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

Adele Reinhartz has been studying and teaching the Gospel of John for many years. Earlier, she chose to ignore the love/hate relationship that the book provokes in her, a Jew, and took refuge in an "objective" historical-critical approach. At this stage her relationship to the Gospel was not so much a friendship as a business relationship. No longer willing to ignore the negative portrayal of Jews and Judaism in the text, nor the insight that her own Jewish identity inevitably does play a role in her work as an exegete, Reinhartz here explores the Fourth Gospel through the approach known as "ethical criticism," which is based on the metaphorical notion of the book as "friend" -- not "an easy, unquestioning companionship," but the kind of honest relationship in which ethical considerations are addressed, not avoided.

Adele Reinhartz is professor of New Testament and Second Temple Judaism at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.