“Dematerializing” Religion: Reading John 2–4 as a Chiasm 551 operates without physical places and media of purification. In a world where location and purification (see kaqarismov" in 2,6; 3,25) define salvation for insiders and judgment for outsiders, the Fourth Gospel radically redefines access to God. The author’s anti-docetic Christology (e.g., 1,14; 11,35; 19,5) guards from overinterpreting his theological efforts into an absolute mind-matter dualism (106). As paradoxical as it sounds, the new religion centers on an emphatically human God (1,18; 20,28). Yet it does operate without a temple and its structured personnel, without a city, a tangible kingdom, a calendar of feasts, jars, animals, birth certificates. Even possible sacramental allusions in John 3 and 6 appear as barely visible tokens of faith when compared with the impressive amount of religious furniture in Judaism and paganism. 3. In the structural center of John 2–4 and at the heart of the contrasts therein lies a difference in the kind of “seeing” required by the old and the new religion. Verbs of “seeing” frame John 3, the center of the narrative unit (3,3.35). In his first response to Nicodemus Jesus speaks of seeing “the Kingdom of God” and thereby picks up the traditional nutshell of expectations for God’s visible reign (3,3.5). Yet the concept of God’s reign is filled with new content. The visible nature of divine rule is reoriented towards having “eternal life” now (3,15.16) and “seeing life” (3,36) through faith. Key terms of any religion, that of God’s “love”, of “saving” and “judging” are not tied to Jerusalem, a temple, an ethnic group or a rite of physical purification but to the Son as the one condition without which life is unavailable. While the narratives negotiate this theme with the situational and religious flavor of first century Palestine and Judaism, the monologue in 3,13-21 transcends a Jewish/Samaritan context and interprets the historical experience of Jesus’ ministry and his rejection in theological terms (God, love, hate, world, light, darkness). Since the miracles in John 2,1-12 and John 4,43-54 appeal to the eye and potentially stimulate a form of “seeing” that falls short of true faith (see 2,23; 4,48; 6,14-15; etc.) (107), the center of the (106) As numerous recent studies have shown, the Fourth Gospel neither offers a docetic Christology nor was it the preferred textbook of later Gnosticism. See only S. VOORWINDE, Jesus’ Emotions in the Fourth Gospel. Human or Divine? (LNTS 284; London 2005); C.E. HILL, The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Oxford 2004). (107) The critical notes on a kind of faith that is based on “seeing signs” (2,23; 4,48) indicate what is detailed in following chapters. Jesus’ miracles led to