce and, further, that it was intended to refer to a sub-group of the nation, a sub-group that upheld a stricter interpretation of their religion generally. He states:
Josephus uses the term οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι to designate certain Galileans who were strict adherents of the Torah and whose religious loyalties lay with Jerusalem.Footnote 9
John appears to employ the extended referent of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι that was known in Second Temple Judaism for the particular religious group of Torah- and temple-loyalists, found primarily (but not exclusively) in Jerusalem and Judea.Footnote 10
When Bennema describes this group of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, problems seem to develop. According to Bennema:
Οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι as a group is and remains hostile towards Jesus, but it is also divided about him and some individual Ἰουδαῖοι were able to express sympathy and even belief in Jesus – though not always in the full Johannine sense.Footnote 11
The problem however is that the members of this group are Judean but not necessarily; they are authorities but not necessarily; they are hostile to Jesus but not necessarily; even believing, but not necessarily. Yet any group, in order to be defined as a ‘group’, must have some sort of common feature. The only common feature, according to Bennema's analysis, would seem to be that they belong to a single religious or ethnic group. Thus, if we follow this reasoning, Ἰουδαῖοι refers to the entire nation. Yet this is hardly possible because it not only goes against his own conclusions but is also contradicted by texts such as John 9.18–23, where the parents are clearly Ἰουδαῖοι by ethnicity and religion but are contrasted with those who are identified as Ἰουδαῖοι in the same passage (vv. 18, 22 (twice)).
The same year, Bennema published a book on characters in the Fourth Gospel.Footnote 12 This book contained a narratological study of the term Ἰουδαῖοι within the Gospel. In this second treatment, Bennema surveys the instances of ‘the Jews’ in the Gospel. Using the definition of the term arrived at earlier, he discusses the appearance of ‘the Jews’ in relation to other figures such as Pharisees, chief priests and rulers. We need not review this aspect here. More important is that when he gets to the Lazarus episode he finds that
[t]he identity of ‘the Jews’ who have come to console Martha and Mary after the death of their brother Lazarus (11:19, 31, 33, 36, 45–46) is unclear and problematic. Although they may have been common Jerusalemites, it is more likely that these ‘Jews’ are either adherents of the Judean religion in general or the religious authorities, perhaps the influential laity as part of the religious leadership.Footnote 13
Bennema then suggests that Lazarus may have been a Ἰουδαῖος (in the sense of the ‘sub-group’ proposed by Bennema earlier) and that is why other Ἰουδαῖοι came to console Martha and Mary. The case of Lazarus may show that not every Ἰουδαῖος was hostile towards Jesus. Yet how the Ἰουδαῖοι can then be said to report the raising to the Pharisees (who are said to be members of the Ἰουδαῖοι) is not clear.
In addition, as was the case in his earlier article, Bennema nowhere discusses what the meaning of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι is in expressions such as ‘the feast of “the Jews”’ or ‘the countryside of Judea’ or in the usage by Pilate, who certainly was not just thinking of a sub-group within the Ἰουδαῖοι understood in the more general religious sense.
More recently, R. Zimmermann has also studied the term οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι from a narrative critical point of view. His conclusion, however, is remarkable. Αfter a lengthy analysis, Zimmermann concludes that there is no consistent and coherent portrayal of the group: ‘simple classification of “the Jews” is not possible due to the interlaced aspects of their characterization’.Footnote 14 Again: ‘the name alone [i.e. οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ] hardly suffices to constitute a homogeneous group. The character's parallels, overlaps, and subsets produce a complex system of classification that can scarcely lead to clear results in the text.’Footnote 15 Yet again: ‘Even if we limit ourselves to the passages in which “the Jews” appear as actors, the statements often remain manifold and even contradictory.’Footnote 16
He goes on: ‘As a reader in need of harmony or a scholar seeking consistency it is difficult to bear up under these tensions. One tends to resolve them hastily using operations from source criticism or textual criticism.’Footnote 17 Zimmermann's newFootnote 18 conclusion is that the notion both of an inconsistent portrayal and of an unreliable narrator are found in other (modern) literature and ‘this concept can be transferred heuristically to the Fourth Gospel’.Footnote 19 He adds that, although this may annoy the reader, it is a valid procedure. In other words, there is no consistent portrayal of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι as a character in the Gospel.
I would agree with Zimmermann's conclusion regarding the analysis itself: there is no way to arrive at a consistent meaning or usage or character portrayal of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in the Gospel if a person attempts to treat all instances of the term as having one meaning. To the benefit of scholarship, it would seem that Zimmermann's study reveals precisely why the current application of narrative criticism to the Gospel's characters is flawed. We will see what I believe to be a more satisfactory approach below.
2.2 Recent Narrative Study of ‘the Pharisees’ (and the ‘Chief Priests’ and ‘Rulers’)
U. Poplutz presents a portrait of the character of ‘the Pharisees’ (οἱ Φαρισαῖοι) in the same volume in which Zimmermann's essay appears. Right from the beginning, Poplutz explains that the characterisation of the ‘Pharisees’ is ‘vague’ and as a result ‘an accurate narratological classification of the Pharisees as a specific group character is not always possible’.Footnote 20 The ‘Pharisees’ are portrayed as belonging to the ‘Jews’. Poplutz sees these various groups of authorities as appearing both individually and in alternating coalitions. In addition, ‘[t]he narrator combines the chief priests, scribes [sic] and Pharisees into various pairs without any differentiation in their speech or actions’.Footnote 21 According to Poplutz, ‘blurring of lines between “the Pharisees” and “the Jews” can occur … [B]ecause of certain behaviours by the group, which are easily recognizable to recipients, the labels “Pharisees” and “Jews” can oscillate. A less attentive reader will not necessarily pick up on this subtlety at all.’Footnote 22 In other words, this vague characterisation is deliberate.
