Answer: Because he's writing to Greek-speaking, non-believing Jews of the diaspora who do not speak Hebrew or Aramaic. In support of the idea that John's paradigm is COMPLETELY Jewish consider the lack of reference to Gentiles. Nowhere in the book of John, along with the Johannine Epistles, is there ANY reference to, "the Gentiles". John's Gospel is the only major book in the New Testament where that phrase doesn't occur.

There are, however, two references to "Greeks".

 

The Jews said to one another, "Where does this man intend to go that we shall not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? (7:35)

 

My understanding of the Greek here is that the words are ambiguous. 'The Dispersion among the Greeks' could mean 'the Greek-speaking Diaspora' (i.e. Jews) and 'the Greeks' be an abbreviated way of referring to the same group. Or it could mean 'the Diaspora resident among the Greeks', in which case 'the Greeks' would be Gentiles. The decision between these two interpretations can in fact only be made in the light of the Johannine context as a whole. As there is no other reference in the Gospel or the Epistles to a Gentile mission, the probability would seem to be in favor of the first interpretation, especially in light of what follows;

 

We have a letter from Gamaliel (the letter of R. Gamaliel I (Jer. Sanh. 18d) that has come down to us in which he says, "...to our brethren, the sons of the diaspora of Babylon, the sons of the diaspora of Media, the sons of the diaspora of the Greeks, and all the rest of the dispersed of Israel..." The phrase 'the diaspora of the Greeks' (as opposed to "the diaspora of Greece") is exactly that which John also uses in 7.35.

 

Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. (12:20)

 

There is no suggestion in the context that they are 'God-fearers' (Gentiles who had converted to Judaism) or that they had once been Gentiles. We can deduce that they spoke Greek rather than Aramaic (and hence presumably the approach through Philip, with his Hellenistic name and place of origin (12:21)), and that they were in Jerusalem for a specifically Jewish reason - to worship at the feast. Therefore, my conclusion is that they are JEWS of the Diaspora, not Gentiles. John A. T. Robinson says,

 

The point is, the Gospel of John takes place in a COMPLETELY Jewish milieu, Gentiles as a group play no part, they are never even mentioned. Moreover, from the beginning to the end of the story there is only one individual Gentile - Pilate, hardly the figure by whom to commend the Gospel to the Gentiles. Pilate with his soldiers is necessary because otherwise Jesus could not be sentenced to death (18:31) or 'lifted up from the earth' by the Roman penalty of crucifixion (12:32 f.; cf. 18.:32). But Pilate makes it clear that he is a complete outsider to the very Jewish world within which the whole story occurs: Am I a Jew?' (18:35).

 

Contrast this with the Synoptic Gospels: The central characters are also Jews. But the Gentiles are pressing in from the periphery. At the very beginning of the Gospel of Matthew come the Magi from the east, to make it clear that Jesus is not the king of the Jews alone (Matt. 2:1 ff.). In Luke too he is hailed from the start not only as 'the glory of God's people Israel' but as 'a light for revelation to the Gentiles' (Luke 2:32). Then, within Jesus' ministry, there is the centurion whose faith is held up as an example and reproof to Israel (Matt. 8:10 = Luke 7:9). There is the Syrophoenician woman whose claim to eat of the crumbs that fall from the children's table is allowed (Mark 7:28). There is the other centurion's testimony at the Cross standing as the climax to Mark's narrative (Mark 15:39). There are the excursions of Jesus to non-Jewish territory, to the region of Tyre and Sidon (Mark 7:24), to Caesarea Philippi (8:27). There is the damning comparison of the Jewish towns with these cities of Tyre and Sidon and 'the land of Sodom and Gomorrah' (Matt. 10:15; 11:20-4). There is the example of God's preference in the past for the widow of Zarephath in Sidon and for Naaman the Syrian (Luke 4:25-7). There is the warning that foreigners like the Ninevites and the Queen of the South will stand up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it (Matt. 12:41 f. = Luke 11:31 f.). Many, again, are to come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out (Matt 8:11 f.; Luke 13:29 f.). There is the recurrent threat that echoes through the later teaching of Jesus that the vineyard will be taken away and given to others (Mark 12:9). The Temple is cleared so as to perform its true function as 'a house of prayer for all nations' (Mark 11:17). Above all there is always the sense that, while the immediate ministry of Jesus and his disciples may of necessity be confined to 'the lost sheep of the house of Israel' (Matt. 10:6; 15:24), yet ultimately the Gospel must be proclaimed in the whole world (Mark 14:9). After the Resurrection, the apostles are to go to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), making disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19; Luke 24:47). They will also have to make their defense before Gentiles (Matt. 10:18) - but this too can be turned into an opportunity for witness to them (Luke 21:12 f.). For ultimately the End cannot come till the Gospel has been preached to the entire Gentile world (Mark 13:10; Matt. 24:14).

