The Greeks (Hellenists) in the Gospel of John are Greek-Speaking Jews (not Gentiles)

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I used to think that the “Greeks” mentioned in a couple of places in the Gospel of John were Gentiles. But some comments by a friend got me thinking about the possibility that the “Greeks” in the Gospel of John were Greek-speaking Israelites who grew up outside of the land of Israel. The Gospel of John is using the word “Greeks, Hellenes” in a cultural and linguistic sense, not in an ethnic sense.

 

The two passages in the Gospel of John which mention these “Greeks” are 7:35 and 12:20-24. The word used in these passages translated as “Greeks” is the plural form of the word Hellene Ἕλλην.

 

Hellene is the Greek way to say “Greek”. Some standard biblical Greek lexical definitions of Ἕλλην – Hellene:

 

Gingrich, Greek NT Lexicon: a Greek, a Gentile (Rom. 1:4, Gal. 3:28).  But also: proselytes (Gentiles who adopted the Jewish faith), “God-fearers” or people in sympathy with Israel's heritage (Acts 17:4).

 

Friberg, Greek Analytical Lexicon distinguishes two different ways the word Ἕλλην/Hellene is used: religious verses cultural. A religious definition: a Gentile, a non-Jew, a pagan. But then a cultural definition: “a person of Greek language and civilization as opposed to a “Barbarian” (a foreigner who doesn’t speak Greek).

 

Bauer-Danker, Greek English Lexicon of the NT states of “Hellene”: “one who speaks Greek.”

 

I see John’s Gospel is using the word “Hellene” in this cultural sense, not in a religious or ethnic sense, to differentiate between two different groups of Jews: 1) Diaspora Jews-Israelites of Greek-language and cultural background, compared to, 2) Jews-Israelites who lived in Israel and spoke a semitic language like Hebrew or perhaps Aramaic.

 

Like most readers of John’s Gospel, I previously read the word “Greek” in a religious or ethnic sense, thinking John was talking about non-Jews. Now I see that the term “Greeks” in John’s Gospel is better understood in a cultural sense. The “Greeks” in John’s Gospel are Jews or Israelites who spoke Greek or grew up in the Greek speaking Diaspora.

 

Ἑλληνιστής – Hellenist in the Book of Acts are Jews

 

Some corroborating evidence that John meant Greek-speaking Israelites comes from the Book of Acts. Luke in the Book of Acts used the slightly different word “Hellenist” Ἑλληνιστής in the same way, referring to people who were ethnically and religiously Israelites, but were linguistically and culturally “Greeks”:

 

Ἑλληνιστής - Hellenist

Bauer-Danker, Greek English Lexicon of the NT: “a Greek-speaking Jew, Greek-speaking Israelite in contrast to one speaking a Semitic language.”

 

Acts 6:1, “Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists Ἑλληνιστής murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.”

 

These “Hellenists/Greeks” are not Gentiles, but Jews with a Greek language and cultural background.

 

Another example from the Book of Acts. When Paul first came to Jerusalem after coming to know that Jesus is the Messiah: Acts 9:28-29, “So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists; but they were seeking to kill him.”

 

At this point in the history of the believers in Jesus, Paul was not disputing with Gentiles in Jerusalem. These “Greeks/Hellenists” were Jews. That is why some English Bible translations, like the NET, translate the word Hellenist here simply as “Greek-speaking Jews”: “He was speaking and debating with the Greek-speaking Jews.”

 

Paul himself, of the tribe of Benjamin, but born in Tarsus, would be considered a “Hellenist”. This was why he so quickly was debating in Jerusalem with others of like culture and language. This is one reason he was later effective in bringing the Gospel to the Greek-speaking world.

 

It is clear in the Book of Acts that the word Ἑλληνιστής/Hellenist is used to describe Jews or Israelites who came from a Greek language and culture background. The same kind of recognizable differences exist today. A Jewish person who grew up in America speaking English is distinguishable from a native-born Israeli who grew up in Israel speaking Hebrew.

 

Hellenes in the Gospel of John

 

It is not always easy to pin down exactly what is meant by the words Hellene or Hellenist in the New Testament, and context is necessary. Yes, Paul later in his letters used the word “Hellene” in the ethnic and religious sense to mean a non-Jew. But in the Gospel of John one indication that the "Greeks/Hellenes” were Israelites is that they are specifically called the “Diaspora of the Greeks”.

