Jesus as Means and Locus of Worship in the Fourth Gospel

The anti-Semitic Gospel--this is how the book of John is frequently described and perceived, thanks to the pervasive presence of the Jews as Jesus' enemies who harass the Son of God to his death. But how accurate is this assessment? This book presents John as Jewish to its core, a record of first-century Judaism's searching for a place of worship after the traumatic destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE. As Judean religious authorities regrouped to redefine the faith of Israel, the Jesus sect within Judaism took a different course, proposing that worship was not to be found in Torah study or in the temples of Roman civic religion, but in the person of Jesus, Israel's Messiah. John achieved this by presenting Jesus as the sacrifice demanded of all worship in the ancient Mediterranean, the temple in which sacrifice was performed, and the priest who offers the sacrifice, with those who embraced this sacrifice as Israel in the wilderness, possessing the divine Presence in its midst. Relying on traditions of the Binding of Isaac, the Suffering Servant, and Jewish temple rites, John, far from proclaiming the futility of Jewish worship, seeks to preserve it in the person of Jesus. In the best traditions of Catholic engagement with the Jewish Studies, Kathleen Troost-Cramer has argued her case clearly and persuasively. I am confident that all her future research will continue to challenge the field of New Testament Studies as does this current publication. -- Eliyahu Lizorkin-Eyzenberg, Israel Study Center, President Kathleen Troost-Cramer earned her PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University School of Theology in 2016. She is an adjunct instructor in the Theology Department of Providence College and facilitates online courses in Scripture and theology for Notre Dame University and the Diocese of Providence, and in the Jewish origins of Christianity for eTeacher/Israel Institute of Biblical Studies and the Israel Study Center.