 

But in John there is none of this. Jesus is not presented as a revelation to the Gentiles. The purpose of the Baptist's mission is simply that 'he might be revealed to Israel' (1:31). Instead of the Syrophoenician woman we have the Samaritan woman, who, though the Jews may refuse dealings with her (4:9), can still speak of 'our father Jacob' (4:12), just as later the Jews speak of 'our father Abraham' (8:53). In the story corresponding to that of the centurion's servant, the healing of the court official's son (4:46-54), there is no commendation of his faith as a Gentile, nor indeed any suggestion that he was a Gentile at all. Again, for all the piling up of witnesses, there is no Gentile witness to Jesus in the entire Gospel - not even the final testimony of the centurion to him as the Son of God, the very title round which the Gospel is written and which many have supposed to be chosen because it could occur easily to Gentile minds. Nowhere are Gentiles held up for favorable comparison with the Jews; nor is there any reference to them in the cleansing of the Temple, which is inspired solely by zeal for true Judaism (2:17). The Romans will indeed come and destroy the Jewish nation and its holy place (11:48), but there is no suggestion of the heritage of Israel being given to the Gentiles. There is nothing about the disciples having to appear before Gentiles - only of their being expelled from the synagogues of Judaism (16:2). Jesus never leaves Jewish soil; there is no reference to a Gentile mission, nor anything about their coming in, even after his glorification. The 'Greeks' do indeed ask to see Jesus - and this is a point of decisive significance for Jesus, at least from John's point of view. But it is important to insist (as argued above) that these Greeks are not Gentiles. They are Greek-speaking Jews. All the controversies in the fourth Gospel take place within the body of Judaism.

 

All this fits (along with many other indications) that the paradigm from which John was writing, and the milieu in which it took shape, was the heart of Second Temple Judaism. There is nothing to suggest that the controversies of chapters 5-12 were anything other than the product of discussion and debate with Jewish opposition in a purely Jewish situation. The Gentile world, except as represented by the Romans, is miles away - as it is, incidentally, in the Qumran literature, where the sons of darkness and deceit are in the first instance not Gentiles (who are the Kittim) but faithless Israel.

 

Speaking of Qumran, and its relevance for understanding John, consider Unger's entry for "logos". In spite of the fact that Unger's is obviously Trinitarian in it's understanding of "logos" it also contradictorily (in my opinion) says, "The question of whether John was influenced by Philo and Alexandrian Greek speculation is frequently debated. It is preferable to see the origin of his thought in the Old Testament where the Word of God is the divine agent in creation and the revelation of God's will to men. Moreover, studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls have led a number of scholars to the conclusion that the background of John is Jewish rather than Hellenistic."

 

F. M. Cross in The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies (p. 161) says,

 

Some have suggested that John may be regarded no longer as the latest and most evolved of the Gospels, but the most primitive, and that the formative locus of its tradition was Jesrusalem before its destruction.
 

If this is true, then John would expect his audience to understand, "logos" from the Old Testament background, not the Greek philosophical paradigm.

Anyway, continuing on; consider the distinctive images which Jesus uses of himself in this Gospel:

 

the Manna (6:32-5)

the Light (8:1)

the Shepherd (10:11-16)

the Vine (15:1-6)

 

All these are found in the Old Testament and would be familiar Biblical images to the mind of a Jew. They represent Jesus in his person as the true Israel of God. The true Jew, whose 'praise is not from men but from God', to use a Pauline distinction also made by John (Rom. 2:29; cf. John 5:44), is the one who recognizes in Jesus:

 

 the true Light (1:9)

abides in him as the true Vine (15:1)

follows him as the true Shepherd of God's flock (10:27).

the bread (manna) from heaven (6:35)

 

Others may say that they are Jews, but are not: they are children not of Abraham but of the devil (8:30-47; cf. Rev. 2:9; 3.9).