 

When Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Festival of Tabernacles, he said to certain Judeans that in a little while he would go somewhere to which they could not come (John 7:32-33). Then,

John 7:35, “The Judeans said to one another, ‘Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Diaspora of the Greeks/Hellenes (Ἕλλην, plural Ἑλλήνων) and teach the Greeks/Hellenes (Ἕλλην)?’”

 

The word Diaspora comes from a Greek word which means “to scatter about”. The English word dispersion is from the same root. Today the term “Diaspora” can refer to the foreign lands outside of Israel. But originally, and still today more prominently, Diaspora means the Jewish people living outside of Israel. Note this dictionary definition for Diaspora:  “the dispersion of the Jewish people outside of Israel. Jewish people as an ethnic group living outside Israel. The communities or body of Jews outside of Israel.”

 

To repeat: the “Diaspora” means the Jewish or Israelite people who live in foreign lands. The “Diaspora of the Greeks”, the phrase in John 7:45, means the Jewish people who lived in lands where Greek culture and language was prominent.[1]

 

Note the Complete Jewish Bible translation of John 7:35: “Does he intend to go to the Greek Diaspora and teach the Greek-speaking Jews”.

 

The Greeks/Hellenes of John 7:35 has typically been misunderstood by readers of John’s Gospel to refer to Gentiles. But this is an incorrect understanding. Here in John 7 at the Festival of Tabernacles, the Judeans thought that Jesus possibly intended to leave Israel and go among the Greek-speaking Jews in the west. The “Diaspora of the Hellenes” are Greek speaking Jews.

 

Gentiles in Jerusalem for the Passover?

 

The second occurrence of the word “Hellenes/Greeks” in John’s Gospel is found in 12:20-24, and again, it is better to understand the word to refer to Israelites who had a Greek cultural and linguistic background.

 

It is very unlikely that uncircumcised "Greek" Gentiles would come to Jerusalem to worship during the Passover, and for sure they would not be allowed to worship at the temple (cf. Acts 21:28-29).

 

John 12:20-24: “Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks/Hellenes (Ἕλλην). 21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir (Lord), we wish to see Jesus.’  Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew went with Philip and they told Jesus.   And Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’”

 

Again, it is unlikely that uncircumcised Greek Gentiles would come to Jerusalem to worship at the Passover. These Greeks/Hellenes in John 12:20-24 could be circumcised proselytes, but more likely they are Greek speaking Israelites. It is interesting to note that they first appealed to Philip, who then told Andrew. Philip and Andrew were both Galileans.

 

Help Wanted: Messiah. Job Description: Must be able to re-gather the Diaspora of Israel

 

Most commentators have assumed that the Greeks who sought Jesus at the Passover described in John 12 were Gentiles, and that these Gentiles are a sample of the influence that Jesus would have upon the Gentile world. But Jesus was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. There was no Gentile ministry at this time. Gentiles don’t begin coming to a belief of the Jewish Messiah Jesus’s benefits for them until about a decade after Jesus was crucified, and that was outside the land of Israel in Antioch of Syria (Acts 11:19-26, c. AD 44).

 

In the Gospel of John, Jesus never ventured into Gentile lands and does not minister to Gentiles. The entire context of the Gospel of John is Jesus’s ministry to his own, his own people, Israel.

 

Note how significant it is to Jesus when he hears that these Diaspora Israelites are seeking him (John 12:27-33). Jesus excitedly proclaims a desire that God be glorified, and God even responds from heaven. And, Jesus knew that the hour had come for his own glorification, and that his glorification would only come through his death, as a seed must die before bearing much fruit.[2]

 

Why was Jesus so moved when he heard that Diaspora Israelites who had come to Jerusalem to worship at the Passover were seeking him? Because he understood that through his ministry as the Messiah, the God of Israel would be glorified by bringing to pass the ancient prophetic hope of the regathering of Israel into one people in their land.

