Abstract
This chapter demonstrates that when seen in the light of Giorgio Agamben’s biopolitics, the external otherness of Pilate and the Jews, as most powerful minor characters, inverts their power relations with Jesus, a most powerless major character, in the trial narrative scene (Jn 18:28-19:16a). First, Pilate, the representative of the earthly sovereignty, drastically transforms himself from a powerful to a powerless character, exposed to the threat from Jesus, the representative of the heavenly sovereignty. Second, the Jews become an ambivalent character in negotiating between the Roman and Jewish sovereignties in order to put Jesus to death. Finally, Jesus—a “bare life” confronted with the fuzzy zone between the earthly and heavenly sovereignties and between the Jewish and Roman sovereignties—emerges as a subversive, albeit liminal, character, in resistance against the earthly powers. Therefore, the otherness from without derived from Pilate and the Jews reveals its liability to Jesus’ decentering power in such a zone of indistinguishability.
This is a much expanded version of my previously published article: Sung Uk Lim, “Biopolitics in the trial of Jesus (John 18:28-19:16a),” Expository Times 127, no. 5 (2016): 209–216.
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Notes
- 1.
On the matter of Ioudaioi in the Gospel of John, see John Ashton, “The Identity and Function of the Ioudaioi in the Fourth Gospel,” Novum Testamentum 27, no. 1 (1985): 40–75; Wayne A. Meeks, “‘Am I a Jew’-Johannine Christianity and Judaism,” in Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults, ed. Jacob Neusner (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 163–186; Udo Schnelle, “Die Juden Im Johannesevangelium,” in Gedenkt an Das Wort: Festschrift Für Werner Vogler Zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Werner Vogler et al. (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1999), 217–230; Daniel Boyarin, “The Ioudaioi in John and the Prehistory of ‘Judaism,’” in Pauline Conversations in Context: Essays in Honor of Calvin J. Roetzel, ed. Janice Capel Anderson, Philip Sellew, and Claudia Setzer (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 216–239; Urban C. Von Wahlde, “The Johannine ‘Jews’: A Critical Survey,” New Testament Studies 28, no. 1 (1982): 33–60; “Literary Structure and Theological Argument in Three Discourses with the Jews in the Fourth Gospel,” Journal of Biblical Literature 103, no. 4 (1984): 575–584; “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John: Fifteen Years of Research (1983–1998),” Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses 76, no. 1 (2000): 30–55; Donald Francois Tolmie, “The Ioudaioi in the Fourth Gospel: A Narratological Perspective,” in Theology and Christology in the Fourth Gospel, ed. Gilbert van Belle, Jan Gabriël Van der Watt, P. J. Maritz (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2005), 377–397; Lars Kierspel, The Jews and the World in the Fourth Gospel: Parallelism, Function, and Context, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006); Mathias Rissi, “Die ‘Juden’ Im Johannesevangelium,” ANRW 2, no. 26.3 (1996): 2099–2141; Ruth Sheridan, Retelling the Scripture: ‘The Jews’ and the Scriptural Citations in John 1:19-12:15 (Leiden: Brill, 2012).
In this chapter, when I refer to the Jews (hoi Ioudaioi), I am speaking of a particular group of people in the Gospel of John rather than the Jewish people in general. Throughout the trial narrative, it is significant to note that the term the Jews does not comprise Jews as a whole.
In general, in the Gospel of John, it is a challenge to identify who the Jews are. The Gospel uses the term the Jews to call attention to different groups of people and different identities at different moments in the text. Sometimes, the term designates a racial-ethnic identity (John 1:35-51; 4:9). Other times, the term designates the crowd (John 7:1-3). Still other times, the term designates the Jewish religious authorities (John 7:15, 32, 45). It would be too hasty to conclude that the Jews are always portrayed as negative in that they are sometimes at least neutral or at most positive. Therefore, the Jews become an ambiguous character even within the trial scene. Cf. Warren Carter, Pontius Pilate: Portraits of a Roman Governor, Interfaces (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2003), 133–134.
- 2.
David K. Rensberger, Johannine Faith and Liberating Community (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988), 92–96. Clearly, David Rensberger construes the Jews and Pilate as representative of the Roman and Jewish system, respectively.
- 3.
On the marginal nature of the Johannine character, see Robert J. Karris, Jesus and the Marginalized in John’s Gospel, Zacchaeus Studies New Testament (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1990), 102–107. Cf. J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, 3rd ed. The New Testament Library (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003).
