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system or perception of the cosmos reflected in the christological statements of the Gospel of John. He focuses also on the conflict and competition with other colonized Jewish groups and within the Johannine community itself.

In 2002, the book entitled John and Postcolonialism35 was published to examine the making and distribution of power on earthly spaces by tracing the journeys within the Johannine narrative. In this collection of essays, some authors show how the Gospel of John approves of certain travellers invading foreign spaces and how these foreign peoples can reread the Gospel to support decolonization.36 Some authors seek to identify the exclusive boundaries, while others seek to open up closed boundaries so that all travellers can descend from heaven to earth. Still others trace the journeys and places occupied by women in the Johannine story and in colonial settings. Some authors highlight how colonial history has changed the reading practices of certain communities, while others read this Gospel in order to understand the complex power relations that characterize readers as the colonizers, the collaborators, and the colonized.

Particularly, Musa W. Dube, in her article entitled “Reading for Decolonization,”37 attempts to highlight some of the main imperial ideological constructions of the Johannine narrative. Her hypothesis on reading the Johannine texts for decolonization seems to be subjected to the hypothesis on “the Bible as imperializing texts.” She seems to admit a premise of postcolonial perspective on Imperialism: Imperialism pursues power, mostly violence and military power, to dominate foreign spaces. In addition, Dube, in her article “Savior of the World but not of This World,”38 points out where her reading of the Gospel of John differs, i.e., in refusing to ignore the Roman imperial setting in the Gospel, refusing to abstract the biblical texts from modern and contemporary international structures, and refusing to read the biblical text in isolation from other works of literature. Dube’s aim is to highlight colonizing strategies and their similarity to the Gospel of John. She argues, “the exalted space of Jesus as a savior of the world, who is not of this world, is shown to be a colonizing ideology that claims power over all other places and peoples of the earth—one which is not so different from other constructions in secular literature.”39 However, we need to ask if the Bible, in particular the Gospel of John, is, in fact, an imperializing text. The Johannine Jesus does not justify a colonizing ideology because he rejects the logic of power that contains violence. Rather, the Johannine Gospel describes Jesus as a decolonizer who attempts to liberate the world from the darkness with love, forgiveness, freedom, service, and peace.

Richard A. Horsley highlights in his book, Jesus and Empire, that it is important to recognize the relationship of the Gospels and the Roman Empire in order to research the identity of Jesus. That is, he highlights the political aspect in the study of Jesus. His remark has much in common with an academic trend of Johannine study, which emphasizes the relation of this Gospel and the Roman Empire. Horsley points out the similarity between Jesus’ movement of the kingdom of God and the postcolonial agenda, “recent and current anti-colonial (or anti-imperial) movements in which the withdrawal (or defeat) of the colonizing power is the counterpart and condition of the colonized people’s restoration to independence and self-determination.”40 Meaningfully, the judgmental aspect of the Kingdom of God and the eschatological teaching of Jesus indicate emancipation from the foreign power, the Roman Empire. His view is particularly linked with the Johannine new world where the Johannine Jesus reigns as the king. That is, the functions of the Kingdom of God, as Horsley points out, are those of the Johannine Jesus. The Fourth Gospel also implies emancipation of the people from the darkness. This emancipation from the darkness is linked to a constructive alternative, the Johannine new world where all people can live in love, forgiveness, freedom, service, and peace.

Most recently, Warren Carter surveys the central issues of the Gospel of John in his book, John: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist. He introduces a consideration of the Gospel’s negotiation of the Roman imperial world. He notes that Jesus’ ministry reveals God’s life-giving purposes for all people, including those marginalized by the hierarchical imperial social structure.41 He also notes that in the inclusion of such people in John’s community, John thus interprets traditions about Jesus in relation to Rome’s world. He argues that the Johannine new world as God’s life-giving and just purpose is shown to be contrary to and resistant to the Roman Empire. Namely, the Roman Empire is revealed to be under judgment in the Gospel of John. In addition, he notes that the Fourth Gospel reveals to the community of Jesus believers, that is, the Johannine new world, that it participates in and anticipates a vastly different reality, namely, the life of God which is given through faith in Jesus. He highlights also that “this alternative community . . . reflected in, and shaped by, the gospel’s anti-language, is commissioned to continue to do the works Jesus did (14:12–17), to reveal God’s life-giving purposes even though it will be a tough and resisted work (15:18–25).”42 Furthermore, Carter explains that the Johannine meaning of life is “countercultural in that it is marked by love and service, not domination as in Roman imperial society, and material and physical, since it participates in God’s life-giving and just purposes of salvation.”43 Finally, Carter concludes that in John’s Gospel various christological titles, which are related to kingship, are used throughout the Gospel to emphasize the identity and tasks of Jesus as God’s agent.

      Outline of the Research

      This book consists of two major parts: the first part is about the identity of the Johannine Jesus (from chapter 2 to 4), and the second part the function of the Johannine Jesus (from chapter 5 to 6).

      First, in chapter 2, I will discuss the textual features of the Johannine Gospel in relation to its purposes and recipients. Then, I will describe the two pillars of the background of the kingship of Jesus in the Gospel of John: Jewish traditions and Graeco-Roman traditions. Thirdly, I will discuss the importance of the combination of the two traditions to understand the kingship motif of Jesus in John’s Gospel. Finally, I will discuss the method of this book: postcolonialism.

      From chapter 3 onwards, I will investigate christological titles, which present the kingship motif of Jesus and their distinctive usage in the Gospel of John. In chapter 3, I will point out important factors for understanding the Johannine christological titles: the Johannine christological titles as hybridized products of hybridized society, and their distinctive usage in mixture. Then, I will discuss the Johannine christological titles in terms of kingship, particularly, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Prophet, the Savior of the World, and the Lord/ My Lord and My God.

      In chapter 4, I will research the title, “the king of Israel/the Jews” which explicitly reveals the kingship of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. To begin with, I will survey the meanings of “king” (βασιλεύς) in comparing with both Graeco-Roman and Jewish understandings of this particular office. Then, I will examine that title in the particular context of the Johannine Gospel.

      In the second part of the book, I will research the function of the Johannine Jesus from a postcolonial perspective. To do so, in chapter 5, I will deal with “identity matters,” that is, the identities of the groups in the Gospel of John: the Roman Empire as the center, the Jews not the ordinary Jews but the Jews of Jerusalem as the collaborators, and the Johannine Group as the margins but also as a group to overcome the center. Then, I will deal with the subtle relationship between the center and the margins under the Roman Empire, and with the matter of collaborators with the Empire. In addition, I will research a complex and delicate conflict between the center and the margins.

      Finally, in chapter 6, I will define the identity of the Johannine Jesus. I will discuss Jesus as space to identify him as a universal king, and his functions

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