The Fourth Gospel ("Gospel According To John") is the epitome of the fusion of Greek philosophy and Jewish theology. More than any other this gospel defined the familiar image of Jesus we now know -- Jesus as a god.

The Jewish world of Palestine in which Jesus was born was awash with Hellenism and Greek thought. Greek Stoicism and Platonism were amalgamated into Jewish/Christian theology and ethics from the first to fourth centuries CE. Even St. Augustine, the Christian Bishop of Hippo Regius, readily admitted "...when I read those books of the Platonists, I was taught by them to seek incorporeal truth so I saw your 'invisible things, understood by the things that are made' ("Confessions" 7. 20).

Biblical scholars are finding Greek philosophical influences everywhere, pervading the entire New Testament, including the popular image of Jesus.

In first century Roman-occupied Palestine, Jewish children learned the Greek language from birth, which is why Alexandrian Jews translated Hebrew scripture and New Testament writings into Greek . They had to; Jews in the diaspora spoke more Greek than they did Hebrew.

This Greek-Jewish cultural and linguistic matrix is the context in which the Fourth Gospel was written. The centers of Hellenization in the Levant were Damascus in the north and Alexandria in the south. Palestine was right smack dab in the middle.

The earliest manuscript of the Fourth Gospel ("John") in existence is in Greek. Written on papyrus around 120-180 CE, it was intended to propagandize the message that Jesus was a superior god come to earth as human (a pagan religious theme) and was a doer of miracles so powerful that "whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (3:16). Such claims were made to convince potential converts from paganism that the Jewish deities were stronger. It was this fusion of Platonic and Aristotelian theology with Jewish thought that also gave birth to the "Christian" concepts of divine omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence. "John" is the only canonical gospel which has Jesus claiming to be a god.

I use the term "John" for familiarity. The Fourth Gospel is, in fact, anonymous.

John 21:20-24 claims the Fourth Gospel was inspired by ‘the Beloved Disciple.’ Title "Gospel According to John" ("Kata Ioannen Euangelion") was attached to it in the third century when the gospels were being gathered together and circulated as a collection.

The "Beloved Disciple" is an enigmatic figure. He is never actually identified by name. Instead, he is the young man laying on Jesus at the last supper (John 13:22-25). Or he is the young man who ran away -- naked -- when Jesus was arrested. He is even present at the crucifixion.

John's "beloved disciple" may also have been modeled on the wealthy young disciple that Clement of Alexandria mentions in his letter to "Theodore" in reference to a now-lost, more complete version of Mark intended for those "perfect in their faith."

This earlier complete version of Mark describes a scene in which Jesus reanimates a wealthy young man who died. Naked except for a linen covering, the young man awakens and expresses his love for Jesus. He stays with Jesus overnight so he can learn the "mysteries of the Kingdom of God." St. Clement is quick to refute any notion of the nudity involving same-gender sex, and indeed, it's the only reason St. Clement brought it up in the first place. [see Morton Smith;"Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark"]

What really makes the Fourth Gospel unique is Jesus' discourses with his disciples. These are not comparable to the sayings collections in of Mark, Matthew, Luke, or in the Gospel of Thomas, or in "Q." In John's gospel, Jesus lectures and everyone else is pretty much absent or silent. There is so little interaction that John is primarily a collection of Jesus talking about himself; "I am the light" "I am the Way," "Only through me," and so on.

An example of Jesus' bombast is contained in the story of Jesus and Nicodemus.

Nicodemus comes to see Jesus and recognizes that Jesus is a wise rabbi sent by God. At one point Jesus tells Nicodemus, "Unless you're reborn, you'll never enter the Kingdom of God." Nicodemus, of course, understands the rebirth reference as a physical rebirth. So he asks Jesus, "How can anybody who has gotten old go back into his mother's womb to be reborn?" This gives Jesus an opportunity to pontificate. And pontificate he does, filling up the whole rest of the chapter.

The author of the Gospel of John uniquely places himself (and those whom he represents) as separated from "the Jews." Historically speaking, this separation happened around 90 CE when the Hebrew Jews kicked the Greek Jews out of the synagogues for heresy and for sucking up to the Romans. This also probably explains why John provides some light antisemitism when he has Jesus speak of the Passover of "the Jews" (John 2:13, 6:4, 11:55), a religious festival of "the Jews" (John 5:1), the

Festival of Tabernacles (Sukkot) of "the Jews" (John 7:2), and so on.

Clearly, the "Greek" Jesus created by John is emphatically not "a Jew."

True, Jesus is called a Jew twice in John: once by the Samaritan woman (John 4:9) and once by Pontius Pilate (John 18:35). But in both instances the speaker is a foreigner, and in both instances the term "Jew" is used in its

sense of "person of Judah," as contrasted with a Samaritan or a Roman.

The same applies in John 4:22, where Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, "You [Samaritans] do not really know whom you worship, but we [Jews] know whom we worship, because salvation is from [us] the Jews."

In John's statement, "salvation is from the Jews" does not mean the Jewish people, per se, because "salvation" is has now become the inheritance of the true worshipers of God, as defined by Jesus in John 4:23. Christian sectarian Jews are good. All other Jews are bad. John's idea of "a Jew" finally becomes someone of whom he has Jesus conndemn as a "son of the devil."

The Fourth Gospel is not about Jesus the Nazarene Jew, nor was it written by or for other Jews.

John was written as propaganda, to attract converts from among the pagans and Hellenized Jews, and to shift the blame for killing God away from the powerful dominant Romans onto Jesus' own Jewish people.

Ironically, the same community that wrote the Fourth Gospel started as a breakaway sect of Jews who eventually attacked the Jewish faith itself -- and in so doing, gave birth to antisemitism.