CONCLUSION
Despite the flaws in some of Stark’s arguments, the Gospel of John and, by
extension, the history and demography of the Johannine community pro-
vide some support for Stark’s three main sociological principles. Adher-
ents to Johannine Christianity appear to have been gathered through the
lines of existing social and familial networks; they seem to have come from
segments of Greco-Roman society, which were marginal to the institutions
of Jewish authority; and the Johannine community provided some meas-
ure of continuity with the cultural groups from which these new adherents
may have come.
Stark’s argument for an ongoing successful mission to the Jews sup-
ports the theory that the Johannine community, through the Gospel of
John, intended to reach out to Diaspora Jews as potential new recruits. As
we have seen, the evidence in favour of this argument is problematic. First,
not only Jews but also Samaritans and Greeks are portrayed as coming to
Jesus through defined social networks. Second, Stark’s approach does not
allow one to distinguish between the various stages in community growth.
Thus the evidence in favour of an influx of Jewish adherents may, in fact,
pertain only to an early stage in the life of the Johannine community, and
thus may not support the theory that the mission to the Jews continued to
be successful in the latter part of the first century CE. Finally, there is no real
basis on which to argue that the Jewish crowds who listened to Jesus’
speeches and may distinguish themselves from the Jewish authorities
indeed represent Diaspora Jews; or that the “Greeks” of John 12:20 are
Hellenistic Jews and not Gentile Greeks.
Most problematic for the notion of an ongoing successful mission to the
Jews on the part of the Johannine community is the theory of its expulsion
from the synagogue. As noted at the outset of this chapter, in order to read
the Johannine community out of the Gospel of John and in order to apply
Stark’s sociological principles to the history of this community, we must rig-
orously—perhaps, even slavishly—apply Martyn’s two-level approach to
interpretation of the text, by viewing the Gospel of John as the story of the
community. In doing so, however, we must also read the expulsion passages
(John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2) as referring to historical events that occurred
within the recent memory of the community, namely, the expulsion of
Johannine Christians from the synagogue. Most scholars view this event
as the definitive and hostile split between the Jewish and Christian com-
munities. By solidifying the boundary between these two communities,
such a split would have disrupted the social networks, as well as the oppor-
tunities for contact, that active missionary activity would require.
Rodney Stark and “The Mission to the Jews” 211