Of Sheep, Shepherds, and Temples: A Social Identity Reading of the Good Shepherd Paroemia on the Way to a Destroyed Temple.

The Good Shepherd paroemia of John 10 is often read as an inserted soliloquy between the once-blind-man of John 9 and Jesus's actions in the temple at the Feast of Dedication. In this context many readings perceive a two-level engagement drawing upon the perceived intertextual allusions to Ezekiel 34--and the further host of shepherd imagery in the Hebrew bible--and relating it to the context of a Johannine Community. From this perspective the Good Shepherd narrative is read as a condemnation of the Pharisees, and the "sheep of another fold" is taken as a reference to the incorporation of Gentiles in a "post-parting of the ways" or Birkat Haminim context. However, this two-level reading regularly dislocates the Ezekiel intertext from its own context of exile. Furthermore, although readings of John 10 recognize the presence of an intertext with Zechariah 10-11, they rarely invest it with the significance of Ezekiel 34. Therefore, this paper seeks to read the Good Shepherd paroemia through the lens of Social Identity Theory in the temple-removed context shared by Zechariah and Ezekiel, and the context of John's audience in a post-70 CE environment. From this context we will look at the shepherd and flock imagery in order to consider whether the integration of flock (10:17) and the sheep of another fold (10:16) fit better in a diaspora Jewish context struggling with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple under Titus in 70 CE. Through this lens we will see how the intra-group dynamics of the Good Shepherd monologue contribute to the ongoing social discourse around Jewish ethno-cultic practices without the Jerusalem temple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]