Poplutz goes further and finds that ‘it is difficult to separate “the Jews” precisely from the Pharisees and in several episodes they are synonymous. Two such instances are in Chapter 8 and in 9:13–41.’Footnote 23 As examples, Poplutz refers to 8.13, where the speakers are ‘the Pharisees’ – but in 8.22 ‘the Jews’ are the speakers. Nevertheless, Poplutz concludes that ‘the Pharisees’ and ‘the Jews’ are the same character in chapter 9.
In conclusion, Poplutz states that ‘[t]he imprecise alternation of the terms “the Jews” and “the Pharisees” is then no coincidence but rather reflects the perception of the Johannine community at the end of the first century ce. Just as the historical Pharisees resisted Jesus, so do they resist the later community.’ Thus they provide ‘group relevance’, a portrayal that also has meaning for the Johannine community later in the first century.Footnote 24
It should be obvious from this brief summary that Poplutz does not simply study the ‘Pharisees’ in isolation, as her title might suggest, but attempts to relate ‘the Pharisees’ to ‘the Jews’.
Poplutz makes several interesting observations but her treatment is marred in part by a failure ever to state which texts she sees as belonging to ‘the Jews’, although it seems from her treatment that she takes them all as a single group.Footnote 25 This brings with it the problems associated with the treatment by Zimmermann.
Poplutz's comment that ‘the readers … understand the Pharisees as the most important representatives of Judaism in the Fourth Gospel, second only to the chief priests’ is also a curious one. In term of the expressed hostility and repeated attempts to actually kill Jesus, it would seem that ‘the Jews’ would be the most important group from the point of the narrative.
However, I would find most difficulty with Poplutz's statement that ‘“the Jews” and “the Pharisees” are one and the same’.Footnote 26 Like Zimmermann, she does not see a clear distinction between ‘the Pharisees’ and ‘the Jews’. However, her explanation is different. The ‘Pharisees’ are, and are not, like ‘the Jews’; their roles ‘oscillate’. However, the blurring of lines between the two groups is part of the author's ‘narrative strategy’. It is the author's way of relating the Pharisaic opposition of Jesus’ ministry to the opposition of the author's own time. While I would agree that the Gospel contains two historical periods of reference, this is not achieved by blurred lines of characterisation. As I will show below, the character of the two groups is quite clearly distinguished when the various meanings of the term Ἰουδαῖοι are properly distinguished.
3. A Different Perspective on the Problem
3.1 The Terms Φαρισαῖοι, ἀρχιερεῖς, ἄρχοντες in the Gospel
My initial discussion of these terms is relatively straightforward. The term Pharisees (Φαρισαῖοι) occurs nineteen times in the Gospel, excluding its appearance in the pericope of the woman taken in adultery: 1.24; 3.1; 4.1; 7.32 (twice), 45, 47, 48; 8.13; 9.13, 15, 16, 40; 11.46, 47, 57; 12.19, 42; 18.3. The term ‘chief priests’ (ἀρχιερεῖς) (in the plural rather than the singular)Footnote 27 occurs ten times: 7.32, 45; 11.47, 57; 12.10; 18.3, 35; 19.6, 15, 21. The term ‘rulers’ (ἄρχοντες) occurs four times in the sense of religious authorities: 3.1; 7.26, 48; 12.42.Footnote 28
These three terms are often intermixed with one another and thus constitute a single group of religious authorities. For example, ‘Pharisees’ occurs with ‘rulers’ three times (3.1; 7.48; and 12,42) and with ‘chief priests’ five times (7.32, 45; 11.47, 57; and 18.3).
3.2 The Term Ἰουδαῖοι in the Gospel
When we turn to the study of Ἰουδαῖοι, we see that the issue is more complex. As we have observed, some would argue that the term Ἰουδαῖοι has only one meaning in the Gospel. Others have argued that it has a number of meanings and that only some of its occurrences refer to religious authorities. I would make four observations that I believe are significant for concluding that the term ‘Jews’ (Ἰουδαῖοι) in the Gospel has multiple meanings.
First, in a document that exhibits a text as complicated and having as many inconsistencies as the Gospel of John, it seems only reasonable to allow for the possibility of some complexity with regard to the usage of language. Narrative criticism does not ask about the genesis of the text or the process of composition and so regularly decides, as a methodological procedure, to treat all instances of the term as having the same meaning. Given the less-than-satisfactory analyses of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in the past and an article that concludes that the meaning of the term is a jumble when read from this methodological perspective, as does Zimmermann, at the very least it seems reasonable to take the possibility of multiple meanings as an hypothesis.
A second consideration is related to this. In the works of Josephus, there are a number of texts that show clearly that he used the term Ἰουδαῖος with two distinct meanings. These meanings can be determined from the context in which they appear. We will examine them in some detail because of the importance of the evidence contemporary with the Gospel that they provide.
Josephus uses the term Ἰουδαία with reference to a region. In Jewish War 3.3.4 §48, when Josephus describes the location of Samaria, he says:
ἡ δὲ Σαμαρεῖτις χώρα μέση μὲν τῆς Γαλιλαίας ἐστὶ καὶ τῆς Ἰουδαίας· ἀρχομένη γὰρ ἀπὸ τῆς ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ κειμένης Γηνεὼς ὄνομα κώμης ἐπιλήγει τῆς Ἀκραβετηνῶν τοπαρχίας· φύσιν δὲ τῆς Ἰουδαίας κατ’ οὐδὲν διάφορος.
