‘Was kann aus Nazareth schon Gutes kommen?’ (Joh 1.46). Die Bedeutung des Judeseins Jesu im Johannesevangelium

The polemic against ‘the Jews’ in the Fourth Gospel is often realized and criticized. But John also points out that Jesus himself is a Jew. This is the way John draws the line of his incarnation theology into the ‘history’ of Jesus, narrated in the gospel. As ‘prophet’ (4.19) Jesus the ‘Jew’ (4.9) is ‘the Saviour of the world’ (4.42); as man, coming from Nazareth in Galilee (1.46; 4.43f; 7.41), Jesus is the Messiah, born in Bethlehem (7.42): well known as ‘son of Joseph’ (1.45; 6.42), unknown as ‘Son of God’ (cf. John 1.19). On the cross Jesus the ‘King of the Jews’ (19.19) dies ‘for the people’ and ‘for the scattered children of God’ (11.50ff). It is an essential aspect of John's Christology that Jesus belongs to his Jewish people. This theological fact, founded in the identity of the one God, shows the so-called anti-Judaism of John in a new light.