 

The regathering of Israel, called in Hebrew qibbuts galuyot קיבוץ גלויות is one promise of the God of Israel to His people Israel. Based on many Scriptures (e.g., Deut. 30:1-5; Psa. 106:47; Isaiah 11:11-16; 1 Chron. 16:35; Jer. 16:14-15, 33:7-8; Ezek. 20:41-42, 34:22-24, 37:19-25), the qibbuts galuyot, the regathering of Israel, came to be connected with the coming of the Messiah. When the Messiah, the descendant of David comes, Israel and Judah would be regathered and united again in their own land. The regathering would be concrete evidence to both Israel and the nations that Yahweh is God.

 

Two examples of the hope and desire of the qibbuts galuyot, the regathering of Israel (Exiles):

Psalm 106:47   Save us, O Yahweh our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.

 

Ezekiel 37:21, 25 Thus says Yahweh God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land… They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever.

 

The author of the Gospel of John, to make his point that Jesus as the Messiah is the facilitator of the regathering of Israel, recorded the ironical statement of the unbelieving high priest Caiaphas. The setting is just after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead:

 

John 11:49-52, “But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish.’  He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.” 

 

I suggest “the children of God who are scattered abroad” is a not a reference to Gentiles, but is a reference to Israelites of the Diaspora. This Jewish author, writing to other Jews, is declaring that through Jesus the Messiah, God ultimately gathers “into one the children of God who are scattered abroad”. Jews would recognize the “gathering into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” as a reference to the qibbuts galuyot and the restoration of a unified nation under one king.

 

We need to read the Gospel of John as a Jewish book, written by Jews and for Jews. Gentiles are not in the picture that the Gospel of John paints.

 

The phrase “children of God” is found only one other place in the Gospel of John. Way back in the Prologue in 1:12. Speaking about Jesus coming to his own people (the Jews, the Judeans) the author says that to all who received him, he gave the right to become “children of God”.  This is an Israelite writing to other Israelites. The “children of God” here are Israelites. There are no Gentiles in view here.

 

Of course, Gentiles can read John’s Gospel and benefit greatly in seeing how God has worked for His people Israel in and through the Messiah, just like we can benefit from reading the Book of Exodus and understand that “there is a God in Israel” who brought Israel out of Egypt to a Promised land and declare “God has done great things for them” (Psa. 126:2).

 

And yes, the New Testament unambiguously declares that “God has opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27). But that did not happen until a decade after the events described in the Gospel of John. There are no Gentiles being ministered to or appealed to in John’s Gospel. To think so would only be an assumption.

 

The word of God came to the people of Israel. Both in the Old Testament (Exo. 20:1, 1 Kings 18:31, John 10:35), and as the man Christ Jesus in the New Testament (John 1:1, 1:10; Heb. 1:1, Rev. 19:13). “To them belong the oracles of God” (Rom. 3:2).

 

The children of God that the author of the Gospel of John is concerned with are Israelites. Israel is the firstborn son of God (Exo. 4:22, Hos. 11:1). Later, Gentiles who were far off and “without God in the world” could become fellow heirs by adoption, “sons of God through faith” (Gal. 3:26, Eph. 2:11-13, Rom. 8:15)

 

But, one might ask, how can John’s Gospel be claiming that Jesus is the Messiah through whom God regathers the dispersed of Israel into one, when Jews are still dispersed to this very day, 2000 years later?

 

The answer is: So far, the regathering was only done in a down payment fashion. In a symbolic way, these Greek-speaking Jews who sought Jesus that Passover in Jerusalem were a down payment, a sign and symbol that Jesus is the Messiah through whom God regathers Israel.

 

In the same way the blind and lame are still here today, but Jesus gave evidence that he is the one through whom all the blind and lame will be restored. In the same way, death still reigns today, but Jesus gave, and is evidence that through him death is destroyed.

 

 “Problem Verses”

 

There are two other verses in John’s Gospel that formerly made me think that the audience of John’s Gospel were Gentiles and not Israelites (predominantly Diaspora Israelites). Both these verses involve the only two places in all of the New Testament where the Hebrew word “Messiah” appears.

 

John 1:41, “He first found his own brother Simon and told him, ‘We have found the Messiah!’ (which is translated Christ).”

 

John 4:25, “The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.’”

 

The first verse is a bit different from the second since the phrase “which is translated Christ” appears to be an editorial comment by the author.

 

In the second occurrence the phrase “he who is called Christ” the author appears to be recording the words of the Samaritan woman, and not inserting his own editorial comment.