The province of Samaria lies between Galilee and Judea. Beginning from the village of Genea, situated in the plain, it terminates at the toparchy of Acrabatene. As to character, it differs in no way from Judea.
In this instance, Josephus is clearly using the term to describe the southern region of the country. His comment that the character of the land of Judea does not differ from that of Samaria confirms this: the term clearly refers to a region.
In addition, the term is used by Josephus in reference to nationality. In the passage below, Josephus is describing an attack on Jotapata (a village in Galilee) by the Romans during the revolt of 66 ce. According to Josephus’ account, the inhabitants of Jotapata were fearful for their lives, for the lives of their wives and children, and for the possibility of their city being destroyed, and so responded to the attack of the Romans fiercely and their defence was successful:
καὶ πολλοὺς μὲν τιτρώσκουσι τῶν Ῥωμαίων, ἑπτὰ δὲ ἀναιροῦσιν διὰ τὸ μήτε ἄτακτον αὐτῶν τὴν ὑποχώρησιν γενέσθαι καὶ τὰς πληγὰς ἐπιπολαίους πεφραγμένων πάντοθεν τῶν σωμάτων, τούς τε Ἰουδαίους πόρρωθεν βάλλειν πλέον ἢ συμπλέκεσθαι θαρρεῖν γυμνῆτας ὁπλίταις. ἔπεσον δὲ καὶ τῶν Ἰουδαίων τρεῖς ἄνδρες καὶ ἐτρώθησαν ὀλίγοι. (Jewish War 3.6.1 §113–14)
[The people of Jotapata] wounded many of the Romans, but killed no more than seven because the retreat of the Romans was in good order and they suffered only superficial wounds because their bodies were protected all around, while the Jews preferred to fight from a distance rather than in close quarters, since they were lightly armed and confronting heavily armed soldiers. Three of the Jews fell and a few were wounded.
Here, in a text where the people of Jotapata are being contrasted with the Romans who are attacking, the people, who are more precisely ‘Galileans’, are referred to as ‘Jews’. In this instance, the word Ἰουδαῖος is being used to refer to the entire Jewish entity in contrast with the Romans.
Another example from Josephus illustrates this same contemporary usage. Josephus describes an incident that occurred when a group of Galileans were on their way to Jerusalem for Passover:
αὖθις δὲ Γαλιλαίων καὶ Σαμαρέων γίνεται συμβολή. κατὰ γὰρ Γήμαν καλουμένην κώμην, ἥτις ἐν τῷ
μεγάλῳ πεδίῳ κεῖται τῆς Σαμαρείτιδος, πολλῶν ἀναβαινόντων Ἰουδαίων ἐπὶ τὴν ἑορτὴν ἀναιρεῖταί τις Γαλιλαῖος. (Jewish War 2.12.3 §232)
Again, there was a confrontation between Galileans and Samaritans at a village called Gema, situated in the vast plain of Samaria. A large group of Jews was going up to the festival and a Galilean was killed.
Thus people who have been explicitly described as ‘Galileans’, when grouped with others, can be called ‘Jews’ when they are contrasted with ‘Samaritans’. Again the word has more than a regional meaning and reflects the period when ‘Samaritans’ were no longer considered ‘Jews’.Footnote 29
The other proposition, that the term refers at times to a group of religious authorities, does not find a parallel in Josephus. Although we may be inclined to think that these instances refer to ‘Jews’ in the national sense, when we look at texts such as John 9.22 (‘His parents said these things because they were fearing the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Jesus as the Christ, that person would be put out of the synagogue’), it seems impossible to reach any conclusion other than that this group is functioning as a group of religious authorities. This is a group that has authority to exclude from the synagogue and that must be distinguished from the parents who were, of course, ethnically Jews.
Thus it seems clear that what Culpepper (and Zimmermann and others) thought could not happen, actually does.
Third, and I believe even more significant, is the observation that, when the various meanings of Ἰουδαῖοι are properly distinguished (referring to a region, referring to nationality, referring to religious authorities), it becomes clear that each of these groups is portrayed with a remarkable consistency. However, here we will be concerned only with the third group (i.e. the religious authorities hostile to Jesus) and we will see that, when properly identified, this group is portrayed in a remarkably consistent way.
Fourth, although I would agree with Zimmermann's conclusion that there is no clear and consistent portrayal of ‘the Jews’ in the Gospel if all instances are simply grouped together and taken as having the same meaning, I would disagree with his reason for that conclusion. Zimmermann suggests that this is a deliberate technique used by the author to destabilise the reader's reaction to ‘the Jews’. This is the transference of a method from a certain type of modern narrative to a world of narrative that was designed to be catechetical, expository or paraenetic.Footnote 30 Such destabilisation would be totally out of place in this kind of literature. The other possible conclusion is that the results of Zimmermann's analysis show that the method itself is at least partially at fault and yields a jumble when applied consistently to the Gospel of John. We shall see more of this below.
3.2.1 Three Meanings of the Term Ἰουδαῖοι in the Gospel of John
As I have argued elsewhere, I strongly believe that the term Ἰουδαῖοι has three meanings in the Gospel.Footnote 31
First, the term can refer to a group that would be identified in English as ‘Judeans’, i.e. the inhabitants of the southern region of Israel, particularly those in or near the city of Jerusalem. Ἰουδαῖοι appears with the meaning of ‘Judean(s)’ thirteen times (1.19; 3.25; 10.19; 11.19, 31, 33, 36, 45, 54; 12.9, 11; 19.20, 31). Six times, it refers to the land of Judea (3.22; 4.3, 47, 54; 7.1, 3).
