"Can anything good come from Nazareth?" (John-I,46): The meaning and significance of the "Jewishness" of Jesus in the 'Gospel of John'

The polemic against "the Jews" in the Fourth Gospel is often realized and c riticized. But John also points out that Jesus himself is a Jew. This is th e way John draws the line of his incarnation theology into the "history" of Jesus, narrated in the gospel. As "prophet" (4.19) Jesus the "Jew" (4.9) i s "the Saviour of the world" (4.42); as man, coming from Nazareth in Galile e (1.46; 4.43f; 7.41), Jesus is the Messiah, born in Bethlehem (7.42): well known as "son of Joseph" (1.45; 6.42), unknown as "Son of God" (cf. John 1 .19). On the cross Jesus the "King of the Jews" (19.19) dies "for the peopl e" and "for the scattered children of God" (11.50ff). It is an essential as pect of John's Christology that Jesus belongs to his Jewish people. This th eological fact, founded in the identity of the one God, shows the so-called anti-Judaism of John in a new light.