 

These are the only two places in all of the New Testament where the word “Messiah” appears. On these two early confessions about who Jesus is, one from the mouth of the Galilean Andrew and the second from the mouth of a Samaritan woman, the author preserved the word “Messiah”, spelling out the Hebrew word “Messiah” in Greek letters.

 

Why? I used to think that the author must be helping Gentile readers here by telling them what “Messiah” means in the Greek language. But now I think these two appearances of the word Messiah in John’s Gospel can and should be understood in the context of the book being written to Jews.

 

My reasons:

First, preserving the word “Messiah” in these two early confessions in the Gospel of John sets a “Semitic, Hebraic, land of Israel” tone as the backdrop for the Gospel. The author made it a point to preserve the word, the title “Messiah”, that the people in the narrative actually used. Even though the author is recording the events and dialog in the Greek language, the author is indicating to his readers that the persons in the narrative were not speaking Greek.

 

Second, we don’t know when the Gospel of John was written. I suspect it was written earlier than most scholarly conjectures suggest (which would be the subject of another episode). If John’s Gospel was written by a Jew (or Israelite) for Jews (Israelites), there is no reason it could not have been written soon after Jesus lived.  

 

Calling followers of Jesus “Christians”, from the word “Christ”, did not begin until at least a decade after Jesus was on earth. And the “Christian” designation was first applied to believers outside of the land of Israel in Antioch of Syria (Acts11:26). The apostles in Israel in the decade following Jesus’s resurrection were not called “Christians”. By preserving the word “Messiah” in these two early references in his Gospel, the author could be making the point that those called “Christians” starting in the mid AD 40s originated with Israelites (and even Samaritans!) in the land of Israel who believed that Jesus is the Messiah.

 

And third, having “defined his term” and having established the Hebraic, land of Israel context of his writing, in a sense saying, “this is the one we call Messiah in Hebrew, but in Greek he is called “Christ”, for the remainder of the Gospel the author would use the Greek translation “Christ”.

 

In summary, I think there is enough evidence presented in this article and in the previous article (In the Gospel of John, Jews are Judeans) to show that a main, if not the main, original audience of the Gospel of John were Greek speaking Israelites, not Gentiles. The Gospel of John definitely can be interpreted this way, and I think is better interpreted this way.

Why Does it Matter?

So, why does it matter? Why does it matter if the original audience of the Gospel of John were Greek-speaking Israelites and not Gentiles? It matters a lot.

For instance, if the Gospel of John is a book written by an Israelite to Israelites, then we can understand that there is no antisemitism in this Gospel. The Gospel of John is addressing an internal Jewish controversy. John was not writing to Gentile audiences to declare “the Jews rejected and killed Jesus”. Rather, the author is writing to other Hebrews giving reasons to believe that Jesus is the Messiah even though Judeans rejected him. Jesus was welcomed in all regions of Israel (Samaria, Galilee, Perea) outside of Judea. Judeans rejected Jesus, not all Jews.

 

And, besides the anti-Semitic issue, the question of the original recipients of the Gospel of John is important since Israelite Diaspora readers would also have had familiarity with the Greek translation of the Old Testament Scriptures (the LXX). The author would draw literary and thematic parallels from the Greek Old Testament to give evidence to his readers that Jesus was the one “of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote” (John 1:45).

 

Literary and thematic parallels from the Greek Old Testament, recognizable to Greek speaking Hebrews, might be missed, or misunderstood, by later Gentile readers of John’s Gospel.

 

For example, in a future article hope and plan to suggest that while 2nd century and later Gentile Christians interpreted the Gospel’s first verse, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, as a reference to a second divine figure involved in the Genesis creation – an Israelite reader familiar with the Greek Old Testament Scriptures would recognize and connect this statement in John 1:1 to Moses.

 

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is not presented as an incarnate god who walks around concealed in human flesh, but rather as a man, the Messiah, and the prophet like unto Moses whom God promised to send.

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[1] The Diaspora consisted of different communities of Israelites. Israelites in the east would have been less influenced by western Greek culture and language.

 [2] Except for a short reiteration of Jesus being sent by God as light into the world, the words Jesus spoke after hearing about the Diaspora Israelites seeking him is his last public discourse recorded in the Gospel of John. Again, an indication of the significance of the regathering of Israel through him.