Second, the term can refer to the national, ethnic and religious entity.Footnote 32 This usage appears twenty-two times (2.6, 13; 3.1; 4.9a, 9b, 22; 5.1; 6.4; 7.2; 11.55; 18.20, 31, 33, 35, 39; 19.3, 19, 21a, 21b, 21c, 40, 42). In this sense, it is used to identify individuals in a context that distinguishes them from non-Jews. At times this is explicit; other times it is implicit.
The third use of the word is to refer to a group that functions as religious authorities. It appears with this meaning thirty-seven times: 2.18, 20; 5.10, 15, 16, 18; 6.41, 52; 7.1, 11, 13, 15, 35; 8.22, 31, 48, 52, 57; 9.18, 22a, 22b; 10.24, 31, 33; 11.8; 13.33; 18.12, 14, 31, 36, 38; 19.7, 12, 14, 31, 38; 20.19. Although the function is not explicitly stated in all cases, there is sufficient similarity overallFootnote 33 in these instances that they can be said to be intended to refer to religious authorities.Footnote 34
3.2.2 Two Ancillary, but Relevant, Issues
It is sometimes argued that the term Ἰουδαῖος has only a regional reference and any other meaning is derived from this and should have the meaning ‘Judean’.Footnote 35 But two distinctions must be made. The issue at stake in our study of the term in the Gospel of John is not the historical genesis of the usage of Ἰουδαῖος (i.e. how the same Greek term came to refer to both the region and the nation as a whole) but rather its use contemporary with the Gospel. Was the same Greek word in fact used to refer to both regional and national groups? Did the term have two ‘referents’ in first-century Greek literature? Josephus' answer to this is clear: yes.
The second issue is how the term should be translated into English. In English, there are two distinct words that are used to translate Ἰουδαῖος: ‘Judean’ and ‘Jew’. Thus English makes a distinction linguistically where Greek did not. Some would argue that because there is only one term in Greek there should be only one term in English. The problem is that whichever word is used in English, that word will be inevitably be recognised as part of a linguistic system/environment that possesses two words: two words, which distinguish between the regional and national use of Ἰουδαῖος. In such a linguistic environment, to use the one meaning is to implicitly deny the other. It would seem better to employ the distinctions available in English, given the fact that the Greek word Ἰουδαῖος had two meanings, one regional and one national, and that Ἰουδαῖος was used in both senses. Thus ‘Judean’ for the regional use and ‘Jew’ for the national sense. However, in an attempt to avoid this problem, where it is appropriate, I will use the Greek term for reference rather than the English.
For the reasons stated above, this study will work from the conviction that the term Ἰουδαῖος has three meanings/referents within the Gospel of John. Second, it will take into consideration only those instances of the term οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι which refer to the religious authorities.
3.3 Are Both of These Sets of Terms Meant to Refer to Religious Authorities within the Narrative?
The next question we must address is whether both sets of terms that refer to religious authorities (Set #1: ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’ (Φαρισαῖοι, ἀρχιερεῖς, ἄρχοντες); Set #2: ‘Jews’ (Ἰουδαῖοι) in the sense described above) intend to refer to a single group within the Gospel. Although it may seem improbable initially, the answer to this question is: yes.Footnote 36
First, when we look at the function of the groups represented by the two sets of terms, we see that their functions are the same. In all cases where both ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’, on the one hand, and ‘Jews’ (as defined above) on the other, appear, the groups represent the viewpoint of official Judaism.
Second, that the two sets of terms are intended to refer to the same group is made explicit in 18.10–12. In 11.47–50, we had read of Caiaphas’ advice to the Sanhedrin that Jesus should be condemned. The passage referred to the religious authorities as ‘the chief priests and the Pharisees’:
47So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said ‘What are we to do because this man performs many signs? 48If we allow him thus, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and will destroy our place and our people.’ 49One of them, Caiaphas, the chief priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing! 50Nor do you realise that it is beneficial for us that one person die for the people lest the entire people be destroyed.’
In 18.3–5, we had read of the arrest of Jesus. The terms used there to refer to the arresting party were: ‘the cohort and the attendants of the Pharisees and chief priests’:
3So Judas, taking the cohort and the attendants of the Pharisees and chief priests, came there with lanterns, torches and weapons. 4So Jesus knowing all things that were to come upon him, went out and said to them, ‘Whom do you seek?’ 5They answered him, ‘Jesus the Nazarene.’ He said, ‘I am he.’
Both of these passages are referred to later (18.12–14), but the term ‘Jews’ is substituted for the terms ‘Pharisees’ and ‘chief priests’ as used in the original account:
12So together the cohort and the tribune and the attendants of the Jews arrested Jesus, bound him, 13and led him to Annas first. For he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year. 14It was Caiaphas who counselled the Jews that it was beneficial that one person die for the people.
This passage, using the term ‘Jews’, refers back to two passages that were originally narrated using the other terms. Both clearly refer to religious authorities.
