Did Jesus really call the Jews of his day children of the devil? Would he label Jews of today the same way? Did the Jews kill Jesus and then violently expel from the synagogue anyone who accepted him as a promised Messiah? The Christian church has found answers to these and other similar questions in the Gospel of John. But Jewish readers are justifiably offended by many of John’s answers. The eleven essays offered here present facts everyone should know. They are written by a modern Jewish scholar responding to troubling questions about John raised over a period of more than forty years by his university students, by congregants in synagogues he has served as spiritual guide (rabbi), and by Christian colleagues with whom he has worked throughout his long career. Designed to engage thoughtful readers from every religious background, these essays encourage questions and suggest plausible answers to the problems in John by illustrating the difference between the answers of John and the facts of history. They also compare John’s Jesus with the teachings of the modern church about the treatment of “others,” love for all humanity, and the wholeness of body and spirit.

Until the mid-1960s, most commentators of the Gospel of John were aware of a polemic against 'the Jews,' yet they did not consider it with reference to contemporary ethical discussion. A shift in focus in Johannine scholarship is noticeable from the mid-1960s and 1970s to the present, where commentators began to connect the Gospel's polemic against 'the Jews' with potential anti-Judaism in the text. As yet, very little work has been done to answer the question of how this change in sensitivity came about. This book is a historiography of one scholar's growing awareness of potential anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John with the intention of using this individual history to explain the larger trend in biblical studies. Sonya Cronin examines the published work of Raymond Brown, a prominent Catholic New Testament scholar, between the years 1960-1998. The book contextualizes Brown's work by evaluating the impact of ecclesiastical statements and the influence of earlier and contemporary Johannine scholarship on Brown's biblical interpretation, and then posits theories as to why change occurs at specific times.

Understanding Judaism and the Jews in the Gospel of John: Polemic, Tradition, and Johannine Self-Identity reopens the perennial question of the Fourth Gospel’s perplexing characterization of “the Jews.” According to the reigning paradigm, the Gospel of John witnesses to a community’s burgeoning sense of religious distinctiveness. Ethnically Jewish believers in Jesus had begun to forge a new identity in contrast to the Jews. Nathan Thiel assesses the weaknesses of the prevailing model, arguing that the fourth evangelist still saw himself as living and working within the Jewish tradition. Yet if the Gospel of John is the literary product of a self-consciously Jewish author, why would he speak so often and so critically of “the Jews”? Thiel considers the factors which have conditioned the evangelist’s choice of terminology: the Gospel’s setting, its intended audience, and, above all, John’s indebtedness to Scripture. As a first-century Jew well-versed in Israel’s sacred texts, the evangelist has modeled his story of Jesus after patterns familiar to him from the Scriptures—Scriptures in which Israelite authors consistently portray their ancestors as faithless despite God’s powerful work on their behalf. John is a relentless critic, but such cutting theological assessment had long been part of Israel’s counterintuitive way of telling its history.

Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry (SHERM journal) is a biannual, not-for-profit, free peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes the latest social-scientific, historiographic, and ecclesiastic research on religious institutions and their ministerial practices. SHERM is dedicated to the critical and scholarly inquiry of historical and contemporary religious phenomena, both from within particular religious traditions and across cultural boundaries, so as to inform the broader socio-historical analysis of religion and its related fields of study. The purpose of SHERM is to provide a scholarly medium for the social-scientific study of religion where specialists can publish advanced studies on religious trends, theologies, rituals, philosophies, socio-political influences, or experimental and applied ministry research in the hopes of generating enthusiasm for the vocational and academic study of religion while fostering collegiality among religious specialists. Its mission is to provide academics, professionals, and nonspecialists with critical reflections and evidence-based insights into the socio-historical study of religion and, where appropriate, its implications for ministry and expressions of religiosity.

In order to evaluate the impact of Calvin's teachings on modern Reformed theology regarding the Jews, examines not only Calvin's criticism of Jews (sometimes couched in very harsh words), but his theology in general which may shed light on his stance on this issue. Calvin's writings show that he saw the Old and the New Testaments as an essential unity, he believed that God did not reject His people, that the Jewish Law was still valid, and that salvation was still open to the Jews. His criticism of the Jews concerned the Jews' strict reliance on their physical descent from Abraham, their dependence upon works of the Law for salvation, and their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. The Reformed Church adopted Calvin's conception of the single covenant, but have not overcome his supersessionism. Calls for the formulation of a comprehensive doctrine on the Jews which does justice to the Reformed tradition and avoids the pitfalls of anti-Judaism.

Did Jesus really call the Jews of his day children of the devil? Would he label Jews of today the same way? Did the Jews kill Jesus and then violently expel from the synagogue anyone who accepted him as a promised Messiah? The Christian church has found answers to these and other similar questions in the Gospel of John. But Jewish readers are justifiably offended by many of John's answers. The eleven essays offered here present facts everyone should know. They are written by a modern Jewish scholar responding to troubling questions about John raised over a period of more than forty years by his university students, by congregants in synagogues he has served as spiritual guide (rabbi), and by Christian colleagues with whom he has worked throughout his long career. Designed to engage thoughtful readers from every religious background, these essays encourage questions and suggest plausible answers to the problems in John by illustrating the difference between the answers of John and the facts of history. They also compare John's Jesus with the teachings of the modern church about the treatment of "others," love for all humanity, and the wholeness of body and spirit.