id="ulink_0c63720d-142e-5930-aab9-97ec9280b4b6">Accordingly, if there is a polemic in the Gospel, it is not simply against the Jews. The Gospel of John might attempt to dialogue with a variety of groups, even though the major group was the Jews. Thus, the purpose of the composition of the Gospel can be categorized as apologetic.61 It is quite probable that John was partly “writing for a pagan audience with a philosophical and cultural interest in Eastern religion.”62 Fiorenza says,
Jews as well as Christians appealed to the Greco-Roman world and used the means and methods of Hellenistic religious propaganda. . . . The appropriation of such missionary propagandistic forms was necessary if Judaism as well as Christianity were to succeed in the face of competition from other religions, especially those of Oriental origin, as well as competition from the philosophical movements of the time.63
In this respect, Johannine Christianity was not exceptional. Cassidy also argues that John was conscious of Roman realities and provided support for Christians under Roman rule.64 It may be safe to say, therefore, that the Fourth Gospel has some apologetic characteristics. In short, the polemic (toward other Christians) and/or apologetic (toward unbelievers) purpose has its own basis in the Gospel. It is probable that the Gospel of John was written for the promotion and defense of Johannine Christianity.
Consolidation of the Johannine Community
The last suggested purpose of the Gospel, which is widely accepted, is parenetic, namely, the need to strengthen the faith of the Johannine community. This last one is related to the historical situation with which the Johannine community was faced. Although the historical situation of the Johannine Jesus in the text was related to Judaism in Palestine, that of the Johannine community was related to a multicultural society if we accept that the Gospel was written in Asia Minor, particularly in Ephesus. In other words, it is likely that the author and the readers of the Gospel belonged to the colonial environment regardless of whether it was composed in Palestine or in Asia Minor.65 Accordingly, it is acceptable that the text describes a complex and hybridized society. It is reasonable to infer from this that the readership of the text has experience of such a society whether in Palestine or in Asia Minor.
Supposing the Gospel to have a closed metaphorical system (sectarian), Meeks argues that individuals or groups outside of the Johannine community could not understand it.66 However, the Gospel of John seems not to have been unreadable and not understandable to the outsiders of the Johannine community.67 Beutler argues that the Gospel was written to deepen the faith of the Christians, as well as to encourage them to confess this faith openly in the face of conflict and trials and even death.68 In addition, McKnight’s comment on the Bible is helpful for my argument: “The Bible is read in the context of continuing communities of faith, and even readers who do not share the faith of those communities are influenced by that fact.”69 In McKnight’s explanation, the Gospel was not only read by the Johannine community (the first recipients of the Gospel). Rather, it is probable that the Gospel would be spread to readers inside and outside the Johannine community in order to be read at the same time (at least, partly because of the missionary and apologetic purpose of the Gospel).70 Accordingly, even readers who were not in the same community could read the Gospel. Consequently, it is highly probable that the insiders of the Johannine community and even the outsiders of various backgrounds could understand what we being said about the identity of Jesus because of the variety of the Johannine christological titles and terms, which had been adapted from those of both the Jewish and the Graeco-Roman world.71
In short, the important point is that the Johannine metaphorical system is not only for the closed Johannine community72 (the Gospel as a closed sectarian document), but for the Johannine community which opened toward the world (the Gospel as an open document).73 Although it has a symbolic language of resistance against the center, the Gospel would be mainly given to the margins in the first century CE who longed for liberty from oppression.74 Lincoln comments exactly on this:
To all those who found their confession about the identity of Jesus in dispute and who suffered the consequences, this Gospel’s interpretation of his mission was meant to provide reassurance about the confession and about its being the means of experiencing the life and well-being of the age to come in the midst of present conflict and trials.75
Seeing the Johannine community in the larger environment, therefore, namely the Johannine community in the Roman world, opens a possibility of re-reading the Fourth Gospel with multiple purposes.
Purposes of the Gospel of John: A Synthetic Approach
Until now, we have discussed the possible purposes of the Gospel of John, missionary, polemic/apologetic, and parenetic. These three major possibilities must have their claim based upon proper grounds. In this sub-section, it is necessary to remark that the purpose of the Gospel is not categorized in an exclusive way. It is fairly acceptable that the Gospel “was intended to serve the needs of the community.”76 In terms of the needs of the community, it is quite probable that the Gospel was destined to meet a variety of apologetic, polemic, and parenetic needs in a multicultural and colonial society.77 I contend, therefore, that as a postcolonial text, the Johannine Gospel includes all these possible purposes in it, because it was written for first century readers who were in the colonial era in the process of the hybridization of culture. For that reason, it is appropriate to discuss a synthetic approach to the purpose of the composition of the Fourth Gospel.
As a synthetic approach, some scholars argue, “the purpose of the Gospel of John is to evangelize Jews, to evangelize Hellenists, to strengthen the church, to catechize new converts, to provide materials for the evangelization of Jesus and so forth.”78 On this matter, Okure’s question about the possibility of the interrelationship of the motives of the purpose(s) of the Gospel of John is appropriate.
The question raised, then, is whether these efforts to meet the various needs of the community can be considered as missionary work. In other words, do the apologetic, polemic and parenetic motifs serve a missionary purpose? Or does outreach to pagans constitute the exclusive meaning of missionary work?79
Fiorenza gives a sharp answer to the question: “apologetics and missionary propaganda functioned like two sides of the same coin.”80 While saying that “in whole or in part the Gospel was written with an apologetic, polemic, or missionary motif in regard to one or all of those groups,”81 Brown also argues that these goals are not mutually exclusive.82 Although Brown’s view on the purpose of the Gospel (that it was written to intensify people’s faith and make it more profound) is different from Okure’s