4. The Problem of the Religious Authorities as a Group Character in the Gospel
When we begin to describe the features of this group character, we find something quite surprising. If the character of ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’ (Φαρισαῖοι, ἀρχιερεῖς, ἄρχοντες) is viewed in isolation from the other set of terms, the portrayal is quite consistent and homogeneous. Likewise, if the character of ‘Jews’ (referring to religious authorities, as defined above) is viewed in isolation, it also is homogeneous. However, when we try to form a picture of the religious authorities in general (i.e. combining οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι with οἱ Φαρισαῖοι, οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς and οἱ ἄρχοντες), anything resembling homogeneity is lacking. In fact the character of the two groups can be contrasted in a number of ways. Let us examine these instances.
(1) In texts where ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’ appear, the religious authorities are regularly shown to be divided among themselves.
In 7.45–8, there is a division among the Pharisees, and their police force about Jesus. In 7.48–52, there is division between the Pharisees as a group and Nicodemus, a Pharisee who is singled out as disagreeing with the remainder. In 9.16, there is a division among the Pharisees about whether Jesus could be ‘from God’. In 12.42, there is an indication that ‘many of the rulers’ believed in Jesus, but did not confess it ‘because of the Pharisees’.
However, in texts where the religious authorities are referred to as ‘the Jews’, there is never any hint of division. From the beginning (2.18–22) they are unanimous in their opposition to Jesus. This continues through their appearance at the feast in chapter 5, in the discussion regarding the Bread of Life in chapter 6,Footnote 37 in the debate in chapter 7 about where Jesus is from and where he is going, in the debate with Jesus in chapter 8 regarding the validity of his word and his relation to Abraham. In chapter 9, ‘the Jews’ have agreed unanimously to expel anyone from the synagogue who confessed Jesus as the Christ. In chapter 10, the Jews again declare that Jesus is blaspheming. The same is true, finally, in those places where they appear throughout the Passion of Jesus.
The portrayal of the character of each group is, in this respect, quite different. They cannot be one character if one group is unanimously opposed to Jesus and the other group is regularly divided in their assessment of him.
(2) Among the ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’, there is a growth of hostility towards Jesus throughout his ministry culminating in the decision of the Sanhedrin in 11.47–54.
In 3.1–2, we notice that Nicodemus, the Pharisee, expresses only curiosity, certainly not hostility, towards Jesus. But in 4.1, we see that hostility on the part of the ‘Pharisees’ towards Jesus motivates him to move northward from Judea to Galilee. Later, at the feast of Tabernacles, the ‘Pharisees’ send out the Temple police to arrest Jesus and to bring him in for questioning (7.32, 45–52). This is a similar or perhaps even greater manifestation of hostility. After the healing of the blind man (chapter 9), the majority of the ‘Pharisees’ declare that Jesus cannot be from God because he does not keep the Sabbath.
In chapter 11, when the ‘Pharisees’ hear about the raising of Lazarus, their hostility, together with that of the chief priests, reaches a climax and they convene the Sanhedrin and condemn Jesus to death (11.47–50). This constitutes the culmination of a process that has moved from suspicion and questioning to a point when there is an attempt to take Jesus into custody for questioning and then to the point when the ‘Pharisees’ and chief priests convene a Sanhedrin and condemn Jesus to death.
However, in contrast with this portrayal, ‘the Jews’ exhibit a steady state of unbelief and hostility towards Jesus. In 2.18–22, hostility is not clearly manifest although οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι express an unbelief that is consistent with such hostility. However, mortal hostility becomes evident the next time οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι appear (5.10–18), when it is said that they are seeking to kill Jesus. Throughout the remainder of the public ministry and as far as the trial before Pilate, no other reaction is evident on the part of ‘the Jews’ except unbelief, scepticism and the desire to kill Jesus. Nor does the hostility of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι increase throughout that period. In short, as a character in the Gospel, ‘the Jews’ do not take part in the progression of the Gospel's plot. They are monolithic and unchanging.
If we look for a single set of texts where the contrast between the portrayal of ‘the Pharisees’ and ‘the Jews’ is most apparent, we find it in 9.6–17 and 18–23. In 9.6–17, it is said that the ‘Pharisees’ are divided about Jesus (v. 16); but in vv. 18–23 it is said that ‘the Jews’ are in such agreement that they had already decided, as a group, to excommunicate anyone who confessed Jesus as the Christ. Clearly this passage manifests no concern for a consistent portrayal of character as would be expected in an ordinary narrative.
Character of groups is manifested in their relation to the movement of narrative and to other actors within the narrative. In both respects the two groups are manifestly different.
(3) On the level of the function of the religious authorities within the text, it is particularly striking that the ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’ customarily react to events concerning Jesus yet do not enter into dialogue with Jesus except in the case of the question of Nicodemus (3.1). Footnote 38
However, ‘the Jews’ are in almost constant dialogue with Jesus (2.18–22; 5.10–18; 6.41, 52; 7.14–18, 33–6; 8.21, 31, 48, 52, 57; 10.22–39; 18.30–2; 19.6b–12, 14). Even when the term is mentioned in narrative, it is almost always directly or indirectly related to dialogue and debate in the immediate context.Footnote 39
The character of a given group is manifested in the way it reacts to other characters in the narrative. The interaction of these two groups with Jesus is radically different.
(4) The ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’ are concerned throughout with the ‘signs’ of Jesus. Both this group and ‘the Jews’ are concerned about Jesus breaking the Sabbath: ‘the Jews’ in 5.9b–16 and the ‘Pharisees’ in 9.14–16. Yet in the case of ‘the Jews’, the issue rapidly turns to the claims made by Jesus, and in 9.14–16 the ‘Pharisees’ turn the focus to the meaning of Jesus’ signs. The Sabbath issue is not the focus in either case. The same remains true throughout the remainder of the Gospel.