Interestingly, Robert Karris stresses that the Johannine community is a marginalized community composed of marginalized groups such as the Samaritans, the Galileans, the disabled, and those ignorant of the law and so forth. Karris is significantly indebted to the observation of J. Louis Martyn that the Jewish Christians of the Johannine community have the fear of being cast out of the Jewish synagogue (e.g., John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2). However, unlike Martyn, Karris’ focus is not on a theological dispute over Jesus’ divinity, but on a sociological dispute over the inclusivity of the Johannine community.
- 4.
On the anti-imperial nature of Johannine Christology, see Richard J. Cassidy, John’s Gospel in New Perspective: Christology and the Realities of Roman Power (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992); Lance Byron Richey, Roman Imperial Ideology and the Gospel of John (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2007). It is worth noting that both Richard J. Cassidy and Lance Byron Richey uncover the anti-imperial elements in Johannine Christology from a historical perspective. Similar to, but distinct from Cassidy and Richey, I will investigate an anti-imperial portrait of Jesus from a literary perspective.
- 5.
Rensberger, Johannine Faith and Liberating Community, 92–96. In Rensberger’s view, it is certain that the Jews and Pilate respectively stand for the Roman and Jewish opponents of the Johannine community in the trial narrative.
- 6.
On an anti-imperial portrait of the Jews and Pilate, see Tom Thatcher, Greater Than Caesar: Christology and Empire in the Fourth Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009). See also Warren Carter, John and Empire: Initial Explorations (New York: T & T Clark, 2008). From an anti-imperial perspective, Tom Thatcher describes the Jews as giving supplementary support to imperial power, and Pilate as exercising his violent power under Roman rule.
- 7.
Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998). Note the differences in nuance of the term “Jewish.” Like the term the Jews the term “Jewish” in the trial narrative of John may convey the different shades of meaning from negative via neutral to positive meaning.
- 8.
Ibid., 21.
In Agamben’s view, “exception” is an inclusive exclusion as an attempt to include the excludable and “example” is an exclusive inclusion as an attempt to exclude the includable. In this light, the dynamic between Jesus and the Jews functions as an example to exclude Jesus, the includable, from the Jewish rule and the dynamic between Jesus and Pilate serves as an exception to include Jesus, the excludable, in the Roman rule. As Agamben remarks, “But while the exception is, as we saw, an inclusive exclusion (which thus serves to include what is excluded), the example instead functions as an exclusive inclusion” (21).
- 9.
On a zone of indistinction, see Ibid., 19.
- 10.
Cf. Ibid., 105. Following Agamben, Jesus can be, to a lesser or more degree, comparable to a werewolf, “who is precisely neither man nor beast, and who dwells paradoxically within both while belonging to neither.” Similar to, but distinct from, a werewolf, Jesus would be construed as living in both the Jewish and Roman worlds, while simultaneously being affiliated with neither.
- 11.
On the concept of biopower and biopolitics, see Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), 140; Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège De France, 1977–78 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 1–4. Michel Foucault defines the term “biopower” as a variety of technologies exercising power in such a way as to subjugate bodies and govern the entire population in the modern nation state and capitalism. That is, the natural life of each individual is integrated into the sphere of the political power of the nation state. Elaborating on his notion of biopower, Foucault goes on to understand “biopolitics” as a technical apparatus to exercise control over the physical bodies and the political bodies of the population in its entirety. Consider, for example, birth and reproductive control in the form of biopolitics. In the above example, the nation state exercises biopower over its population through the mechanism of biopolitics. Following in the footsteps of Foucault, Agamben espouses his concept of biopower and biopolitics, albeit with some modifications. Whereas Foucault understands biopower and biopolitics as the product of modernity with a focus on historical discontinuity, Agamben sees them as a transtemporal and transpatial paradigm beyond modernity. Cf. Alex Murray and Jessica Whyte, The Agamben Dictionary (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 36–39.
- 12.
Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, 32. Agamben states that “the sovereign is the point of indistinction between violence and law, the threshold on which violence passes over into law and law passes over into violence.”
- 13.
Ibid., 9.
- 14.
Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 23, 57.
- 15.
Kalpana Seshadri, Humanimal: Race, Law, Language (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012), 68.
- 16.
Tat-siong Benny Liew, “Not Just Peace: Living and Giving Life in the Shadow of Imperial Death,” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion (2010), 10. Tat-siong Benny Liew points out that the colonized subject lives in “a death zone—a state of ‘living within death’ that is also a liminal space between life and death” (32).
