LITMIR.BIZ

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cases, the colonized society is in the negative but offensive mood, in suspense and in agitation. The hearts of the colonized are filled with emotions of oppression, exploitation, restriction, the absence of liberty, subordination, and so on. Painful experiences beyond description and negative images have been inscribed on the hearts of the colonized, no matter how tremendous the profits of colonization are. The more radical and intensive the feelings of oppression and bitterness, and the longer period of oppression they experience, the more negative emotions remain in the hearts of the colonized.

The opposite direction of influence, however, occurs spontaneously in the dominant culture.192 While the dominant culture has experience of modification of itself in some way by the influence of the colonial culture, a similar ambivalence and uncertainty, blurring of cultural boundaries and otherness are generated in that society. In many cases, this kind of transformation results in positive formations in the end, while supplementing the weakness of the dominant culture, strengthening their establishments, and increasing the wealth and benefits of the dominant society.

      Diaspora

The term “diaspora,” with “hybridentity,” is effective when examining the mutual contagion and subtle intimacies between the colonizer and the colonized because of their remarkable analytic versatility and theoretical adaptability.193 Theoretically speaking, the concept of diaspora could be employed to elaborate “the notion of in-between-ness conjured up by the term hybridity.”194

      Many of the colonized had to leave their original places for several reasons. In these difficult exilic situations, panic beyond imagination grew in the hearts of the diaspora. Their destinies were to be slaves or wanderers in foreign places. During their survival in foreign places, having lost their possessions the diaspora experienced on the one hand a loss of their original identities, although they attempted to keep them. On the other hand, they could not help accepting foreign influences, which caused a modification of their identities. The diasporic peoples, therefore, underwent modifications of their identities, with (no) relation to the ways in which they attempted to survive. In this kind of diasporic situation, their identities became more and more hybridized. Crucially, in this situation, the diaspora were sometimes not welcomed by either the colonizer or the colonized, like the Samaritans in Jewish society. Eventually, most of them could not return to their homeland after the emancipation of their home country from foreign power.

We can find a typical example of hybridentity and diaspora in the diasporic Hellenized Jews in the first century. One of the groups of readers of the Gospel of John might have been the diasporic Jews. In their hybridized identities, their reading of the Gospel might quite well have been different from that of the Palestine Jews. Supposing that John bore in mind not only the diasporic Jews, but also other readers whose origins were also very varied,195 it would have been acceptable for the author to adapt and employ many christological titles in order to identify Jesus as a universal king without any misunderstanding. John, with literal logic, seems to use various christological titles together, in a series, and simultaneously, in order to persuade the readers from a wide spectrum of origins.196

      Postcolonial Reading of the Gospel of John

In early Christianity, the huge influence of the empire upon multiple cultures had permeated into marginal groups.197 Jewish society, which is the background of the story of the Johannine Jesus as well as the Johannine community, was no exception. From the time of the Babylonian exile, Jewish society had been a kind of hybrid society in various ways. For example, in Babylonia the diasporic Jews on the one hand made themselves comfortable and, apparently, accepted the rule of the Chaldeans and afterward of the Persians, with some degree of contentment. On the other hand, there had also been resistance movements against the foreign powers.198 For example, the relationship between Tyre and Sidon and Galilee could be an appropriate case of hybrid processing.199 In addition, more particularly, the significance of the Roman occupation of the cultivatable arc of territory in the Near East and its relation to the surrounding marginal areas underlines the possibility of the hybridizing of the culture.200 Consequently, there is no doubt that Jewish society had been a kind of hybridized society for a long time through a series of resistance movements and accommodation to foreign influence. In short, the society was already in the process of diaspora and hybridentity and had been for a long time, even though some groups within Jewish society had tried to protect themselves from foreign influences.201

      In the time of the Johannine community, various groups were coexisting in society. Early Christianity, in particular, was a typical group marked by hybridentity and diaspora. For example, the description of the formation of the early Church in the book of Acts shows this feature of hybridentity and diaspora. The Johannine community would not be an exception. In this process, what was the direction of the pursuit of early Christianity, particularly that of the Johannine community? In the process of hybridentity and diaspora, their direction was neither a return to Judaism, nor submission to the Roman Empire, but the pursuit of a new world, in which Jesus reigns as the universal king. They had to pursue the new world where the various groups or individuals could live in harmony regardless of their origins. This vision of the Johannine community and that of postcolonialism reach each other at this point. In addition, the Johannine Gospel pursues not only the new world in which the various groups live together in unity and harmony, but also seeks to open larger and more extensive solidarities in the name of Jesus, the universal king. The globalization of postcolonialism reaches to the new universal world in the Fourth Gospel also at this point.

      Postcolonialism and the Gospel of John

No texts were ever written in a cultural vacuum.202 That means texts should be read with an understanding of the backgrounds: when/ where/ how/ why/ by whom texts were written. However, because of the difficulty or impossibility of knowing the exact backgrounds of the text and the authorial purpose of its composition, because of the admitted value of the reader-oriented reading of the text, it is possible and valuable to read the ancient text with current reading perspectives.

1) Hybridentity: Some researchers of the possible historical situations of the Johannine Community have spoken of the conflicts between the Jews and the Johannine community and/or within the Johannine community.203 However, the Johannine community had a relation to not only the Jews in Palestine and the diaspora, but also to Samaritan and non-Jewish groups.204 In the Fourth Gospel, in fact, these various elements, which indicate the relationship of John and many other communities, seem to co-exist.205 Then, why is it that many scholars have found common places in which John and other religious groups could stand together? One of the reasons is John’s concern for the universal kingdom in which Jesus reigns as king. To describe the Johannine Jesus as the universal king whom every group could understand when they read or heard this Gospel, John borrowed, modified and used a number of terms from both Jewish and non-Jewish cultures, which included a kingship motif.

      2) Mimicry: Jewish society in the first century was not only suffering under colonial power, but also pursuing it. After the failure of their attempts for independence through a long military resistance to the Roman power, it is most probable that Jewish society had gradually admitted the reality of the Roman Empire and had been in the process of hybridentity under Roman influence. Being under the foreign power for a long time, Jewish

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