“Dematerializing” Religion: Reading John 2–4 as a Chiasm 541 Temple” (66) and thus presents “Jesus as the true temple who replaces the old Temple as the source of eschatological life” (67). It is as the new temple that Jesus inaugurates a new worship in Spirit and truth (4,23- 24) (68). b) Further development in John 4,1-42 The dialogue with the Samaritan repeats the concept of replacement as found in the temple cleansing (69) but expands it in various ways. (a) Not only the Jewish temple in Jerusalem is replaced by Jesus, but any Gentile temple as well. While the Samaritans do participate in “Jacob’s well” and syncretize Israel’s faith, the racial distinction expressed in 4,9 and the Samaritans’ acclamation of Jesus as “Savior of the world” (4,42, not “the Jews”) identify them as non-Jews and thus as representatives of Gentiles. The Samaritan mountain of worship is Gerizim but it remains unnamed in the text. This allows us to understand Samaritans as representatives of any religion other than Judaism that worships on any mountain other than Jerusalem, such as Mount Olympus, the Acropolis in Athens, or even Capitoline hill in Rome. Thus the new form of worship introduced by Jesus stands in antithesis to any alternative location and practice of worship (70). (b) John 2 focuses on the temple and John 4 on the antithesis between (66) UM, The Theme of Temple Christology, 148, see 148-151. (67) DENNIS, Jesus’ Death, 190. The significance of replacement is all the more evident since, as McHugh observes, Jesus “bypasses the Jerusalem motif” in the temple promise of Ezek 47,1-10 (and Zech 13,1; 14,8). J. MCHUGH, “‘In Him was life’: John’s Gospel and the Parting of the Ways”, Jews and Christians. The Parting of the Ways, A.D. 70 to 135 (ed. J. D.G. DUNN) (Grand Rapids, MI 1999) 135. (68) For the replacement motif in the temple cleansing see especially C. METZDORF, Die Tempelaktion Jesu. Patristische und historisch-kritische Exegese im Vergleich (WUNT 168; Tübingen 2003) and now also B. THETTAYIL, In Spirit and Truth. An Exegetical Study of John 4:19-26 and a theological Investigation of the Replacement Theme in the Fourth Gospel (CBET 46; Leuven 2007), esp. part II, pp. 231-471. (69) Various scholars observed these terminological and conceptual links between John 2,13-22 and 4,1-42 and understand them as part of a parallel theological theme of new worship or, beyond that, as part of a larger temple Christology in the Gospel: BLIGH, “Jesus in Samaria”, 337-338; TALBERT, Reading John, 126; UM, The Theme of Temple Christology, 186; CARSON, The Gospel According to John, 164. (70) BLIGH (“Jesus in Samaria”, 338) comments that the question of temple worship is answered here not just for Samaritans but “in principle for all future Gentile Christians”. The Samaritans in John 4 are quite frequently regarded as representatives of the Gentile world. See DODD, Interpretation, 239.