Jesus and the Jews: The Pharisaic Tradition in John

by Alan Watson

Overview

In Jesus and the Jews, Alan Watson reveals and substantiates a central yet previously unrecognized source for the composition of the Gospel of John. Strikingly antithetical to John’s basic message, this source originated from an anti-Christian tradition promulgated by the Pharisees, the powerful and dogmatic teachers of Jewish law. The aims of this Pharisaic tradition, argues Watson, included discrediting Jesus as the Messiah, minimizing his historical importance, and justifying the Jewish authorities’ role in his death. Jesus and the Jews joins three other works by Watson—The Trial of Jesus, Jesus and the Law, and Jesus: A Profile—to examine the early dynamism of western religion through refocused attention on biblical texts and other historical sources.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820341514
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	10/01/2012
Pages:	178
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

ALAN WATSON, Distinguished Research Professor and Ernest P. Rogers Chair at the University of Georgia School of Law, is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on Roman law, comparative law, legal history, and law and religion. He is the author of numerous books, including The State, Law, and Religion: Pagan Rome (Georgia) and Roman Law and Comparative Law (Georgia). He is also the editor of the four-volume translation of the Digest of Justinian.

ALAN WATSON, Distinguished Research Professor and Ernest P. Rogers Chair at the University of Georgia School of Law, is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on Roman law, comparative law, legal history, and law and religion. He is the author of numerous books, including The State, Law, and Religion: Pagan Rome (Georgia) and Roman Law and Comparative Law (Georgia). He is also the editor of the four-volume translation of the Digest of Justinian.

Editorial Reviews

Although Watson, a legal historian, is hardly the first reader of John to be struck by its departure in fact and spirit from Matthew, Mark and Luke, he nevertheless strikes a new chord in Johannine exegesis by arguing that there is evidence, in John, of reliance upon a source from Jewish oral tradition identified as ``S.'' Noting ``the Christian scriptures were a battleground of textual alteration and rewriting in the first hundred years of their life,'' he writes that John is a ``composit'' of narrative lore. He probes the cultural and legal circumstances in which the gospel was compiled, the range of oppositional messages it was intended to convey, summarizing the relations among the Jewish splinter groups in the Roman outpost at whom it was aimed. Whether John himself was or was not a Jew, Watson holds, he was ``actively hostile to Jewish religious traditions,'' especially those of the Pharisees. And that, claims Watson, is why in John, but not the synoptic gospels, Jesus' resurrection occurs before the Passover. In addition, Watson finds Jesus' in-your-face attitude about conventional Judaism revealed in the sexual innuendo of his exchange with the Samaritan woman at the well and the indifference to Nicodemus, a Pharisee. Tightly focused and provocative, this beginning of Watson's trilogy on the link of religious and secular law to the Jesus story anchors theology in the detail of history. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Watson (law, U. of Georgia) substantiates a central yet previously unrecognized source for the composition of the Gospel of John which is remarkably antithetical to John's basic message and, in fact, originates from an anti-Christian tradition promulgated by the Pharisees. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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