The Kingship of Jesus in the Gospel of John. Sehyun Kim

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СКАЧАТЬ as a postcolonial text. In order to attempt a postcolonial reading of the Gospel, particularly to identify the kingship motif in the Johannine Jesus, I surveyed 1) differences and similarities between the center and the margins (mimicry), 2) the subtle relationship between the center and the margins (ambivalence), 3) hybridentity and diaspora in postcolonialism, as major theoretical tools of postcolonialism. While I defined the Gospel as a discourse of resistance and emancipation, I pointed out the complex and subtle relationship between the center and the margins in the Gospel.

      Finally, I argued that hybridentity and diaspora are in a sense unavoidable in a colonial society. Thus, it is necessary to admit that a postcolonial society is a hybridized and diasporic society. The postcolonial hope, therefore, is to make a new utopian society through mutual transactions of the center and the margin, thus overcoming institutionalized violence and suffering. The Johannine new world pursued in the Gospel is like this: entry into the new hybrid society, which overcomes institutionalized violence and sufferings means entering the new world of peace, forgiveness, service, freedom, and love. The postcolonial hope is linked to the Johannine Utopia where Jesus as the universal king reigns for all the people regardless of whether their origins were the center or the margin.

44. For more than one purpose and one potential audience, see Tanzer, “Salvation Is for the Jews,” 285–300, esp. 285–86.

45. Brown gives a clear definition of the terms, polemic, apologetic, and missionary: “The most virulent tract of one group of Christians against others usually wants to show how their position is wrong (apologetic), how they horrendously distort Jesus’ message (polemic), and how they can be brought to the truth represented by the writer of the tract (missionary)” (Brown, Introduction, 152).

46. In this Gospel, God the Father is presented as the one who sent Jesus the Son (5:23, 36, 37; 6:44, 57; 8:18; 12:49; 20:21), and Jesus as the one sent (3:34; 5:38; 6:29; 17:3), and as the one who has come into the world (5:43; 12:46; 16:28; 18:37; cf. 7:28; 8:42; see also 1:9, 11; cf. 1:5, 10; 1:15, 27, 30; 3:31; 3:2; 11:27; 7:27, 31, 41, 42; 6:14; 12:13, 15; 4:25–26). Particularly, although the term “mission” is not used in the Gospel, this motif using different terms, various forms of πέμπειν (5:37; 6:44; 7:28; 8:16, 26, 29; 12:49; 5:23; 7:33; 12:44, 45; 13:20; 15:21; 16:5; 5:24; 4:34; 5:30; 6:38, 39; 7:16; 9:4; 14:23) and ἀποστέλλειν (5:36; 20:21; 11:42; 17:3, 8, 18, 21, 23, 25; 3:17, 34; 5:38; 6:29, 57; 7:29; 8:42; 10:36), is insistently repeated in the text.

47. See Sheppard, “Gospel of John,” 2; Okure, Johannine Approach, 1–3.

48. Okure, Johannine Approach, 3.

49. Segovia, “Final Farewell of Jesus,” 178–79.

50. Nissen, “Community and Ethics,” 194–95.

51. Perkins, Love Commands, 106.

52. On the Gospel of John as a missionary document for Diaspora Jews, see Smith, Jesus in the Gospel; van Unnik, “Purpose of the Fourth Gospel,” 410; Robinson, “Destination and Purpose,” 117–31; Nicol, Semeia, 146; Moule, Birth, 136–37; Carson, “Purpose,” 639–51.

53. For example, Philip and Nicodemus are Greek names, while Simon and Nathanael are Jewish names in the Gospel of John. This employment of the Jewish and Greek names implies that this Gospel “seems best . . . to posit a mixed audience for the immediate group addressed, bearing in mind the undeniably cosmic dimensions and setting of the Gospel” (Okure, Johannine Approach, 280–81).

54. See Esler, Community and Gospel, 220. Esler sees that religious and socioeconomic positions are important to understand the identification of the community. He argues that the Gospel of Luke was written for legitimating Christianity to his audience, especially perhaps to the Roman readers among them. Esler’s argument gives a good application to understand the Johannine community as the audience or the readers of the Gospel in the multicultural societies of the Roman Empire. On this, Okure argues, “the Christians of the first century were not provincial in their outlook, movements or mentality, we have no reason to surmise that either the works or the problems addressed were restricted to the geographical area from which they originated” (Okure, Johannine Approach, 280–81).

55. On the relationship between Samaritan tradition and the Gospel, see chapter 3 of this book. Freed argues that John 4 was written to win Samaritan converts (Freed, “Did John Write His Gospel?,” 241–56). Meeks also contends that the secondary aim of the Gospel is to win Samaritan converts (Meeks, Prophet-King, 313–19; Meeks, “Galilee and Judea,” 159–69, esp. 169; Meeks, “‘Am I a Jew?’,” 163–86, esp. 178).

56. On the relationship between ideology and reality, see the section “Methods and Theories” of this chapter.

57. On this, Wind concludes, “It is therefore not improbable that the purpose of John’s Gospel is as broad as its universalistic character seems to suggest: ‘that you may believe’, that is the faith that saves and defeats the world (John iii 16 and I John v 5)” (Wind, “Destination and Purpose,” 69).

58. On the openness to Gentiles or Gentile Christians in the Gospel, see Dodd, Interpretation, 9; Hengel, Johannine Question, 123; Brown, Community, 55–58; Culpepper, Johannine School, 287–88; Wind, “Destination and Purpose,” 26–69. For example, insertions of Greek terms to clarify Aramaic phrases (1:41, 42; 4:25) show that the author considered Greek-speaking readers (Brown, Community, 57; Kysar, John, 44).

59. Polemic purposes against several groups, for example, Gnosticism, Docetists, the followers of John the Baptist, and so on, have been suggested by scholars. For good surveys on it, see Morris, Gospel, 30–34; Lindars, Gospel, 58–63.

60. See Rensberger, Johannine Faith, 87–134; Carter, John and Empire.

61. On the apologetic purpose of the Gospel of John, the defense of the faith of the Johannine community before unbelievers and/or other Christian groups, see McGrath, John’s Apologetic Christology, esp. 232; Fortna, Gospel of Signs, 224, 229–31; Nicol, Semeia, 145; Meeks, “Divine Agent,” 43–67, esp. 44; Geisler, “Johannine Apologetics,” 333–43; Brown, Introduction, 151–83; Alexander, “Acts of the Apostles,” 15–44.

62. Alexander, “Acts of the Apostles,” 17–18.

63. Fiorenza, “Miracles, Mission and Apologetics,” 2. Droge also gives a good explanation: “Apologetic in the New Testament comprises a study of the ‘act of persuasion’ employed by the early Christians. Such persuasion evolved in a context of СКАЧАТЬ