The Kingship of Jesus in the Gospel of John

Kim

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781498241762
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Crítica e interpretación bíblicas

This book studies kingship with reference to the Johannine Jesus. Postcolonialism leads us to an avenue from which to read this Gospel in the more complex and wider context of the hybridized Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds of the Roman Empire in the first century CE. This provides a new perspective on the kingship of the Johannine Jesus, whose kingly identity is characterized by hybridized christological titles. For the Johannine readers in the first century, who were exploited, oppressed, yet at odds with both the colonizer and the colonized in the Roman Empire, this Gospel was deemed to reveal his identity. Using many christological titles, it presented Jesus as the universal king going beyond the Jewish Messiah(s) and the Roman emperors and also as the decolonizer who came to "his own" world to liberate his people from the darkness. In this respect, the ideology of the Johannine emphasizes that love, peace, freedom, service of the center for the margins, and forgiveness are the ruling forces in the new world where Jesus reigns as king. Raising an awareness of these ideologies, John's gospel asks readers to overcome the conflicting world shrouded in darkness, thenceforth entering the new Johannine world.

1. Introduction

Research Questions

The Gospel of John uses many ambiguous and complex concepts and motifs. Among them is the kingship motif as applied to Jesus. This Gospel also has intricately interconnected theological perspectives, such as its Christology. The Johannine Jesus might be designated as the king who came to liberate his people from the darkness, and to lead them into his new world. Particularly relevant for an exploration of the kingship motif are the Johannine christological titles, which were employed to show Jesus as king, i.e., the Messiah/Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Prophet, the Savior of the World, the Lord (My Lord and My God), the King of Israel/the Jews, etc.

In addition, the author of this Gospel (John) employs both christological terms and many literary devices to deepen the kingship of Jesus. A study of those terms and concepts in the Johannine Gospel, therefore, may well open a new horizon offering new perspectives on the Gospel. In particular, the terms and concepts employed to describe Jesus as king were used in contrast with the similar ones of the marginal groups and those of the center as well. Their meanings are significant, but indirect, suggestive, and implicational, so that there may be many interpretations concerning them. However, the kingship of Jesus could be easily recognized by its first century readers who had diverse origins, because the terms and concepts used to connote his kingship were historically developed and deep-rooted in their worldviews, and were adapted in the Fourth Gospel.

In the first part of this book, I will explore the kingship of the Johannine Jesus, which might be familiar to readers from diverse origins, to discuss whether the kingship motif might be a key to the interpretation of the Gospel. It is meaningful to do so, because the kingship has not been researched as the key to the interpretation of the Johannine Gospel. In part two, I will attempt a postcolonial reading of the Gospel of John in terms of kingship.

In order to do this, I will employ postcolonial theory as a major research methodology. However, I admit that it would not be useful to adopt postcolonial theory in interpreting the Gospel of John without an evaluation or criticism of its limits as a theory. To begin with, this theory needs to be modified adequately in order to attempt a new reading of the Fourth Gospel which sees the kingship of Jesus as not only a contemporary issue in the first century CE, but also as a current issue today. Finally, I will use this theory expecting to obtain good insights from it concerning three major areas of research: 1. the portrait of Jesus in the Gospel of John; 2. the identification of various groups and their relation and function in the Roman Empire; 3. the message of the Johannine Jesus to the (post)colonial world.

More specifically, concerning the portrait of the Johannine Jesus, I have these research questions: Does the Gospel of John describe Jesus as king? What kind of king was Jesus from the perspective of a variety of readers of the first century CE?

Concerning the second area of my research, the identification of various groups and their relation and function, we need to ask the following questions: Was the Roman Empire regarded as the center of the world? What was her particular relationship with other marginal groups? How are the Jews, particularly the Jewish leaders, described in the Gospel of John? What were their relationships with the Roman Empire and with Jesus? Can we deduce the essential characteristics of the Johannine community through reading the Gospel of John? Were they a marginal group? What were the purposes of the Gospel of John toward its readership?

Regarding the message of the Johannine Jesus to the postcolonial world, we should answer these questions: Why should we research the kingship of Jesus in the Gospel of John in the postcolonial era? What is the meaning of the kingship of Jesus in this world? What do the Johannine terms—love, forgiveness, freedom, service, and peace—mean in the postcolonial world? Can the message of the fourth Gospel provide an alternative vision of reconciliation and peace for society rather than the violence and conflict common in today’s world?

Before beginning to research these questions, it is first necessary to make some preliminary remarks concerning my research on the kingship motif with reference to the Johannine Jesus.

Preliminary Remarks

The Gospel of John is estimated to have been written in the late first century CE.1 This view has been widely accepted,2 although there are still debates over the date.3 Particularly, it is probable that the Gospel of John was written in the mid-nineties, during the reign of Domitian.4 Following Martyn’s argument, it is widely accepted that the Johannine community had been in conflict with the Jews from the middle of the first century CE and as a result were estranged from the Jerusalem Temple and the synagogues (John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2).5 This supports the view that the Fourth Gospel was written to consolidate the Johannine community in order to overcome its conflict with the Synagogue.6 However, this is not the only serious problem, which confronted the Johannine community. A more dangerous situation arose from Rome.7 The Roman Empire was persecuting Christians for several reasons. One of them seems to be related to Emperor-worship.8 The Roman Emperors were worshipped as supra human beings or gods.9 It is also probable that the Johannine community needed to consolidate itself with strong faith in order to prevent apostasy10 and to confront and overcome persecution.11 It was Domitian (81–96 CE) who claimed the title “lord and god”12 and was responsible for a major persecution of Christians due to his profound hostility toward any form of religious unorthodoxy,13 particularly, as the traditional provenance of the Gospel of John was in Ephesus.14 The imperial cult in Domitian’s time was a strong challenge to the Christians in Ephesus, who were the first possible readers of the Gospel of John. The fact that a gigantic marble statue of Domitian in the new imperial temple in Ephesus, the center of the imperial cult in Asia Minor, was dedicated to Rome and “the divine Julius,”15 implies the existence of religious conflict for the Christians in Ephesus. It is probable, therefore, that the Fourth Gospel was, at least, written to consolidate faith in the era of persecution for the Johannine community or the Christians, who experienced both estrangement from the Synagogue and harsh persecution from Roman rule.16 If it is probable that the Gospel of John was written against these religious-political backgrounds in an era of conflict and persecution, it is quite likely that John adapted several terms, which originally indicated the Roman emperors and applied them to Jesus, as the real king to be f...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• Part I: The Kingship of Jesus in the Gospel of John
• Part II: A Postcolonial Reading of the Kingship of Jesus in the Gospel of John
• Bibliography