Abstract
This chapter operates as a theoretical introduction to the thorny issue of otherness and identity in the Gospel of John and beyond. The current project pursues a theological inquiry into otherness and identity in ongoing interactions between the minor characters and Jesus in the Gospel. In contrast to the recent trend of Johannine scholarship to perpetuate negative portrayals of the minor characters, the project contends that the minor characters in John challenge and destabilize Johannine hierarchical dualism. Paying special attention to his lived experience of othering in the East Asian context, the author contextualizes his social location as it pertains to the interpretation of John’s minor characters and Jesus. In order to reimagine the relationship between self and other, he also investigates three aspects of otherness in terms of heteronomy, relationality, and autonomy. By and large, this chapter attempts to reconfigure otherness through the examples of the minor characters in a multidirectional, flexible, and interrelated fashion—or, otherness as ambiguous, internal, external, and transcendent.
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Notes
- 1.
William E. Connolly, Identity\Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox, Expanded ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 64.
- 2.
Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978), 5.
- 3.
On the danger of the constructions of otherness inscribed in the text, cf. Mitzi J. Smith, The Literary Construction of the Other in the Acts of the Apostles: Charismatics, the Jews, and Women, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Eugene, Or.: Pickwick Publications, 2011), 7. Mitzi J. Smith aptly writes: “Constructions of otherness are inscribed in the text, and if we are not careful we accept constructions of others, of otherness, as infallible and pure. Consequently we reinscribe that otherness, the constructed stereotypical and demonized other, into our worlds. This has been particularly true in the case of women and Jewish persons.”
- 4.
On the multi-layered othernesses in John’s Gospel, see Ruth Sheridan, “Identity, Alterity, and the Gospel of John,” Biblical Interpretation 22 (2014): 207–08. Ruth Sheridan aptly notes: “Nevertheless, alterity is multi-layered in the Fourth Gospel. If Judea and the Jews are ‘other’ to the Romans, the Samaritans are ‘other’ to the Jews (cf. 4:9). To Jesus and the believing disciples, ‘the world’ is ‘other’ (1:10; 3:19; 8:23; 9:39; 12:31; 15:18-19; 16:33; 17:9-19, 25; 18:20, 36); the ‘prince of this world’ is ‘other’ (12:31; 14:30; 16:11); and to the light, the darkness (1:5; 8:12; 12:35, 46) is ‘other.’ Spaces and territories are also ‘other’: the Diaspora is ‘other’ (7:35) but is a space that will be incorporated into the symbolic body of believers in Jesus (12:32). Gerizim is ‘other’ to ‘Jerusalem’ (4:20). As stated early in this article, people have–and texts project–not one identity but multiple identities, and these identities have contextual relevance.”
- 5.
On the categorization of others—for instance, external other and internal other—in biblical studies, see Lawrence M. Wills, Not God’s People: Insiders and Outsiders in the Biblical World, Religion in the Modern World (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 1–19; Smith, The Literary Construction of the Other in the Acts of the Apostles: Charismatics, the Jews, and Women, 1–10. On the study of the other in classical studies, see also François Hartog, The Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation of the Other in the Writing of History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Edith Hall, Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy, Oxford Classical Monographs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); Jonathan M. Hall, Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture (Chicago: Univ of Chicago Press, 2002); Benjamin H. Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). For the study of the other in Jewish studies, see also Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, and Caroline McCracken-Flesher, “To See Ourselves as Others See Us”: Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late Antiquity, Scholars Press Studies in the Humanities (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985); Laurence J. Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn, The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity, New Perspectives on Jewish Studies (New York: New York University Press, 1994); Daniel C. Harlow et al., eds., The “Other” in Second Temple Judaism: Essays in Honor of John J. Collins (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011); Erich S. Gruen, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity, Martin Classical Lectures (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011).
- 6.
Cf. Sheridan, “Identity, Alterity, and the Gospel of John,” 209. “While this rhetorical invitation has its benefits in terms of the solidification of group identity, it should not be forgotten that it [the Gospel of John] also carries the potential to sustain a vision of the ‘other’ that is dichotomous and damaging.” Rather, my project seeks to shed fresh light on the potential to reimagine the other beyond the limits of the Johannine dualism.
- 7.
On social location, cf. Fernando F. Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert, Reading from This Place, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995).
- 8.
Daniel Patte and Teresa Okure, Global Bible Commentary (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2004), xxi-xxxiii. Daniel Patte’s observation leads me to contextualize my social location prior to undertaking the journey of finding meaning in the Gospel of John, for no meaning can be created apart from the temporal and spatial constraints of the reader. In effect, all readings are perspectival in the sense that they are subject to negotiation between the two different poles of text and reader in the process of constructing meaning. The reason is that the complex and interlocking context—involving, among others, such factors as gender, race, ethnicity, ideology, and religion—guides the reader toward a certain way of reading the text. In what follows, I start to articulate the social location from which I approach the text of John.
- 9.
Cf. Uriah kim, “The Politics of Othering in North America and in the Book of Judges,” Postcolonial Theology 2 (2013): 32–40.
- 10.
Cf. Felix Wilfred, The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
- 11.
Cf. Sung Uk Lim, “The Myth of Origin in Context through the Lens of Deconstruction, Dialogism, and Hybridity,” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 10, no. 29 (2011): 113–114.
- 12.
On the flesh-and-blood reader, see Fernando F. Segovia, “Toward a Hermeneutics of the Diaspora: A Hermeneutics of Otherness and Engagement,” in Reading from This Place, V 1: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States, ed. Fernando F. Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995), 57–74. According to Fernando F. Segovia, “the flesh-and-blood reader” is the real reader located in a specific context. Contrary to the implied reader, a hypothetically constructed reader created in a vacuum, the flesh-and-blood reader has his/her social, historical, and cultural context. To put it another way, the flesh-and-blood reader engages with the text in pursuit of meaning, drawing on his/her social and cultural location.