- 17.
Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, 15. Agamben’s correctly claims: “The paradox of sovereignty consists in the fact the sovereign is, at the same time, outside and inside the juridical order.”
- 18.
On the ambiguity of the sacred, see Ibid., 77. “The analysis of the ban—which is assimilated to the taboo—determines from the very beginning the genesis of the doctrine of the ambiguity of the sacred: the ambiguity of the ban, which excludes in including, implies the ambiguity of the sacred.”
- 19.
On this, see Tolmie, “The Ioudaioi in the Fourth Gospel: A Narratological Perspective.” Donald Tolmie analyzes the Greek hoi Ioudaioi (the Jews) in John from a narratological perspective. In the framework of implied author and reader, Tolmie takes a closer look at the characterization of Ioudaioi, a composite group or a character, in association with the other groups related to them, for example, the crowd, the Pharisees, and the religious authorities. Overall, Tolmie emphasizes a continuum of Ioudaioi’s responses to Jesus ranging from a negative response, through a neutral response, to a positive response. He further argues that the borders between Ioudaioi and the groups related to them become blurred as the narrative unfolds. Interestingly, he insists that characterization relies solely on what the Ioudaioi do rather than who they are. When read in this light, the process of characterization becomes more dynamic than static. I am of the opinion that the Jews in John as a group or character are not necessarily representative of the whole nation of the Jews in general. Instead, the Ioudaioi are a literary construction reflective of, but not necessarily identifiable with, the Jews on the historical level. When it comes to the characterization of the Ioudaioi in John, it would be too hasty to stereotype the Jews without taking into consideration the interpreters’ underlying assumptions. Following Tolmie, I pay particular attention to what they do and say rather than who they are, from a performative perspective.
- 20.
On the ambiguity of the Jews, see Susan Hylen, Imperfect Believers: Ambiguous Characters in the Gospel of John (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 126–130.
- 21.
Schnelle, “Die Juden Im Johannesevangelium,” 218–219. Udo Schnelle analyzes the semantics of “the Jew(s)” in John as follows: the crowd; the opponents of Jesus as representatives of unbelief; a cultural-historical designation; conversation partners; a split group with regard to revelation; a positive religious group; sympathizers of Jesus; identity of Jesus.
On the semantics of “the Jew” in extra-biblical texts, see Ross S. Kraemer, “On the Meaning of the Term ‘Jew’ in Greco-Roman Inscriptions,” Harvard Theological Review 82, no. 1 (1989): 35–53.
- 22.
Schnelle , “Die Juden Im Johannesevangelium,” 220–221. To further illustrate, John 4 portrays Jesus as a Jew (v. 9), emphasizing that salvation comes from the Jews (v. 22b). The implication is that salvation takes place through the death of Jesus, “the King of the Jews.” By contrast, probably the most negative portrayal of the Jews relates particularly to those Jews who initially create a plot to kill Jesus (John 8:44).
- 23.
There is no denying the fact that the Jews in John often convey hostile connotations, as far as it is concerned with the persecution of Jesus and his followers (cf. John 5:16, 18; 7:1, 13; 9:22; 10:31; 11:8; 12:42; 19:30; 20:19).
- 24.
R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of John and the Jews,” Review & Expositor 84, no. 2 (1987): 38–46; Cornelis Bennema, Encountering Jesus: Character Studies in the Gospel of John (Milton Keynes, UK; Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2009).
See also Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), 86. Even though Rudolf Bultmann conceives of the Jews as a representation of the unbelieving world, it is too simplistic an interpretation to present them in this way. It is noteworthy to mention that the Jews as the designation of a group also involves those people within the Jewish group who follow Jesus (cf. John 2:23; 8:30; 11:45; 12:11, 42)
On the ambiguity of the Jews in the historical context, see Meeks, “‘Am I a Jew’-Johannine Christianity and Judaism,” 164. Wayne Meeks states: “And when the Fourth Gospel itself speaks of ‘the Jews’—as it does more than any other New Testament writing—it is not even absolutely clear what group it is referring to.”
- 25.
Cf. Urban C. Von Wahlde, “The Terms for Religious Authorities in the Fourth Gospel: A Key to Literary-Strata,” Journal of Biblical Literature 98, no. 2 (1979): 231–253. In order to absolve the Johannine Gospel from any taint of anti-Jewishness, Urban von Wahlde argues that the Greek term Ioudaioi does not refer to the entire Jewish nation, including the common people and religious authorities, but rather denotes almost exclusively the Jewish authorities. In fact, von Wahlde supports his view that the Ioudaioi has to do with the Jewish authorities by noting the use of the term in most, though not all, passages. The only exceptions come in 6:41 and 6:52, which view the Johannine Jews as common people, more specifically, the Jews in Galilee, identifiable as ochlos, but with hostile attitudes toward Jesus.