 

Based on all the above, and much more, I hold that John is the most Hebraic of all the Gospels. Gentiles factor in to his paradigm not one whit. It was written before John had any concern at all for Gentiles, if indeed he was EVER focused on Gentiles. John A. T. Robinson again:

 

The main issue he deals with is not 'How do Gentiles become Believers' - must they be circumcised? Must they follow the Law? Must they become Jews? - But John's concern is; how do JEWS become Believers? - Is sonship of Abraham automatic by race? This latter is the question posed also by John the Baptist (Matt. 3:7-10; Luke 3:7-9) in a purely Jewish context; and the Pauline parallels to John would appear to be Rom. 2:17-29 ('Who is the true Jew?') and 4:9-22 ('Who is the true son of Abraham?'), where the Apostle is addressing himself to the Jews rather than to Judaizers. For the Judaizer the underlying question is: 'What does it involve for the Gentile to become a Believer?' For John it is always: 'What does it involve for the Jew?' And his answer is: 'Birth, not from Abraham (nor anything "of the earth"), but from above.' There is a close parallel between ch. 8 and ch. 3. Both recount the approach of Jews who believed in some way that Jesus came from God and that God was with him (cf. 8:29 f. with 3:2), and 8:23 shows the issue to be the same as in that of the conversation with Nicodemus. Neither dialogue has ANY apparent connection with the Gentile controversy. There is not even a side-glance at the problem of the man who is not a Jew but wants to become a Believer, let alone at the problem of the Gentile who wants to become a Believer WITHOUT HAVING to become a Jew. John is not saying, and would not say, that such a man must first become a Jew - that was the answer of the Judaizers. That problem is not even considered. John is not a Judaizer; nor, like Paul, is he an anti-Judaizer: that whole issue never comes within his purview. It's like he's never even considered it. All the controversies in John take place within the body of Judaism. The issues raised by the Judaizers are essentially frontier problems - of whether, in a frontier situation like that of Antioch, one lived as a Jew or as a Gentile (Gal. 2:14). But John never deals with this problem. Consequently circumcision and law have a different significance for him than for Paul. For Paul they represent the fence between Judaism and the Gentile world, barriers of exclusivism to be broken down. For John they are what must be transcended by Judaism within its own life, because they belong to the level of flesh and not spirit, whether a single Gentile wanted to enter the Church or not.

 

For Paul, as well as for Luke, the distinction between Jew and Greek is the distinction between Jew and Gentile, the Circumcision and the Uncircumcision (cf. e.g. Rom. 2:9-14; 3:9, 29). But for John, the distinction is between the Jews of Palestine (and more particularly of Judea) and the Jews of the Greek Diaspora. The "Greeks" are for him the Greek-speaking Jews living OUTSIDE Palestine - as opposed to the "Greeks" of Acts 6, and 9:29, who are Greek-speaking Jews RESIDENT IN Palestine (cf. Acts 6:9). Naturally the word "Greeks" itself draws attention to them as non-Palestinians rather than as Jews, and indeed it is only from a Palestinian point of view that Jews could conceivably be described as Greeks - but then it is from that point of view that I believe John is written. The Hellenistic viewpoint which we have accepted as normative, as indeed it is in much of the New Testament, is clearly represented in Acts 21:27 f., where 'the Jews from Asia' stirred up the Jerusalem crowd against Paul on the charge that he brought 'Greeks' into the temple. In Johannine terms this would read: 'The Greeks stirred up the Jews against Paul because he had introduced Gentiles into the temple.'

 

John's is essentially an Aramaic-speaking background. And yet his Gospel is in Greek and for a Greek-speaking public. Who are these Greeks? Precisely, I believe, the Greeks who appear in the Gospel. Again, it is necessary to emphasize who these are. They are Jews of the Diaspora, not Gentiles. They speak Greek, not Aramaic. And they journey to Jerusalem, the land of "the Jews" (Judea) to worship at the feasts. It is these Jews of the Diaspora to whom Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost:

 

Now there were devout Jews staying at Jerusalem from every nation under heaven. (Acts 2:6)

 

This is why the gift of tongues was necessary, these devout Jews did not speak Aramaic or Hebrew.