In 2.23–5 there is a report of the signs of Jesus at Passover in Jerusalem. Immediately after this, Nicodemus (identified as a ‘ruler’ and a ‘Pharisee’) asks about the meaning of Jesus’ ‘signs’. In 7.31, the crowd is said to wonder whether the Messiah would work more signs than Jesus. In the next verse we read that the ‘Pharisees’ send the temple police to arrest Jesus. In 9.13–17 and 24–34, there is a long discussion by the ‘Pharisees’ of the meaning of the sign of healing the man born blind. When Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, some of the crowd report that Jesus was doing ‘these things’ (i.e. ‘signs’) and the ‘Pharisees’ react by convening a Sanhedrin. In 12.9–11, we read that Jesus came to see Lazarus in Bethany and the ‘chief priests’ decide to kill Lazarus also since people were believing because of his being raised. In 12.18 we read that a crowd has gone out to welcome Jesus because they heard that he had performed the sign of raising Lazarus and once again the ‘Pharisees’ react, this time with apparent despair at being unable to control the people or Jesus.
When ‘the Jews’ react to Jesus, they explicitly deny a concern with miracles and exhibit concern exclusively with Jesus’ claims, which they consider to be blasphemous.
In 5.18, ‘the Jews’ are said to want to kill Jesus not only because he broke the Sabbath but because ‘he was calling God his own father, making himself equal to God’. In 10.33, ‘the Jews’ explicitly state that they are not concerned with his miracles (i.e. ‘works’ (ἔργα)) but with his claims for himself because they are blasphemous. Even during the trial before Pilate, ‘the Jews’ once again bring up the charge of blasphemy (19.7), a charge about which Pilate presumably would not have been concern.
Character is manifested in actions, and the actions and concerns of these two groups are radically different from one another and in the case of 10.33 explicitly the opposite of the other.
(5) We may also note the varying reactions of the common people to the religious authorities in the material marked by each set of terms.
In this case, it will be helpful to begin with the portrayal of the common people in relation to the religious authorities where these authorities are identified as ‘the Jews’. In passages involving ‘the Jews’, the reaction of the people to the religious authorities is one of great fear – and is expressed in a stereotyped form. In 7.13, the common people do not speak openly about Jesus ‘for fear of the Jews’. In 9.22, the parents of the blind man do not involve themselves in the discussion regarding their son ‘because they were fearing the Jews’. In 19.8, even Pilate is said to be fearful in his debate with ‘the Jews’. In 19.38, Joseph of Arimathea is said to be a disciple secretly ‘for fear of the Jews’. And finally, even on the evening of the resurrection (20.19), the disciples themselves, before they receive the Spirit, are said to be in hiding ‘for fear of the Jews’. The consistency of terminology describing this reaction could not be clearer.
However, in the material where the authorities are identified as ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’, the common people consistently show disdain for the actions and opinions of the religious authorities. This is evident first in 7.45, where the Temple police have ignored the orders of the ‘Pharisees’ to arrest Jesus and return without him. When they are asked by the authorities, the police talk back to the ‘Pharisees’ explaining that they did not bring Jesus in because ‘no one ever spoke like this man’. In the subsequent verses, the ‘Pharisees’ actually begin to debate with the police!
In chapter 9, when interrogated by the ‘Pharisees’, the man born blind engages in extended debate with the ‘Pharisees’, telling them that he has explained the miracle to them and they ‘did not listen’! He sarcastically asks them, ‘Perhaps you too want to become his disciples?’ Later, the man again replies arrogantly by reminding them of their own criteria for determining the authenticity of a person's claims:
‘This is what is surprising, that you do not know where he is from, and he opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not hear sinners; but, if a person is God-fearing and does his will, he listens to the person. 32Never has it been heard that anyone has opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33Unless this man was from God, he would not be able to do anything.’
In chapters 11 and 12, the chief priests give orders for the common people to inform the religious authorities about the whereabouts of Jesus (11.57), but the people ignore the orders of the religious authorities and continue to go to Bethany to see Jesus and Lazarus (12.9–11).
Character of groups manifests itself in the way other actors within the narrative react to them. In this case, other actors have radically different reactions to the two groups of religious authorities.
(6) Likewise, the religious authorities react to the people differently in each case.
In the texts involving ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’, the authorities engage in extended debate with the people, as we have seen. In 7.45–52, the authorities feel it necessary to engage in debate with the Temple police about the offences of Jesus. In 12.19, ‘the Pharisees’ declare the futility of their own actions and express their own fear that ‘the whole world is going after him’. In short, in this material the authorities fear the people rather than the reverse!
In contrast with the stereotyped expression of fear of the religious authorities in the first set of material, never is anyone said to ‘fear the Pharisees’ (as the Gospel recounts fear of ‘the Jews’) and never does anyone (except Jesus) debate with or speak back to ‘the Jews’ (as they do to the ‘Pharisees’).
The character of the religious authorities is portrayed in a radically different way in the two groups of terms. On this basis the two groups can hardly be said to constitute one ‘character’.
(7) Although the ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’ consider Jesus to be a sinner because he works on the Sabbath (9.16), when they finally convene the Sanhedrin, their grounds for condemning him are political. That is, they declare that, ‘if he is allowed to continue, the Romans will destroy the Temple and take away the nation's liberty’ (11.48).
However, ‘the Jews’ accuse Jesus of religious offences throughout. Although they mention Jesus’ Sabbath violations (5.16; 9.16), the narrator makes it clear that ‘the Jews’ condemn Jesus primarily for blasphemy (5.17–18). As we have seen above, the same charge is brought in 10.33. Finally we see the same during the trial when ‘the Jews’ accuse Jesus of making himself Son of God (19.7).