More specifically, the Ioudaioi in 38 out of 71 occurrences refers to the religious authorities. First, the Ioudaioi is straightforwardly interchangeable with the term “authorities” in John 1:19-24; 7:32-34; 9:13-41; 18:3-14. Second, the people who are ethnically the Jews are said to fear the Jews in John 7:13; 9:22; 20:19, 42. Here, the object of fear is definitely the Jews with sufficient power to intimidate the Jews in general. For von Wahlde, the phrase “fear of the Jews” hints that the Ioudaioi is a group of opponents of Jesus who intend to crucify Jesus; it follows from this that the Ioudaioi has political and religious authority. It is no less important to note that only the Jewish authorities have the power to arrest Jesus. Third, the edict of excommunication in John 9:22 insinuates that those Jews have the power to expel the Jewish Jesus followers from the synagogue. Lastly, the specific group recognizable as Pharisees and chief priests are designated as the Jews in John 11:46-52; 18:1-3; 18:12-14. It has to be remembered that such terms as “Pharisees,” “chief priests,” “rulers,” and “Jews” are equivalent to the religious authorities in John.
Thus, Von Wahlde reaches the conclusion that the Ioudaioi in the Gospel of John refers to a circle of opponents to the Jesus followers, but with some degrees of differences. Notice that such interpretation mistakenly assumes that the Ioudaioi is sufficiently distinguishable between the one and the other. As noted above, I, however, contend that the semantics of Ioudaioi is instead ambiguous with varying degrees of positive, neutral, and negative connotations. Given the nature of this ambiguity in connection to the relationship between the Johannine community and the Ioudaioi, it would be almost impossible to orient the connotations of Ioudaioi into an either/or choice. Von Wahlde rightly admits that the Johannine community wants to stay within the limits of the synagogue while retaining hostility toward the Jews in the synagogue. I further argue that the Johannine community is such a complex, ambiguous community in relation to the Jews that they become ambiguous with varying degrees of detachment, neutrality, and hostility.
- 26.
Seshadri, Humanimal: Race, Law, Language, 31.
- 27.
Ibid., 108.
- 28.
On the characterization of Pilate in John’s Gospel, see Helen K. Bond, Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 174–175.
- 29.
Gail R. O’Day, “The Gospel of John: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 9:815.
- 30.
On the responsibility of the Jews for the death of Jesus, see Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 652; C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978), 533; Donald Senior, The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of John, The Passion Series (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1991), 76.
- 31.
Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 3 vols., Herder’s Theological Commentary on the New Testament (London; New York: Burns & Oates; Herder & Herder, 1968), 250.
- 32.
The Greek term φωνή recalls the parable of the good shepherd (John 10:3-5; cf. John 10:16). In the parable, a flock of sheep identifies its own shepherd and corroborates the interpretation that the Johannine community as a flock of his sheep recognizes the voice of Jesus, its shepherd. In other words, Jesus’ sheep hears his voice and follows him (John 10:27). On the other hand, the other communities would not recognize Jesus’ voice without his guide. With this background in mind, it is plain that Pilate does not listen to Jesus’ voice or words about his kingship simply because Pilate does not belong to the Johannine community whose shepherd is Jesus.
- 33.
Senior, The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of John, 83.
- 34.
Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 252. For example, Pilate underscores that this Passover amnesty is to the advantage of the Jews, given the function of the dative (ὑμῖν) as a dative of benefit.
- 35.
On a broader picture of first-century Jewish social world in regard to popular movements in Palestine Rome, see Richard A. Horsley and John S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus, New Voices in Biblical Literature (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1985). See also Carter, Pontius Pilate: Portraits of a Roman Governor, 144–145. The preference of the Jews for Barabbas, a bandit (λῃστής), who can be labeled as a political evildoer within the sociohistorical context of John’s Gospel, reveals their concealed desire to be independent of Roman imperialism. To further illustrate the implications of the Greek term λῃστής, Barabbas is a political criminal involved in a murder in the rebellion (στάσις) (cf. Mark 15:7). Flavius Josephus reports that the bandits in first-century Palestine are characterized as the political rebels resisting Roman rule by assaulting the dominant elites (Jewish War 2.253-54).
