530 Lars Kierspel a necessary condition or automatic benefit for discipleship. Jesus’ denial of the mother-son relationship at this moment contributes to this trajectory and breaks with traditional patterns of defining religious insiders (17). b) The Jews Also in contrast to Moloney’s proposal, we read nothing in the pericope of the temple cleansing about the Jews’ lack of faith in Jesus’ words. In Moloney’s eyes, the Jews were “mocking” Jesus and “arrogantly rejected his word” (18) when they asked for a sign (2,18) and expressed their misunderstanding by asking, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” (2,20). Yet, Moloney counts the official as an example of “complete faith” although Jesus reprimands him for wanting to “see signs and wonders” (4,48). And Nicodemus is considered an example of “partial faith” although he mocks Jesus’ words more clearly than anybody with his question, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” (3,4) (19). As Moloney himself rightly observes regarding 2,18-20, even “the reader is almost as ignorant as ‘the Jews’” (20) when it comes to Jesus’ statement about raising the temple in three days. In addition, even the disciples can believe “the word which Jesus had spoken” (2,22) only after his resurrection. The Jews’ response to Jesus is thus not implied evidence of their arrogance but of their ignorance. Asking the obvious question in response to a purposefully provocative and enigmatic statement is a feature ‘the Jews’ share with everybody else in the Gospel except the beloved disciple! (21) Moloney thus over-characterizes the Jews when he reads their request (2,18) and question (2,20) as an example of “no faith”. While their faith response is elaborated on later in the Gospel, they (17) J.H. NEYREY, The Gospel of John (NCBC; Cambridge 2007), comes to the same conclusion. Finding an “anti-kinship motif”, he comments that “the mother of Jesus appears to be less than a hard-core believer; rather, she represents kin or blood relationship, which is found wanting here. A blood relative but not a genuine believer, she does not know his ‘hour’” (Ibid., 68). (18) MOLONEY, Belief, 104, 109. (19) Reading John 3,4, NEYREY (The Gospel of John, 78) can write: “When he [Nicodemus] mocks Jesus, his ridicule suggests that his misunderstanding is complete”. (20) Ibid., 99. (21) See the disciples’ misunderstandings in 11,11-13; 13,8-10.27-29.36-37; 14,4-5.7-8; 16,16-17; 21,22-23.