- 13.
On the travel motif in John’s Gospel, see Fernando F. Segovia, “The Journey(s) of the Word of God: A Reading of the Plot of the Fourth Gospel,” Semeia, no. 53 (1991): 23–54; Musa W. Dube, “Batswakwa: Which Traveller Are You (John 1:1-18)?,” in The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories, and Trends, ed. Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 150–162; “Reading for Decolonization (John 4.1-42),” in John and Postcolonialism: Travel, Space and Power, ed. Musa W. Dube and Jeffrey Lloyd Staley (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 51–75.
- 14.
It should be kept in mind that the construction of identity and otherness of John’s characters mutually influences and is mutually influenced by the construction of identity and otherness of the “flesh-and-blood reader.” Cf. Sheridan, “Identity, Alterity, and the Gospel of John,” 195–196. “Yet the psychoanalytic structure of the text also bears fruit in the reader’s response and plays a role in shaping the reader’s identity. The reader’s emphatic engagement with the protagonist of the story allows him or her to likewise confront the Other vicariously through the story. Recent research in cognitive narratology demonstrates that readers empathize with characters in a story because their perception of the fictional nature of the story allows them to suspend disbelief to a point where they are not ‘suspicious’ of the motives of the novel’s characters as they might be of a real person.”
- 15.
On an outstanding reflection of otherness as a biblical hermeneutics, see Fernando F. Segovia, “Toward a Hermeneutics of the Diaspora: A Hermeneutics of Otherness and Engagement,” in Reading from This Place, Vol 1 (Minneapolis: Fortress Pr, 1995), 57–73.
- 16.
On autonomy, cf. Christina Grenholm, “Autonomy,” in The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity, ed. Daniel Patte (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 89. On heteronomy, cf. Christina Grenholm, “Heteronomy,” ibid., 510–511. On relationality, cf. Christina Grenholm, “Relationality,” ibid., 1062.
- 17.
Jacques Derrida and Alan Bass, Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 195.
- 18.
Jacques Derrida and Alan Bass, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 279.
- 19.
Jacques Derrida, “Deconstruction and the Other,” in Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers: The Phenomenological Heritage: Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Herbert Marcuse, Stanislas Breton, Jacques Derrida, ed. Richard Kearney and Paul Ricœur (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1984), 107–126.
- 20.
François Cusset, French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 125.
- 21.
Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, Perspectives in Continental Philosophy (New York: Fordham University Press, 1997), 44.
- 22.
On the dialogical “face-to-face” encounter between the self and the other, see Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969); Time and the Other (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1987); Otherwise Than Being, or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998); Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak, To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1993). Like Bakhtin, Emmanuel Levinas emphasizes the self’s inevitable encounter with the other and in consequence the otherness which derives from that “face-to-face” encounter. Both Bakhtin and Levinas have a tendency to understand otherness within the realm of the self, thus restructuring selfhood in light of otherness operative within it. On this, cf. Jeffrey T. Nealon, Alterity Politics: Ethics and Performative Subjectivity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 36.
- 23.
On the power of voice as a metaphor, see Alterity Politics: Ethics and Performative Subjectivity. “‘Voice’ becomes such an attractive concept because it is not tied essentially to one point of view; rather, one must learn to find one’s own voice to hear the voice of the other within a common social context. It is precisely in the movements of seeking, listening, and answering that an intersubjective ethics of response might be born. And this points to the distinctly ethical character of dialogics: if social space is understood as a rich dialogue of voices rather than a fight for recognition and domination, then the other is not necessarily a menacing or hostile force.”
- 24.
Michael Holquist, Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World, New Accents (London; New York: Routledge, 2002); M. M. Bakhtin and Michael Holquist, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, University of Texas Press Slavic Series (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981).
- 25.
On Bakhtin’s critique of Hegel’s dialectics, M. M. Bakhtin and Caryl Emerson, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 292–293. Bakhtin states: “The unified, dialectically evolving spirit, understood in Hegelian terms, can give rise to nothing but a philosophical monologue.” As far as otherness is concerned, Bakhtin sees a dialectical imagination as a philosophical monologue granting more privilege to sameness than difference.
- 26.
On this, see M. M. Bakhtin, Michael Holquist, and Vadim Liapunov, Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990); Sung Uk Lim, “Jonah’s Transformation and Transformation of Jonah from the Bakhtinian Perspective of Authoring and Re-Authoring,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 33, no. 2 (2008): 245–256.
- 27.
Bakhtin and Emerson, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, 184.
- 28.
On the psychoanalytic approach to the relationship between self and other, cf. Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 51. Julia Kristeva notes that “only a thorough investigation of our remarkable relationship with both the other and strangeness within ourselves can lead people to give up hunting for the scapegoat outside their group.”
- 29.
Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London; New York: Routledge, 1994), 153.
- 30.
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures, 2nd ed. (London; New York: Routledge, 2002), 102.
- 31.
Ibid.
- 32.
Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 86.
- 33.
Kyung-Won Lee, “Is the Glass Half-Empty or Half-Full? Rethinking the Problems of Postcolonial Revisionism,” Cultural Critique, no. 36 (1997): 92.
- 34.
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, Postcolonial Studies: The Key Concepts (London; New York: Routledge, 1998), 114.
- 35.
Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 55.
- 36.
Homi K. Bhabha, Nation and Narration (London; New York: Routledge, 1990), 211.
- 37.
Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 159–160.
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Lim, S.U. (2021). Introduction: Why Otherness Matters in Biblical Interpretation. In: Otherness and Identity in the Gospel of John. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60286-4_1
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