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were mixed into one another to reveal the identity of Jesus. The Johannine christological titles, therefore, have their own unique meanings in the Gospel, which reveal the identity of Jesus as king.

      A Review of Literature

The topic of this book, the kingship as attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John, is an attempt to read the Gospel from a postcolonial perspective. The Johannine Gospel has traditionally been approached from the perspective of Jewish traditions. Recently, new materials and perspectives, which reveal its close relation to the Graeco-Roman context, have stimulated Johannine scholars to see the Gospel in the Graeco-Roman context.23 Particularly, a gap, which research on the relation of the Johannine christological titles to those of Jewish traditions could not fill,24 seems to be more or less filled through the products of the new materials and perspectives. These two tendencies and academic research, however, have been paying little attention to the kingship motif of Jesus in John’s Gospel as one of the major themes of it.

      The twentieth century saw a rapid development in the study not only of the Graeco-Roman world but also of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish traditions when investigating the texts of the New Testament. These studies have had a remarkable influence on the study of the Fourth Gospel. New perspectives have been developed and new approaches of interpretation have been suggested. Hence, no one can deny that research into the background of the New Testament is necessary when examining the kingship motif in the John’s Gospel.

Early in the twentieth century, a German scholar, Adolf Deissmann, in his book entitled Light from the Ancient East, shows how closely the world of the New Testament is connected to the Graeco-Roman world. In his book, Deissmann translates and interprets inscriptional evidence, which describes Roman emperors. Several concepts and titles ascribed to Roman emperors had developed as the result of Emperor-worship. This development was one of the major backgrounds of the formation of the Christianity. He emphasizes that the titles used for Roman emperors were adapted by Christians to magnify Jesus. He compares the titles of Roman emperors with those of Jesus to show similarity between them.25 He has opened a way of research on the King-Christology of the New Testament by presenting the similarity of titles between Roman emperors and Jesus. His broad research underlines the importance of the Graeco-Roman world for the study of the New Testament. In particular, his viewpoint throws light on the necessity of the study of Johannine Christology in association with the Imperial titles, because several titles attributed to Roman emperors are used to identify the Johannine Jesus.

      A half century later, in 1967, Wayne A. Meeks published a book entitled The Prophet-King. In this book, Meeks puts his emphasis on the possible links between Mosaic traditions and Johannine Christology. He explores the kingship of “the Prophet” both in the Hebrew Bible and in Jewish traditions. He demonstrates Jesus as the Prophet, indicative of the King who was promised to come as the Prophet like Moses in the Hebrew Bible. Ten years later, in 1977, M. de Jonge in his book entitled Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God also argues for a relationship between Jewish Messianism and Jesus as the Prophet and king in the Gospel of John. According to Meeks and de Jonge, the kingship of Jesus in the Gospel of John is also in close relation to Jewish traditions.

In 1990, Craig R. Koester26 focuses on the title, “the Savior of the World,” which is confessed by the Samaritans in John 4:42, a term that was never used in Samaritan traditions. Rather, it used to be applied to Roman emperors only by the Romans. Koester argues that John used this term on purpose to reveal Jesus as the king through the lips of the Samaritans. He compares the scenes of triumphal entries into the towns of Roman emperors with those of the Samaritans’ reception of the Johannine Jesus. He suggests these two are very similar to each other.

In 1992, Richard J. Cassidy published a book entitled John’s Gospel in New Perspective. In this book, he researches three significant Imperial titles, which are employed to designate Jesus in the Gospel of John: “Savior of the World,” “Lord,” and “Lord and God.” He demonstrates how these three Imperial titles were employed in the process of the deification of Roman emperors. He comments that the intention to strengthen the position of emperors seems to lead to the deification of Roman emperors. He mentions, “so many political factors were intertwined with so many religious factors that it is extremely difficult to delineate the boundary between these two dimensions.”27 Cassidy indicates that the political and religious factors of Rome might well be a strong background for the Gospel of John.

      M. É. Boismard in his book entitled Moses or Jesus suggests a new interpretation of the usage of “Son of Joseph,” which may relate to the Messianism of Samaritan traditions. According to Boismard, one of the backgrounds to John’s Gospel is the Samaritan tradition, in which two Messiahs are prophesied: “Son of David,” and “Son of Joseph.” “Joseph” in Samaritan tradition is the son of Jacob in Genesis, who was a savior of the Israelites.

Many scholars currently conduct studies on the Graeco-Roman background of the New Testament.28 They suggest that studies on Rome, Roman emperors and the Imperial cult could be quite closely related to the New Testament studies. In particular, Frederick W. Danker’s research29 on the benefactor, because the word, “benefactor,” was used as a title of Roman emperors and deities at that time. Danker uses data derived especially from Graeco-Roman inscriptions in which the benefactor-pattern is reasonably certain, to determine whether particular sections of the New Testament that suggest adoption of the Graeco-Roman benefactor model do in fact connote such to a reasonable degree of certainty. He examines particularly the ideas of ἀρετή (excellence), ἀνηρ ἀγαθός (good man), and καλοκἀγαθός. He proposes that the ideas are common in concept and meaning, and are synonymous alternative expressions of benefactor. The concept of benefactor seemed to be applied to the kingship of the Johannine Jesus.30

Some scholars31 convey the knowledge of the Jewish and Hellenistic background by conducting their research on the shepherd-king motif in the Gospel of John. The book entitled The Shepherd Discourse of John 10 and its Context32 edited by Beutler and Fortna is an important one to consider when studying the shepherd-king motif.

      In addition, recently, some scholars have pursued a fuller understanding of Jesus in his religious, social, political, and economic context. David R. Kaylor attempts to delineate the political elements of Jesus’ ministry and teaching in his book entitled Jesus the Prophet. He intends to interpret the political dimensions of Jesus, not to reconstruct a political Jesus. An attempt to explore Jesus in a political context, which is closely connected with the religious one, in the Gospel of John has its usefulness, although the Gospel explains much more beyond the political dimension of Jesus. It is necessary, therefore, to have some understanding of the religious-political context to explore what the Fourth Gospel wants to reveal about Jesus.

David Rensberger, in his book Johannine Faith and Liberating Community, argues the possibility of such in relation to Christology and politics by the rediscovery of its social and historical settings. He intends to show “that in the late first century CE, when Jewish and Christian theology and politics could seldom be totally separated, the author of the Gospel had a distinctive conception of what those connotations were.”33 He, finally, argues that the Johannine Gospel seems to support a theology of liberation because of its overruling Christology. Accordingly, he remarks that this Gospel is “the product of an oppressed community.”34

      Jerome

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