Character manifests itself in words and actions. Here we see that the two groups have and express radically different reasons for putting Jesus to death.
(8) The level of Christology at issue in debates with the religious authorities is considerably different in the material marked by each of the two sets of terms for religious authorities.
In passages involving ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’, the discussion is regularly about the simple question whether or not Jesus is ‘from God’. See, for example, 3.1, where Nicodemus indicates that on the basis of his signs they know that he is ‘a teacher who has come from God’. In 7.26, the crowd asks whether ‘the rulers’ believe that Jesus is ‘the Christ’.
The next time the ‘Pharisees’ and chief priests discuss Jesus (7.52) it is regarding whether he is ‘the prophet’. In 9.13, the issue is whether Jesus is ‘from God’. Later in the same episode (v. 29), the ‘Pharisees’ declare: ‘We know that God has spoken to Moses but we do not know where this one is from.’ The man then responds:
This is what is surprising, that you do not know where he is from, and he opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not hear sinners; but, if a person is God-fearing and does his will, he listens to the person. 32Never has it been heard that anyone has opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33Unless this man was from God, he would not be able to do anything.
In 11.48–50, the chief priests, together with the ‘Pharisees’, respond to reports of the raising of Lazarus by saying:
‘If we allow him thus, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and will destroy our place and our people.’ One of them, Caiaphas, the chief priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing! Nor do you realise that it is beneficial for us that one person die for the people lest the entire people be destroyed.’
What is evident in all of these instances is that the debate occurs on the level of the most basic Christology. Never is there a hint of ‘high’ Christology.
On the other hand, when ‘the Jews’ debate the identity of Jesus, it is always on the highest level. The first time ‘the Jews’ accuse Jesus (5.19), we read:
Because of this the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath but he was calling God his own father, making himself equal to God.
In the Bread of Life discourse, we read:
… the Jews murmured about him because he said, ‘I am the bread come down from heaven’, 42and they said, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he say now “I have come down from heaven”?’
Although it is clear that Jesus claims a special status, ‘the Jews’ claim he is simply human.
The closest that a title employed by ‘the Jews’ approaches a title used by the ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’ is that of ‘Christ’ which ‘the Jews’ employ when they talk with the parents of the man born blind:
The Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Jesus as the Christ, that person would be put out of the synagogue.
This title is used again in 10.24:
The Jews surrounded him and said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us openly.’
However, this title is common throughout the entire New Testament as a confessional title and is regularly understood in both a ‘high’ and a ‘lower’ sense. The true meaning of the term in this dialogue is revealed in v.33 when
[t]he Jews responded to him, ‘We do not stone you for a good work but for blasphemy and because you who are a human make yourself God.’
In 19.7, we read that in response to Pilate:
The Jews answered him, ‘We have a law and according to that law he ought to die because he made himself Son of God.’
As we have seen above, character is expressed in words with regard to other actors in the narrative. Here the concerns of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι about Jesus are radically different from those expressed by the religious authorities identified as ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’.
5. Conclusion
The problems caused by the usage of Ἰουδαῖοι in the Gospel are not simple ones. The volumes of literature on the subject are a testimony to this fact. The present article has attempted to contribute to this discussion from the perspective of narrative criticism. It has noted that there is a considerable variety of opinion among scholars with regard to the meaning of the terms the ‘Jews’ and the ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers’ and their relation to one another. As we have seen from our review of recent narratological studies, it has been common for these scholars to attempt to treat the two sets of terms as a ‘group character’. It has also been common for them to start from the conviction that the term ‘Jews’ has only one meaning in the Gospel.
This present study has taken as its starting point the analysis that indicates that the Greek term Ἰουδαῖοι has more than one meaning in the Gospel. This is, of course, not a groundless assertion, but one of the perspectives that has been proposed for well over fifty years. Nor is this view incompatible with analysis from the point of view of narrative criticism.
As we have seen, if we examine the set of terms comprised of Φαρισαῖοι, ἀρχιερεῖς, ἄρχοντες, the group presents a unified, consistent narrative character. When we examine the set of texts containing Ἰουδαῖοι in the sense of religious authorities, they also present a consistent narrative character. However, when we compare the texts containing οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι with those texts in which the religious authorities are identified as Φαρισαῖοι, ἀρχιερεῖς, ἄρχοντες, we immediately notice a considerable difference, and at times a considerable contrast, in the way the character of each group is presented.
In the face of this evidence, two conclusions appear to be warranted. First, it seems difficult to argue that the term Ἰουδαῖοι has only one meaning in the Gospel. To make this claim would imply that the obvious consistency in the meaning of thirty-six of the instances of the term Ἰουδαῖοι is a sheer accident, something impossible to believe.
Second, the individuals/groups portrayed in texts containing the term Ἰουδαῖοι cannot be said to constitute the same character as that portrayed in texts containing the terms ‘Pharisees’, ‘chief priests’ and ‘rulers.’ In the Gospel, there are two independent portrayals of the Jewish religious authorities at the time of Jesus. These two sets of material cannot be integrated into a harmonious whole.Footnote 40
Of course, it is possible for the narrative critic to respond that to say this is simply to fail to understand the nature of narrative criticism. After all, the narrative critic could say, as Powell, Staley, Moloney and many others have expressed in various ways: ‘if the narrative has two sets of terms in the final product, so be it; the critic simply must attempt to make sense of it’. I believe the matter is more complicated than that and to ‘simply make sense of it’ is to hang on to a method when it is obvious that the method is lacking in some respect.
