171. On the limitations of the method of reader-response criticism, which have analogies to those of postcolonial criticism, see McKnight, “Reader-Response,” 247–48.
172. On the variety of view of the genre of the Gospels, see Aune, “Gospels,” 205–06; Aune, New Testament, 17–115; Carter, John, 3–16.; Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 26–54; Attridge, “Genre Bending,” 3–21 (Attridge focuses on diverse genres within the gospel but pays little attention to the gospel genre itself); Blomberg, “Diversity,” 272–95.
173. Aune, “Gospels,” 204–6; Carter, John, 9–10; Blomberg, “Diversity,” 275. There might be utterly no new creation from nothing in the material world. Therefore, the Gospel of John contains many features of the Jewish and the Graeco-Roman world. However, the New Testament, particularly the Fourth Gospel, came from the multicultural society, although the Gospels show formal parallels to other historical and biographical writings, materially they remain unique. For example, almost half of this Gospel (chapters 12–21) deals with the passion and resurrection of Jesus.
174. Osborne, Hermeneutical Spiral, 149.
175. See Aune, New Testament, 46–76.
176. Attridge, “Genre Bending,” 3–21.
177. Longman argues, “While it is true that the individuality of many compositions must be maintained, the similarities between the form and content of text must not be denied. That there are similarities between texts which can serve as a rationale for studying them as a group is especially true for ancient literature where literary innovations were not valued highly as they are today” (Longman, “Fictional Akkadian Royal Autobiography,” 3–4 [re-quoted from Osborne, Hermeneutical Spiral, 150]).
178. Kümmel argues that the Gospels are a new creation in terms of a literary form (Kümmel, Introduction, 37; see also Hurtado, “Gospel,” 276–82).
179. Aune, “Biography,” 81 (Italics are mine).
180. Aune, “Gospels,” 204–5.
181. Blomberg, “Diversity,” 273–77.
182. There are some different emphases and slightly different descriptions of the life of Jesus among the Gospels, because they were written for their own purposes for their own readers, and in their specific historical backgrounds. However, it is also probable that the authors of the Gospels used their contemporary literary devices, terms, genres, and so on in their compositions, but as a postcolonial text, the Gospel of John in particular was produced as a hybridized one, namely, a sort of the Christian literature, which was generated from the first century, in multicultural society. In addition, Blomberg comments, “more differences than similarities appear between the Gospels, and these various genres so that none of these identifications is widely held today” (Blomberg, “Diversity,” 274).
183. Young, Postcolonialism, 2; see also Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory, 122–40.
184. As Fanon writes, “[The consciousness of self] is not the closing door to communication. Philosophic thought teaches us, on the contrary, that it is its guarantee. National consciousness, which is not nationalism, is the only thing that will give us an international dimension” (Fanon, Wretched, 199).
185. Selden, Widdowson, and Brooker, Reader’s Guide, 226.
186. So, Ghandi says that “[p]ostcoloniality, we might say, is just another name for the globalisation of cultures and histories” (Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory, 126).
187. See Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory, 7.
188. Bhabha, Location, 1–2.
189. Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, Postcolonial Studies Reader, 183.
190. Loomba, Colonialism, 181.
191. Young, Postcolonialism, 23.
192. The prime example of it is the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. As a result, Christianity became the national religion in 313 CE
193. Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory, 130.
194. Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory, 131.
195. The readers in Asia Minor, particularly in Ephesus, the traditional location for Gospel.
196. See chapter 3 of this book.
197. Van Bruggen remarks, “This dilemma is rather unproductive, however, because no clear dividing line can be drawn between Jewish and Greek culture due to the fact that there was a great deal of mutual influencing of cultures during the Hellenistic period” (van Bruggen, Jesus, 172).
198. Toy, “King,” 157. See also Horsley, Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs; Horsley, Jesus and Empire, 35–54.
199. Schmiz, “Sidon,” 17–18; Edwards, “Tyre,” 686–92.
200. Millar, Roman Near East, 16–23, 506–22.
201. See Fiensy, Social History; Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism.
202. We can admit that “a reading of the past in terms of the present, ‘contemporization,’ or ‘actualization,’ is an inevitable aspect of any translation” (Rajak, “Introduction,” 3).
203. On a new exegetical framework derived from social-scientific ideas relating to intergroup conflict and its reduction, see Esler, “Jesus and
