made between the Jews in Jerusalem and in the diaspora” (1959, 408). Yet
it cannot easily be argued that the division between the authorities and the
common people represents a conflict between Jerusalem-centred Judaism
and the Diaspora. Although Jesus initially receives a warm reception from
the Galileans, who also travel to Jerusalem for the Passover (John 4:44–45),
it is subsequently not clear that the Jews who are attracted to Jesus’ mes-
sage are all or even primarily from the Galilee. The Jews who comforted
Martha and Mary and those who became followers of Jesus in the aftermath
of Lazarus’s raising were likely to be Judeans, since John 11 is situated in
Bethany on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Cultural Continuity
A third principle affecting the growth of religious movements is cultural con-
tinuity. Stark argues that “people are more willing to adopt a new religion
to the extent that it retains cultural continuity with conventional religion(s)
with which they are familiar” (1996, 55). In Stark’s view, Christianity
offered far more cultural continuity to Hellenistic Jews than it did to Gen-
tiles (1996, 59), for it allowed these “accommodated Jews” to retain much
of the religious content of both Jewish and Greek culture and at the same
time to resolve contradictions between them.
A two-level reading of the Gospel of John suggests that Johannine
Christianity would have offered cultural continuity to potential Jewish
converts along the lines suggested by Stark. The Fourth Gospel, like the Syn-
optic Gospels, places Jesus in Palestine, has him interacting with a variety
of characters, most of whom are Jewish, and portrays Jesus as a participant
in major Jewish activities such as the pilgrimage festivals. John’s Jesus is
repeatedly called “rabbi” (1:38, 49; 3:2, 26; 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8). Although
this title may simply mean “teacher” in these contexts (R.E. Brown 1966,
1:74), Jesus also displays a use of scripture—in the form of biblical quota-
tion (7:38), interpretation (10:34–36), and allusion (3:14)—similar to the
Tannaitic rabbis known to us from post-Johannine sources (cf. Schuchard
1992). Johannine Christology presents Jesus in Jewish messianic terms as
the Christ, the Son of Man, divine wisdom, and King. Even the challeng-
ing soteriological claims of John 6, that believers must drink the blood and
eat the body of Christ, are phrased in the context of the manna that God
had provided from heaven and place Johannine theology firmly within the
context of the Passover, the Jewish season most closely associated with
redemption (see 6:35–51).
These elements would have been familiar to Palestinian and Diaspora
Jews alike. Other aspects may have appealed more specifically to Diaspora
Jews. Most obviously, the Gospel of John is written in Greek, the lingua