- 36.
Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2:858–859.
- 37.
See also Jennifer A. Glancy, “Torture: Flesh, Truth, and the Fourth Gospel,” Biblical Interpretation 13, no. 2 (2005): 107–136. Jennifer Glancy sees the scourging as a judicial torture rather than a punitive one with an aim of wresting truth from Jesus.
- 38.
The Johannine Gospel does not straightforwardly state that the soldiers “mock” (ἐμπαίζω) Jesus. This stands in a stark contrast to the Synoptic Gospels (Mk 15:20; Mt 27:31; Lk 23:36). This by no means reduces the intensity of their mocking on a semantic level. This mimicry might not be a mockery, but rather a glorification of Jesus. Cf. Wayne A. Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology, Supplements to Novum Testamentum (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 69.
- 39.
Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2: 874–875.
- 40.
David Rensberger, “The Politics of John: The Trial of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,” Journal of Biblical Literature 103, no. 3 (1984): 403.
- 41.
Ibid., 404. As a parallel to this type of mockery in Hellenistic Judaism, see also Philo, In Flaccum, 36–42. The Alexandrians make use of a maniac to make fun of King Agrippa.
- 42.
Cf. Froma I. Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature, Women in Culture and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 388.
- 43.
Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 3:255.
- 44.
Rufus Fears, “Ruler Worship,” in Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece and Rome, ed. Michael Grant and Rachel Kitzinger (New York: Scribner’s, 1988), 109–125. S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). In Rufus Fears’ words, “ruler worship played a major role in achieving integration of religion and politics which lay at the very heart of the ancient state” (1018).
- 45.
Cited by Frederick C. Grant, Ancient Roman Religion, The Library of Religion (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1957), 175.
- 46.
Barrett , The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 542. Contra Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 260. It is controversial whether the use of μᾶλλον in the Greek phrase μᾶλλον ἐφοβήθη is comparative or intensive. As C. K. Barret argues, I find it more appropriate to translate it as intensive. If one translates the phrase as a comparative, it is required that Pilate’s fear be introduced in one of the previous scenes of the trial narrative. It is not until verse 8 that Pilate’s fear appears in the trial narrative. Hermeneutically speaking, it sounds seemingly reasonable that Pilate shows his fear in the first conversation with Jesus, in which he ends up with a question, “What is truth?” Nevertheless, this is insufficient evidence on account of the lack of textual support. Therefore, I translate the phrase μᾶλλον ἐφοβήθη as “very afraid.”
- 47.
Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology, 72.
- 48.
On Johannine theology in regard to Jesus as “the Son of God” in stark contrast to imperial theology, see Thatcher, Greater Than Caesar: Christology and Empire in the Fourth Gospel, 85.
- 49.
Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology, 72. The question of Jesus’ origin is one of the main themes of the Johannine gospel (cf. John 7:27; 8:14; 9:29).
- 50.
Kennan Ferguson, “Silence: A Politics,” Contemporary Political Theory 2 (2003), 57. Kennan Ferguson categorizes political silence into three types: denigrated, resistant, and constitutive silence. He argues that as power is essentially indeterminate, the dynamics of silence with power are subject to revision: “Silence can operate in multiplicitous, fragmentary, even paradoxical ways. The politics of silence, in other words, are not reducible to any particular political functionality; even more than its putative opposite, language, silence resists absolution” (58). For example, Jesus’ silence about the nature of truth in John 18:38 signifies denigrated silence because Pilate is not willing to listen to Jesus’ voice, nor ready to grant a chance to let him speak. In contrast, Jesus keeps silent as a form of resistant silence in opposition to Pilate and his authority in John 19:9.
On the anxiety of Pilate, see also Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 660. Rudolf Bultmann states: “Without doubt because the Evangelist desires to heighten the enormity of the condemnation of Jesus; he shows how the judge’s anxiety before the world engulfs even the anxiety before the numinous that Pilate meets in Jesus, and how anxiety before the world tears asunder not alone the requirements of the law but also those of religion.”
- 51.
Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 3:261.
- 52.
Ibid., 263. My position differs from Schnackenburg by emphasizing the power dynamics between Jesus, Pilate, and the Jews.
- 53.
On a transitive interpretation of the Greek verb καθίζειν, see I. De la Potterie, “Jesus, Roi Et Juge D’apres Jn 19,13,” Biblica 41 (1960): 221–233. If such is the case, Pilate seats Jesus on the judgment seat. Contra this, see Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 664, n. 2. I agree with Bultmann that Pilate sits on the judgment seat in terms of linguistic usage.
