| Abstract | Aspects of race and ethnicity make many appearances in the Fourth Gospel. Many times, ethnicity features in the gospels rhetoric of challenge and riposte. Various characters use racializing rhetoric to buttress their own positions, defend their honor, or attack an enemy. At its most blunt, this can amount to name-calling--simply hurling slurs at an opponent, as when Jesus is called a Samaritan, (8:48). Other forms of racial rhetoric include appeals to ethnic ancestors (4:12, 6:31, 8:33), the devaluation of inhabitants of a particular racial/ethnic region (Nazareth in 1:46, Galilee in 7:42, 7:52b), or the marshaling of racial/ethnic group loyalty (11:50-52). The skepticism that a Galilean could possibly be the Christ, raised first by the crowds (7:40-44), and then by the Pharisees (7:45-53), is one vivid way in which racial polemic silences disagreement.^Although identified as a Galilean by his fellow-Judeans, Jesus is identified as a Judean by members of other races, such as the Samaritan woman (4:9) and Pontius Pilate (18:33; cf. 4:9, 19:3), who goes on to ask: I am not a Judean, am I? (18:35). What is the meaning of all of this attention to ethnic labels? When and why are they applied to various characters, and what is the significance of doing so? This project aims to interrogate the racializing rhetoric of Johns gospel, comparing it to the way race was constructed and understood in Mediterranean antiquity. My overall thesis is twofold: 1) Firstly, John dismisses all conventional racial identities (i.e., Samaritan, Galilean) as valid grounds for prejudice or discrimination. The gospels rhetoric undermines the various criteria on which earthly race is based, and thus undermines the construct itself. 2) However, Johns anthropology is layered, and looks beyond this unimportant earthly level.^Above it, John constructs a heavenly level of racial identity based on ones descent from either God or the devil (1:12, 8:42-47). This layer of identity is racial in that it possesses the various qualities of race as constructed in antiquity, and unlike the now-problematized earthly races, the gospel considers this new category to be of ultimate significance. |
