understandings of disciplines, and of methods of interpretations of biblical texts, various interpretations of the biblical texts flood the world.165
We can say that literary theory provides not only a means of dealing with differences of critical opinion, but also provides the basis for constructing a more rational, adequate and self-aware discipline of literary studies. Jefferson and Robey say that “[l]iterary theory is not something that has developed in a vacuum, but has arisen for the most part in response to the problems encountered by readers, critics, and scholars in their practical contact with texts.”166 Questions raised by the readers might be answered in a number of different ways and the established ways of answering them should not be taken for granted. These ways of answering might cover a range of possibilities only; all elements in them can be open to challenge, and in practice most theories seem to concentrate on some more than others do, or even exclusively to others.
Since the 1970s, trends of biblical interpretation have rapidly changed and developed, the main focus of it passing onto the reader especially onto the modern reader.167 This new trend has a tendency to ignore the ancient background of the texts because of its tendency to make a distinction between the intention of the original author and the meaning of the text.168 However, in order to interpret the biblical texts better, I believe, we need to consult the products of the various scholarly works including not only those of traditional critics, but also those of post-modern critics.
In this sense, postcolonialism has significant advantages for the interpretation of the biblical texts as well as serious shortcomings. Some scholars are alarmed that one of the effects of imperialism as a major force is to reflect and reproduce dominant cultural assumptions about the margins, which not only fail to represent the diversity in the lives of the marginal groups but also promote unrealistic expectations about normal marginal behavior.169 Hence, postcolonialism has provided a useful corrective to the imperial perspectives of the interpretation of the biblical texts and has promoted a new perspective, which reads the biblical texts with the eyes of the margins. To borrow Alcoff’s phraseology, John as a voice of the margins in the first century offers the Johannine community at the margins the new world of Jesus as “a positive alternative and a vision of a better future.”170 The new world of the Johannine Jesus can motivate the readers to sacrifice their time and energy toward its realization in the colonized world.
However, postcolonial theory has a tendency which has denied the uniqueness of the biblical texts when compared with other texts (generalization of the Bible),171 and has a methodological limitation because it is problematic that it applies a post-modern critical theory to interpret biblical texts. In addition, another problem is a tendency to regard the biblical texts as unhistorical (neglect of the historicity of the Bible), although it is not the only problematic assumption in postcolonial theory.
Secondly, while emphasizing the postcoloniality of the Gospel of John, I take the view that the New Testament Gospels are uniquely special literature,172 so that even though the Gospel is a hybridized product of the colonial, imperial world, and there is similarity to the ancient Graeco-Roman texts, particularly ancient Greek biography, yet the Gospel has a uniqueness of its own.173 Many scholars regard the Gospel as a modified form of ancient Greek biography, while others do not. While criticizing modern categories of genre, which “are misleading and even inimical to actual understanding” of the biblical texts, Osborne also points out that the characteristics of the ancient genres are a key to interpreting biblical texts.174
Hence, in order to interpret the Johannine Gospel better, we need to define the genre of the Gospels. I define the Gospels as a unique genre, which though similar to types of ancient literature which quickened, and grew in the first century owing to cultural mixture, yet it displays unique characteristics of its own.175 In other words, just as the Gospels display a mixing of genres176 (narrative, parables, proverbs, poetry, biography, teaching, and apocalyptic) and still function overall as Gospels (“like and yet not like”),177 the Gospel of John functions as unique literature and as a postcolonial text.178 While introducing the flexibility and various literary types of Hellenistic biography which continued to change and develop, Aune contends,
It is methodologically incorrect to try to link the Gospels rigidly only with that specific type of ancient biography. . . . The canonical Gospels then constitute a subtype of Hellenistic biography, one that exhibits the syncretistic insertion of a Judaeo-Christian message in a Hellenistic envelope.179
Aune concludes that the Gospels are on a par with the other forms of early Christian literature, which “reflect the complexities of the syncretistic world within which they arose.”180 I can endorse this description, but would prefer to substitute “colonial” for “syncretistic.” What we see in the evangelist’s adaptation of ancient biographical genres is a classic example of postcolonial “mimicry,” producing something that is “like and yet not like” other ancient genres.
A simple list of the possible genres of the Gospels suggested by modern scholars shows the potential for postcolonial mimicry in the Gospel of John. There is a variety of possible categories of scholarly views on the definition of the genre of the Gospels: 1) not a unique genre; 2) a unique literary type (kerygma, replacement for the Torah; an unliterary form of folk literature); 3) Hellenistic romance or popular fiction; 4) OT biographical narratives; 5) Jewish novel; 6) Greek comedy or tragedy; 7) Hellenistic biography (Bios); 8) a pool of genres and narrative devices; 9) an ancient revelatory biography.181 It is justifiable to say that scholars have been able to find partly the generic features of various ancient genres in the Gospel, but there is no exact fit with ancient genres and no consensus among scholars. This suggests that we should regard the Gospel as a hybridized text. The Gospel contains hybridized features of a variety of cultures in the Roman colonial world (e.g., the employment of variety of christological titles). The Fourth Gospel is a kind of postcolonial literature, not only as a mixture of a variety of culture and literature including mixing genres, and as a hybridized product of the multicultural society, but also as a unique writing about the life and death of Jesus. That is, there is no other text that describes the life of Jesus in more detail than the Gospels. It is important to acknowledge the uniqueness and rarity of the gospels concerning the life of Jesus.182 In this respect, therefore, I contend that in terms not only of genre but also of content, the Johannine Gospel is a product of hybridentity in a multicultural society.
In summary, the concept of hybridentity as a key concept of a postcolonial theory may be employed not only to denote the complication of the presence and absence of the colonial areas (Jewish society), but also to feature the discourse of power and resistance, of rejection and acceptance, with and against the dominance of the Imperial Roman culture.
Hybridization and Identity
One of the visions of postcolonialism is the pursuit of one world, in which all people have an equal right