- 54.
Bennema, Encountering Jesus: Character Studies in the Gospel of John, 187.
- 55.
On the messianic kingship, Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 665; Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 266; Brown, The Gospel According to John, 3:894–895.
- 56.
The trial narrative ends with Pilate “handing over” Jesus to be crucified (v. 16a). The Greek verb παραδίδωμι is used for the handing over of Jesus by Judas (John 18:2, 5), by the Jewish authorities (John 18:30, 35), and finally by Pilate (John 19:16). The repetition of this verb implies that Pilate assumes partial responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus.
- 57.
Scene One emphasizes the religiosity of the Jews. For example, the Jews are a religious group in that they do not enter the praetorium in order to avoid becoming defiled for the sake of the Passover meal in conformity with Jewish customs (v. 28). Bearing in mind the unclean nature of the dwelling place of the gentiles, it would be deemed unclean to enter the praetorium, the residence of the Roman governor. This strongly implies that the Jews are assiduously attentive to Jewish religious observances or practices, for example, Jewish purity law and the Passover meal.
- 58.
Paul D. Duke , Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985), 128; Rensberger, Johannine Faith and Liberating Community, 92.
- 59.
O’Day , “The Gospel of John: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” 818.
- 60.
Barrett , The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 546.
- 61.
Contra Thatcher, Greater Than Caesar: Christology and Empire in the Fourth Gospel, 74. Tom Thatcher construes the “world” as the Roman world (not necessarily involving the Jewish world), but I insist that the “world” is characterized as both Roman and Jewish.
- 62.
The Greek term βασιλεὺς recurs nine times within the narrative (John 18:33, 37 [twice], 39; 19:3, 12, 14, 15 [twice]), whereas it occurs at sporadic intervals four times (John 1:49; 6:15; 12:13, 15) before the narrative and two times (John 19:19, 21) immediately after the narrative. This implies that the trial narrative revolves around the motif of Jesus’ kingship. On the prophet-king on the basis of the typology of Moses, see Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology.
- 63.
Carter, Pontius Pilate: Portraits of a Roman Governor, 142.
- 64.
In a bid to further cement his heavenly kingship, Jesus emphasizes that his kingship is fundamentally different from the earthly kingship replete with violence. The Roman imperial world as well as the Jewish world is a subset of this world, which preserves its oppressive societal structures through cruelty. Jesus repeatedly affirms that his kingship does not derive from this world replete with fighting (ἀγωνίζεσθαι) (v. 36b). Jesus’ kingship has nothing to do with the violent world of the Jewish, and, by implication, Roman rulers (in the sense that Pilate allows the Jewish authorities to exercise violence).
- 65.
Bennema, Encountering Jesus: Character Studies in the Gospel of John, 185. Cf. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 855–856.
- 66.
Rensberger, “The Politics of John: The Trial of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,” 408.
- 67.
Ibid.
- 68.
Compare this trial account of John with those of Matthew and Mark. In the case of Matthew and Mark, the Roman soldiers put Jesus’ own clothes on him immediately before the crucifixion (Matthew 27:31; Mark 15:20). In John’s Gospel, the mockery of Jesus is placed in the middle of the trial account rather than its end as with Matthew and Mark. The Gospel of Luke does not even have the scene of mockery by the Roman soldiers.
- 69.
Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology, 68–69; Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel, 132.
- 70.
Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 664, n. 5; Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 545; Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2: 895.
- 71.
Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 5th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 64.
- 72.
As Jesus becomes a sacrificial lamb for the Passover, he has the potential to become a liminal character in the indistinguishable zones between humanity and animality, especially in the subsequent scene of crucifixion. In these blurred zones, Jesus’ humanity and animality no longer exist in a binaristic manner; instead, the one exists in the other, and vice versa. Through the metaphor of a Passover lamb, one can see Jesus’ humanity in the animal realm and at the same time his animality in the human realm. Therefore, the human and animal realms are merged into the so-called humanimal realm, which justifies the violence imposed on the colonized subject by the Roman Empire. In the final analysis, Jesus as an abandoned king remains none other than a Passover lamb.
- 73.
Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 64–65.
- 74.
Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology, 76.
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Lim, S.U. (2021). Reading the Otherness Without. In: Otherness and Identity in the Gospel of John. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60286-4_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60286-4_5
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