 

This is the same reason John translated Aramaic &/or Hebrew terms into Greek. He was writing to Greek-speaking Jews. These Jews would still understand many of the customs and categories of thought of their fathers, after all, they come to Jerusalem for the feasts, and they hear Moses and the Prophets read aloud every Sabbath in their local synagogue. They are "devout." Thus, they don't have to have explained to them what is Christ, they just have to have "Mashiach" and "Ravi" translated into Greek.

 

Secondly, I believe John's Gospel was written to non-believers. Contrary to the Epistles where he says,

 

I write this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life (I John 5:13)

I have not written to you because you do not know the truth but because you do know it...(I John 2:21)

 

Obviously he is writing to believers here. But his Gospel is written to unbelievers.

 

These [things] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name (20:31)

 

The Gospel has a strong and reiterated evangelistic motive: it is written 'that you may believe', and almost every incident ends on that note. But as we have seen, there is no indication that it is to Gentiles that John is primarily addressing his message. On the contrary, everything points to his appeal being to Diaspora Judaism, that it may come to accept Jesus as its true Messiah, even though, to quote Paul's speech at Antioch, 'those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers... did not recognize him' (Acts 13:27). This speech is in fact addressed to precisely such an audience as that for which I am arguing John is writing: 'Men of Israel and you that fear God' (Acts 13:16), that is to say, Greek-speaking Judaism with its God-fearing adherents. John is writing to the same kind of Jews who thrust aside Paul's appeal, not for the Gentiles to whom Paul subsequently turns in Acts 13 and elsewhere. There is no indication that I can see anywhere in scripture that John himself ever turned to the Gentiles.

 

Another reason I believe he was writing to non-believing Jews is based on his explicit, stated reason for writing: John 20: 30, 31:

 

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

 

"The Anointed" and "Son of God" are euphemisms for "Messiah" and as such would be of interest primarily to Jews. Secondly, Jews are characterized as sign-seekers by Jesus in Mathew and Luke (Math 12:39, 16:4, Luke 11:29,30) as well as by Paul. In I Cor 1:22 Paul characterizes Jews as sign-seekers and Greeks as wisdom-seekers. John is explicitly concerned with writing down signs, therefore he is writing to convince non-believing Jews.

 

Finally and most compellingly in my opinion, we have an explicit and first-hand statement that John's mission was to Jews, not Gentiles. In Gal 2:9 Paul tells us, "James and Cephas and John...gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised..." John was to go to the circumcised. Seems very plain to me.

 

Before I conclude I want to counter a presumed response. In stressing this unremitting concentration on Judaism I am NOT saying that John is narrowly nationalistic or religiously exclusivist. On the contrary, there is a universal perspective to the Gospel, which is introduced from the very beginning. Jesus is 'the...light that enlightens every man' (1:9), 'the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world' (1:29); and the purpose of his being sent is that 'the world might be saved through him' (3:17). 'I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself' (12:32). Yet for all this there is neither mention of, nor appeal to, the Gentiles as such. When Jesus is pressed to 'show himself to the world' (7:4), it is not some kind of mission to the Gentiles but to public demonstration - and that to 'the Jews'. The 'world' is not the world outside Judaism, but the world that God loves and the world that fails to respond, be it Jew or Gentile.

 

But the story itself, and all the details, is completely Jewish, from a Jewish paradigm, in a Jewish milieu, with no reference to specific Gentiles, or any kind of explicit Gentile outreach. The universal perspective is general and theoretical, and perhaps awaits Peter's vision of the sheet with animals in it, and the subsequent incident at the house of Cornelius, for the theoretical universalism of the gospel to begin it's practical application to the Gentiles.

If it was written after the Gentile issues of the Church council of Acts 15 were resolved, then, commensurate with Gal 2:9, John was concerning himself with Jews, not Gentiles.

 

Once you take the hypothesis seriously, that John's Gospel is addressed to Diaspora Judaism, it is surprising what light it throws upon many passages in the Gospel.

 

Here is one example

 

The next issue that needs to be dealt with is some kind of date. If, as the general consensus has been, John was written circa 95AD, then the Gentile mission is firmly in place, Jerusalem and the Temple have been destroyed, the break between Church and Synagogue is complete (never mind that there is no hint of this anywhere in the Gospel) and the Hellenization of Christianity is well underway. If this is the case, it lends support to the idea that "logos" should be understood in Greek philosophical terms, even as it has been so understood throughout most of the history of Christian thought.

 

When Was John Written?

 

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