In our post-Holocaust context, the Gospel of John has aroused the suspicion of being a Christian text with an anti-Jewish message. Statements such as "the Jews were persecuting Jesus", or "the Jews were grumbling about him" are seen as vicious generalizations that wrongly blame a whole nation. Lars Kierspel shows that the Gospel's narrative focus lies not on "the Jews" but on the parallel term "the world" which is mostly used by Jesus, the main protagonist. Statements such as "the world … hates me (Jesus)," "the world hates you (the disciples)", and "the world has hated them (the disciples)" reflect a conflict of the early church with an opponent that cannot be limited to the synagogue.weiterlesen