I would argue that we determine the genre of a text in the process of reading. This does not mean that such reading is a casual affair. In the case of the character of the religious authorities in the Gospel, the distinctiveness of the two portrayals is not apparent without careful analysis. But this does not change the fact that we can see from a careful reading (i.e. analysis) that things are not what they would at first seem to be in the Gospel. When these terms are examined from a narrative point of view, there are two distinct sets of terms for religious authorities. Any satisfactory definition of narrative as it applies to this document must take this fact into account.
These conclusions constitute significant advances.
But I believe that there is more that is called for. If the Gospel has two distinct sets of terms for religious authorities, this inevitably raises further questions. Why do these terms not contribute to a harmonious reading of the Gospel? What was the purpose of including the second set? And, for that matter, which is the ‘second’ set?
Our examination of the two sets has shown that each set portrays distinctly different theological orientations. Are there other traces of these two theological orientations within the Gospel?
If there are two sets of characters for religious authorities in the Gospel, what about the other basic constituents of narrative? Is it possible that there are traces of two plot lines in the narrative of the Gospel? It would seem that the considerable contrast between the portrayal of the grounds for belief in 20.30–1 (in what is obviously intended as a conclusion to ‘the Gospel’ and where belief is based solely on signs) with the portrayal in 5.31–40 (where the grounds for belief are based on four witnesses, only one of which is the miraculous actions of Jesus) is one indication of this.
We can also ask whether there are traces of two settings within which the narrative is cast. Here again, it seems that the commonly noted attempt of the Gospel to reflect the historical ministry as well as the situation of the later community would suggest this.
These are some of the questions that may well arise and need to be dealt with.
The presence of two sets of terms for religious authorities in the Gospel also raises questions about the genre of the Gospel. How is this document meant to be read? The religious authorities represent the opposition to Jesus in the Gospel of John. This much is clear. On the basis of the study of the group character of the religious authorities, it is clear that there are two groups of authorities and they each have a different role in the narrative. In addition, the differences are not just stylistic, they also manifest differences of theology. A final answer to the question of the genre of the Gospel must inevitably await the study of the plot and of the setting of the Gospel, and the study of those elements must await another occasion.
Appendix: The Texts That Do Not Fit This Analysis Smoothly
As was mentioned briefly in the analysis above, there are some references to religious authorities that do not fit simply and neatly into the categories I have proposed. These texts should not be swept under the rug to be conveniently ignored. They should be looked at closely.
There are six such texts: 6.42, 53; 8.12, 31; 9.46; 12.42. Two general comments are in order.
First, it is one of the limitations of studying only sections, themes or terms within the Gospel apart from their larger context in the Gospel that features that appear at first to be inconsistent can be well explained when viewed in the context of the Gospel as a whole.
The apparent inconsistencies of the six texts mentioned above can be explained if examined in the larger context of the Gospel. However, it is an unavoidable shortcoming of an article-length study such as this that it is not possible to explain all such features in detail.Footnote 41
Second, some may see this as weakening the thesis that there is a uniform usage in the Gospel. It is common in criticism of such analysis to point out that if there are any exceptions, the entire analysis should thereby be declared faulty and/or inadequate. However, this is a superficial and unwarranted conclusion.
The use of terminology in a document such as the Gospel should not be regarded as a ‘code’. If there is a break in the consistency of a genuine code, the code is inadequate. We are dealing with literature. If there are a number of texts that exhibit a characteristic and some that do not, then it would seem fair to say that, at the very least, there is a pattern of usage.
To say this another way, we need to preserve the correct perspective regarding the problems associated with these texts. As we have seen, the term Ἰουδαῖοι appears thirty-seven times in the Gospel with the meaning ‘religious authorities’. The term Φαρισαῖοι appears nineteen times. The term ἀρχιερεῖς (plural) appears eleven times. The term ἄρχον/ἄρχοντες appears four times. This is a total of seventy-one instances of these terms in the Gospel. If there are irregularities concerning six instances, it seems only reasonable to conclude that the problem is with those six texts rather than with the consistency of the other sixty-five instances.
Nevertheless it is possible to make some more specific observations on the above texts.
In the case of 6.41 and 52, the term Ἰουδαῖοι alternates with ὄχλος and so appears to refer to the common people. These are the only instances where this happens (with the terms I have identified as referring to religious authorities). At the same time, these two texts manifest all the other characteristics of ‘the Jews’ as religious authorities. That is: they are in dialogue with Jesus; they exhibit hostility; the type of argument they appear in (exegetical synagogue homily) is very sophisticated; and they are debating high Christology. None of this is characteristic of ‘the Pharisees’. So what should be done? In my opinion, the only reasonable approach is to recognise that the similarities to other passages where οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι refers to religious authorities are greater than the differences and so to treat the verses as being a part of that same set of terms.Footnote 42
In 8.30, it is said that ‘many believed in him’. In v. 31, Jesus is presented as speaking to οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ‘who believed in him’. Almost all commentators note that these two verses create major difficulties of interpretation and appear to be completely out of context with the remainder of the chapter. I would agree, but I believe that it is not possible to give a satisfactory answer to this problem without discussing the larger context of the verse.Footnote 43
The same principle should be applied to the analysis of the use of ‘Pharisees’ in 8.13, 9.40 and 12.42. In all three cases, the consistency of usage is blurred by the fact that these texts occur in material that has been edited by the author of the final (third) edition of the Gospel.Footnote 44
